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12	_HOME À LA POMPADOUR._	WELL, Lillie came back at last; and John conducted her over the transformed Seymour mansion, where literally old things had passed away, and all things become new. There was not a relic of the past. The house was furbished and resplendent—it was gilded—it was frescoed—it was _à la_ Pompadour, and _à la_ Louis Quinze and Louis Quatorze, and _à la_ every thing Frenchy and pretty, and gay and glistening. For, though the parlors at first were the only apartments contemplated in this _renaissance_, yet it came to pass that the parlors, when all tricked out, cast such invidious reflections on the chambers that the chambers felt themselves old and rubbishy, and prayed and stretched out hands of imploration to have something done for _them_! So the spare chamber was first included in the glorification programme; but, when the spare chamber was once made into a Pompadour pavilion, it so flouted and despised the other old-fashioned Yankee chambers, that they were ready to die with envy; and, in short, there was no way to produce a sense of artistic unity, peace, and quietness, but to do the whole thing over, which was done triumphantly. The French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, who was a shrewd sort of a man in his day and way, used to talk a great deal about the “logic of events;” which language, being interpreted, my dear gentlemen, means a good deal in domestic life. It means, for instance, that when you drive the first nail, or tear down the first board, in the way of alteration of an old house, you will have to make over every room and corner in it, and pay as much again for it as if you built a new one. John was able to sympathize with Lillie in her childish delight in the new house, because he _loved_ her, and was able to put himself and his own wishes out of the question for her sake; but, when all the bills connected with this change came in, he had emotions with which Lillie could not sympathize: first, because she knew nothing about figures, and was resolved never to know any thing; and, like all people who know nothing about them, she cared nothing;—and, second, because she did _not_ love John. Now, the truth is, Lillie would have been quite astonished to have been told this. She, and many other women, suppose that they love their husbands, when, unfortunately, they have not the beginning of an idea what love is. Let me explain it to you, my dear lady. Loving to be admired by a man, loving to be petted by him, loving to be caressed by him, and loving to be praised by him, is not loving a man. All these may be when a woman has no power of loving at all,—they may all be simply because she loves herself, and loves to be flattered, praised, caressed, coaxed; as a cat likes to be coaxed and stroked, and fed with cream, and have a warm corner. But all this _is not love_. It may exist, to be sure, where there _is_ love; it generally does. But it may also exist where there is no love. Love, my dear ladies, is _self-sacrifice_; it is a life out of self and in another. Its very essence is the preferring of the comfort, the ease, the wishes of another to one’s own, _for the_ love we bear then? Love is giving, and not receiving. Love is not a sheet of blotting-paper or a sponge, sucking in every thing to itself; it is an out-springing fountain, giving from itself. Love’s motto has been dropped in this world as a chance gem of great price by the loveliest, the fairest, the purest, the strongest of Lovers that ever trod this mortal earth, of whom it is recorded that He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Now, in love, there are ten receivers to one giver. There are ten persons in this world who like to be loved and love love, where there is one who knows _how to love_. That, O my dear ladies, is a nobler attainment than all your French and music and dancing. You may lose the very power of it by smothering it under a load of early self-indulgence. By living just as you are all wanting to live,—living to be petted, to be flattered, to be admired, to be praised, to have your own way, and to do only that which is easy and agreeable,—you may lose the power of self-denial and self-sacrifice; you may lose the power of loving nobly and worthily, and become a mere sheet of blotting-paper all your life. You will please to observe that, in all the married life of these two, as thus far told, all the accommodations, compliances, changes, have been made by John for Lillie. _He_ has been, step by step, giving up to her his ideal of life, and trying, as far as so different a nature can, to accommodate his to hers; and she accepts all this as her right and due. She sees no particular cause of gratitude in it,—it is what she expected when she married. Her own specialty, the thing which she has always cultivated, is to get that sort of power over man, by which she can carry her own points and purposes, and make him flexible to her will; nor does a suspicion of the utter worthlessness and selfishness of such a life ever darken the horizon of her thoughts. John’s bills were graver than he expected. It is true he was rich; but riches is a relative term. As related to the style of living hitherto practised in his establishment, John’s income was princely, and left a large balance to be devoted to works of general benevolence; but he perceived that, in this year, that balance would be all absorbed; and this troubled him. Then, again, his establishment being now given up by his sister must be reorganized, with Lillie at its head; and Lillie declared in the outset that she could not, and would not, take any trouble about any thing. “John would have to get servants; and the servants would have to see to things:” she “was resolved, for one thing, that she wasn’t going to be a slave to housekeeping.” By great pains and importunity, and an offer of high wages, Grace and John retained Bridget in the establishment, and secured from New York a seamstress and a waitress, and other members to make out a domestic staff. This sisterhood were from the isle of Erin, and not an unfavorable specimen of that important portion of our domestic life. They were quick-witted, well-versed in a certain degree of household and domestic skill, guided in well-doing more by impulsive good feeling than by any very enlightened principle. The dominant idea with them all appeared to be, that they were living in the house of a millionnaire, where money flowed through the establishment in a golden stream, out of which all might drink freely and rejoicingly, with no questions asked. Mrs. Lillie concerned herself only with results, and paid no attention to ways and means. She wanted a dainty and generous table to be spread for her, at all proper hours, with every pleasing and agreeable variety; to which she should come as she would to the table of a boarding-house, without troubling her head where any thing came from or went to. Bridget, having been for some years under the training and surveillance of Grace Seymour, was more than usually competent as cook and provider; but Bridget had abundance of the Irish astuteness, which led her to feel the genius of circumstances, and to shape her course accordingly. With Grace, she had been accurate, saving, and economical; for Miss Grace was so. Bridget had felt, under her sway, the beauty of that economy which saves because saving is in itself so fitting and so respectable; and because, in this way, a power for a wise generosity is accumulated. She was sympathetic with the ruling spirit of the establishment. But, under the new mistress, Bridget declined in virtue. The announcement that the mistress of a family isn’t going to give herself any trouble, nor bother her head with care about any thing, is one the influence of which is felt downward in every department. Why should Bridget give herself any trouble to save and economize for a mistress who took none for herself? She had worked hard all her life, why not take it easy? And it was so much easier to send daily a basket of cold victuals to her cousin on Vine Street than to contrive ways of making the most of things, that Bridget felt perfectly justified in doing it. If, once in a while, a little tea and a paper of sugar found their way into the same basket, who would ever miss it? The seamstress was an elegant lady. She kept all Lillie’s dresses and laces and wardrobe, and had something ready for her to put on when she changed her toilet every day. If this very fine lady wore her mistress’s skirts and sashes, and laces and jewelry, on the sly, to evening parties among the upper servant circles of Springdale, who was to know it? Mrs. John Seymour knew nothing about where her things were, nor what was their condition, and never wanted to trouble herself to inquire. It may therefore be inferred that when John began to settle up accounts, and look into financial matters, they seemed to him not to be going exactly in the most promising way. He thought he would give Lillie a little practical insight into his business,—show her exactly what his income was, and make some estimates of his expenses, just that she might have some little idea how things were going. So John, with great care, prepared a nice little account-book, prefaced by a table of figures, showing the income of the Spindlewood property, and the income of his law business, and his income from other sources. Against this, he placed the necessary out-goes of his business, and showed what balance might be left. Then he showed what had hitherto been spent for various benevolent purposes connected with the schools and his establishments at Spindlewood. He showed what had been the bills for the refitting of the house, and what were now the running current expenses of the family. He hoped that he had made all these so plain and simple, that Lillie might easily be made to understand them, and that thus some clear financial boundaries might appear in her mind. Then he seized a favorable hour, and produced his book. “Lillie,” he said, “I want to make you understand a little about our expenditures and income.” “Oh, dreadful, John! don’t, pray! I never had any head for things of that kind.” “But, Lillie, _please_ let me show you,” persisted John. “I’ve made it just as simple as can be.” [Illustration: “I never had the least head for figures.”] “O John! now—I just—can’t—there now! Don’t bring that book now; it’ll just make me low-spirited and cross. I never had the least head for figures; mamma always said so; and if there _is_ any thing that seems to me perfectly dreadful, it is accounts. I don’t think it’s any of a woman’s business—it’s all _man’s_ work, and men have got to see to it. Now, _please_ don’t,” she added, coming to him coaxingly, and putting her arm round his neck. “But, you see, Lillie,” John persevered, in a pleading tone,—“you see, all these alterations that have been made in the house have involved very serious expenses; and then, too, we are living at a very different rate of expense from what we ever lived before”— “There it is, John! Now, you oughtn’t to reproach me with it; for you know it was your own idea. I didn’t want the alterations made; but you would insist on it. I didn’t think it was best; but you would have them.” “But, Lillie, it was all because you wanted them.” “Well, I dare say; but I shouldn’t have wanted them if I thought it was going to bring in all this bother and trouble, and make me have to look over old accounts, and all such things. I’d rather never have had any thing!” And here Lillie began to cry. “Come, now, my darling, do be a sensible woman, and not act like a baby.” “There, John! it’s just as I knew it would be; I always said you wanted a different sort of a woman for a wife. Now, you knew when you took me that I wasn’t in the least strong-minded or sensible, but a poor little helpless thing; and you are beginning to get tired of me already. You wish you had married a woman like Grace, I know you do.” “Lillie, how silly! Please do listen, now. You have no idea how simple and easy what I want to explain to you is.” “Well, John, I can’t to-night, anyhow, because I have a headache. Just this talk has got my head to thumping so,—it’s really dreadful! and I’m so low-spirited! I do wish you had a wife that would suit you better.” And forthwith Mrs. Lillie dissolved in tears; and John stroked her head, and petted her, and called her a nice little pussy, and begged her pardon for being so rough with her, and, in short, acted like a fool generally. “If that woman was _my_ wife now,” I fancy I hear some youth with a promising moustache remark, “I’d make her behave!” Well, sir, supposing she was your wife, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do when accounts give your wife a sick headache, so that she cannot possibly attend to them? Are you going to enact the Blue Beard, and rage and storm, and threaten to cut her head off? What good would that do? Cutting off a wrong little head would not turn it into a right one. An ancient proverb significantly remarks, “You can’t have more of a cat than her skin,”—and no amount of fuming and storming can make any thing more of a woman than she is. _Such_ as your wife is, sir, you must take her, and make the best of it. Perhaps you want your own way. Don’t you wish you could get it? But didn’t she promise to obey? Didn’t she? Of course. Then why is it that I must be all the while yielding points, and she never? Well, sir, that is for you to settle. The marriage service gives you authority; so does the law of the land. John could lock up Mrs. Lillie till she learned her lessons; he could do any of twenty other things that no gentleman would ever think of doing, and the law would support him in it. But, because John is a gentleman, and not Paddy from Cork, he strokes his wife’s head, and submits. We understand that our brethren, the Methodists, have recently decided to leave the word “obey” out of the marriage-service. Our friends are, as all the world knows, a most wise and prudent denomination, and guided by a very practical sense in their arrangements. If they have left the word “obey” out, it is because they have concluded that it does no good to put it in,—a decision that John’s experience would go a long way to justify.	{ "id": "12354" }
13	_JOHN’S BIRTHDAY._	“MY dear Lillie,” quoth John one morning, “next week Wednesday is my birthday.” “Is it? How charming! What shall we do?” “Well, Lillie, it has always been our custom—Grace’s and mine—to give a grand _fête_ here to all our work-people. We invite them all over _en masse_, and have the house and grounds all open, and devote ourselves to giving them a good time.” Lillie’s countenance fell. “Now, really, John, how trying! what shall we do? You don’t really propose to bring all those low, dirty, little factory children in Spindlewood through our elegant new house? Just look at that satin furniture, and think what it will be when a whole parcel of freckled, tow-headed, snubby-nosed children have eaten bread and butter and doughnuts over it! Now, John, there is reason in all things; _this_ house is not made for a missionary asylum.” John, thus admonished, looked at his house, and was fain to admit that there was the usual amount of that good, selfish, hard grit—called common sense—in Lillie’s remarks. Rooms have their atmosphere, their necessities, their artistic proprieties. Apartments _à la_ Louis Quatorze represent the ideas and the sympathies of a period when the rich lived by themselves in luxury, and the poor were trodden down in the gutter; when there was only aristocratic contempt and domination on one side, and servility and smothered curses on the other. With the change of the apartments to the style of that past era, seemed to come its maxims and morals, as artistically indicated for its completeness. So John walked up and down in his Louis Quinze _salon_, and into his Pompadour _boudoir_, and out again into the Louis Quatorze dining-rooms, and reflected. He had had many reflections in those apartments before. Of all ill-adapted and unsuitable pieces of furniture in them, he had always felt himself the most unsuitable and ill-adapted. He had never felt at home in them. He never felt like lolling at ease on any of those elegant sofas, as of old he used to cast himself into the motherly arms of the great chintz one that filled the recess. His Lillie, with her smart paraphernalia of hoops and puffs and ruffles and pinkings and bows, seemed a perfectly natural and indigenous production there; but he himself seemed always to be out of place. His Lillie might have been any of Balzac’s charming duchesses, with their “thirty-seven thousand ways of saying ‘Yes;’” but, as to himself, he must have been taken for her steward or gardener, who had accidentally strayed in, and was fraying her satin surroundings with rough coats and heavy boots. There was not, in fact, in all the reorganized house, a place where he felt _himself_ to be at all the proper thing; nowhere where he could lounge, and read his newspaper, without a feeling of impropriety; nowhere that he could indulge in any of the slight Hottentot-isms wherein unrenewed male nature delights,—without a feeling of rebuke. John had not philosophized on the causes of this. He knew, in a general and unconfessed way, that he was not comfortable in his new arrangements; but he supposed it was his own fault. He had fallen into rusty, old-fashioned, bachelor ways; and, like other things that are not agreeable to the natural man, he supposed his trim, resplendent, genteel house was good for him, and that he ought to like it, and by grace should attain to liking it, if he only tried long enough. Only he took long rests every day while he went to Grace’s, on Elm Street, and stretched himself on the old sofa, and sat in his mother’s old arm-chair, and told Grace how very elegant their house was, and how much taste the architect had shown, and how much Lillie was delighted with it. But this silent walk of John’s, up and down his brilliant apartments, opened his eyes to another troublesome prospect. He was a Christian man, with a high aim and ideal in life. He believed in the Sermon on the Mount, and other radical preaching of that nature; and he was a very honest man, and hated humbug in every shape. Nothing seemed meaner to him than to profess a sham. But it began in a cloudy way to appear to him that there is a manner of arranging one’s houses that makes it difficult—yes, well-nigh impossible—to act out in them any of the brotherhood principles of those discourses. There are houses where the self-respecting poor, or the honest laboring man and woman, cannot be made to enter or to feel at home. They are made for the selfish luxury of the privileged few. Then John reflected, uneasily, that this change in his house had absorbed that whole balance which usually remained on his accounts to be devoted to benevolent purposes, and with which this year he had proposed to erect a reading-room for his work-people. “Lillie,” said John, as he walked uneasily up and down, “I wish you would try to help me in this thing. I always have done it,—my father and mother did it before me,—and I don’t want all of a sudden to depart from it. It may seem a little thing, but it does a great deal of good. It produces kind feeling; it refines and educates and softens them.” “Oh, well, John! if you say so, I must, I suppose,” said Lillie, with a sigh. “I can have the carpets and furniture all covered, I suppose; it’ll be no end of trouble, but I’ll try. But I must say, I think all this kind of petting of the working-classes does no sort of good; it only makes them uppish and exacting: you never get any gratitude for it.” “But you know, dearie, what is said about doing good, ‘hoping for nothing again,’” said John. “Now, John, please don’t preach, of all things. Haven’t I told you that I’ll try my best? I am going to,—I’ll work with all my strength,—you know that isn’t much,—but I shall exert myself to the utmost if you say so.” “My dear, I don’t want you to injure yourself!” “Oh! I don’t mind,” said Lillie, with the air of a martyr. “The servants, I suppose, will make a fuss about it; and I shouldn’t wonder if it was the means of sending them every one off in a body, and leaving me without any help in the house, just as the Follingsbees and the Simpkinses are coming to visit us.” “I didn’t know that you had invited the Follingsbees and Simpkinses,” said John. “Didn’t I tell you? I meant to,” said Mrs. Lillie, innocently. “I don’t like those Follingsbees, Lillie. He is a man I have no respect for; he is one of those shoddy upstarts, not at all our sort of folks. I’m sorry you asked him.” “But his wife is my particular friend,” said Lillie, “and they were very polite to mamma and me at Newport; and we really owe them some attention.” “Well, Lillie, since you have asked them, I will be polite to them; and I will try and do every thing to save you care in this entertainment. I’ll speak to Bridget myself; she knows our ways, and has been used to managing.” And so, as John was greatly beloved by Bridget, and as all the domestic staff had the true Irish fealty to the man of the house, and would run themselves off their feet in his service any day,—it came to pass that the _fête_ was holden, as of yore, in the grounds. Grace was there and helped, and so were Letitia and Rose Ferguson; and all passed off better than could be expected. But John did not enjoy it. He felt all the while that he was dragging Lillie as a thousand-pound weight after him; and he inly resolved that, once out of that day’s festival, he would never try to have it again. Lillie went to bed with sick headache, and lay two days after it, during which she cried and lamented incessantly. She “knew she was not the wife for John;” she “always told him he wouldn’t be satisfied with her, and now she saw he wasn’t; but she had tried her very best, and now it was cruel to think she should not succeed any better.” “My dearest child,” said John, who, to say the truth, was beginning to find this thing less charming than it used to be, “I _am_ satisfied. I am much obliged to you. I’m sure you have done all that could be asked.” “Well, I’m sure I hope those folks of yours were pleased,” quoth Lillie, as she lay looking like a martyr, with a cloth wet in ice-water bound round her head. “They ought to be; they have left grease-spots all over the sofa in my boudoir, from one end to the other; and cake and raisins have been trodden into the carpets; and the turf around the oval is all cut up; and they have broken my little Diana; and such a din as there was! —oh, me! it makes my head ache to think of it.” “Never mind, Lillie, I’ll see to it, and set it all right.” “No, you can’t. One of the children broke that model of the Leaning Tower too. I found it. You can’t teach such children to let things alone. Oh, dear me! my head!” [Illustration: “Oh, me! it makes my head ache to think of it.”] “There, there, pussy! only don’t worry,” said John, in soothing tones. “Don’t think me horrid, _please_ don’t,” said Lillie, piteously. “I did try to have things go right; didn’t I?” “Certainly you did, dearie; so don’t worry. I’ll get all the spots taken out, and all the things mended, and make every thing right.” So John called Rosa, on his way downstairs. “Show me the sofa that they spoiled,” said he. “Sofa?” said Rosa. “Yes; I understand the children greased the sofa in Mrs. Seymour’s boudoir.” “Oh, dear, no! nothing of the sort; I’ve been putting every thing to rights in all the rooms, and they look beautifully.” “Didn’t they break something?” “Oh, no, nothing! The little things were good as could be.” “That Leaning Tower, and that little Diana,” suggested John. “Oh, dear me, no! I broke those a month ago, and showed them to Mrs. Seymour, and promised to mend them. Oh! she knows all about that.” “Ah!” said John, “I didn’t know that. Well, Rosa, put every thing up nicely, and divide this money among the girls for extra trouble,” he added, slipping a bill into her hand. “I’m sure there’s no trouble,” said Rosa. “We all enjoyed it; and I believe everybody did; only I’m sorry it was too much for Mrs. Seymour; she is very delicate.” “Yes, she is,” said John, as he turned away, drawing a long, slow sigh. * * * * * That long, slow sigh had become a frequent and unconscious occurrence with him of late. When our ideals are sick unto death; when they are slowly dying and passing away from us, we sigh thus. John said to himself softly,—no matter what; but he felt the pang of knowing again what he had known so often of late, that his Lillie’s word was not golden. What she said would not bear close examination. Therefore, why examine? “Evidently, she is determined that this thing shall not go on,” said John. “Well, I shall never try again; it’s of no use;” and John went up to his sister’s, and threw himself down upon the old chintz sofa as if it had been his mother’s bosom. His sister sat there, sewing. The sun came twinkling through a rustic frame-work of ivy which it had been the pride of her heart to arrange the week before. All the old family pictures and heirlooms, and sketches and pencillings, were arranged in the most charming way, so that her rooms seemed a reproduction of the old home. “Hang it all!” said John, with a great flounce as he turned over on the sofa. “I’m not up to par this morning.” Now, Grace had that perfect intuitive knowledge of just what the matter was with her brother, that women always have who have grown up in intimacy with a man. These fine female eyes see farther between the rough cracks and ridges of the oak bark of manhood than men themselves. Nothing would have been easier, had Grace been a jealous _exigeante_ woman, than to have passed a fine probe of sisterly inquiry into the weak places where the ties between John and Lillie were growing slack, and untied and loosened them more and more. She could have done it so tenderly, so conscientiously, so pityingly,—encouraging John to talk and to complain, and taking part with him,—till there should come to be two parties in the family, the brother and sister against the wife. How strong the temptation was, those may feel who reflect that this one subject caused an almost total eclipse of the life-long habit of confidence which had existed between Grace and her brother, and that her brother was her life and her world. But Grace was one of those women formed under the kindly severe discipline of Puritan New England, to act not from blind impulse or instinct, but from high principle. The habit of self-examination and self-inspection, for which the religious teaching of New England has been peculiar, produced a race of women who rose superior to those mere feminine caprices and impulses which often hurry very generous and kindly-natured persons into ungenerous and dishonorable conduct. Grace had been trained, by a father and mother whose marriage union was an ideal of mutual love, honor, and respect, to feel that marriage was the holiest and most awful of obligations. To her, the idea of a husband or a wife betraying each other’s weaknesses or faults by complaints to a third party seemed something sacrilegious; and she used all her womanly tact and skill to prevent any conversation that might lead to such a result. “Lillie is entirely knocked up by the affair yesterday; she had a terrible headache this morning,” said John. “Poor child! She is a delicate little thing,” said Grace. “She couldn’t have had any labor,” continued John, “for I saw to every thing and provided every thing myself; and Bridget and Rosa and all the girls entered into it with real spirit, and Lillie did the best she could, poor girl! but I could see all the time she was worrying about her new fizgigs and folderols in the house. Hang it! I wish they were all in the Red Sea!” burst out John, glad to find something to vent himself upon. “If I had known that making the house over was going to be such a restraint on a fellow, I would never have done it.” “Oh, well! never mind that now,” said Grace. “Your house will get rubbed down by and by, and the new gloss taken off; and so will your wife, and you will all be cosey and easy as an old shoe. Young mistresses, you see, have nerves all over their house at first. They tremble at every dent in their furniture, and wink when you come near it, as if you were going to hit it a blow; but that wears off in time, and they they learn to take it easy.” John looked relieved; but after a minute broke out again:— “I say, Gracie, Lillie has gone and invited the Simpkinses and the Follingsbees here this fall. Just think of it!” “Well, I suppose you expect your wife to have the right of inviting her company,” said Grace. “But, you know, Gracie, they are not at all our sort of folks,” said John. “None of our set would ever think of visiting them, and it’ll seem so odd to see them here. Follingsbee is a vulgar sharper, who has made his money out of our country by dishonest contracts during the war. I don’t know much about his wife. Lillie says she is her intimate friend.” “Oh, well, John! we must get over it in the quietest way possible. It wouldn’t be handsome not to make the agreeable to your wife’s company; and if you don’t like the quality of it, why, you are a good deal nearer to her than any one else can be,—you can gradually detach her from them.” “Then you think I ought to put a good face on their coming?” said John, with a sigh of relief. “Oh, certainly! of course. What else can you do? It’s one of the things to be expected with a young wife.” “And do you think the Wilcoxes and the Fergusons and the rest of our set will be civil?” “Why, of course they will,” said Grace. “Rose and Letitia will, certainly; and the others will follow suit. After all, John, perhaps we old families, as we call ourselves, are a little bit pharisaical and self-righteous, and too apt to thank God that we are not as other men are. It’ll do us good to be obliged to come a little out of our crinkles.” “It isn’t any old family feeling about Follingsbee,” said John. “But I feel that that man deserves to be in State’s prison much more than many a poor dog that is there now.” “And that may be true of many another, even in the selectest circles of good society,” said Grace; “but we are not called on to play Providence, nor pronounce judgments. The common courtesies of life do not commit us one way or the other. The Lord himself does not express his opinion of the wicked, but allows all an equal share in his kindliness.” “Well, Gracie, you are right; and I’ll constrain myself to do the thing handsomely,” said John. “The thing with you men,” said Grace, “is, that you want your wives to see with your eyes, all in a minute, what has got to come with years and intimacy, and the gradual growing closer and closer together. The husband and wife, of themselves, drop many friendships and associations that at first were mutually distasteful, simply because their tastes have grown insensibly to be the same.” John hoped it would be so with himself and Lillie; for he was still very much in love with her; and it comforted him to have Grace speak so cheerfully, as if it were possible. “You think Lillie will grow into our ways by and by?” —he said inquiringly. “Well, if we have patience, and give her time. You know, John, that you knew when you took her that she had not been brought up in our ways of living and thinking. Lillie comes from an entirely different set of people from any we are accustomed to; but a man must face all the consequences of his marriage honestly and honorably.” “I know it,” said John, with a sigh. “I say, Gracie, do you think the Fergusons like Lillie? I want her to be intimate with them.” “Well, I think they admire her,” said Grace, evasively, “and feel disposed to be as intimate as she will let them.” “Because,” said John, “Rose Ferguson is such a splendid girl; she is so strong, and so generous, and so perfectly true and reliable,—it would be the joy of my heart if Lillie would choose her for a friend.” “Then, pray don’t tell her so,” said Grace, earnestly; “and don’t praise her to Lillie,—and, above all things, never hold her up as a pattern, unless you want your wife to hate her.” John opened his eyes very wide. “So!” said he, slowly, “I never thought of that. You think she would be jealous?” and John smiled, as men do at the idea that their wives may be jealous, not disliking it on the whole. “I know I shouldn’t be in much charity with a woman my husband proposed to me as a model; that is to say, supposing I had one,” said Grace. “That reminds me,” said John, suddenly rising up from the sofa. “Do you know, Gracie, that Colonel Sydenham has come back from his cruise?” “I had heard of it,” said Grace, quietly. “Now, John, don’t interrupt me. I’m just going to turn this corner, and must count,—‘one, two, three, four, five, six,’”— John looked at his sister. “How handsome she looks when her cheeks have that color!” he thought. “I wonder if there ever was any thing in that affair between them.”	{ "id": "12354" }
14	_A GREAT MORAL CONFLICT._	“NOW, John dear, I have something very particular that I want you to promise me,” said Mrs. Lillie, a day or two after the scenes last recorded. Our Lillie had recovered her spirits, and got over her headache, and had come down and done her best to be delightful; and when a very pretty woman, who has all her life studied the art of pleasing, does that, she generally succeeds. John thought to himself he “didn’t care _what_ she was, he loved her;” and that she certainly was the prettiest, most bewitching little creature on earth. He flung his sighs and his doubts and fears to the wind, and suffered himself to be coaxed, and cajoled, and led captive, in the most amiable manner possible. His fair one had a point to carry,—a point that instinct told her was to be managed with great adroitness. “Well,” said John, over his newspaper, “what is this something so very particular?” “First, sir, put down that paper, and listen to me,” said Mrs. Lillie, coming up and seating herself on his knee, and sweeping down the offending paper with an air of authority. “Yes’m,” said John, submissively. “Let’s see,—how was that in the marriage service? I promised to obey, didn’t I?” “Of course you did; that service is always interpreted by contraries,—ever since Eve made Adam mind her in the beginning,” said Mrs. Lillie, laughing. “And got things into a pretty mess in that way,” said John; “but come, now, what is it?” “Well, John, you know the Follingsbees are coming next week?” “I know it,” said John, looking amiable and conciliatory. “Well, dear, there are some things about our establishment that are not just as I should feel pleased to receive them to.” “Ah!” said John; “why, Lillie, I thought we were fine as a fiddle, from the top of the house to the bottom.” “Oh! it’s not the house; the house is splendid. I shouldn’t be in the least ashamed to show it to anybody; but about the table arrangements.” “Now, really, Lillie, what can one have more than real old china and heavy silver plate? I rather pique myself on that; I think it has quite a good, rich, solid old air.” “Well, John, to say the truth, why do we never have any wine? I don’t care for it,—I never drink it; but the decanters, and the different colored glasses, and all the apparatus, are such an adornment; and then the Follingsbees are such judges of wine. He imports his own from Spain.” John’s face had been hardening down into a firm, decided look, while Lillie, stroking his whiskers and playing with his collar, went on with this address. At last he said, “Lillie, I have done almost every thing you ever asked; but this one thing I cannot do,—it is a matter of principle. I never drink wine, never have it on my table, never give it, because I have pledged myself not to do it.” “Now, John, here is some more of your Quixotism, isn’t it?” “Well, Lillie, I suppose you will call it so,” said John; “but listen to me patiently. My father and I labored for a long time to root out drinking from our village at Spindlewood. It seemed, for the time, as if it would be the destruction of every thing there. The fact was, there was rum in every family; the parents took it daily, the children learned to love and long after it, by seeing the parents, and drinking little sweetened remains at the bottoms of tumblers. There were, every year, families broken up and destroyed, and fine fellows going to the very devil, with this thing; and so we made a movement to form a temperance society. I paid lecturers, and finally lectured myself. At last they said to me: ‘It’s all very well for you rich people, that have twice as fine houses and twice as many pleasures as we poor folks, to pick on us for having a little something comfortable to drink in our houses. If we could afford your fine nice wines, and all that, we wouldn’t drink whiskey. You must all have your wine on the table; whiskey is the poor man’s wine. ’” “I think,” said Lillie, “they were abominably impertinent to talk so to you. I should have told them so.” “Perhaps they thought I was impertinent in talking to them about their private affairs,” said John; “but I will tell you what I said to them. I said, ‘My good fellows, I will clear my house and table of wine, if you will clear yours of rum.’ On this agreement I formed a temperance society; my father and I put our names at the head of the list, and we got every man and boy in Spindlewood. It was a complete victory; and, since then, there hasn’t been a more temperate, thrifty set of people in these United States.” “Didn’t your mother object?” “My mother! no, indeed; I wish you could have known my mother. It was no small sacrifice to her and father. Not that they cared a penny for the wine itself; but the poetry and hospitality of the thing, the fine old cheery associations connected with it, were a real sacrifice. But when we told my mother how it was, she never hesitated a moment. All our cellar of fine old wines was sent round as presents to hospitals, except a little that we keep for sickness.” “Well, really!” said Lillie, in a dry, cool tone, “I suppose it was very good of you, perfectly saintlike and all that; but it does seem a great pity. Why couldn’t these people take care of themselves? I don’t see why you should go on denying yourself just to keep them in the ways of virtue.” “Oh, it’s no self-denial now! I’m quite used to it,” said John, cheerily. “I am young and strong, and just as well as I can be, and don’t need wine; in fact, I never think of it. The Fergusons, who are with us in the Spindlewood business, took just the same view of it, and did just as we did; and the Wilcoxes joined us; in fact, all the good old families of our set came into it.” “Well, couldn’t you, just while the Follingsbees are here, do differently?” “No, Lillie; there’s my pledge, you see. No: it’s really impossible.” Lillie frowned and looked disconsolate. “John, I really do think you are selfish; you don’t seem to have any consideration for me at all. It’s going to make it so disagreeable and uncomfortable for me. The Follingsbees are accustomed to wine every day. I’m perfectly ashamed not to give it to them.” “Do ’em good to fast awhile, then,” said John, laughing like a hard-hearted monster. “You’ll see they won’t suffer materially. Bridget makes splendid coffee.” “It’s a shame to laugh at what troubles me, John. The Follingsbees are my friends, and of course I want to treat them handsomely.” “We will treat them just as handsomely as we treat ourselves,” said John, “and mortal man or woman ought not to ask more.” “I don’t care,” said Lillie, after a pause. “I hate all these moral movements and society questions. They are always in the way of people’s having a good time; and I believe the world would wag just as well as it does, if nobody had ever thought of them. People will call you a real muff, John.” “How very terrible!” said John, laughing. “What shall I do if I am called a muff? and what a jolly little Mrs. Muff you will be!” he said, pinching her cheek. “You needn’t laugh, John,” said Lillie, pouting. “You don’t know how things look in fashionable circles. The Follingsbees are in the very highest circle. They have lived in Paris, and been invited by the Emperor.” “I haven’t much opinion of Americans who live in Paris and are invited by the Emperor,” said John. “But, be that as it may, I shall do the best I can for them, and Mr. Young says, ‘angels could no more;’ so, good-by, puss: I must go to my office; and don’t let’s talk about this any more.” * * * * * And John put on his cap and squared his broad shoulders, and, marching off with a resolute stride, went to his office, and had a most uncomfortable morning of it. You see, my dear friends, that though Nature has set the seal of sovereignty on man, in broad shoulders and bushy beard; though he fortify and incase himself in rough overcoats and heavy boots, and walk with a dashing air, and whistle like a freeman, we all know it is not an easy thing to wage a warfare with a pretty little creature in lace cap and tiny slippers, who has a faculty of looking very pensive and grieved, and making up a sad little mouth, as if her heart were breaking. John never doubted that he was right, and in the way of duty; and yet, though he braved it out so stoutly with Lillie, and though he marched out from her presence victoriously, as it were, with drums beating and colors flying, yet there was a dismal sinking of heart under it. “I’m right; I know I am. Of course I can’t give up here; it’s a matter of principle, of honor,” he said over and over to himself. “Perhaps if Lillie had been here I never should have taken such a pledge; but as I have, there’s no help for it.” Then he thought of what Lillie had suggested about it’s looking niggardly in hospitality, and was angry with himself for feeling uncomfortable. “What do I care what Dick Follingsbee thinks?” said he to himself: “a man that I despise; a cheat, and a swindler,—a man of no principle. Lillie doesn’t know the sacrifice it is to me to have such people in my house at all. Hang it all! I wish Lillie was a little more like the women I’ve been used to,—like Grace and Rose and my mother. But, poor thing, I oughtn’t to blame her, after all, for her unfortunate bringing up. But it’s so nice to be with women that can understand the grounds you go on. A man never wants to fight a woman. I’d rather give up, hook and line, and let Lillie have her own way in every thing. But then it won’t do; a fellow must stop somewhere. Well, I’ll make it up in being a model of civility to these confounded people that I wish were in the Red Sea. Let’s see, I’ll ask Lillie if she don’t want to give a party for them when they come. By George! she shall have every thing her own way there,—send to New York for the supper, turn the house topsy-turvy, illuminate the grounds, and do any thing else she can think of. Yes, yes, she shall have _carte blanche_ for every thing!” All which John told Mrs. Lillie when he returned to dinner and found her enacting the depressed wife in a most becoming lace cap and wrapper that made her look like a suffering angel; and the treaty was sealed with many kisses. “You shall have _carte blanche_, dearest,” he said, “for every thing but what we were speaking of; and that will content you, won’t it?” And Lillie, with lingering pensiveness, very graciously acknowledged that it would; and seemed so touchingly resigned, and made such a merit of her resignation, that John told her she was an angel; in fact, he had a sort of indistinct remorseful feeling that he was a sort of cruel monster to deny her any thing. Lillie had sense enough to see when she could do a thing, and when she couldn’t. She had given up the case when John went out in the morning, and so accepted the treaty of peace with a good degree of cheerfulness; and she was soon busy discussing the matter. “You see, we’ve been invited everywhere, and haven’t given any thing,” she said; “and this will do up our social obligations to everybody here. And then we can show off our rooms; they really are made to give parties in.” “Yes, so they are,” said John, delighted to see her smile again; “they seem adapted to that, and I don’t doubt you’ll make a brilliant affair of it, Lillie.” “Trust me for that, John,” said Lillie. “I’ll show the Follingsbees that something can be done here in Springdale as well as in New York.” And so the great question was settled.	{ "id": "12354" }
15	_THE FOLLINGSBEES ARRIVE._	[Illustration: THE FOLLINGSBEES.] NEXT week the Follingsbees alighted, so to speak, from a cloud of glory. They came in their own carriage, and with their own horses; all in silk and silver, purple and fine linen, “with rings on their fingers and bells on their toes,” as the old song has it. We pause to caution our readers that this last clause is to be interpreted metaphorically. Springdale stood astonished. The quiet, respectable old town had not seen any thing like it for many a long day; the ostlers at the hotel talked of it; the boys followed the carriage, and hung on the slats of the fence to see the party alight, and said to one another in their artless vocabulary, “Golly! ain’t it bully?” There was Mr. Dick Follingsbee, with a pair of waxed, tow-colored moustaches like the French emperor’s, and ever so much longer. He was a little, thin, light-colored man, with a yellow complexion and sandy hair; who, with the appendages aforesaid, looked like some kind of large insect, with very long _antennæ_. There was Mrs. Follingsbee,—a tall, handsome, dark-eyed, dark-haired, dashing woman, French dressed from the tip of her lace parasol to the toe of her boot. There was Mademoiselle Thérèse, the French maid, an inexpressibly fine lady; and there was _la petite_ Marie, Mrs. Follingsbee’s three-year-old hopeful, a lean, bright-eyed little thing, with a great scarlet bow on her back that made her look like a walking butterfly. On the whole, the tableau of arrival was so impressive, that Bridget and Annie, Rosa and all the kitchen cabinet, were in a breathless state of excitement. “How do I find you, _ma chère_?” said Mrs. Follingsbee, folding Lillie rapturously to her breast. “I’ve been just dying to see you! How lovely every thing looks! Oh, _ciel_! how like dear Paris!” she said, as she was conducted into the parlor, and sunk upon the sofa. “Pretty well done, too, for America!” said Mr. Follingsbee, gazing round, and settling his collar. Mr. Follingsbee was one of the class of returned travellers who always speak condescendingly of any thing American; as, “so-so,” or “tolerable,” or “pretty fair,”—a considerateness which goes a long way towards keeping up the spirits of the country. “I say, Dick,” said his lady, “have you seen to the bags and wraps?” “All right, madam.” “And my basket of medicines and the books?” “O. K.,” replied Dick, sententiously. “Oh! how often must I tell you not to use those odious slang terms?” said his wife, reprovingly. “Oh! Mrs. John Seymour knows _me_ of old,” said Mr. Follingsbee, winking facetiously at Lillie. “We’ve had many a jolly lark together; haven’t we, Lill?” “Certainly we have,” said Lillie, affably. “But come, darling,” she added to Mrs. Follingsbee, “don’t you want to be shown your room?” “Go it, then, my dearie; and I’ll toddle up with the fol-de-rols and what-you-may-calls,” said the incorrigible Dick. “There, wife, Mrs. John Seymour shall go first, so that you shan’t be jealous of her and me. You know we came pretty near being in interesting relations ourselves at one time; didn’t we, now?” he said with another wink. It is said that a thorough-paced naturalist can reconstruct a whole animal from one specimen bone. In like manner, we imagine that, from these few words of dialogue, our expert readers can reconstruct Mr. and Mrs. Follingsbee: he, vulgar, shallow, sharp, keen at a bargain, and utterly without scruples; with a sort of hilarious, animal good nature that was in a state of constant ebullition. He was, as Richard Baxter said of a better man, “always in that state of hilarity that another would be in when he hath taken a cup too much.” Dick Follingsbee began life as a peddler. He was now reputed to be master of untold wealth, kept a yacht and race-horses, ran his own theatre, and patronized the whole world and creation in general with a jocular freedom. Mrs. Follingsbee had been a country girl, with small early advantages, but considerable ambition. She had married Dick Follingsbee, and helped him up in the world, as a clever, ambitious woman may. The last few years she had been spending in Paris, improving her mind and manners in reading Dumas’ and Madame George Sand’s novels, and availing herself of such outskirt advantages of the court of the Tuileries as industrious, pains-taking Americans, not embarrassed by self-respect, may command. Mrs. Follingsbee, like many another of our republicans who besieged the purlieus of the late empire, felt that a residence near the court, at a time when every thing good and decent in France was hiding in obscure corners, and every thing _parvenu_ was wide awake and active, entitled her to speak as one having authority concerning French character, French manners and customs. This lady assumed the sentimental literary _rôle_. She was always cultivating herself in her own way; that is to say, she was assiduous in what she called keeping up her French. In the opinion of many of her class of thinkers, French is the key of the kingdom of heaven; and, of course, it is worth one’s while to sell all that one has to be possessed of it. Mrs. Follingsbee had not been in the least backward to do this; but, as to getting the golden key, she had not succeeded. She had formed the acquaintance of many disreputable people; she had read French novels and French plays such as no well-bred French woman would suffer in her family; she had lost such innocence and purity of mind as she had to lose, and, after all, had _not_ got the French language. However, there are losses that do not trouble the subject of them, because they bring insensibility. Just as Mrs. Follingsbee’s ear was not delicate enough to perceive that her rapid and confident French was not Parisian, so also her conscience and moral sense were not delicate enough to know that she had spent her labor for “that which was not bread.” She had only succeeded in acquiring such an air that, on a careless survey, she might have been taken for one of the _demi-monde_ of Paris; while secretly she imagined herself the fascinating heroine of a French romance. The friendship between Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie was of the most impassioned nature; though, as both of them were women of a good solid perception in regard to their own material interests, there were excellent reasons on both sides for this enthusiasm. Notwithstanding the immense wealth of the Follingsbees, there were circles to which Mrs. Follingsbee found it difficult to be admitted. With the usual human perversity, these, of course, became exactly the ones, and the only ones, she particularly cared for. Her ambition was to pass beyond the ranks of the “shoddy” aristocracy to those of the old-established families. Now, the Seymours, the Fergusons, and the Wilcoxes were families of this sort; and none of them had ever cared to conceal the fact, that they did not intend to know the Follingsbees. The marriage of Lillie into the Seymour family was the opening of a door; and Mrs. Follingsbee had been at Lillie’s feet during her Newport campaign. On the other hand, Lillie, having taken the sense of the situation at Springdale, had cast her thoughts forward like a discreet young woman, and perceived in advance of her a very dull domestic winter, enlivened only by reading-circles and such slow tea-parties as unsophisticated Springdale found agreeable. The idea of a long visit to the New-York alhambra of the Follingsbees in the winter, with balls, parties, unlimited opera-boxes, was not a thing to be disregarded; and so, when Mrs. Follingsbee “_ma chèred_” Lillie, Lillie “my deared” Mrs. Follingsbee: and the pair are to be seen at this blessed moment sitting with their arms tenderly round each other’s waists on a _causeuse_ in Mrs. Follingsbee’s dressing-room. “You don’t know, _mignonne_,” said Mrs. Follingsbee, “how perfectly _ravissante_ these apartments are! I’m so glad poor Charlie did them so well for you. I laid my commands on him, poor fellow!” “Pray, how does your affair with him get on?” said Lillie. “O dearest! you’ve no conception what a trial it is to me to keep him in the bounds of reason. He has such struggles of mind about that stupid wife of his. Think of it, my dear! a man like Charlie Ferrola, all poetry, romance, ideality, tied to a woman who thinks of nothing but her children’s teeth and bowels, and turns the whole house into a nursery! Oh, I’ve no patience with such people.” “Well, poor fellow! it’s a pity he ever got married,” said Lillie. “Well, it would be all well enough if this sort of woman ever would be reasonable; but they won’t. They don’t in the least comprehend the necessities of genius. They want to yoke Pegasus to a cart, you see. Now, I understand Charlie perfectly. I could give him that which he needs. I appreciate him. I make a bower of peace and enjoyment for him, where his artistic nature finds the repose it craves.” “And she pitches into him about you,” said Lillie, not slow to perceive the true literal rendering of all this. “Of course, _ma chère_,—tears him, rends him, lacerates his soul; sometimes he comes to me in the most dreadful states. Really, dear, I have apprehended something quite awful! I shouldn’t in the least be surprised if he should blow his brains out!” And Mrs. Follingsbee sighed deeply, gave a glance at herself in an opposite mirror, and smoothed down a bow pensively, as the prima donna at the grand opera generally does when her lover is getting ready to stab himself. “Oh! I don’t think he’s going to kill himself,” said Mrs. Lillie, who, it must be understood, was secretly somewhat sceptical about the power of her friend’s charms, and looked on this little French romance with the eye of an outsider: “never you believe that, dearest. These men make dreadful tearings, and shocking eyes and mouths; but they take pretty good care to keep in the world, after all. You see, if a man’s dead, there’s an end of all things; and I fancy they think of that before they quite come to any thing decisive.” “_Chère étourdie_,” said Mrs. Follingsbee, regarding Lillie with a pensive smile: “you are just your old self, I see; you are now at the height of your power,—‘_jeune Madame, un mari qui vous adore_,’ ready to put all things under your feet. How can you feel for a worn, lonely heart like mine, that sighs for congeniality?” “Bless me, now,” said Lillie, briskly; “you don’t tell me that you’re going to be so silly as to get in love with Charlie yourself! It’s all well enough to keep these fellows on the tragic high ropes; but, if a woman falls in love herself, there’s an end of her power. And, darling, just think of it: you wouldn’t have married that creature if you could; he’s poor as a rat, and always will be; these desperately interesting fellows always are. Now you have money without end; and of course you have position; and your husband is a man you can get any thing in the world out of.” “Oh! as to that, I don’t complain of Dick,” said Mrs. Follingsbee: “he’s coarse and vulgar, to be sure, but he never stands in my way, and I never stand in his; and, as you say, he’s free about money. But still, darling, sometimes it seems to me such a weary thing to live without sympathy of soul! A marriage without congeniality, _mon Dieu_, what is it? And then the harsh, cold laws of human society prevent any relief. They forbid natures that are made for each other from being to each other what they can be.” “You mean that people will talk about you,” said Lillie. “Well, I assure you, dearest, they _will_ talk awfully, if you are not very careful. I say this to you frankly, as your friend, you know.” “Ah, _ma petite_! you don’t need to tell me that. I _am_ careful,” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “I am always lecturing Charlie, and showing him that we must keep up _les convenances_; but is it not hard on us poor women to lead always this repressed, secretive life?” “What made you marry Mr. Follingsbee?” said Lillie, with apparent artlessness. “Darling, I was but a child. I was ignorant of the mysteries of my own nature, of my capabilities. As Charlie said to me the other day, we never learn what we are till some congenial soul unlocks the secret door of our hearts. The fact is, dearest, that American society, with its strait-laced, puritanical notions, bears terribly hard on woman’s heart. Poor Charlie! he is no less one of the victims of society.” “Oh, nonsense!” said Lillie. “You take it too much to heart. You mustn’t mind all these men say. They are always being desperate and tragic. Charlie has talked just so to me, time and time again. I understand it all. He talked exactly so to me when he came to Newport last summer. You must take matters easy, my dear,—you, with your beauty, and your style, and your money. Why, you can lead all New York captive! Forty fellows like Charlie are not worth spoiling one’s dinner for. Come, cheer up; positively I shan’t let you be blue, _ma reine_. Let me ring for your maid to dress you for dinner. _Au revoir. _” The fact was, that Mrs. Lillie, having formerly set down this lovely Charlie on the list of her own adorers, had small sympathy with the sentimental romance of her friend. “What a fool she makes of herself!” she thought, as she contemplated her own sylph-like figure and wonderful freshness of complexion in the glass. “Don’t I know Charlie Ferrola? he wants her to get him into fashionable life, and knows the way to do it. To think of that stout, middle-aged party imagining that Charlie Ferrola’s going to die for her charms! it’s too funny! How stout the dear old thing does get, to be sure!” It will be observed here that our dear Lillie did not want for perspicacity. There is nothing so absolutely clear-sighted, in certain directions, as selfishness. Entire want of sympathy with others clears up one’s vision astonishingly, and enables us to see all the weak points and ridiculous places of our neighbors in the most accurate manner possible. [Illustration: MR. CHARLIE FERROLA.] As to Mr. Charlie Ferrola, our Lillie was certainly in the right in respect to him. He was one of those blossoms of male humanity that seem as expressly designed by nature for the ornamentation of ladies’ boudoirs, as an Italian greyhound: he had precisely the same graceful, shivery adaptation to live by petting and caresses. His tastes were all so exquisite that it was the most difficult thing in the world to keep him out of misery a moment. He was in a chronic state of disgust with something or other in our lower world from morning till night. His profession was nominally that of architecture and landscape gardening; but, in point of fact, consisted in telling certain rich, _blasé_, stupid, fashionable people how they could quickest get rid of their money. He ruled despotically in the Follingsbee halls: he bought and rejected pictures and jewelry, ordered and sent off furniture, with the air of an absolute master; amusing himself meanwhile with running a French romance with the handsome mistress of the establishment. As a consequence, he had not only opportunities for much quiet feathering of his own nest, but the _éclat_ of always having the use of the Follingsbees’ carriages, horses, and opera-boxes, and being the acknowledged and supreme head of fashionable dictation. Ladies sometimes pull caps for such charming individuals, as we have seen in the case of Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie. For it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Follingsbee, though she had assumed the gushing style with her young friend, wanted spirit or perception on her part. Her darling Lillie had left a nettle in her bosom which rankled there. “The vanity of these thin, light, watery blondes!” she said to herself, as she looked into her own great dark eyes in the mirror,—“thinking Charlie Ferrola cares for her! I know just what he thinks of _her_, thank heaven! Poor thing! Don’t you think Mrs. John Seymour has gone off astonishingly since her marriage?” she said to Thérèse. “_Mon Dieu, madame, q’oui_,” said the obedient tire-woman, scraping the very back of her throat in her zeal. “Madame Seymour has the real American _maigreur_. These thin women, madame, they have no substance; there is noting to them. For young girl, they are charming; but, as woman, they are just noting at all. Now, you will see, madame, what I tell you. In a year or two, people shall ask, ‘Was she ever handsome?’ But _you_, madame, you come to your prime like great rose! Oh, dere is no comparison of you to Mrs. John Seymour!” And Thérèse found her words highly acceptable, after the manner of all her tribe, who prophesy smooth things unto their mistresses. It may be imagined that the entertaining of Dick Follingsbee was no small strain on the conjugal endurance of our faithful John; but he was on duty, and endured without flinching that gentleman’s free and easy jokes and patronizing civilities. “I do wish, darling, you’d teach that creature not to call you ‘Lillie’ in that abominably free manner,” he said to his wife, the first day, after dinner. “Mercy on us, John! what can I do? All the world knows that Dick Follingsbee’s an oddity; and everybody agrees to take what he says for what it’s worth. If I should go to putting on any airs, he’d behave ten times worse than he does: the only way is, to pass it over quietly, and not to seem to notice any thing he says or does. My way is, to smile, and look gracious, and act as if I hadn’t heard any thing but what is perfectly proper.” “It’s a tremendous infliction, Lillie!” “Poor man! is it?” said Lillie, putting her arm round his neck, and stroking his whiskers. “Well, now, he’s a good man to bear it so well, so he is; and they shan’t plague him long. But, John, you must confess Mrs. Follingsbee is nice: poor woman! she is mortified with the way Dick will go on; but she can’t do any thing with him.” “Yes, I can get on with her,” said John. In fact, John was one of the men so loyal to women that his path of virtue in regard to them always ran down hill. Mrs. Follingsbee was handsome, and had a gift in language, and some considerable tact in adapting herself to her society; and, as she put forth all her powers to win his admiration, she succeeded. Grace had done her part to assist John in his hospitable intents, by securing the prompt co-operation of the Fergusons. The very first evening after their arrival, old Mrs. Ferguson, with Letitia and Rose, called, not formally but socially, as had always been the custom of the two families. Dick Follingsbee was out, enjoying an evening cigar,—a circumstance on which John secretly congratulated himself as a favorable feature in the case. He felt instinctively a sort of uneasy responsibility for his guests; and, judging the Fergusons by himself, felt that their call was in some sort an act of self-abnegation on his account; and he was anxious to make it as easy as possible. Mrs. Follingsbee was presentable, so he thought; but he dreaded the irrepressible Dick, and had much the same feeling about him that one has on presenting a pet spaniel or pointer in a lady’s parlor,—there was no answering for what he might say or do. The Fergusons were disposed to make themselves most amiable to Mrs. Follingsbee; and, with this intent, Miss Letitia started the subject of her Parisian experiences, as being probably one where she would feel herself especially at home. Mrs. Follingsbee of course expanded in rapturous description, and was quite clever and interesting. “You must feel quite a difference between that country and this, in regard to facilities of living,” said Miss Letitia. “Ah, indeed! do I not?” said Mrs. Follingsbee, casting up her eyes. “Life here in America is in a state of perfect disorganization.” “We are a young people here, madam,” said John. “We haven’t had time to organize the smaller conveniences of life.” “Yes, that’s what I mean,” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “Now, you men don’t feel it so very much; but it bears hard on us poor women. Life here in America is perfect slavery to women,—a perfect dead grind. You see there’s no career at all for a married woman in this country, as there is in France. Marriage there opens a brilliant prospect before a girl: it introduces her to the world; it gives her wings. In America, it is clipping her wings, chaining her down, shutting her up,—no more gayety, no more admiration; nothing but cradles and cribs, and bibs and tuckers, little narrowing, wearing, domestic cares, hard, vulgar domestic slaveries: and so our women lose their bloom and health and freshness, and are moped to death.” “I can’t see the thing in that light, Mrs. Follingsbee,” said old Mrs. Ferguson. “I don’t understand this modern talk. I am sure, for one, I can say I have had all the career I wanted ever since I married. You know, dear, when one begins to have children, one’s heart goes into them: we find nothing hard that we do for the dear little things. I’ve heard that the Parisian ladies never nurse their own babies. From my very heart, I pity them.” “Oh, my dear madam!” said Mrs. Follingsbee, “why insist upon it that a cultivated, intelligent woman shall waste some of the most beautiful years of her life in a mere animal function, that, after all, any healthy peasant can perform better than she? The French are a philosophical nation; and, in Paris, you see, this thing is all systematic: it’s altogether better for the child. It’s taken to the country, and put to nurse with a good strong woman, who makes that her only business. She just lives to be a good animal, you see, and so is a better one than a more intellectual being can be; thus she gives the child a strong constitution, which is the main thing.” “Yes,” said Miss Letitia; “I was told, when in Paris, that this system is universal. The dressmaker, who works at so much a day, sends her child out to nurse as certainly as the woman of rank and fashion. There are no babies, as a rule, in French households.” “And you see how good this is for the mother,” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “The first year or two of a child’s life it is nothing but a little animal; and one person can do for it about as well as another: and all this time, while it is growing physically, the mother has for art, for self-cultivation, for society, and for literature. Of course she keeps her eye on her child, and visits it often enough to know that all goes right with it.” “Yes,” said Miss Letitia; “and the same philosophical spirit regulates the education of the child throughout. An American gentleman, who wished to live in Paris, told me that, having searched all over it, he could not accommodate his family, including himself and wife and two children, without taking _two_ of the suites that are usually let to one family. The reason, he inferred, was the perfection of the system which keeps the French family reduced in numbers. The babies are out at nurse, sometimes till two, and sometimes till three years of age; and, at seven or eight, the girl goes into a pension, and the boy into a college, till they are ready to be taken out,—the girl to be married, and the boy to enter a profession: so the leisure of parents for literature, art, and society is preserved.” “It seems to me the most perfectly dreary, dreadful way of living I ever heard of,” said Mrs. Ferguson, with unwonted energy. “How I pity people who know so little of real happiness!” “Yet the French are dotingly fond of children,” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “It’s a national peculiarity; you can see it in all their literature. Don’t you remember Victor Hugo’s exquisite description of a mother’s feelings for a little child in ‘Notre Dame de Paris’? I never read any thing more affecting; it’s perfectly subduing.” “They can’t love their children as I did mine,” said Mrs. Ferguson: “it’s impossible; and, if that’s what’s called organizing society, I hope our society in America never will be organized. It can’t be that children are well taken care of on that system. I always attended to every thing for my babies _myself_; because I felt God had put them into my hands perfectly helpless; and, if there is any thing difficult or disagreeable in the case, how can I expect to _hire_ a woman for money to be faithful in what I cannot do for love?” “But don’t you think, dear madam, that this system of personal devotion to children may be carried too far?” said Mrs. Follingsbee. “Perhaps in France they may go to an extreme; but don’t our American women, as a rule, sacrifice themselves too much to their families?” “_Sacrifice! _” said Mrs. Ferguson. “How can we? Our children are our new life. We live in them a thousand times more than we could in ourselves. No, I think a mother that doesn’t take care of her own baby misses the greatest happiness a woman can know. A baby isn’t a mere animal; and it is a great and solemn thing to see the coming of an immortal soul into it from day to day. My very happiest hours have been spent with my babies in my arms.” “There may be women constituted so as to enjoy it,” said Mrs. Follingsbee; “but you must allow that there is a vast difference among women.” “There certainly is,” said Mrs. Ferguson, as she rose with a frigid courtesy, and shortened the call. “My dear girls,” said the old lady to her daughters, when they returned home, “I disapprove of that woman. I am very sorry that pretty little Mrs. Seymour has so bad a friend and adviser. Why, the woman talks like a Fejee Islander! Baby a mere animal, to be sure! it puts me out of temper to hear such talk. The woman talks as if she had never heard of such a thing as love in her life, and don’t know what it means.” “Oh, well, mamma!” said Rose, “you know we are old-fashioned folks, and not up to modern improvements.” “Well,” said Miss Letitia, “I should think that that poor little weird child of Mrs. Follingsbee’s, with the great red bow on her back, had been brought up on this system. Yesterday afternoon I saw her in the garden, with that maid of hers, apparently enjoying a free fight. They looked like a pair of goblins,—an old and a young one. I never saw any thing like it.” “What a pity!” said Rose; “for she’s a smart, bright little thing; and it’s cunning to hear her talk French.” “Well,” said Mrs. Ferguson, straightening her back, and sitting up with a grand air: “I am one of eight children that my mother nursed herself at her own breast, and lived to a good honorable old age after it. People called her a handsome woman at sixty: she could ride and walk and dance with the best; and nobody kept up a keener interest in reading or general literature. Her conversation was sought by the most eminent men of the day as something remarkable. She was always with her children: we always knew we had her to run to at any moment; and we were the first thing with her. She lived a happy, loving, useful life; and her children rose up and called her blessed.” “As we do you, dear mamma,” said Rose, kissing her: “so don’t be oratorical, darling mammy; because we are all of your mind here.”	{ "id": "12354" }
16	_MRS. JOHN SEYMOUR’S PARTY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT._	MRS. JOHN SEYMOUR’S party marked an era in the annals of Springdale. Of this, you may be sure, my dear reader, when you consider that it was projected and arranged by Mrs. Lillie, in strict counsel with her friend Mrs. Follingsbee, who had lived in Paris, and been to balls at the Tuileries. Of course, it was a tip-top New-York-Paris party, with all the new, fashionable, unspeakable crinkles and wrinkles, all the high, divine, spick and span new ways of doing things; which, however, like the Eleusinian mysteries, being in their very nature incommunicable except to the elect, must be left to the imagination. A French _artiste_, whom Mrs. Follingsbee patronized as “my confectioner,” came in state to Springdale, with a retinue of appendages and servants sufficient for a circus; took formal possession of the Seymour mansion, and became, for the time being, absolute dictator, as was customary in the old Roman Republic in times of emergency. Mr. Follingsbee was forward, fussy, and advisory, in his own peculiar free-and-easy fashion; and Mrs. Follingsbee was instructive and patronizing to the very last degree. Lillie had bewailed in her sympathizing bosom John’s unaccountable and most singular moral Quixotism in regard to the wine question, and been comforted by her appreciative discourse. Mrs. Follingsbee had a sort of indefinite faith in French phrases for mending all the broken places in life. A thing said partly in French became at once in her view elucidated, even though the words meant no more than the same in English; so she consoled Lillie as follows:— “Oh, _ma chère_! I understand perfectly: your husband may be ‘_un peu borné_,’ as they say in Paris, but still ‘_un homme très respectable_,’ (Mrs. Follingsbee here scraped her throat emphatically, just as her French maid did),—a sublime example of the virtues; and let me tell you, darling, you are very fortunate to get such a man. It is not often that a woman can get an establishment like yours, and a good man into the bargain; so, if the goodness is a little _ennuyeuse_, one must put up with it. Then, again, people of old established standing may do about what they like socially: their position is made. People only say, ‘Well, that is their way; the Seymours will do so and so.’ Now, we have to do twice as much of every thing to make our position, as certain other people do. We might flood our place with champagne and Burgundy, and get all the young fellows drunk, as we generally do; and yet people will call our parties ‘_bourgeois_,’ and yours ‘_recherché_,’ if you give them nothing but tea and biscuit. Now, there’s my Dick: he respects your husband; you can see he does. In his odious slang way, he says he’s ‘some’ and ‘a brick;’ and he’s a little anxious to please him, though he professes not to care for anybody. Now, Dick has pretty sharp sense, after all, or he’d never have been just where he is.” Our friend John, during these days preceding the party, the party itself and the clearing up after it, enacted submissively that part of unconditional surrender which the master of the house, if well trained, generally acts on such occasions. He resembled the prize ox, which is led forth adorned with garlands, ribbons, and docility, to grace a triumphal procession. He went where he was told, did as he was bid, marched to the right, marched to the left, put on gloves and cravat, and took them off, entirely submissive to the word of his little general; and exhibited, in short, an edifying spectacle of that pleasant domestic animal, a tame husband. He had to make atonement for being a reformer, and for endeavoring to live like a Christian, by conceding to his wife all this latitude of indulgence; and he meant to go through it like a man and a philosopher. To be sure, in his eyes, it was all so much unutterable bosh and nonsense; and bosh and nonsense for which he was eventually to settle the bills: but he armed himself with the patient reflection that all things have their end in time,—that fireworks and Chinese lanterns, bands of music and kid gloves, ruffs and puffs, and pinkings and quillings, and all sorts of unspeakable eatables with French names, would ere long float down the stream of time, and leave their record only in a few bad colds and days of indigestion, which also time would mercifully cure. So John steadied his soul with a view of that comfortable future, when all this fuss should be over, and the coast cleared for something better. Moreover, John found this good result of his patience: that he learned a little something in a Christian way by it. Men of elevated principle and moral honesty often treat themselves to such large slices of contempt and indignation, in regard to the rogues of society, as to forget a common brotherhood of pity. It is sometimes wholesome for such men to be obliged to tolerate a scamp to the extent of exchanging with him the ordinary benevolences of social life. John, in discharging the duty of a host to Dick Follingsbee, found himself, after a while, looking on him with pity, as a poor creature, like the rich fool in the Gospels, without faith, or love, or prayer; spending life as a moth does,—in vain attempts to burn himself up in the candle, and knowing nothing better. In fact, after a while, the stiff, tow-colored moustache, smart stride, and flippant air of this poor little man struck him somewhere in the region between a smile and a tear; and his enforced hospitality began to wear a tincture of real kindness. There is no less pathos in moral than in physical imbecility. It is an observable social phenomenon that, when any family in a community makes an advance very greatly ahead of its neighbors in style of living or splendor of entertainments, the fact causes great searchings of spirit in all the region round about, and abundance of talk, wherein the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. Springdale was a country town, containing a choice knot of the old, respectable, true-blue, Boston-aristocracy families. Two or three of them had winter houses in Beacon Street, and went there, after Christmas, to enjoy the lectures, concerts, and select gayeties of the modern Athens; others, like the Fergusons and Seymours, were in intimate relationship with the same circle. Now, it is well known that the real old true-blue, Simon-pure, Boston family is one whose claims to be considered “the thing,” and the only thing, are somewhat like the claim of apostolic succession in ancient churches. It is easy to see why certain affluent, cultivated, and eminently well-conducted people should be considered “the thing” in their day and generation; but why they should be considered as the “only thing” is the point insoluble to human reason, and to be received by faith alone; also, why certain other people, equally affluent, cultivated, and well-conducted are _not_ “the thing” is one of the divine mysteries, about which whoso observes Boston society will do well not too curiously to exercise his reason. These “true-blue” families, however, have claims to respectability; which make them, on the whole, quite a venerable and pleasurable feature of society in our young, topsy-turvy, American community. Some of them have family records extending clearly back to the settlement of Massachusetts Bay; and the family estate is still on grounds first cleared up by aboriginal settlers. Being of a Puritan nobility, they have an ancestral record, affording more legitimate subject of family self-esteem than most other nobility. Their history runs back to an ancestry of unworldly faith and prayer and self-denial, of incorruptible public virtue, sturdy resistance of evil, and pursuit of good. There is also a literary aroma pervading their circles. Dim suggestions of “The North American Review,” of “The Dial,” of Cambridge,—a sort of vague “_miel-fleur_” of authorship and poetry,—is supposed to float in the air around them; and it is generally understood that in their homes exist tastes and appreciations denied to less favored regions. Almost every one of them has its great man,—its father, grandfather, cousin, or great uncle, who wrote a book, or edited a review, or was a president of the United States, or minister to England, whose opinions are referred to by the family in any discussion, as good Christians quote the Bible. It is true that, in some few instances, the _pleroma_ of aristocratic dignity undergoes a sort of acetic fermentation, and comes out in ungenial qualities. Now and then, at a public watering-place, a man or woman appears no otherwise distinguished than by a remarkable talent for being disagreeable; and it is amusing to find, on inquiry, that this repulsiveness of demeanor is entirely on account of belonging to an ancient family. Such is the tendency of democracy to a general mingling of elements, that this frigidity is deemed necessary by these good souls to prevent the commonalty from being attracted by them, and sticking to them, as straws and bits of paper do to amber. But more generally the “true-blue” old families are simple and urbane in their manners; and their pretensions are, as Miss Edgeworth says, presented rather _intaglio_ than in cameo. Of course, they most thoroughly believe in themselves, but in a bland and genial way. “_Noblesse oblige_” is with them a secret spring of gentle address and social suavity. They prefer their own set and their own ways, and are comfortably sure that what they do not know is not worth knowing, and what they have not been in the habit of doing is not worth doing; but still they are indulgent of the existence of human nature outside of their own circle. The Seymours and the Fergusons belonged to this sort of people; and, of course, Mr. John Seymour’s marriage afforded them opportunity for some wholesome moral discipline. The Ferguson girls were frank, social, magnanimous young women; of that class, to whom the saying or doing of a rude or unhandsome thing by any human being was an utter impossibility, and whose cheeks would flush at the mere idea of asserting personal superiority over any one. Nevertheless, they trod the earth firmly, as girls who felt that they were born to a certain position. Judge Ferguson was a gentleman of the old school, devoted to past ideas, fond of the English classics, and with small faith in any literature later than Dr. Johnson. He confessed to a toleration for Scott’s novels, and had been detected by his children both laughing and crying over the stories of Charles Dickens; for the amiable weaknesses of human nature still remain in the best regulated mind. To women and children, the judge was benignity itself, imitating the Grand Monarque, who bowed even to a chambermaid. He believed in good, orderly, respectable, old ways and entertainments, and had a quiet horror of all that is loud or noisy or pretentious; which sometimes made his social duties a trial to him, as was the case in regard to the Seymour party. The arrangements of the party, including the preparations for an extensive illumination of the grounds, and fireworks, were on so unusual a scale as to rouse the whole community of Springdale to a fever of excitement; of course, the Wilcoxes and the Lennoxes were astonished and disgusted. When had it been known that any of their set had done any thing of the kind? How horribly out of taste! Just the result of John Seymour’s marrying into that class of society! Mrs. Lennox was of opinion that she ought not to go. She was of the determined and spicy order of human beings, and often, like a certain French countess, felt disposed to thank Heaven that she generally succeeded in being rude when the occasion required. Mrs. Lennox regarded “snubbing” in the light of a moral duty devolving on people of condition, when the foundations of things were in danger of being removed by the inroads of the vulgar commonalty. On the present occasion, Mrs. Lennox was of opinion that quiet, respectable people, of good family, ought to ignore this kind of proceeding, and not think of encouraging such things by their presence. Mrs. Wilcox generally shaped her course by Mrs. Lennox: still she had promised Letitia Ferguson to be gracious to the Seymours in their exigency, and to call on the Follingsbees; so there was a confusion all round. The young people of both families declared that _they_ were going, just to see the fun. Bob Lennox, with the usual vivacity of Young America, said he didn’t “care a hang who set a ball rolling, if only something was kept stirring.” The subject was discussed when Mrs. Lennox and Mrs. Wilcox were making a morning call upon the Fergusons. “For my part,” said Mrs. Lennox, “I’m principled on this subject. Those Follingsbees are not proper people. They are of just that vulgar, pushing class, against which I feel it my duty to set my face like a flint; and I’m astonished that a man like John Seymour should go into relations with them. You see it puts all his friends in a most embarrassing position.” “Dear Mrs. Lennox,” said Rose Ferguson, “indeed, it is not Mr. Seymour’s fault. These persons are invited by his wife.” “Well, what business has he to allow his wife to invite them? A man should be master in his own house.” “But, my dear Mrs. Lennox,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “such a pretty young creature, and just married! of course it would be unhandsome not to allow her to have her friends.” “Certainly,” said Judge Ferguson, “a gentleman cannot be rude to his wife’s invited guests; for my part, I think Seymour is putting the best face he can on it; and we must all do what we can to help him. We shall all attend the Seymour party.” “Well,” said Mrs. Wilcox, “I think we shall go. To be sure, it is not what I should like to do. I don’t approve of these Follingsbees. Mr. Wilcox was saying, this morning, that his money was made by frauds on the government, which ought to have put him in the State Prison.” “Now, I say,” said Mrs. Lennox, “such people ought to be put down socially: I have no patience with their airs. And that Mrs. Follingsbee, I have heard that she was a milliner, or shop-girl, or some such thing; and to see the airs she gives herself! One would think it was the Empress Eugénie herself, come to queen it over us in America. I can’t help thinking we ought to take a stand. I really do.” “But, dear Mrs. Lennox, we are not obliged to cultivate further relations with people, simply from exchanging ordinary civilities with them on one evening,” said Judge Ferguson. “But, my dear sir, these pushing, vulgar, rich people take advantage of every opening. Give them an inch, and they will take an ell,” said Mrs Lennox. “Now, if I go, they will be claiming acquaintance with me in Newport next summer. Well, I shall cut them,—dead.” “Trust you for that,” said Miss Letitia, laughing; “indeed, Mrs. Lennox, I think you may go wherever you please with perfect safety. People will never saddle themselves on you longer than you want them; so you might as well go to the party with the rest of us.” “And besides, you know,” said Mrs. Wilcox, “all our young people will go, whether we go or not. Your Tom was at my house yesterday; and he is going with my girls: they are all just as wild about it as they can be, and say that it is the greatest fun that has been heard of this summer.” In fact, there was not a man, woman, or child, in a circle of fifteen miles round, who could show shade or color of an invitation, who was not out in full dress at Mrs. John Seymour’s party. People in a city may pick and choose their entertainments, and she who gives a party there may reckon on a falling off of about one-third, for various other attractions; but in the country, where there is nothing else stirring, one may be sure that not one person able to stand on his feet will be missing. A party in a good old sleepy, respectable country place is a godsend. It is equal to an earthquake, for suggesting materials of conversation; and in so many ways does it awaken and vivify the community, that one may doubt whether, after all, it is not a moral benefaction, and the giver of it one to be ranked in the noble army of martyrs. Everybody went. Even Mrs. Lennox, when she had sufficiently swallowed her moral principles, sent in all haste to New York for an elegant spick and span new dress from Madame de Tullegig’s, expressly for the occasion. Was she to be outshone by unprincipled upstarts? Perish the thought! It was treason to the cause of virtue, and the standing order of society. Of course, the best thing to be done is to put certain people down, if you can; but, if you cannot do that, the next best thing is to outshine them in their own way. It may be very naughty for them to be so dressy and extravagant, and very absurd, improper, immoral, unnecessary, and in bad taste; but still, if you cannot help it, you may as well try to do the same, and do a little more of it. Mrs. Lennox was in a feverish state till all her trappings came from New York. The bill was something stunning; but, then, it was voted by the young people that she had never looked so splendidly in her life; and she comforted herself with marking out a certain sublime distance and reserve of manner to be observed towards Mrs. Seymour and the Follingsbees. The young people, however, came home delighted. Tom, aged twenty-two, instructed his mother that Follingsbee was a brick, and a real jolly fellow; and he had accepted an invitation to go on a yachting cruise with him the next month. Jane Lennox, moreover, began besetting her mother to have certain details in their house rearranged, with an eye to the Seymour glorification. “Now, Jane dear, that’s just the result of allowing you to visit in this flash, vulgar genteel society,” said the troubled mamma. “Bless your heart, mamma, the world moves on, you know; and we must move with it a little, or be left behind. For my part, I’m perfectly ashamed of the way we let things go at our house. It really is not respectable. Now, I like Mrs. Follingsbee, for my part: she’s clever and amusing. It was fun to hear all about the balls at the Tuileries, and the opera and things in Paris. Mamma, when are we going to Paris?” “Oh! I don’t know, my dear; you must ask your father. He is very unwilling to go abroad.” “Papa is so slow and conservative in his notions!” said the young lady. “For my part, I cannot see what is the use of all this talk about the Follingsbees. He is good-natured and funny; and, I am sure, I think she’s a splendid woman: and, by the way, she gave me the address of lots of places in New York where we can get French things. Did you notice her lace? It is superb; and she told me where lace just like it could be bought one-third less than they sell at Stewart’s.” Thus we see how the starting-out of an old, respectable family in any new ebullition of fancy and fashion is like a dandelion going to seed. You have not only the airy, fairy globe; but every feathery particle thereof bears a germ which will cause similar feather bubbles all over the country; and thus old, respectable grass-plots become, in time, half dandelion. It is to be observed that, in all questions of life and fashion, “the world and the flesh,” to say nothing of the third partner of that ancient firm, have us at decided advantage. It is easy to see the flash of jewelry, the dazzle of color, the rush and glitter of equipage, and to be dizzied by the babble and gayety of fashionable life; while it is not easy to see justice, patience, temperance, self-denial. These are things belonging to the invisible and the eternal, and to be seen with other eyes than those of the body. Then, again, there is no one thing in all the items which go to make up fashionable extravagance, which, taken separately and by itself, is not in some point of view a good or pretty or desirable thing; and so, whenever the forces of invisible morality begin an encounter with the troops of fashion and folly, the world and the flesh, as we have just said, generally have the best of it. It may be very shocking and dreadful to get money by cheating and lying; but when the money thus got is put into the forms of yachts, operas, pictures, statues, and splendid entertainments, of which you are freely offered a share if you will only cultivate the acquaintance of a sharper, will you not then begin to say, “Everybody is going, why not I? As to countenancing Dives, why he is countenanced; and my holding out does no good. What is the use of my sitting in my corner and sulking? Nobody minds me.” Thus Dives gains one after another to follow his chariot, and make up his court. Our friend John, simply by being a loving, indulgent husband, had come into the position, in some measure, of demoralizing the public conscience, of bringing in luxury and extravagance, and countenancing people who really ought not to be countenanced. He had a sort of uneasy perception of this fact; yet, at each particular step, he seemed to himself to be doing no more than was right or reasonable. It was a fact that, through all Springdale, people were beginning to be uneasy and uncomfortable in houses that used to seem to them nice enough, and ashamed of a style of dress and entertainment and living that used to content them perfectly, simply because of the changes of style and living in the John-Seymour mansion. Of old, the Seymour family had always been a bulwark on the side of a temperate self-restraint and reticence in worldly indulgence; of a kind that parents find most useful to strengthen their hands when children are urging them on to expenses beyond their means: for they could say, “The Seymours are richer than we are, and you see they don’t change their carpets, nor get new sofas, nor give extravagant parties; and they give simple, reasonable, quiet entertainments, and do not go into any modern follies.” So the Seymours kept up the Fergusons, and the Fergusons the Seymours; and the Wilcoxes and the Lennoxes encouraged each other in a style of quiet, reasonable living, saving money for charity, and time for reading and self-cultivation, and by moderation and simplicity keeping up the courage of less wealthy neighbors to hold their own with them. The John-Seymour party, therefore, was like the bursting of a great dam, which floods a whole region. There was not a family who had not some trouble with the inundation, even where, like Rose and Letitia Ferguson, they swept it out merrily, and thought no more of it. “It was all very pretty and pleasant, and I’m glad it went off so well,” said Rose Ferguson the next day; “but I have not the smallest desire to repeat any thing of the kind. We who live in the country, and have such a world of beautiful things around us every day, and so many charming engagements in riding, walking, and rambling, and so much to do, cannot afford to go into this sort of thing: we really have not time for it.” “That pretty creature,” said Mrs. Ferguson, speaking of Lillie, “is really a charming object. I hope she will settle down now to domestic life. She will soon find better things to care for, I trust: a baby would be her best teacher. I am sure I hope she will have one.” “A baby is mamma’s infallible recipe for strengthening the character,” said Rose, laughing. “Well, as the saying is, they bring love with them,” said Mrs. Ferguson; “and love always brings wisdom.”	{ "id": "12354" }
17	_AFTER THE BATTLE._	“WELL, Grace, the Follingsbees are gone at last, I am thankful to say,” said John, as he stretched himself out on the sofa in Grace’s parlor with a sigh of relief. “If ever I am caught in such a scrape again, I shall know it.” “Yes, it is all well over,” said Grace. “Over! I wish you would look at the bills. Why, Gracie! I had not the least idea, when I gave Lillie leave to get what she chose, what it would come to, with those people at her elbow, to put things into her head. I could not interfere, you know, after the thing was started; and I thought I would not spoil Lillie’s pleasure, especially as I had to stand firm in not allowing wine. It was well I did; for if wine had been given, and taken with the reckless freedom that all the rest was, it might have ended in a general riot.” “As some of the great fashionable parties do, where young women get merry with champagne, and young men get drunk,” said Grace. “Well,” said John, “I don’t exactly like the whole turn of the way things have been going at our house lately. I don’t like the influence of it on others. It is not in the line of the life I want to lead, and that we have all been trying to lead.” “Well,” said Gracie, “things will be settled now quietly, I hope.” “I say,” said John, “could not we start our little reading sociables, that were so pleasant last year? You know we want to keep some little pleasant thing going, and draw Lillie in with us. When a girl has been used to lively society, she can’t come down to mere nothing; and I am afraid she will be wanting to rush off to New York, and visit the Follingsbees.” “Well,” said Grace, “Letitia and Rose were speaking the other day of that, and wanting to begin. You know we were to read Froude together, as soon as the evenings got a little longer.” “Oh, yes! that will be capital,” said John. “Do you think Lillie will be interested in Froude?” asked Grace. “I really can’t say,” said John, with some doubting of heart; “perhaps it would be well to begin with something a little lighter, at first.” “Any thing you please, John. What shall it be?” “But I don’t want to hold you all back on my account,” said John. “Well, then again, John, there’s our old study-club. The Fergusons and Mr. Mathews were talking it over the other night, and wondering when you would be ready to join us. We were going to take up Lecky’s ‘History of Morals,’ and have our sessions Tuesday evenings,—one Tuesday at their house, and the other at mine, you know.” “I should enjoy that, of all things,” said John; “but I know it is of no use to ask Lillie: it would only be the most dreadful bore to her.” “And you couldn’t come without her, of course,” said Grace. “Of course not; that would be too cruel, to leave the poor little thing at home alone.” “Lillie strikes me as being naturally clever,” said Grace; “if she only would bring her mind to enter into your tastes a little, I’m sure you would find her capable.” “But, Gracie, you’ve no conception how very different her sphere of thought is, how entirely out of the line of our ways of thinking. I’ll tell you,” said John, “don’t wait for me. You have your Tuesdays, and go on with your Lecky; and I will keep a copy at home, and read up with you. And I will bring Lillie in the evening, after the reading is over; and we will have a little music and lively talk, and a dance or charade, you know: then perhaps her mind will wake up by degrees.” SCENE. —_After tea in the Seymour parlor. John at a table, reading. Lillie in a corner, embroidering. _ _Lillie. _ “Look here, John, I want to ask you something.” _John_,—putting down his book, and crossing to her, “Well, dear?” _Lillie. _ “There, would you make a green leaf there, or a brown one?” _John_,—endeavoring to look wise, “Well, a brown one.” _Lillie. _ “That’s just like you, John; now, don’t you see that a brown one would just spoil the effect?” “Oh! would it?” said John, innocently. “Well, what did you ask me for?” “Why, you tiresome creature! I wanted you to say something. What are you sitting moping over a book for? You don’t entertain me a bit.” “Dear Lillie, I have been talking about every thing I could think of,” said John, apologetically. “Well, I want you to keep on talking, and put up that great heavy book. What is it, any way?” “Lecky’s ‘History of Morals,’” said John. “How dreadful! do you really mean to read it?” “Certainly; we are all reading it.” “Who all?” “Why, Gracie, and Letitia and Rose Ferguson.” “Rose Ferguson? I don’t believe it. Why, Rose isn’t twenty yet! She cannot care about such stuff.” “She does care, and enjoys it too,” said John, eagerly. “It is a pity, then, you didn’t get her for a wife instead of me,” said Lillie, in a tone of pique. Now, this sort of thing does well enough occasionally, said by a pretty woman, perfectly sure of her ground, in the early days of the honey-moon; but for steady domestic diet is not to be recommended. Husbands get tired of swearing allegiance over and over; and John returned to his book quietly, without reply. He did not like the suggestion; and he thought that it was in very poor taste. Lillie embroidered in silence a few minutes, and then threw down her work pettishly. “How close this room is!” John read on. “John, do open the door!” John rose, opened the door, and returned to his book. “Now, there’s that draft from the hall-window. John, you’ll have to shut the door.” John shut it, and read on. “Oh, dear me!” said Lillie, throwing herself down with a portentous yawn. “I do think this is dreadful!” “What is dreadful?” said John, looking up. “It is dreadful to be buried alive here in this gloomy town of Springdale, where there is nothing to see, and nowhere to go, and nothing going on.” “We have always flattered ourselves that Springdale was a most attractive place,” said John. “I don’t know of any place where there are more beautiful walks and rambles.” “But I detest walking in the country. What is there to see? And you get your shoes muddy, and burrs on your clothes, and don’t meet a creature! I got so tired the other day when Grace and Rose Ferguson would drag me off to what they call ‘the glen.’ They kept oh-ing and ah-ing and exclaiming to each other about some stupid thing every step of the way,—old pokey nutgalls, bare twigs of trees, and red and yellow leaves, and ferns! I do wish you could have seen the armful of trash that those two girls carried into their respective houses. I would not have such stuff in mine for any thing. I am tired of all this talk about Nature. I am free to confess that I don’t like Nature, and do like art; and I wish we only lived in New York, where there is something to amuse one.” [Illustration: “But I detest walking in the country.”] “Well, Lillie dear, I am sorry; but we don’t live in New York, and are not likely to,” said John. “Why can’t we? Mrs. Follingsbee said that a man in your profession, and with your talents, could command a fortune in New York.” “If it would give me the mines of Golconda, I would not go there,” said John. “How stupid of you! You know you would, though.” “No, Lillie; I would not leave Springdale for any money.” “That is because you think of nobody but yourself,” said Lillie. “Men are always selfish.” “On the contrary, it is because I have so many here depending on me, of whom I am bound to think more than myself,” said John. “That dreadful mission-work of yours, I suppose,” said Lillie; “that always stands in the way of having a good time.” “Lillie,” said John, shutting his book, and looking at her, “what is your ideal of a good time?” “Why, having something amusing going on all the time,—something bright and lively, to keep one in good spirits,” said Lillie. “I thought that you would have enough of that with your party and all,” said John. “Well, now it’s all over, and duller than ever,” said Lillie. “I think a little spirit of gayety makes it seem duller by contrast.” “Yet, Lillie,” said John, “you see there are women, who live right here in Springdale, who are all the time busy, interested, and happy, with only such sources of enjoyment as are to be found here. Their time does not hang heavy on their hands; in fact, it is too short for all they wish to do.” “They are different from me,” said Lillie. “Then, since you must live here,” said John, “could you not learn to be like them? Could you not acquire some of these tastes that make simple country life agreeable?” “No, I can’t; I never could,” said Lillie, pettishly. “Then,” said John, “I don’t see that anybody can help your being unhappy.” And, opening his book, he sat down, and began to read. Lillie pouted awhile, and then drew from under the sofa-pillow a copy of “Indiana;” and, establishing her feet on the fender, she began to read. Lillie had acquired at school the doubtful talent of reading French with facility, and was soon deep in the fascinating pages, whose theme is the usual one of French novels,—a young wife, tired of domestic monotony, with an unappreciative husband, solacing herself with the devotion of a lover. Lillie felt a sort of pique with her husband. He was evidently unappreciative: he was thinking of all sorts of things more than of her, and growing stupid, as husbands in French romances generally do. She thought of her handsome Cousin Harry, the only man that she ever came anywhere near being in love with; and the image of his dark, handsome eyes and glossy curls gave a sort of piquancy to the story. John got deeply interested in his book; and, looking up from time to time, was relieved to find that Lillie had something to employ her. “I may as well make a beginning,” he said to himself. “I must have my time for reading; and she must learn to amuse herself.” After a while, however, he peeped over her shoulder. “Why, darling!” he said, “where did you get that?” “It is Mrs. Follingsbee’s,” said Lillie. “Dear, it is a bad book,” said John. “Don’t read it.” “It amuses me, and helps pass away time,” said Lillie; “and I don’t think it is bad: it is beautiful. Besides, you read what amuses you; and it is a pity if I can’t read what amuses me.” “I am glad to see you like to read French,” continued John; “and I can get you some delightful French stories, which are not only pretty and witty, but have nothing in them that tend to pull down one’s moral principles. Edmond About’s ‘Mariages de Paris’ and ‘Tolla’ are charming French things; and, as he says, they might be read aloud by a man between his mother and his sister, without a shade of offence.” “Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Lillie. “You had better go to Rose Ferguson, and get her to give you a list of the kinds of books she prefers.” “Lillie!” said John, severely, “your remarks about Rose are in bad taste. I must beg you to discontinue them. There are subjects that never ought to be jested about.” “Thank you, sir, for your moral lessons,” said Lillie, turning her back on him defiantly, putting her feet on the fender, and going on with her reading. John seated himself, and went on with his book in silence. Now, this mode of passing a domestic evening is certainly not agreeable to either party; but we sustain the thesis that in this sort of interior warfare the woman has generally the best of it. When it comes to the science of annoyance, commend us to the lovely sex! Their methods have a _finesse_, a suppleness, a universal adaptability, that does them infinite credit; and man, with all his strength, and all his majesty, and his commanding talent, is about as well off as a buffalo or a bison against a tiny, rainbow-winged gnat or mosquito, who bites, sings, and stings everywhere at once, with an infinite grace and facility. A woman without magnanimity, without generosity, who has no love, and whom a man loves, is a terrible antagonist. To give up or to fight often seems equally impossible. How is a man going to make a woman have a good time, who is determined not to have it? Lillie had sense enough to see, that, if she settled down into enjoyment of the little agreeablenesses and domesticities of the winter society in Springdale, she should lose her battle, and John would keep her there for life. The only way was to keep him as uncomfortable as possible without really breaking her power over him. In the long-run, in these encounters of will, the woman has every advantage. The constant dropping that wears away the stone has passed into a proverb. Lillie meant to go to New York, and have a long campaign at the Follingsbees. The thing had been all promised and arranged between them; and it was necessary that she should appear sufficiently miserable, and that John should be made sufficiently uncomfortable, to consent with effusion, at last, when her intentions were announced. These purposes were not distinctly stated to herself; for, as we have before intimated, uncultivated natures, who have never thought for a serious moment on self-education, or the way their character is forming, act purely from a sort of instinct, and do not even in their own minds fairly and squarely face their own motives and purposes; if they only did, their good angel would wear a less dejected look than he generally must. Lillie had power enough, in that small circle, to stop and interrupt almost all its comfortable literary culture. The reading of Froude was given up. John could not go to the study club; and, after an evening or two of trying to read up at home, he used to stay an hour later at his office. Lillie would go with him on Tuesday evening, after the readings were over; and then it was understood that all parties were to devote themselves to making the evening pass agreeable to her. She was to be put forward, kept in the foreground, and every thing arranged to make her appear the queen of the _fête_. They had tableaux, where Rose made Lillie into marvellous pictures, which all admired and praised. They had little dances, which Lillie thought rather stupid and humdrum, because they were not _en grande toilette_; yet Lillie always made a great merit of putting up with her life at Springdale. A pleasant English writer has a lively paper on the advantages of being a “cantankerous fool,” in which he goes to show that men or women of inferior moral parts, little self-control, and great selfishness, often acquire an absolute dominion over the circle in which they move, merely by the exercise of these traits. Every one being anxious to please and pacify them, and keep the peace with them, there is a constant succession of anxious compliances and compromises going on around them; by all of which they are benefited in getting their own will and way. The one person who will not give up, and cannot be expected to be considerate or accommodating, comes at last to rule the whole circle. He is counted on like the fixed facts of nature; everybody else must turn out for him. So Lillie reigned in Springdale. In every little social gathering where she appeared, the one uneasy question was, would she have a good time, and anxious provision made to that end. Lillie had declared that reading aloud was a bore, which was definitive against reading-parties. She liked to play and sing; so that was always a part of the programme. Lillie sang well, but needed a great deal of urging. Her throat was apt to be sore; and she took pains to say that the harsh winter weather in Springdale was ruining her voice. A good part of an evening was often spent in supplications before she could be induced to make the endeavor. Lillie had taken up the whim of being jealous of Rose. Jealousy is said to be a sign of love. We hold another theory, and consider it more properly a sign of selfishness. Look at noble-hearted, unselfish women, and ask if they are easily made jealous. Look, again, at a woman who in her whole life shows no disposition to deny herself for her husband, or to enter into his tastes and views and feelings: are not such as she the most frequently jealous? Her husband, in her view, is a piece of her property; every look, word, and thought which he gives to any body or thing else is a part of her private possessions, unjustly withheld from her. Independently of that, Lillie felt the instinctive jealousy which a _passée_ queen of beauty sometimes has for a young rival. She had eyes to see that Rose was daily growing more and more beautiful; and not all that young girl’s considerateness, her self-forgetfulness, her persistent endeavors to put Lillie forward, and make her the queen of the hour, could disguise this fact. Lillie was a keen-sighted little body, and saw, at a glance, that, once launched into society together, Rose would carry the day; all the more that no thought of any day to be carried was in her head. Rose Ferguson had one source of attraction which is as great a natural gift as beauty, and which, when it is found with beauty, makes it perfectly irresistible; to wit, perfect unconsciousness of self. This is a wholly different trait from unselfishness: it is not a moral virtue, attained by voluntary effort, but a constitutional gift, and a very great one. Fénelon praises it as a Christian grace, under the name of simplicity; but we incline to consider it only as an advantage of natural organization. There are many excellent Christians who are haunted by themselves, and in some form or other are always busy with themselves; either conscientiously pondering the right and wrong of their actions, or approbatively sensitive to the opinions of others, or æsthetically comparing their appearance and manners with an interior standard; while there are others who have received the gift, beyond the artist’s eye or the musician’s ear, of perfect self-forgetfulness. Their religion lacks the element of conflict, and comes to them by simple impulse. “Glad souls, without reproach or blot, Who do His will, and know it not.” Rose had a frank, open joyousness of nature, that shed around her a healthy charm, like fine, breezy weather, or a bright morning; making every one feel as if to be good were the most natural thing in the world. She seemed to be thinking always and directly of matters in hand, of things to be done, and subjects under discussion, as much as if she were an impersonal being. She had been educated with every solid advantage which old Boston can give to her nicest girls; and that is saying a good deal. Returning to a country home at an early age, she had been made the companion of her father; entering into all his literary tastes, and receiving constantly, from association with him, that manly influence which a woman’s mind needs to develop its completeness. Living the whole year in the country, the Fergusons developed within themselves a multiplicity of resources. They read and studied, and discussed subjects with their father; for, as we all know, the discussion of moral and social questions has been from the first, and always will be, a prime source of amusement in New-England families; and many of them keep up, with great spirit, a family debating society, in which whoever hath a psalm, a doctrine, or an interpretation, has free course. Rose had never been into fashionable life, technically so called. She had not been brought out: there never had been a mile-stone set up to mark the place where “her education was finished;” and so she had gone on unconsciously,—studying, reading, drawing, and cultivating herself from year to year, with her head and hands always so full of pleasurable schemes and plans, that there really seemed to be no room for any thing else. We have seen with what interest she co-operated with Grace in the various good works of the factory village in which her father held shares, where her activity found abundant scope, and her beauty and grace of manner made her a sort of idol. Rose had once or twice in her life been awakened to self-consciousness, by applicants rapping at the front door of her heart; but she answered with such a kind, frank, earnest, “No, I thank you, sir,” as made friends of her lovers; and she entered at once into pleasant relations with them. Her nature was so healthy, and free from all morbid suggestion; her yes and no so perfectly frank and positive, that there seemed no possibility of any tragedy caused by her. Why did not John fall in love with Rose? Why did not he, O most sapient senate of womanhood? Why did not your brother fall in love with that nice girl you know of, who grew up with you all at his very elbow, and was, as everybody else could see, just the proper person for him? Well, why didn’t he? There is the doctrine of election. “The election hath obtained it; and the rest were blinded.” John was some six years older than Rose. He had romped with her as a little girl, drawn her on his sled, picked up her hair-pins, and worn her tippet, when they had skated together as girl and boy. They had made each other Christmas and New Year’s presents all their lives; and, to say the truth, loved each other honestly and truly: nevertheless, John fell in love with Lillie, and married her. Did you ever know a case like it?	{ "id": "12354" }
18	_A BRICK TURNS UP._	THE snow had been all night falling silently over the long elm avenues of Springdale. It was one of those soft, moist, dreamy snow-falls, which come down in great loose feathers, resting in magical frost-work on every tree, shrub, and plant, and seeming to bring down with it the purity and peace of upper worlds. Grace’s little cottage on Elm Street was imbosomed, as New-England cottages are apt to be, in a tangle of shrubbery, evergreens, syringas, and lilacs; which, on such occasions, become bowers of enchantment when the morning sun looks through them. Grace came into her parlor, which was cheery with the dazzling sunshine, and, running to the window, began to examine anxiously the state of her various greeneries, pausing from time to time to look out admiringly at the wonderful snow-landscape, with its many tremulous tints of rose, lilac, and amethyst. The only thing wanting was some one to speak to about it; and, with a half sigh, she thought of the good old times when John would come to her chamber-door in the morning, to get her out to look on scenes like this. “Positively,” she said to herself, “I must invite some one to visit me. One wants a friend to help one enjoy solitude.” The stock of social life in Springdale, in fact, was running low. The Lennoxes and the Wilcoxes had gone to their Boston homes, and Rose Ferguson was visiting in New York, and Letitia found so much to do to supply her place to her father and mother, that she had less time than usual to share with Grace. Then, again, the Elm-street cottage was a walk of some considerable distance; whereas, when Grace lived at the old homestead, the Fergusons were so near as to seem only one family, and were dropping in at all hours of the day and evening. “Whom can I send for?” thought Grace to herself; and she ran over mentally, in a moment, the list of available friends and acquaintances. Reader, perhaps you have never really estimated your friends, till you have tried them by the question, which of them you could ask to come and spend a week or fortnight with you, alone in a country-house, in the depth of winter. Such an invitation supposes great faith in your friend, in yourself, or in human nature. Grace, at the moment, was unable to think of anybody whom she could call from the approaching festivities of holiday life in the cities to share her snow Patmos with her; so she opened a book for company, and turned to where her dainty breakfast-table, with its hot coffee and crisp rolls, stood invitingly waiting for her before the cheerful open fire. At this moment, she saw, what she had not noticed before, a letter lying on her breakfast plate. Grace took it up with an exclamation of surprise; which, however, was heard only by her canary birds and her plants. Years before, when Grace was in the first summer of her womanhood, she had been very intimate with Walter Sydenham, and thoroughly esteemed and liked him; but, as many another good girl has done, about those days she had conceived it her duty not to think of marriage, but to devote herself to making a home for her widowed father and her brother. There was a certain romance of self-abnegation in this disposition of herself which was rather pleasant to Grace, and in which both the gentlemen concerned found great advantage. As long as her father lived, and John was unmarried and devoted to her, she had never regretted it. Sydenham had gone to seek his fortune in California. He had begged to keep up intercourse by correspondence; but Grace was not one of those women who are willing to drain the heart of the man they refuse to marry, by keeping up with him just that degree of intimacy which prevents his seeking another. Grace had meant her refusal to be final, and had sincerely hoped that he would find happiness with some other woman; and to that intent had rigorously denied herself and him a correspondence: yet, from time to time, she had heard of him through an occasional letter to John, or by a chance Californian newspaper. Since John’s marriage had so altered her course of life, Grace had thought of him more frequently, and with some questionings as to the wisdom of her course. This letter was from him; and we shall give our readers the benefit of it:— “DEAR GRACE,—You must pardon me this beginning,—in the old style of other days; for though many years have passed, in which I have been trying to walk in your ways, and keep all your commandments, I have never yet been able to do as you directed, and forget you: and here I am, beginning ‘Dear Grace,’—just where I left off on a certain evening long, long ago. I wonder if you remember it as plainly as I do. I am just the same fellow that I was then and there. If you remember, you admitted that, were it not for other duties, you might have considered my humble supplication. I gathered that it would not have been impossible _per se_, as metaphysicians say, to look with favor on your humble servant. “Gracie, I have been living, I trust, not unworthily of you. Your photograph has been with me round the world,—in the miner’s tent, on shipboard, among scenes where barbarous men do congregate; and everywhere it has been a presence, ‘to warn, to comfort, to command;’ and if I have come out of many trials firmer, better, more established in right than before; if I am more believing in religion, and in every way grounded and settled in the way you would have me,—it has been your spiritual presence and your power over me that has done it. Besides that, I may as well tell you, I have never given up the hope that by and by you would see all this, and in some hour give me a different answer. “When, therefore, I learned of your father’s death, and afterwards of John’s marriage, I thought it was time for me to return again. I have come to New York, and, if you do not forbid, shall come to Springdale. “Will you be a little glad to see me, Gracie? Why not? We are both alone now. Let us take hands, and walk the same path together. Shall we? “Yours till death, and after, ”WALTER SYDENHAM. “ Would she? To say the truth, the question as asked now had a very different air from the question as asked years before, when, full of life and hope and enthusiasm, she had devoted herself to making an ideal home for her father and brother. What other sympathy or communion, she had asked herself then, should she ever need than these friends, so very dear: and, if she needed more, there, in the future, was John’s ideal wife, who, somehow, always came before her in the likeness of Rose Ferguson, and John’s ideal children, whom she was sure she should love and pet as if they were her own. And now here she was, in a house all by herself, coming down to her meals, one after another, without the excitement of a cheerful face opposite to her, and with all possibility of confidential intercourse with her brother entirely cut off. Lillie, in this matter, acted, with much grace and spirit, the part of the dog in the manger; and, while she resolutely refused to enter into any of John’s literary or intellectual tastes, seemed to consider her wifely rights infringed upon by any other woman who would. She would absolutely refuse to go up with her husband and spend an evening with Grace, alleging it was “pokey and stupid,” and that they always got talking about things that she didn’t care any thing about. If, then, John went without her to spend the evening, he was sure to be received, on his return, with a dead and gloomy silence, more fearful, sometimes, than the most violent of objurgations. That look of patient, heart-broken woe, those long-drawn sighs, were a reception that he dreaded, to say the truth, a great deal more than a direct attack, or any fault-finding to which he could have replied; and so, on the whole, John made up his mind that the best thing he could do was to stay at home and rock the cradle of this fretful baby, whose wisdom-teeth were so hard to cut, and so long in coming. It was a pretty baby; and when made the sole and undivided object of attention, when every thing possible was done for it by everybody in the house, condescended often to be very graceful and winning and playful, and had numberless charming little ways and tricks. The difference between Lillie in good humor and Lillie in bad humor was a thing which John soon learned to appreciate as one of the most powerful forces in his life. If you knew, my dear reader, that by pursuing a certain course you could bring upon yourself a drizzling, dreary, north-east rain-storm, and by taking heed to your ways you could secure sunshine, flowers, and bird-singing, you would be very careful, after a while, to keep about you the right atmospheric temperature; and, if going to see the very best friend you had on earth was sure to bring on a fit of rheumatism or tooth-ache, you would soon learn to be very sparing of your visits. For this reason it was that Grace saw very little of John; that she never now had a sisterly conversation with him; that she preferred arranging all those little business matters, in which it would be convenient to have a masculine appeal, solely and singly by herself. The thing was never referred to in any conversation between them. It was perfectly understood without words. There are friends between whom and us has shut the coffin-lid; and there are others between whom and us stand sacred duties, considerations never to be enough reverenced, which forbid us to seek their society, or to ask to lean on them either in joy or sorrow: the whole thing as regards them must be postponed until the future life. Such had been Grace’s conclusion with regard to her brother. She well knew that any attempt to restore their former intimacy would only diminish and destroy what little chance of happiness yet remained to him; and it may therefore be imagined with what changed eyes she read Walter Sydenham’s letter from those of years ago. There was a sound of stamping feet at the front door; and John came in, all ruddy and snow-powdered, but looking, on the whole, uncommonly cheerful. “Well, Gracie,” he said, “the fact is, I shall have to let Lillie go to New York for a week or two, to see those Follingsbees. Hang them! But what’s the matter, Gracie? Have you been crying, or sitting up all night reading, or what?” The fact was, that Gracie had for once been indulging in a good cry, rather pitying herself for her loneliness, now that the offer of relief had come. She laughed, though; and, handing John her letter, said,— “Look here, John! here’s a letter I have just had from Walter Sydenham.” John broke out into a loud, hilarious laugh. “The blessed old brick!” said he. “Has he turned up again?” “Read the letter, John,” said Grace. “I don’t know exactly how to answer it.” John read the letter, and seemed to grow more and more quiet as he read it. Then he came and stood by Grace, and stroked her hair gently. “I wish, Gracie dear,” he said, “you had asked my advice about this matter years ago. You loved Walter,—I can see you did; and you sent him off on my account. It is just too bad! Of all the men I ever knew, he was the one I should have been best pleased to have you marry!” “It was not wholly on your account, John. You know there was our father,” said Grace. “Yes, yes, Gracie; but he would have preferred to see you well married. He would not have been so selfish, nor I either. It is your self-abnegation, you dear over-good women, that makes us men seem selfish. We should be as good as you are, if you would give us the chance. I think, Gracie, though you’re not aware of it, there is a spice of Pharisaism in the way in which you good girls allow us men to swallow you up without ever telling us what you are doing. I often wondered about your intimacy with Sydenham, and why it never came to any thing; and I can but half forgive you. How selfish I must have seemed!” “Oh, no, John! indeed not.” “Come, you needn’t put on these meek airs. I insist upon it, you have been feeling self-righteous and abused,” said John, laughing; “but ‘all’s well that ends well.’ Sit down, now, and write him a real sensible letter, like a nice honest woman as you are.” “And say, ‘Yes, sir, and thank you too’?” said Grace, laughing. “Well, something in that way,” said John. “You can fence it in with as many make-believes as is proper. And now, Gracie, this is deuced lucky! You see Sydenham will be down here at once; and it wouldn’t be exactly the thing for you to receive him at this house, and our only hotel is perfectly impracticable in winter; and that brings me to what I am here about. Lillie is going to New York to spend the holidays; and I wanted you to shut up, and come up and keep house for us. You see you have only one servant, and we have four to be looked after. You can bring your maid along, and then I will invite Walter to our house, where he will have a clear field; and you can settle all your matters between you.” “So Lillie is going to the Follingsbees’?” said Grace. “Yes: she had a long, desperately sentimental letter from Mrs. Follingsbee, urging, imploring, and entreating, and setting forth all the splendors and glories of New York. Between you and me, it strikes me that that Mrs. Follingsbee is an affected goose; but I couldn’t say so to Lillie, ‘by no manner of means.’ She professes an untold amount of admiration and friendship for Lillie, and sets such brilliant prospects before her, that I should be the most hard-hearted old Turk in existence if I were to raise any objections; and, in fact, Lillie is quite brilliant in anticipation, and makes herself so delightful that I am almost sorry that I agreed to let her go.” “When shall you want me, John?” “Well, this evening, say; and, by the way, couldn’t you come up and see Lillie a little while this morning? She sent her love to you, and said she was so hurried with packing, and all that, that she wanted you to excuse her not calling.” “Oh, yes! I’ll come,” said Grace, good-naturedly, “as soon as I have had time to put things in a little order.” “And write your letter,” said John, gayly, as he went out. “Don’t forget that.” Grace did not forget the letter; but we shall not indulge our readers with any peep over her shoulder, only saying that, though written with an abundance of precaution, it was one with which Walter Sydenham was well satisfied. Then she made her few arrangements in the housekeeping line, called in her grand vizier and prime minister from the kitchen, and held with her a counsel of ways and means; put on her india-rubbers and Polish boots, and walked up through the deep snow-drifts to the Springdale post-office, where she dropped the fateful letter with a good heart on the whole; and then she went on to John’s, the old home, to offer any parting services to Lillie that might be wanted. It is rather amusing, in any family circle, to see how some one member, by dint of persistent exactions, comes to receive always, in all the exigencies of life, an amount of attention and devotion which is never rendered back. Lillie never thought of such a thing as offering any services of any sort to Grace. Grace might have packed her trunks to go to the moon, or the Pacific Ocean, quite alone for matter of any help Lillie would ever have thought of. If Grace had headache or toothache or a bad cold, Lillie was always “so sorry;” but it never occurred to her to go and sit with her, to read to her, or offer any of a hundred little sisterly offices. When she was in similar case, John always summoned Grace to sit with Lillie during the hours that his business necessarily took him from her. It really seemed to be John’s impression that a toothache or headache of Lillie’s was something entirely different from the same thing with Grace, or any other person in the world; and Lillie fully shared the impression. Grace found the little empress quite bewildered in her multiplicity of preparations, and neglected details, all of which had been deferred to the last day; and Rosa and Anna and Bridget, in fact the whole staff, were all busy in getting her off. “So good of you to come, Gracie!” and, “If you would do this;” and, “Won’t you see to that?” and, “If you could just do the other!” and Grace both could and would, and did what no other pair of hands could in the same time. John apologized for the lack of any dinner. “The fact is, Gracie, Bridget had to be getting up a lot of her things that were forgotten till the last moment; and I told her not to mind, we could do on a cold lunch.” Bridget herself had become so wholly accustomed to the ways of her little mistress, that it now seemed the most natural thing in the world that the whole house should be upset for her. But, at last, every thing was ready and packed; the trunks and boxes shut and locked, and the keys sorted; and John and Lillie were on their way to the station. “I shall find out Walter in New York, and bring him back with me,” said John, cheerily, as he parted from Grace in the hall. “I leave you to get things all to rights for us.” It would not have been a very agreeable or cheerful piece of work to tidy the disordered house and take command of the domestic forces under any other circumstances; but now Grace found it a very nice diversion to prevent her thoughts from running too curiously on this future meeting. “After all,” she thought to herself, “he is just the same venturesome, imprudent creature that he always was, jumping to conclusions, and insisting on seeing every thing in his own way. How could he dare write me such a letter without seeing me? Ten years make great changes. How could he be sure he would like me?” And she examined herself somewhat critically in the looking-glass. “Well,” she said, “he may thank me for it that we are not engaged, and that he comes only as an old friend, and perfectly free, for all he has said, to be nothing more, unless on seeing each other we are so agreed. I am so sorry the old place is all demolished and be-Frenchified. It won’t look natural to him; and I am not the kind of person to harmonize with these cold, polished, glistening, slippery surroundings, that have no home life or association in them.” But Grace had to wake from these reflections to culinary counsels with Bridget, and to arrangements of apartments with Rosa. Her own exacting carefulness followed the careless footsteps of the untrained handmaids, and rearranged every plait and fold; so that by nightfall the next day she was thoroughly tired. She beguiled the last moments, while waiting for the coming of the cars, in arranging her hair, and putting on one of those wonderful Parisian dresses, which adapt themselves so precisely to the air of the wearer that they seem to be in themselves works of art. Then she stood with a fluttering color to see the carriage drive up to the door, and the two get out of it. It is almost too bad to spy out such meetings, and certainly one has no business to describe them; but Walter Sydenham carried all before him, by an old habit which he had of taking all and every thing for granted, as, from the first moment, he did with Grace. He had no idea of hesitations or holdings off, and would have none; and met Gracie as if they had parted only yesterday, and as if her word to him always had been yes, instead of no. In fact, they had not been together five minutes before the whole life of youth returned to them both,—that indestructible youth which belongs to warm hearts and buoyant spirits. Such a merry evening as they had of it! When John, as the wood fire burned low on the hearth, with some excuse of letters to write in his library, left them alone together, Walter put on her finger a diamond ring, saying,— “There, Gracie! now, when shall it be? You see you’ve kept me waiting so long that I can’t spare you much time. I have an engagement to be in Montreal the first of February, and I couldn’t think of going alone. They have merry times there in mid-winter; and I’m sure it will be ever so much nicer for you than keeping house alone here.” Grace said, of course, that it was impossible; but Walter declared that doing the impossible was precisely in his line, and pushed on his various advantages with such spirit and energy that, when they parted for the night, Grace said she would think of it: which promise, at the breakfast-table next morning, was interpreted by the unblushing Walter, and reported to John, as a full consent. Before noon that day, Walter had walked up with John and Grace to take a survey of the cottage, and had given John indefinite power to engage workmen and artificers to rearrange and enlarge and beautify it for their return after the wedding journey. For the rest of the visit, all the three were busy with pencil and paper, projecting balconies, bow-windows, pantries, library, and dining-room, till the old cottage so blossomed out in imagination as to leave only a germ of its former self. Walter’s visit brought back to John a deal of the warmth and freedom which he had not known since he married. We often live under an insensible pressure of which we are made aware only by its removal. John had been so much in the habit lately of watching to please Lillie, of measuring and checking his words or actions, that he now bubbled over with a wild, free delight in finding himself alone with Grace and Walter. He laughed, sang, whistled, skipped upstairs two at a time, and scarcely dared to say even to himself why he was so happy. He did not face himself with that question, and went dutifully to the library at stated times to write to Lillie, and made much of her little letters.	{ "id": "12354" }
19	_THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE._	IF John managed to be happy without Lillie in Springdale, Lillie managed to be blissful without him in New York. “The bird let loose in Eastern skies” never hastened more fondly home than she to its glitter and gayety, its life and motion, dash and sensation. She rustled in all her bravery of curls and frills, pinkings and quillings,—a marvellous specimen of Parisian frostwork, without one breath of reason or philosophy or conscience to melt it. The Follingsbees’ house might stand for the original of the Castle of Indolence. “Halls where who can tell What elegance and grandeur wide expand,— The pride of Turkey and of Persia’s land? Soft quilts on quilts; on carpets, carpets spread; And couches stretched around in seemly band; And endless pillows rise to prop the head: So that each spacious room was one full swelling bed.” It was not without some considerable profit that Mrs. Follingsbee had read Balzac and Dumas, and had Charlie Ferrola for master of arts in her establishment. The effect of the whole was perfect; it transported one, bodily, back to the times of Montespan and Pompadour, when life was all one glittering upper-crust, and pretty women were never troubled with even the shadow of a duty. It was with a rebound of joyousness that Lillie found herself once more with a crowded list of invitations, calls, operas, dancing, and shopping, that kept her pretty little head in a perfect whirl of excitement, and gave her not one moment for thought. Mrs. Follingsbee, to say the truth, would have been a little careful about inviting a rival queen of beauty into the circle, were it not that Charlie Ferrola, after an attentive consideration of the subject, had assured her that a golden-haired blonde would form a most complete and effective tableau, in contrast with her own dark rich style of beauty. Neither would lose by it, so he said; and the impression, as they rode together in an elegant open barouche, with ermine carriage robes, would be “stunning.” So they called each other _ma sœur_, and drove out in the park in a ravishing little pony-phaeton all foamed over with ermine, drawn by a lovely pair of cream-colored horses, whose harness glittered with gold and silver, after the fashion of the Count of Monte Cristo. In truth, if Dick Follingsbee did not remind one of Solomon in all particulars, he was like him in one, that he “made silver and gold as the stones of the street” in New York. Lillie’s presence, however, was all desirable; because it would draw the calls of two or three old New York families who had hitherto stood upon their dignity, and refused to acknowledge the shoddy aristocracy. The beautiful Mrs. John Seymour, therefore, was no less useful than ornamental, and advanced Mrs. Follingsbee’s purposes in her “Excelsior” movements. “Now, I suppose,” said Mrs. Follingsbee to Lillie one day, when they had been out making fashionable calls together, “we really must call on Charlie’s wife, just to keep her quiet.” “I thought you didn’t like her,” said Lillie. “I don’t; I think she is dreadfully common,” said Mrs. Follingsbee: “she is one of those women who can’t talk any thing but baby, and bores Charlie half to death. But then, you know, when there is a _liaison_ like mine with Charlie, one can’t be too careful to cultivate the wives. _Les convenances_, you know, are the all-important things. I send her presents constantly, and send my carriage around to take her to church or opera, or any thing that is going on, and have her children at my fancy parties: yet, for all that, the creature has not a particle of gratitude; those narrow-minded women never have. You know I am very susceptible to people’s atmospheres; and I always feel that that creature is just as full of spite and jealousy as she can stick in her skin.” It will be remarked that this was one of those idiomatic phrases which got lodged in Mrs. Follingsbee’s head in a less cultivated period of her life, as a rusty needle sometimes hides in a cushion, coming out unexpectedly, when excitement gives it an honest squeeze. “Now, I should think,” pursued Mrs. Follingsbee, “that a woman who really loved her husband would be thankful to have him have such a rest from the disturbing family cares which smother a man’s genius, as a house like ours offers him. How can the artistic nature exercise itself in the very grind of the thing, when this child has a cold, and the other the croup; and there is fussing with mustard-paste and ipecac and paregoric,—all those realities, you know? Why, Charlie tells me he feels a great deal more affection for his children when he is all calm and tranquil in the little boudoir at our house; and he writes such lovely little poems about them, I must show you some of them. But this creature doesn’t appreciate them a bit: she has no poetry in her.” “Well, I must say, I don’t think I should have,” said Lillie, honestly. “I should be just as mad as I could be, if John acted so.” “Oh, my dear! the cases are different: Charlie has such peculiarities of genius. The artistic nature, you know, requires soothing.” Here they stopped, and rang at the door of a neat little house, and were ushered into a pair of those characteristic parlors which show that they have been arranged by a home-worshipper, and a mother. There were plants and birds and flowers, and little _genre_ pictures of children, animals, and household interiors, arranged with a loving eye and hand. “Did you ever see any thing so perfectly characteristic?” said Mrs. Follingsbee, looking around her as if she were going to faint. “This woman drives Charlie perfectly wild, because she has no appreciation of high art. Now, I sent her photographs of Michel Angelo’s ‘Moses,’ and ‘Night and Morning;’ and I really wish you would see where she hung them,—away in yonder dark corner!” “I think myself they are enough to scare the owls,” said Lillie, after a moment’s contemplation. “But, my dear, you know they are the thing,” said Mrs. Follingsbee: “people never like such things at first, and one must get used to high art before one forms a taste for it. The thing with her is, she has no docility. She does not try to enter into Charlie’s tastes.” The woman with “no docility” entered at this moment,—a little snow-drop of a creature, with a pale, pure, Madonna face, and that sad air of hopeless firmness which is seen unhappily in the faces of so many women. “I had to bring baby down,” she said. “I have no nurse to-day, and he has been threatened with croup.” “The dear little fellow!” said Mrs. Follingsbee, with officious graciousness. “So glad you brought him down; come to his aunty?” she inquired lovingly, as the little fellow shrank away, and regarded her with round, astonished eyes. “Why will you not come to my next reception, Mrs. Ferrola?” she added. “You make yourself quite a stranger to us. You ought to give yourself some variety.” “The fact is, Mrs. Follingsbee,” said Mrs. Ferrola, “receptions in New York generally begin about my bed-time; and, if I should spend the night out, I should have no strength to give to my children the next day.” [Illustration: “I had to bring baby down.”] “But, my dear, you ought to have some amusement.” “My children amuse me, if you will believe it,” said Mrs. Ferrola, with a remarkably quiet smile. Mrs. Follingsbee was not quite sure whether this was meant to be sarcastic or not. She answered, however, “Well! your husband will come, at all events.” “You may be quite sure of that,” said Mrs. Ferrola, with the same quietness. “Well!” said Mrs. Follingsbee, rising, with patronizing cheerfulness, “delighted to see you doing so well; and, if it is pleasant, I will send the carriage round to take you a drive in the park this afternoon. Good-morning.” And, like a rustling cloud of silks and satins and perfumes, she bent down and kissed the baby, and swept from the apartment. Mrs. Ferrola, with a movement that seemed involuntary, wiped the baby’s cheek with her handkerchief, and, folding it closer to her bosom, looked up as if asking patience where patience is to be found for the asking. “There! didn’t I tell you?” said Mrs. Follingsbee when she came out; “just one of those provoking, meek, obstinate, impracticable creatures, with no adaptation in her.” “Oh, gracious me!” said Lillie: “I can’t imagine more dire despair than to sit all day tending baby.” “Well, so you would think; and Charlie has offered to hire competent nurses, and wants her to dress herself up and go into society; and she just won’t do it, and sticks right down by the cradle there, with her children running over her like so many squirrels.” “Oh! I hope and trust I never shall have children,” said Lillie, fervently, “because, you see, there’s an end of every thing. No more fun, no more frolics, no more admiration or good times; nothing but this frightful baby, that you can’t get rid of.” Yet, as Lillie spoke, she knew, in her own slippery little heart, that the shadow of this awful cloud of maternity was resting over her; though she laced and danced, and bid defiance to every law of nature, with a blind and ignorant wilfulness, not caring what consequences she might draw down on herself, if only she might escape this. And was there, then, no soft spot in this woman’s heart anywhere? Generally it is thought that the throb of the child’s heart awakens a heart in the mother, and that the mother is born again with her child. It is so with unperverted nature, as God meant it to be; and you shall hear from the lips of an Irish washer-woman a genuine poetry of maternal feeling, for the little one who comes to make her toil more toilsome, that is wholly withered away out of luxurious circles, where there is every thing to make life easy. Just as the Chinese have contrived fashionable monsters, where human beings are constrained to grow in the shape of flower-pots, so fashionable life contrives at last to grow a woman who hates babies, and will risk her life to be rid of the crowning glory of womanhood. There was a time in Lillie’s life, when she was sixteen years of age, which was a turning-point with her, and decided that she should be the heartless woman she was. If at that age, and at that time, she had decided to marry the man she really loved, marriage might indeed have proved to her a sacrament. It might have opened to her a door through which she could have passed out from a career of selfish worldliness into that gradual discipline of unselfishness which a true love-marriage brings. But she did not. The man was poor, and she was beautiful; her beauty would buy wealth and worldly position, and so she cast him off. Yet partly to gratify her own lingering feeling, and partly because she could not wholly renounce what had once been hers, she kept up for years with him just that illusive simulacrum which such women call friendship; which, while constantly denying, constantly takes pains to attract, and drains the heart of all possibility of loving another. Harry Endicott was a young man of fine capabilities, sensitive, interesting, handsome, full of generous impulses, whom a good woman might easily have led to a full completeness. He was not really Lillie’s cousin, but the cousin of her mother; yet, under the name of cousin, he had constant access and family intimacy. This winter Harry Endicott suddenly returned to the fashionable circles of New York,—returned from a successful career in India, with an ample fortune. He was handsomer than ever, took stylish bachelor lodgings, set up a most distracting turnout, and became a sort of Marquis of Farintosh in fashionable circles. Was ever any thing so lucky, or so unlucky, for our Lillie? —lucky, if life really does run on the basis of French novels, and if all that is needed is the sparkle and stimulus of new emotions; unlucky, nay, even gravely terrible, if life really is established on a basis of moral responsibility, and dogged by the fatal necessity that “whatsoever man or woman soweth, that shall he or she also reap.” In the most critical hour of her youth, when love was sent to her heart like an angel, to beguile her from selfishness, and make self-denial easy, Lillie’s pretty little right hand had sowed to the world and the flesh; and of that sowing she was now to reap all the disquiets, the vexations, the tremors, that go to fill the pages of French novels,—records of women who marry where they cannot love, to serve the purposes of selfishness and ambition, and then make up for it by loving where they cannot marry. If all the women in America who have practised, and are practising, this species of moral agriculture should stand forth together, it would be seen that it is not for nothing that France has been called the society educator of the world. The apartments of the Follingsbee mansion, with their dreamy voluptuousness, were eminently adapted to be the background and scenery of a dramatic performance of this kind. There were vistas of drawing-rooms, with delicious boudoirs, like side chapels in a temple of Venus, with handsome Charlie Ferrola gliding in and out, or lecturing dreamily from the corner of some sofa on the last most important crinkle of the artistic rose-leaf, demonstrating conclusively that beauty was the only true morality, and that there was no sin but bad taste; and that nobody knew what good taste was but himself and his clique. There was the discussion, far from edifying, of modern improved theories of society, seen from an improved philosophic point of view; of all the peculiar wants and needs of etherealized beings, who have been refined and cultivated till it is the most difficult problem in the world to keep them comfortable, while there still remains the most imperative necessity that they should be made happy, though the whole universe were to be torn down and made over to effect it. The idea of not being happy, and in all respects as blissful as they could possibly be made, was one always assumed by the Follingsbee clique as an injustice to be wrestled with. Anybody that did not affect them agreeably, that jarred on their nerves, or interrupted the delicious reveries of existence with the sharp saw-setting of commonplace realities, in their view ought to be got rid of summarily, whether that somebody were husband or wife, parent or child. Natures that affected each other pleasantly were to spring together like dew-drops, and sail off on rosy clouds with each other to the land of Do-just-as-you-have-a-mind-to. The only thing never to be enough regretted, which prevented this immediate and blissful union of particles, was the impossibility of living on rosy clouds, and making them the means of conveyance to the desirable country before mentioned. Many of the fair _illuminatæ_, who were quite willing to go off with a kindred spirit, were withheld by the necessities of infinite pairs of French kid gloves, and gallons of cologne-water, and indispensable clouds of mechlin and point lace, which were necessary to keep around them the poetry of existence. Although it was well understood among them that the religion of the emotions is the only true religion, and that nothing is holy that you do not feel exactly like doing, and every thing is holy that you do; still these fair confessors lacked the pluck of primitive Christians, and could not think of taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, even for the sake of a kindred spirit. Hence the necessity of living in deplored marriage-bonds with husbands who could pay rent and taxes, and stand responsible for unlimited bills at Stewart’s and Tiffany’s. Hence the philosophy which allowed the possession of the body to one man, and of the soul to another, which one may see treated of at large in any writings of the day. As yet Lillie had been kept intact from all this sort of thing by the hard, brilliant enamel of selfishness. That little shrewd, gritty common sense, which enabled her to see directly through other people’s illusions, has, if we mistake not, by this time revealed itself to our readers as an element in her mind: but now there is to come a decided thrust at the heart of her womanhood; and we shall see whether the paralysis is complete, or whether the woman is alive. If Lillie had loved Harry Endicott poor, had loved him so much that at one time she had seriously balanced the possibility of going to housekeeping in a little unfashionable house, and having only one girl, and hand in hand with him walking the paths of economy, self-denial, and prudence,—the reader will see that Harry Endicott rich, Harry Endicott enthroned in fashionable success, Harry Endicott plus fast horses, splendid equipages, a fine city house, and a country house on the Hudson, was something still more dangerous to her imagination. But more than this was the stimulus of Harry Endicott out of her power, and beyond the sphere of her charms. She had a feverish desire to see him, but he never called. Forthwith she had a confidential conversation with her bosom friend, who entered into the situation with enthusiasm, and invited him to her receptions. But he didn’t come. The fact was, that Harry Endicott hated Lillie now, with that kind of hatred which is love turned wrong-side out. He hated her for the misery she had caused him, and was in some danger of feeling it incumbent on himself to go to the devil in a wholly unnecessary manner on that account. He had read the story of Monte Cristo, with its highly wrought plot of vengeance, and had determined to avenge himself on the woman who had so tortured him, and to make her feel, if possible, what he had felt. So, when he had discovered the hours of driving observed by Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie in the park, he took pains, from time to time, to meet them face to face, and to pass Lillie with an unrecognizing stare. Then he dashed in among Mrs. Follingsbee’s circle, making himself everywhere talked of, till they were beset on all hands by the inquiry, “Don’t you know young Endicott? why, I should think you would want to have him visit here.” After this had been played far enough, he suddenly showed himself one evening at Mrs. Follingsbee’s, and apologized in an off-hand manner to Lillie, when reminded of passing her in the park, that really he wasn’t thinking of meeting her, and didn’t recognize her, she was so altered; it had been so many years since they had met, &c. All in a tone of cool and heartless civility, every word of which was a dagger’s thrust not only into her vanity, but into the poor little bit of a real heart which fashionable life had left to Lillie. Every evening, after he had gone, came a long, confidential conversation with Mrs. Follingsbee, in which every word and look was discussed and turned, and all possible or probable inferences therefrom reported; after which Lillie often laid a sleepless head on a hot and tumbled pillow, poor, miserable child! suffering her punishment, without even the grace to know whence it came, or what it meant. Hitherto Lillie had been walking only in the limits of that kind of permitted wickedness, which, although certainly the remotest thing possible from the Christianity of Christ, finds a great deal of tolerance and patronage among communicants of the altar. She had lived a gay, vain, self-pleasing life, with no object or purpose but the simple one to get each day as much pleasurable enjoyment out of existence as possible. Mental and physical indolence and inordinate vanity had been the key-notes of her life. She hated every thing that required protracted thought, or that made trouble, and she longed for excitement. The passion for praise and admiration had become to her like the passion of the opium-eater for his drug, or of the brandy-drinker for his dram. But now she was heedlessly steering to what might prove a more palpable sin. Harry the serf, once half despised for his slavish devotion, now stood before her, proud and free, and tantalized her by the display he made of his indifference, and preference for others. She put forth every art and effort to recapture him. But the most dreadful stroke of fate of all was, that Rose Ferguson had come to New York to make a winter visit, and was much talked of in certain circles where Harry was quite intimate; and he professed himself, indeed, an ardent admirer at her shrine.	{ "id": "12354" }
20	_THE VAN ASTRACHANS._	THE Van Astrachans, a proud, rich old family, who took a certain defined position in New-York life on account of some ancestral passages in their family history, had invited Rose to spend a month or two with them; and she was therefore moving as a star in a very high orbit. Now, these Van Astrachans were one of those cold, glittering, inaccessible pinnacles in Mrs. Follingsbee’s fashionable Alp-climbing which she would spare no expense to reach if possible. It was one of the families for whose sake she had Mrs. John Seymour under her roof; and the advent of Rose, whom she was pleased to style one of Mrs. Seymour’s most intimate friends, was an unhoped-for stroke of good luck; because there was the necessity of calling on Rose, of taking her out to drive in the park, and of making a party on her account, from which, of course, the Van Astrachans could not stay away. It will be seen here that our friend, Mrs. Follingsbee, like all ladies whose watch-word is “Excelsior,” had a peculiar, difficult, and slippery path to climb. The Van Astrachans were good old Dutch-Reformed Christians, unquestioning believers in the Bible in general, and the Ten Commandments in particular,—persons whose moral constitutions had been nourished on the great stocky beefsteaks and sirloins of plain old truths which go to form English and Dutch nature. Theirs was a style of character which rendered them utterly hopeless of comprehending the etherealized species of holiness which obtained in the innermost circles of the Follingsbee _illuminati_. Mr. Van Astrachan buttoned under his coat not only many solid inches of what Carlyle calls “good Christian fat,” but also a pocket-book through which millions of dollars were passing daily in an easy and comfortable flow, to the great advantage of many of his fellow-creatures no less than himself; and somehow or other he was pig-headed in the idea that the Bible and the Ten Commandments had something to do with that stability of things which made this necessary flow easy and secure. He was slow-moulded, accurate, and fond of security; and was of opinion that nineteen centuries of Christianity ought to have settled a few questions so that they could be taken for granted, and were not to be kept open for discussion. Moreover, Mr. Van Astrachan having read the accounts of the first French revolution, and having remarked all the subsequent history of that country, was confirmed in his idea, that pitching every thing into pi once in fifty years was no way to get on in the affairs of this world. He had strong suspicions of every thing French, and a mind very ill adapted to all those delicate reasonings and shadings and speculations of which Mr. Charlie Ferrola was particularly fond, which made every thing in morals and religion an open question. He and his portly wife planted themselves, like two canons of the sanctuary, every Sunday, in the tip-top highest-priced pew of the most orthodox old church in New York; and if the worthy man sometimes indulged in gentle slumbers in the high-padded walls of his slip, it was because he was so well assured of the orthodoxy of his minister that he felt that no interest of society would suffer while he was off duty. But may Heaven grant us, in these days of dissolving views and general undulation, large armies of these solid-planted artillery on the walls of our Zion! Blessed be the people whose strength is to sit still! Much needed are they when the activity of free inquiry seems likely to chase us out of house and home, and leave us, like the dove in the deluge, no rest for the sole of our foot. Let us thank God for those Dutch-Reformed churches; great solid breakwaters, that stand as the dykes in their ancestral Holland to keep out the muddy waves of that sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt. But let us fancy with what quakings and shakings of heart Mrs. Follingsbee must have sought the alliance of these tremendously solid old Christians. They were precisely what she wanted to give an air of solidity to the cobweb glitter of her state. And we can also see how necessary it was that she should ostentatiously visit Charlie Ferrola’s wife, and speak of her as a darling creature, her particular friend, whom she was doing her very best to keep out of an early grave. Charlie Ferrola said that the Van Astrachans were obtuse; and so, to a certain degree, they were. In social matters they had a kind of confiding simplicity. They were so much accustomed to regard positive morals in the light of immutable laws of Nature, that it would not have been easy to have made them understand that sliding scale of estimates which is in use nowadays. They would probably have had but one word, and that a very disagreeable one, to designate a married woman who was in love with anybody but her husband. Consequently, they were the very last people whom any gossip of this sort could ever reach, or to whose ears it could have been made intelligible. Mr. Van Astrachan considered Dick Follingsbee a swindler, whose proper place was the State’s prison, and whose morals could only be mentioned with those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Nevertheless, as Mrs. Follingsbee made it a point of rolling up her eyes and sighing deeply when his name was mentioned,—as she attended church on Sunday with conspicuous faithfulness, and subscribed to charitable societies and all manner of good works,—as she had got appointed directress on the board of an orphan asylum where Mrs. Van Astrachan figured in association with her, that good lady was led to look upon her with compassion, as a worthy woman who was making the best of her way to heaven, notwithstanding the opposition of a dissolute husband. As for Rose, she was as fresh and innocent and dewy, in the hot whirl and glitter and glare of New York, as a waving spray of sweet-brier, brought in fresh with all the dew upon it. She really had for Lillie a great deal of that kind of artistic admiration which nice young girls sometimes have for very beautiful women older than themselves; and was, like almost every one else, somewhat bejuggled and taken in by that air of infantine sweetness and simplicity which had survived all the hot glitter of her life, as if a rose, fresh with dew, should lie unwilted in the mouth of a furnace. Moreover, Lillie’s face had a beauty this winter it had never worn: the softness of a real feeling, the pathos of real suffering, at times touched her face with something that was always wanting in it before. The bitter waters of sin that she would drink gave a strange feverish color to her cheek; and the poisoned perfume she would inhale gave a strange new brightness to her eyes. Rose sometimes looked on her and wondered; so innocent and healthy and light-hearted in herself, she could not even dream of what was passing. She had been brought up to love John as a brother, and opened her heart at once to his wife with a sweet and loyal faithfulness. When she told Mrs. Van Astrachan that Mrs. John Seymour was one of her friends from Springdale, married into a family with which she had grown up with great intimacy, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to the good lady that Rose should want to visit her; that she should drive with her, and call on her, and receive her at their house; and with her of course must come Mrs. Follingsbee. Mr. Van Astrachan made a dead halt at the idea of Dick Follingsbee. He never would receive _that_ man under his roof, he said, and he never would enter his house; and when Mr. Van Astrachan once said a thing of this kind, as Mr. Hosea Biglow remarks, “a meeting-house wasn’t sotter.” But then Mrs. Follingsbee’s situation was confidentially stated to Lillie, and by Lillie confidentially stated to Rose, and by Rose to Mrs. Van Astrachan; and it was made to appear how Dick Follingsbee had entirely abandoned his wife, going off in the ways of Balaam the son of Bosor, and all other bad ways mentioned in Scripture, habitually leaving poor Mrs. Follingsbee to entertain company alone, so that he was never seen at her parties, and had nothing to do with her. “So much the better for them,” remarked Mr. Van Astrachan. “In that case, my dear, I don’t see that it would do any harm for you to go to Mrs. Follingsbee’s party on Rose’s account. I never go to parties, as you know; and I certainly should not begin by going there. But still I see no objection to your taking Rose.” If Mr. Van Astrachan had seen objections, you never would have caught Mrs. Van Astrachan going; for she was one of your full-blooded women, who never in her life engaged to do a thing she didn’t mean to do: and having promised in the marriage service to obey her husband, she obeyed him plumb, with the air of a person who is fulfilling the prophecies; though her chances in this way were very small, as Mr. Van Astrachan generally called her “ma,” and obeyed all her orders with a stolid precision quite edifying to behold. He took her advice always, and was often heard naively to remark that Mrs. Van Astrachan and he were always of the same opinion,—an expression happily defining that state in which a man does just what his wife tells him to.	{ "id": "12354" }
21	_MRS. FOLLINGSBEE’S PARTY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT._	OUR vulgar idea of a party is a week or fortnight of previous discomfort and chaotic tergiversation, and the mistress of it all distracted and worn out with endless cares. Such a party bursts in on a well-ordered family state as a bomb bursts into a city, leaving confusion and disorder all around. But it would be a pity if such a life-long devotion to the arts and graces as Mrs. Follingsbee had given, backed by Dick Follingsbee’s fabulous fortune, and administered by the exquisite Charlie Ferrola, should not have brought forth some appreciable results. One was, that the great Castle of Indolence was prepared for the _fête_, with no more ripple of disturbance than if it had been a Nereid’s bower, far down beneath the reach of tempests, where the golden sand is never ruffled, and the crimson and blue sea flowers never even dream of commotion. Charlie Ferrola wore, it is true, a brow somewhat oppressed with care, and was kept tucked up on a rose-colored satin sofa, and served with lachrymæ Christi, and Montefiascone, and all other substitutes for the dews of Hybla, while he draughted designs for the floral arrangements, which were executed by obsequious attendants in felt slippers; and the whole process of arrangement proceeded like a dream of the lotus-eaters’ paradise. Madame de Tullegig was of course retained primarily for the adornment of Mrs. Follingsbee’s person. It was understood, however, on this occasion, that the composition of the costumes was to embrace both hers and Lillie’s, that they might appear in a contrasted tableau, and bring out each other’s points. It was a subject worthy a Parisian artiste, and drew so seriously on Madame de Tullegig’s brain-power, that she assured Mrs. Follingsbee afterwards that the effort of composition had sensibly exhausted her. Before we relate the events of that evening, as they occurred, we must give some little idea of the position in which the respective parties now stood. Harry Endicott, by his mother’s side, was related to Mrs. Van Astrachan. Mr. Van Astrachan had been, in a certain way, guardian to him; and his success in making his fortune was in consequence of capital advanced and friendly patronage thus accorded. In the family, therefore, he had the _entrée_ of a son, and had enjoyed the opportunity of seeing Rose with a freedom and frequency that soon placed them on the footing of old acquaintanceship. Rose was an easy person to become acquainted with in an ordinary and superficial manner. She was like those pellucid waters whose great clearness deceives the eye as to their depth. Her manners had an easy and gracious frankness; and she spoke right on, with an apparent simplicity and fearlessness that produced at first the impression that you knew all her heart. A longer acquaintance, however, developed depths of reserved thought and feeling far beyond what at first appeared. Harry, at first, had met her only on those superficial grounds of banter and _badinage_ where a gay young gentleman and a gay young lady may reconnoitre, before either side gives the other the smallest peep of the key of what Dr. Holmes calls the side-door of their hearts. Harry, to say the truth, was in a bad way when he first knew Rose: he was restless, reckless, bitter. Turned loose into society with an ample fortune and nothing to do, he was in danger, according to the homely couplet of Dr. Watts, of being provided with employment by that undescribable personage who makes it his business to look after idle hands. Rose had attracted him first by her beauty, all the more attractive to him because in a style entirely different from that which hitherto had captivated his imagination. Rose was tall, well-knit, and graceful, and bore herself with a sort of slender but majestic lightness, like a meadow-lily. Her well-shaped, classical head was set finely on her graceful neck, and she had a stag-like way of carrying it, that impressed a stranger sometimes as haughty; but Rose could not help that, it was a trick of nature. Her hair was of the glossiest black, her skin fair as marble, her nose a little, nicely-turned aquiline affair, her eyes of a deep violet blue and shadowed by long dark lashes, her mouth a little larger than the classical proportion, but generous in smiles and laughs which revealed perfect teeth of dazzling whiteness. There, gentlemen and ladies, is Rose Ferguson’s picture: and, if you add to all this the most attractive impulsiveness and self-unconsciousness, you will not wonder that Harry Endicott at first found himself admiring her, and fancied driving out with her in the park; and that when admiring eyes followed them both, as a handsome pair, Harry was well pleased. Rose, too, liked Harry Endicott. A young girl of twenty is not a severe judge of a handsome, lively young man, who knows far more of the world than she does; and though Harry’s conversation was a perfect Catherine-wheel of all sorts of wild talk,—sneering, bitter, and sceptical, and giving expression to the most heterodox sentiments, with the evident intention of shocking respectable authorities,—Rose rather liked him than otherwise; though she now and then took the liberty to stand upon her dignity, and opened her great blue eyes on him with a grave, inquiring look of surprise,—a look that seemed to challenge him to stand and defend himself. From time to time, too, she let fall little bits of independent opinion, well poised and well turned, that hit exactly where she meant they should; and Harry began to stand a little in awe of her. Harry had never known a woman like Rose; a woman so poised and self-centred, so cultivated, so capable of deep and just reflections, and so religious. His experience with women had not been fortunate, as has been seen in this narrative; and, insensibly to himself, Rose was beginning to exercise an influence over him. The sphere around her was cool and bright and wholesome, as different from the hot atmosphere of passion and sentiment and flirtation to which he had been accustomed, as a New-England summer morning from a sultry night in the tropics. Her power over him was in the appeal to a wholly different part of his nature,—intellect, conscience, and religious sensibility; and once or twice he found himself speaking to her quietly, seriously, and rationally, not from the purpose of pleasing her, but because she had aroused such a strain of thought in his own mind. There was a certain class of brilliant sayings of his, of a cleverly irreligious and sceptical nature, at which Rose never laughed: when this sort of firework was let off in her presence, she opened her eyes upon him, wide and blue, with a calm surprise intermixed with pity, but said nothing; and, after trying the experiment several times, he gradually felt this silent kind of look a restraint upon him. At the same time, it must not be conjectured that, at present, Harry Endicott was thinking of falling in love with Rose. In fact, he scoffed at the idea of love, and professed to disbelieve in its existence. And, beside all this, he was gratifying an idle vanity, and the wicked love of revenge, in visiting Lillie; sometimes professing for days an exclusive devotion to her, in which there was a little too much reality on both sides to be at all safe or innocent; and then, when he had wound her up to the point where even her involuntary looks and words and actions towards him must have compromised her in the eyes of others, he would suddenly recede for days, and devote himself exclusively to Rose; driving ostentatiously with her in the park, where he would meet Lillie face to face, and bow triumphantly to her in passing. All these proceedings, talked over with Mrs. Follingsbee, seemed to give promise of the most impassioned French romance possible. Rose walked through all her part in this little drama, wrapped in a veil of sacred ignorance. Had she known the whole, the probability is that she would have refused Harry’s acquaintance; but, like many another nice girl, she tripped gayly near to pitfalls and chasms of which she had not the remotest conception. Lillie’s want of self-control, and imprudent conduct, had laid her open to reports in certain circles where such reports find easy credence; but these were circles with which the Van Astrachans never mingled. The only accidental point of contact was the intimacy of Rose with the Seymour family; and Rose was the last person to understand an allusion if she heard it. The reading of Rose had been carefully selected by her father, and had not embraced any novels of the French romantic school; neither had she, like some modern young ladies, made her mind a highway for the tramping of every kind of possible fictitious character which a novelist might choose to draw, nor taken an interest in the dissections of morbid anatomy. In fact, she was old-fashioned enough to like Scott’s novels; and though she was just the kind of girl Thackeray would have loved, she never could bring her fresh young heart to enjoy his pictures of world-worn and decaying natures. The idea of sentimental flirtations and love-making on the part of a married woman was one so beyond her conception of possibilities that it would have been very difficult to make her understand or believe it. On the occasion of the Follingsbee party, therefore, Rose accepted Harry as an escort in simple good faith. She was by no means so wise as not to have a deal of curiosity about it, and not a little of dazed and dazzled sense of enjoyment in prospect of the perfect labyrinth of fairy-land which the Follingsbee mansion opened before her. On the eventful evening, Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie stood together to receive their guests,—the former in gold color, with magnificent point lace and diamond tiara; while Lillie in heavenly blue, with wreaths of misty tulle and pearl ornaments, seemed like a filmy cloud by the setting sun. Rose, entering on Harry Endicott’s arm, in the full bravery of a well-chosen toilet, caused a buzz of admiration which followed them through the rooms; but Rose was nothing to the illuminated eyes of Mrs. Follingsbee compared with the portly form of Mrs. Van Astrachan entering beside her, and spreading over her the wings of motherly protection. That much-desired matron, serene in her point lace and diamonds, beamed around her with an innocent kindliness, shedding respectability wherever she moved, as a certain Russian prince was said to shed diamonds. [Illustration: “Rose, entering on Harry Endicott’s arm.”] “Why, that is Mrs. Van Astrachan!” “You don’t tell me so! Is it possible?” “Which?” “Where is she?” “How in the world did she get here?” were the whispered remarks that followed her wherever she moved; and Mrs. Follingsbee, looking after her, could hardly suppress an exulting _Te Deum_. It was done, and couldn’t be undone. Mrs. Van Astrachan might not appear again at a _salon_ of hers for a year; but that could not do away the patent fact, witnessed by so many eyes, that she had been there once. Just as a modern newspaper or magazine wants only one article of a celebrated author to announce him as among their stated contributors for all time, and to flavor every subsequent issue of the journal with expectancy, so Mrs. Follingsbee exulted in the idea that this one evening would flavor all her receptions for the winter, whether the good lady’s diamonds ever appeared there again or not. In her secret heart, she always had the perception, when striving to climb up on this kind of ladder, that the time might come when she should be found out; and she well knew the absolute and uncomprehending horror with which that good lady would regard the French principles and French practice of which Charlie Ferrola and Co. were the expositors and exemplars. This was what Charlie Ferrola meant when he said that the Van Astrachans were obtuse. They never could be brought to the niceties of moral perspective which show one exactly where to find the vanishing point for every duty. Be that as it may, there, at any rate, she was, safe and sound; surrounded by people whom she had never met before, and receiving introductions to the right and left with the utmost graciousness. The arrangements for the evening had been made at the tea-table of the Van Astrachans with an innocent and trustful simplicity. “You know, dear,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan to Rose, “that I never like to stay long away from papa” (so the worthy lady called her husband); “and so, if it’s just the same to you, you shall let me have the carriage come for me early, and then you and Harry shall be left free to see it out. I know young folks must be young,” she said, with a comfortable laugh. “There was a time, dear, when my waist was not bigger than yours, that I used to dance all night with the best of them; but I’ve got bravely over that now.” [Illustration: THE VAN ASTRACHANS.] “Yes, Rose,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, “you mayn’t believe it, but ma there was the spryest dancer of any of the girls. You are pretty nice to look at, but you don’t quite come up to what she was in those days. I tell you, I wish you could have seen her,” said the good man, warming to his subject. “Why, I’ve seen the time when every fellow on the floor was after her.” “Papa,” says Mrs. Van Astrachan, reprovingly, “I wouldn’t say such things if I were you.” “Yes, I would,” said Rose. “Do tell us, Mr. Van Astrachan.” “Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mr. Van Astrachan: “you ought to have seen her in a red dress she used to wear.” “Oh, come, papa! what nonsense! Rose, I never wore a red dress in my life; it was a pink silk; but you know men never do know the names for colors.” “Well, at any rate,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, hardily, “pink or red, no matter; but I’ll tell you, she took all before her that evening. There were Stuyvesants and Van Rennselaers and Livingstons, and all sorts of grand fellows, in her train; but, somehow, I cut ’em out. There is no such dancing nowadays as there was when wife and I were young. I’ve been caught once or twice in one of their parties; and I don’t call it dancing. I call it draggle-tailing. They don’t take any steps, and there is no spirit in it.” “Well,” said Rose, “I know we moderns are very much to be pitied. Papa always tells me the same story about mamma, and the days when he was young. But, dear Mrs. Van Astrachan, I hope you won’t stay a moment, on my account, after you get tired. I suppose if you are just seen with me there in the beginning of the evening, it will matronize me enough; and then I have engaged to dance the ‘German’ with Mr. Endicott, and I believe they keep that up till nobody knows when. But I am determined to see the whole through.” “Yes, yes! see it all through,” said Mr. Van Astrachan. “Young people must be young. It’s all right enough, and you won’t miss my Polly after you get fairly into it near so much as I shall. I’ll sit up for her till twelve o’clock, and read my paper.” Rose was at first, to say the truth, bewildered and surprised by the perfect labyrinth of fairy-land which Charlie Ferrola’s artistic imagination had created in the Follingsbee mansion. Initiated people, who had travelled in Europe, said it put them in mind of the “Jardin Mabille;” and those who had not were reminded of some of the wonders of “The Black Crook.” There were apartments turned into bowers and grottoes, where the gas-light shimmered behind veils of falling water, and through pendant leaves of all sorts of strange water-plants of tropical regions. There were all those wonderful leaf-plants of every weird device of color, which have been conjured up by tricks of modern gardening, as Rappacini is said to have created his strange garden in Padua. There were beds of hyacinths and crocuses and tulips, made to appear like living gems by the jets of gas-light which came up among them in glass flowers of the same form. Far away in recesses were sofas of soft green velvet turf, overshadowed by trailing vines, and illuminated with moonlight-softness by hidden alabaster lamps. The air was heavy with the perfume of flowers, and the sound of music and dancing from the ballroom came to these recesses softened by distance. The Follingsbee mansion occupied a whole square of the city; and these enchanted bowers were created by temporary enlargements of the conservatory covering the ground of the garden. With money, and the Croton Water-works, and all the New-York greenhouses at disposal, nothing was impossible. There was in this reception no vulgar rush or crush or jam. The apartments opened were so extensive, and the attractions in so many different directions, that there did not appear to be a crowd anywhere. There was no general table set, with the usual liabilities of rush and crush; but four or five well-kept rooms, fragrant with flowers and sparkling with silver and crystal, were ready at any hour to minister to the guest whatever delicacy or dainty he or she might demand; and light-footed waiters circulated with noiseless obsequiousness through all the rooms, proffering dainties on silver trays. Mrs. Van Astrachan and Rose at first found themselves walking everywhere, with a fresh and lively interest. It was something quite out of the line of the good lady’s previous experience, and so different from any thing she had ever seen before, as to keep her in a state of placid astonishment. Rose, on the other hand, was delighted and excited; the more so that she could not help perceiving that she herself amid all these objects of beauty was followed by the admiring glances of many eyes. It is not to be supposed that a girl so handsome as Rose comes to her twentieth year without having the pretty secret made known to her in more ways than one, or that thus made known it is any thing but agreeable; but, on the present occasion, there was a buzz of inquiry and a crowd of applicants about her; and her dancing-list seemed in a fair way to be soon filled up for the evening, Harry telling her laughingly that he would let her off from every thing but the “German;” but that she might consider her engagement with him as a standing one whenever troubled with an application which for any reason she did not wish to accept. Harry assumed towards Rose that air of brotherly guardianship which a young man who piques himself on having seen a good deal of the world likes to take with a pretty girl who knows less of it. Besides, he rather valued himself on having brought to the reception the most brilliant girl of the evening. Our friend Lillie, however, was in her own way as entrancingly beautiful this evening as the most perfect mortal flesh and blood could be made; and Harry went back to her when Rose went off with her partners as a moth flies to a candle, not with any express intention of burning his wings, but simply because he likes to be dazzled, and likes the bitter excitement. He felt now that he had power over her,—a bad, a dangerous power he knew, with what of conscience was left in him; but he thought, “Let her take her own risk.” And so, many busy gossips saw the handsome young man, his great dark eyes kindled with an evil light, whirling in dizzy mazes with this cloud of flossy mist; out of which looked up to him an impassioned woman’s face, and eyes that said what those eyes had no right to say. There are times, in such scenes of bewilderment, when women are as truly out of their own control by nervous excitement as if they were intoxicated; and Lillie’s looks and words and actions towards Harry were as open a declaration of her feelings as if she had spoken them aloud to every one present. The scandals about them were confirmed in the eyes of every one that looked on; for there were plenty of people present in whose view of things the worst possible interpretation was the most probable one. Rose was in the way, during the course of the evening, of hearing remarks of the most disagreeable and startling nature with regard to the relations of Harry and Lillie to each other. They filled her with a sort of horror, as if she had come to an unwholesome place; while she indignantly repelled them from her thoughts, as every uncontaminated woman will the first suspicion of the purity of a sister woman. In Rose’s view it was monstrous and impossible. Yet when she stood at one time in a group to see them waltzing, she started, and felt a cold shudder, as a certain instinctive conviction of something not right forced itself on her. She closed her eyes, and wished herself away; wished that she had not let Mrs. Van Astrachan go home without her; wished that somebody would speak to Lillie and caution her; felt an indignant rising of her heart against Harry, and was provoked at herself that she was engaged to him for the “German.” She turned away; and, taking the arm of the gentleman with her, complained of the heat as oppressive, and they sauntered off together into the bowery region beyond. “Oh, now! where can I have left my fan?” she said, suddenly stopping. “Let me go back and get it for you,” said he of the whiskers who attended her. It was one of the dancing young men of New York, and it is no particular matter what his name was. “Thank you,” said Rose: “I believe I left it on the sofa in the yellow drawing-room.” He was gone in a moment. Rose wandered on a little way, through the labyrinth of flowers and shadowy trees and fountains, and sat down on an artificial rock where she fell into a deep reverie. Rising to go back, she missed her way, and became quite lost, and went on uneasily, conscious that she had committed a rudeness in not waiting for her attendant. At this moment she looked through a distant alcove of shrubbery, and saw Harry and Lillie standing together,—she with both hands laid upon his arm, looking up to him and speaking rapidly with an imploring accent. She saw him, with an angry frown, push Lillie from him so rudely that she almost fell backward, and sat down with her handkerchief to her eyes; he came forward hurriedly, and met the eyes of Rose fixed upon him. [Illustration: “She saw him, with an angry frown, push Lillie from him.”] “Mr. Endicott,” she said, “I have to ask a favor of you. Will you be so good as to excuse me from the ‘German’ to-night, and order my carriage?” “Why, Miss Ferguson, what is the matter?” he said: “what has come over you? I hope I have not had the misfortune to do any thing to displease you?” Without replying to this, Rose answered, “I feel very unwell. My head is aching violently, and I cannot go through the rest of the evening. I must go home at once.” She spoke it in a decided tone that admitted of no question. Without answer, Harry Endicott gave her his arm, accompanied her through the final leave-takings, went with her to the carriage, put her in, and sprang in after her. Rose sank back on her seat, and remained perfectly silent; and Harry, after a few remarks of his had failed to elicit a reply, rode by her side equally silent through the streets homeward. He had Mr. Van Astrachan’s latch-key; and, when the carriage stopped, he helped Rose to alight, and went up the steps of the house. “Miss Ferguson,” he said abruptly, “I have something I want to say to you.” “Not now, not to-night,” said Rose, hurriedly. “I am too tired; and it is too late.” “To-morrow then,” he said: “I shall call when you will have had time to be rested. Good-night!”	{ "id": "12354" }
22	_THE SPIDER-WEB BROKEN._	HARRY did not go back, to lead the “German,” as he had been engaged to do. In fact, in his last apologies to Mrs. Follingsbee, he had excused himself on account of his partner’s sudden indisposition,—a thing which made no small buzz and commotion; though the missing gap, like all gaps great and little in human society, soon found somebody to step into it: and the dance went on just as gayly as if they had been there. Meanwhile, there were in this good city of New York a couple of sleepless individuals, revolving many things uneasily during the night-watches, or at least that portion of the night-watches that remained after they reached home,—to wit, Mr. Harry Endicott and Miss Rose Ferguson. What had taken place in that little scene between Lillie and Harry, the termination of which was seen by Rose? We are not going to give a minute description. The public has already been circumstantially instructed by such edifying books as “Cometh up as a Flower,” and others of a like turn, in what manner and in what terms married women can abdicate the dignity of their sex, and degrade themselves so far as to offer their whole life, and their whole selves, to some reluctant man, with too much remaining conscience or prudence to accept the sacrifice. It was from some such wild, passionate utterances of Lillie that Harry felt a recoil of mingled conscience, fear, and that disgust which man feels when she, whom God made to be sought, degrades herself to seek. There is no edification and no propriety in highly colored and minute drawing of such scenes of temptation and degradation, though they are the stock and staple of some French novels, and more disgusting English ones made on their model. Harry felt in his own conscience that he had been acting a most unworthy part, that no advances on the part of Lillie could excuse his conduct; and his thoughts went back somewhat regretfully to the days long ago, when she was a fair, pretty, innocent girl, and he had loved her honestly and truly. Unperceived by himself, the character of Rose was exerting a powerful influence over him; and, when he met that look of pain and astonishment which he had seen in her large blue eyes the night before, it seemed to awaken many things within him. It is astonishing how blindly people sometimes go on as to the character of their own conduct, till suddenly, like a torch in a dark place, the light of another person’s opinion is thrown in upon them, and they begin to judge themselves under the quickening influence of another person’s moral magnetism. Then, indeed, it often happens that the graves give up their dead, and that there is a sort of interior resurrection and judgment. Harry did not seem to be consciously thinking of Rose, and yet the undertone of all that night’s uneasiness was a something that had been roused and quickened in him by his acquaintance with her. How he loathed himself for the last few weeks of his life! How he loathed that hot, lurid, murky atmosphere of flirtation and passion and French sentimentality in which he had been living! —atmosphere as hard to draw healthy breath in as the odor of wilting tuberoses the day after a party. Harry valued Rose’s good opinion as he had never valued it before; and, as he thought of her in his restless tossings, she seemed to him something as pure, as wholesome, and strong as the air of his native New-England hills, as the sweet-brier and sweet-fern he used to love to gather when he was a boy. She seemed of a piece with all the good old ways of New England,—its household virtues, its conscientious sense of right, its exact moral boundaries; and he felt somehow as if she belonged to that healthy portion of his life which he now looked back upon with something of regret. Then, what would she think of him? They had been friends, he said to himself; they had passed over those boundaries of teasing unreality where most young gentlemen and young ladies are content to hold converse with each other, and had talked together reasonably and seriously, saying in some hours what they really thought and felt. And Rose had impressed him at times by her silence and reticence in certain connections, and on certain subjects, with a sense of something hidden and veiled,—a reserved force that he longed still further to penetrate. But now, he said to himself, he must have fallen in her opinion. Why was she so cold, so almost haughty, in her treatment of him the night before? He felt in the atmosphere around her, and in the touch of her hand, that she was quivering like a galvanic battery with the suppressed force of some powerful emotion; and his own conscience dimly interpreted to him what it might be. To say the truth, Rose was terribly aroused. And there was a great deal in her to be aroused, for she had a strong nature; and the whole force of womanhood in her had never received such a shock. Whatever may be scoffingly said of the readiness of women to pull one another down, it is certain that the highest class of them have the feminine _esprit de corps_ immensely strong. The humiliation of another woman seems to them their own humiliation; and man’s lordly contempt for another woman seems like contempt of themselves. The deepest feeling roused in Rose by the scenes which she saw last night was concern for the honor of womanhood; and her indignation at first did not strike where we are told woman’s indignation does, on the woman, but on the man. Loving John Seymour as a brother from her childhood, feeling in the intimacy in which they had grown up as if their families had been one, the thoughts that had been forced upon her of his wife the night before had struck to her heart with the weight of a terrible affliction. She judged Lillie as a pure woman generally judges another,—out of herself,—and could not and would not believe that the gross and base construction which had been put upon her conduct was the true one. She looked upon her as led astray by inordinate vanity, and the hopeless levity of an undeveloped, unreflecting habit of mind. She was indignant with Harry for the part that he had taken in the affair, and indignant and vexed with herself for the degree of freedom and intimacy which she had been suffering to grow up between him and herself. Her first impulse was to break it off altogether, and have nothing more to say to or do with him. She felt as if she would like to take the short course which young girls sometimes take out of the first serious mortification or trouble in their life, and run away from it altogether. She would have liked to have packed her trunk, taken her seat on board the cars, and gone home to Springdale the next day, and forgotten all about the whole of it; but then, what should she say to Mrs. Van Astrachan? what account could she give for the sudden breaking up of her visit? Then, there was Harry going to call on her the next day! What ought she to say to him? On the whole, it was a delicate matter for a young girl of twenty to manage alone. How she longed to have the counsel of her sister or her mother! She thought of Mrs. Van Astrachan; but then, again, she did not wish to disturb that good lady’s pleasant, confidential relations with Harry, and tell tales of him out of school: so, on the whole, she had a restless and uncomfortable night of it. Mrs. Van Astrachan expressed her surprise at seeing Rose take her place at the breakfast-table the next morning. “Dear me!” she said, “I was just telling Jane to have some breakfast kept for you. I had no idea of seeing you down at this time.” “But,” said Rose, “I gave out entirely, and came away only an hour after you did. The fact is, we country girls can’t stand this sort of thing. I had such a terrible headache, and felt so tired and exhausted, that I got Mr. Endicott to bring me away before the ‘German. ’” “Bless me!” said Mr. Van Astrachan; “why, you’re not at all up to snuff! Why, Polly, you and I used to stick it out till daylight! didn’t we?” “Well, you see, Mr. Van Astrachan, I hadn’t anybody like you to stick it out with,” said Rose. “Perhaps that made the difference.” “Oh, well, now, I am sure there’s our Harry! I am sure a girl must be difficult, if he doesn’t suit her for a beau,” said the good gentleman. “Oh, Mr. Endicott is all well enough!” said Rose; “only, you observe, not precisely to me what you were to the lady you call Polly,—that’s all.” “Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Van Astrachan. “Well, to be sure, that does make a difference; but Harry’s a nice fellow, nice fellow, Miss Rose: not many fellows like him, as I think.” “Yes, indeed,” chimed in Mrs. Van Astrachan. “I haven’t a son in the world that I think more of than I do of Harry; he has such a good heart.” Now, the fact was, this eulogistic strain that the worthy couple were very prone to fall into in speaking of Harry to Rose was this morning most especially annoying to her; and she turned the subject at once, by chattering so fluently, and with such minute details of description, about the arrangements of the rooms and the flowers and the lamps and the fountains and the cascades, and all the fairy-land wonders of the Follingsbee party, that the good pair found themselves constrained to be listeners during the rest of the time devoted to the morning meal. It will be found that good young ladies, while of course they have all the innocence of the dove, do display upon emergencies a considerable share of the wisdom of the serpent. And on this same mother wit and wisdom, Rose called internally, when that day, about eleven o’clock, she was summoned to the library, to give Harry his audience. Truth to say, she was in a state of excited womanhood vastly becoming to her general appearance, and entered the library with flushed cheeks and head erect, like one prepared to stand for herself and for her sex. Harry, however, wore a mortified, semi-penitential air, that, on the first glance, rather mollified her. Still, however, she was not sufficiently clement to give him the least assistance in opening the conversation, by the suggestions of any of those nice little oily nothings with which ladies, when in a gracious mood, can smooth the path for a difficult confession. She sat very quietly, with her hands before her, while Harry walked tumultuously up and down the room. “Miss Ferguson,” he said at last, abruptly, “I know you are thinking ill of me.” Miss Ferguson did not reply. “I had hoped,” he said, “that there had been a little something more than mere acquaintance between us. I had hoped you looked upon me as a friend.” “I did, Mr. Endicott,” said Rose. “And you do not now?” “I cannot say that,” she said, after a pause; “but, Mr. Endicott, if we are friends, you must give me the liberty to speak plainly.” “That’s exactly what I want you to do!” he said impetuously; “that is just what I wish.” “Allow me to ask, then, if you are an early friend, and family connection of Mrs. John Seymour?” “I was an early friend, and am somewhat of a family connection.” “That is, I understand there has been a ground in your past history for you to be on a footing of a certain family intimacy with Mrs. Seymour; in that case, Mr. Endicott, I think you ought to have considered yourself the guardian of her honor and reputation, and not allowed her to be compromised on your account.” The blood flushed into Harry’s face; and he stood abashed and silent. Rose went on,— “I was shocked, I was astonished, last night, because I could not help overhearing the most disagreeable, the most painful remarks on you and her,—remarks most unjust, I am quite sure, but for which I fear you have given too much reason!” “Miss Ferguson,” said Harry, stopping as he walked up and down, “I confess I have been wrong and done wrong; but, if you knew all, you might see how I have been led into it. That woman has been the evil fate of my life. Years ago, when we were both young, I loved her as honestly as man could love a woman; and she professed to love me in return. But I was poor; and she would not marry me. She sent me off, yet she would not let me forget her. She would always write to me just enough to keep up hope and interest; and she knew for years that all my object in striving for fortune was to win her. At last, when a lucky stroke made me suddenly rich, and I came home to seek her, I found her married,—married, as she owns, without love,—married for wealth and ambition. I don’t justify myself,—I don’t pretend to; but when she met me with her old smiles and her old charms, and told me she loved me still, it roused the very devil in me. I wanted revenge. I wanted to humble her, and make her suffer all she had made me; and I didn’t care what came of it.” Harry spoke, trembling with emotion; and Rose felt almost terrified with the storm she had raised. “O Mr. Endicott!” she said, “was this worthy of you? was there nothing better, higher, more manly than this poor revenge? You men are stronger than we: you have the world in your hands; you have a thousand resources where we have only one. And you ought to be stronger and nobler according to your advantages; you ought to rise superior to the temptations that beset a poor, weak, ill-educated woman, whom everybody has been flattering from her cradle, and whom you, I dare say, have helped to flatter, turning her head with compliments, like all the rest of them. Come, now, is not there something in that?” “Well, I suppose,” said Harry, “that when Lillie and I were girl and boy together, I did flatter her, sincerely that is. Her beauty made a fool of me; and I helped make a fool of her.” “And I dare say,” said Rose, “you told her that all she was made for was to be charming, and encouraged her to live the life of a butterfly or canary-bird. Did you ever try to strengthen her principles, to educate her mind, to make her strong? On the contrary, haven’t you been bowing down and adoring her for being weak? It seems to me that Lillie is exactly the kind of woman that you men educate, by the way you look on women, and the way you treat them.” Harry sat in silence, ruminating. “Now,” said Rose, “it seems to me it’s the most cowardly and unmanly thing in the world for men, with every advantage in their hands, with all the strength that their kind of education gives them, with all their opportunities,—a thousand to our one,—to hunt down these poor little silly women, whom society keeps stunted and dwarfed for their special amusement.” “Miss Ferguson, you are very severe,” said Harry, his face flushing. “Well,” said Rose, “you have this advantage, Mr. Endicott: you know, if I am, the world will not be. Everybody will take your part; everybody will smile on you, and condemn her. That is generous, is it not? I think, after all, Noah Claypole isn’t so very uncommon a picture of the way that your lordly sex turn round and cast all the blame on ours. You will never make me believe in a protracted flirtation between a gentleman and lady, where at least half the blame does not lie on his lordship’s side. I always said that a woman had no need to have offers made her by a man she could not love, if she conducted herself properly; and I think the same is true in regard to men. But then, as I said before, you have the world on your side; nine persons out of ten see no possible harm in a man’s taking every advantage of a woman, if she will let him.” “But I care more for the opinion of the tenth person than of the nine,” said Harry; “I care more for what you think than any of them. Your words are severe; but I think they are just.” “O Mr. Endicott!” said Rose, “live for something higher than for what I think,—than for what any one thinks. Think how many glorious chances there are for a noble career for a young man with your fortune, with your leisure, with your influence! is it for you to waste life in this unworthy way? If I had your chances, I would try to do something worth doing.” Rose’s face kindled with enthusiasm; and Harry looked at her with admiration. “Tell me what I ought to do!” he said. “I cannot tell you,” said Rose; “but where there is a will there is a way: and, if you have the will, you will find the way. But, first, you must try and repair the mischief you have done to Lillie. By your own account of the matter, you have been encouraging and keeping up a sort of silly, romantic excitement in her. It is worse than silly; it is sinful. It is trifling with her best interests in this life and the life to come. And I think you must know that, if you had treated her like an honest, plain-spoken brother or cousin, without any trumpery of gallantry or sentiment, things would have never got to be as they are. You could have prevented all this; and you can put an end to it now.” “Honestly, I will try,” said Harry. “I will begin, by confessing my faults like a good boy, and take the blame on myself where it belongs, and try to make Lillie see things like a good girl. But she is in bad surroundings; and, if I were her husband, I wouldn’t let her stay there another day. There are no morals in that circle; it’s all a perfect crush of decaying garbage.” “I think,” said Rose, “that, if this thing goes no farther, it will gradually die out even in that circle; and, in the better circles of New York, I trust it will not be heard of. Mrs. Van Astrachan and I will appear publicly with Lillie; and if she is seen with us, and at this house, it will be sufficient to contradict a dozen slanders. She has the noblest, kindest husband,—one of the best men and truest gentlemen I ever knew.” “I pity him then,” said Harry. “He is to be pitied,” said Rose; “but his work is before him. This woman, such as she is, with all her faults, he has taken for better or for worse; and all true friends and good people, both his and hers, should help both sides to make the best of it.” “I should say,” said Harry, “that there is in this no best side.” “I think you do Lillie injustice,” said Rose. “There is, and must be, good in every one; and gradually the good in him will overcome the evil in her.” “Let us hope so,” said Harry. “And now, Miss Ferguson, may I hope that you won’t quite cross my name out of your good book? You’ll be friends with me, won’t you?” “Oh, certainly!” said Rose, with a frank smile. “Well, let’s shake hands on that,” said Harry, rising to go. Rose gave him her hand, and the two parted in all amity.	{ "id": "12354" }
23	_COMMON-SENSE ARGUMENTS._	HARRY went straightway from the interview to call upon Lillie, and had a conversation with her; in which he conducted himself like a sober, discreet, and rational man. It was one of those daylight, matter-of-fact kinds of talks, with no nonsense about them, in which things are called by their right names. He confessed his own sins, and took upon his own shoulders the blame that properly belonged there; and, having thus cleared his conscience, took occasion to give Lillie a deal of grandfatherly advice, of a very sedative tendency. They had both been very silly, he said; and the next step to being silly very often was to be wicked. For his part, he thought she ought to be thankful for so good a husband; and, for his own part, he should lose no time in trying to find a good wife, who would help him to be a good man, and do something worth doing in the world. He had given people occasion to say ill-natured things about her; and he was sorry for it. But, if they stopped being imprudent, the world would in time stop talking. He hoped, some of these days, to bring his wife down to see her, and to make the acquaintance of her husband, whom he knew to be a capital fellow, and one that she ought to be proud of. Thus, by the intervention of good angels, the little paper-nautilus bark of Lillie’s fortunes was prevented from going down in the great ugly maelstrom, on the verge of which it had been so heedlessly sailing. Harry was not slow in pushing the advantage of his treaty of friendship with Rose to its utmost limits; and, being a young gentleman of parts and proficiency, he made rapid progress. The interview of course immediately bred the necessity for at least a dozen more; for he had to explain this thing, and qualify that, and, on reflection, would find by the next day that the explanation and qualification required a still further elucidation. Rose also, after the first conversation was over, was troubled at her own boldness, and at the things that she in her state of excitement had said; and so was only too glad to accord interviews and explanations as often as sought, and, on the whole, was in the most favorable state towards her penitent. Hence came many calls, and many conferences with Rose in the library, to Mrs. Van Astrachan’s great satisfaction, and concerning which Mr. Van Astrachan had many suppressed chuckles and knowing winks at Polly. “Now, pa, don’t you say a word,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan. “Oh, no, Polly! catch me! I see a great deal, but I say nothing,” said the good gentleman, with a jocular quiver of his portly person. “I don’t say any thing,—oh, no! by no manner of means.” Neither at present did Harry; neither do we.	{ "id": "12354" }
24	None	_SENTIMENT v. SENSIBILITY. _ THE poet has feelingly sung the condition of “The banquet hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, and garlands dead,” &c., and so we need not cast the daylight of minute description on the Follingsbee mansion. Charlie Ferrola, however, was summoned away at early daylight, just as the last of the revellers were dispersing, by a hurried messenger from his wife; and, a few moments after he entered his house, he was standing beside his dying baby,—the little fellow whom we have seen brought down on Mrs. Ferrola’s arm, to greet the call of Mrs. Follingsbee. It is an awful thing for people of the flimsy, vain, pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking character of Charlie Ferrola, to be taken at times, as such people will be, in the grip of an inexorable power, and held face to face with the sternest, the most awful, the most frightful realities of life. Charlie Ferrola was one of those whose softness and pitifulness, like that of sentimentalists generally, was only one form of intense selfishness. The sight of suffering pained him; and his first impulse was to get out of the way of it. Suffering that he did not see was nothing to him; and, if his wife or children were in any trouble, he would have liked very well to have known nothing about it. But here he was, by the bedside of this little creature, dying in the agonies of slow suffocation, rolling up its dark, imploring eyes, and lifting its poor little helpless hands; and Charlie Ferrola broke out into the most violent and extravagant demonstrations of grief. The pale, firm little woman, who had watched all night, and in whose tranquil face a light as if from heaven was beaming, had to assume the care of him, in addition to that of her dying child. He was another helpless burden on her hands. There came a day when the house was filled with white flowers, and people came and went, and holy words were spoken; and the fairest flower of all was carried out, to return to the house no more. “That woman is a most unnatural and peculiar woman!” said Mrs. Follingsbee, who had been most active and patronizing in sending flowers, and attending to the scenic arrangements of the funeral. “It is just what I always said: she is a perfect statue; she’s no kind of feeling. There was Charlie, poor fellow! so sick that he had to go to bed, perfectly overcome, and have somebody to sit up with him; and there was that woman never shed a tear,—went round attending to every thing, just like a piece of clock-work. Well, I suppose people are happier for being made so; people that have no sensibility are better fitted to get through the world. But, gracious me! I can’t understand such people. There she stood at the grave, looking so calm, when Charlie was sobbing so that he could hardly hold himself up. Well, it really wasn’t respectable. I think, at least, I would keep my veil down, and keep my handkerchief up. Poor Charlie! he came to me at last; and I gave way. I was completely broken down, I must confess. Poor fellow! he told me there was no conceiving his misery. That baby was the very idol of his soul; all his hopes of life were centred in it. He really felt tempted to rebel at Providence. He said that he really could not talk with his wife on the subject. He could not enter into her submission at all; it seemed to him like a want of feeling. He said of course it wasn’t her fault that she was made one way and he another.” In fact, Mr. Charlie Ferrola took to the pink satin boudoir with a more languishing persistency than ever, requiring to be stayed with flagons, and comforted with apples, and receiving sentimental calls of condolence from fair admirers, made aware of the intense poignancy of his grief. A lovely poem, called “My Withered Blossom,” which appeared in a fashionable magazine shortly after, was the out-come of this experience, and increased the fashionable sympathy to the highest degree. Honest Mrs. Van Astrachan, however, though not acquainted with Mrs. Ferrola, went to the funeral with Rose; and the next day her carriage was seen at Mrs. Ferrola’s door. “You poor little darling!” she said, as she came up and took Mrs. Ferrola in her arms. “You must let me come, and not mind me; for I know all about it. I lost the dearest little baby once; and I have never forgotten it. There! there, darling!” she said, as the little woman broke into sobs in her arms. “Yes, yes; do cry! it will do your little heart good.” There are people who, wherever they move, freeze the hearts of those they touch, and chill all demonstration of feeling; and there are warm natures, that unlock every fountain, and bid every feeling gush forth. The reader has seen these two types in this story. * * * * * “Wife,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, coming to Mrs. V. confidentially a day or two after, “I wonder if you remember any of your French. What is a _liaison_?” “Really, dear,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan, whose reading of late years had been mostly confined to such memoirs as that of Mrs. Isabella Graham, Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress,” and Baxter’s “Saint’s Rest,” “it’s a great while since I read any French. What do you want to know for?” “Well, there’s Ben Stuyvesant was saying this morning, in Wall Street, that there’s a great deal of talk about that Mrs. Follingsbee and that young fellow whose baby’s funeral you went to. Ben says there’s a _liaison_ between her and him. I didn’t ask him what ’twas; but it’s something or other with a French name that makes talk, and I don’t think it’s respectable! I’m sorry that you and Rose went to her party; but then that can’t be helped now. I’m afraid this Mrs. Follingsbee is no sort of a woman, after all.” “But, pa, I’ve been to call on Mrs. Ferrola, poor little afflicted thing!” said Mrs. Van Astrachan. “I couldn’t help it! You know how we felt when little Willie died.” “Oh, certainly, Polly! call on the poor woman by all means, and do all you can to comfort her; but, from all I can find out, that handsome jackanapes of a husband of hers is just the poorest trash going. They say this Follingsbee woman half supports him. The time was in New York when such doings wouldn’t be allowed; and I don’t think calling things by French names makes them a bit better. So you just be careful, and steer as clear of her as you can.” “I will, pa, just as clear as I can; but you know Rose is a friend of Mrs. John Seymour; and Mrs. Seymour is visiting at Mrs. Follingsbee’s.” “Her husband oughtn’t to let her stay there another day,” said Mr. Van Astrachan. “It’s as much as any woman’s reputation is worth to be staying with her. To think of that fellow being dancing and capering at that Jezebel’s house the night his baby was dying!” “Oh, but, pa, he didn’t know it.” “Know it? he ought to have known it! What business has a man to get a woman with a lot of babies round her, and then go capering off? ’ Twasn’t the way I did, Polly, you know, when our babies were young. I was always on the spot there, ready to take the baby, and walk up and down with it nights, so that you might get your sleep; and I always had it my side of the bed half the night. I’d like to have seen myself out at a ball, and you sitting up with a sick baby! I tell you, that if I caught any of my boys up to such tricks, I’d cut them out of my will, and settle the money on their wives;—that’s what I would!” “Well, pa, I shall try and do all in my power for poor Mrs. Ferrola,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan; “and you may be quite sure I won’t take another step towards Mrs. Follingsbee’s acquaintance.” “It’s a pity,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, “that somebody couldn’t put it into Mr. John Seymour’s head to send for his wife home. “I don’t see, for my part, what respectable women want to be gallivanting and high-flying on their own separate account for, away from their husbands! Goods that are sold shouldn’t go back to the shop-windows,” said the good gentleman, all whose views of life were of the most old-fashioned, domestic kind. “Well, dear, we don’t want to talk to Rose about any of this scandal,” said his wife. “No, no; it would be a pity to put any thing bad into a nice girl’s head,” said Mr. Van Astrachan. “You might caution her in a general way, you know; tell her, for instance, that I’ve heard of things that make me feel you ought to draw off. Why can’t some bird of the air tell that little Seymour woman’s husband to get her home?” The little Seymour woman’s husband, though not warned by any particular bird of the air, was not backward in taking steps for the recall of his wife, as shall hereafter appear.	{ "id": "12354" }
25	_WEDDING BELLS._	SOME weeks had passed in Springdale while these affairs had been going on in New York. The time for the marriage of Grace had been set; and she had gone to Boston to attend to that preparatory shopping which even the most sensible of the sex discover to be indispensable on such occasions. Grace inclined, in the centre of her soul, to Bostonian rather than New-York preferences. She had the innocent impression that a classical severity and a rigid reticence of taste pervaded even the rebellious department of feminine millinery in the city of the Pilgrims,—an idea which we rather think young Boston would laugh down as an exploded superstition, young Boston’s leading idea at the present hour being apparently to outdo New York in New York’s imitation of Paris. In fact, Grace found it very difficult to find a milliner who, if left to her own devices, would not befeather and beflower her past all self-recognition, giving to her that generally betousled and fly-away air which comes straight from the _demi-monde_ of Paris. We apprehend that the recent storms of tribulation which have beat upon those fairy islands of fashion may scatter this frail and fanciful population, and send them by shiploads on missions of civilization to our shores; in which case, the bustle and animation and the brilliant display on the old turnpike, spoken of familiarly as the “broad road,” will be somewhat increased. Grace however managed, by the exercise of a good individual taste, to come out of these shopping conflicts in good order,—a handsome, well-dressed, charming woman, with everybody’s best wishes for, and sympathy in, her happiness. Lillie was summoned home by urgent messages from her husband, calling her back to take her share in wedding festivities. She left willingly; for the fact is that her last conversation with her cousin Harry had made the situation as uncomfortable to her as if he had unceremoniously deluged her with a pailful of cold water. There is a chilly, disagreeable kind of article, called common sense, which is of all things most repulsive and antipathetical to all petted creatures whose life has consisted in flattery. It is the kind of talk which sisters are very apt to hear from brothers, and daughters from fathers and mothers, when fathers and mothers do their duty by them; which sets the world before them as it is, and not as it is painted by flatterers. Those women who prefer the society of gentlemen, and who have the faculty of bewitching their senses, never are in the way of hearing from this cold matter-of-fact region; for them it really does not exist. Every phrase that meets their ear is polished and softened, guarded and delicately turned, till there is not a particle of homely truth left in it. They pass their time in a world of illusions; they demand these illusions of all who approach them, as the sole condition of peace and favor. All gentlemen, by a sort of instinct, recognize the woman who lives by flattery, and give her her portion of meat in due season; and thus some poor women are hopelessly buried, as suicides used to be in Scotland, under a mountain of rubbish, to which each passer-by adds one stone. It is only by some extraordinary power of circumstances that a man can be found to invade the sovereignty of a pretty woman with any disagreeable tidings; or, as Junius says, “to instruct the throne in the language of truth.” Harry was brought up to this point only by such a concurrence of circumstances. He was in love with another woman,—a ready cause for disenchantment. He was in some sort a family connection; and he saw Lillie’s conduct at last, therefore, through the plain, unvarnished medium of common sense. Moreover, he felt a little pinched in his own conscience by the view which Rose seemed to take of his part in the matter, and, manlike, was strengthened in doing his duty by being a little galled and annoyed at the woman whose charms had tempted him into this dilemma. So he talked to Lillie like a brother; or, in other words, made himself disagreeably explicit,—showed her her sins, and told her her duties as a married woman. The charming fair ones who sentimentally desire gentlemen to regard them as sisters do not bargain for any of this sort of brotherly plainness; and yet they might do it with great advantage. A brother, who is not a brother, stationed near the ear of a fair friend, is commonly very careful not to compromise his position by telling unpleasant truths; but, on the present occasion, Harry made a literal use of the brevet of brotherhood which Lillie had bestowed on him, and talked to her as the generality of _real_ brothers talk to their sisters, using great plainness of speech. He withered all her poor little trumpery array of hothouse flowers of sentiment, by treating them as so much garbage, as all men know they are. He set before her the gravity and dignity of marriage, and her duties to her husband. Last, and most unkind of all, he professed his admiration of Rose Ferguson, his unworthiness of her, and his determination to win her by a nobler and better life; and then showed himself to be a stupid blunderer by exhorting Lillie to make Rose her model, and seek to imitate her virtues. Poor Lillie! the world looked dismal and dreary enough to her. She shrunk within herself. Every thing was withered and disenchanted. All her poor little stock of romance seemed to her as disgusting as the withered flowers and crumpled finery and half-melted ice-cream the morning after a ball. In this state, when she got a warm, true letter from John, who always grew tender and affectionate when she was long away, couched in those terms of admiration and affection that were soothing to her ear, she really longed to go back to him. She shrunk from the dreary plainness of truth, and longed for flattery and petting and caresses once more; and she wrote to John an overflowingly tender letter, full of longings, which brought him at once to her side, the most delighted of men. When Lillie cried in his arms, and told him that she found New York perfectly hateful; when she declaimed on the heartlessness of fashionable life, and longed to go with him to their quiet home,—she was tolerably in earnest; and John was perfectly enchanted. Poor John! Was he a muff, a spoon? We think not. We understand well that there is not a _woman_ among our readers who has the slightest patience with Lillie, and that the most of them are half out of patience with John for his enduring tenderness towards her. But men were born and organized by nature to be the protectors of women; and, generally speaking, the stronger and more thoroughly manly a man is, the more he has of what phrenologists call the “pet organ,”—the disposition which makes him the charmed servant of what is weak and dependent. John had a great share of this quality. He was made to be a protector. He loved to protect; he loved every thing that was helpless and weak,—young animals, young children, and delicate women. He was a romantic adorer of womanhood, as a sort of divine mystery,—a never-ending poem; and when his wife was long enough away from him to give scope for imagination to work, when she no longer annoyed him with the friction of the sharp little edges of her cold and selfish nature, he was able to see her once more in the ideal light of first love. After all, she was his wife; and in that one word, to a good man, is every thing holy and sacred. He longed to believe in her and trust her wholly; and now that Grace was going from him, to belong to another, Lillie was more than ever his dependence. On the whole, if we must admit that John was weak, he was weak where strong and noble natures may most gracefully be so,—weak through disinterestedness, faith, and the disposition to make the best of the wife he had chosen. And so Lillie came home; and there was festivity and rejoicing. Grace found herself floated into matrimony on a tide bringing gifts and tokens of remembrance from everybody that had ever known her; for all were delighted with this opportunity of testifying a sense of her worth, and every hand was ready to help ring her wedding bells.	{ "id": "12354" }
26	_MOTHERHOOD._	IT is supposed by some that to become a mother is of itself a healing and saving dispensation; that of course the reign of selfishness ends, and the reign of better things begins, with the commencement of maternity. But old things do not pass away and all things become new by any such rapid process of conversion. A whole life spent in self-seeking and self-pleasing is no preparation for the most august and austere of woman’s sufferings and duties; and it is not to be wondered at if the untrained, untaught, and self-indulgent shrink from this ordeal, as Lillie did. The next spring, while the gables of the new cottage on Elm Street were looking picturesquely through the blossoming cherry-trees, and the smoke was curling up from the chimneys where Grace and her husband were cosily settled down together, there came to John’s house another little Lillie. The little creature came in terror and trembling. For the mother had trifled fearfully with the great laws of her being before its birth; and the very shadow of death hung over her at the time the little new life began. Lillie’s mother, now a widow, was sent for, and by this event installed as a fixture in her daughter’s dwelling; and for weeks the sympathies of all the neighborhood were concentrated upon the sufferer. Flowers and fruits were left daily at the door. Every one was forward in offering those kindly attentions which spring up so gracefully in rural neighborhoods. Everybody was interested for her. She was little and pretty and suffering; and people even forgot to blame her for the levities that had made her present trial more severe. As to John, he watched over her day and night with anxious assiduity, forgetting every fault and foible. She was now more than the wife of his youth; she was the mother of his child, enthroned and glorified in his eyes by the wonderful and mysterious experiences which had given this new little treasure to their dwelling. To say the truth, Lillie was too sick and suffering for sentiment. It requires a certain amount of bodily strength and soundness to feel emotions of love; and, for a long time, the little Lillie had to be banished from the mother’s apartment, as she lay weary in her darkened room, with only a consciousness of a varied succession of disagreeables and discomforts. Her general impression about herself was, that she was a much abused and most unfortunate woman; and that all that could ever be done by the utmost devotion of everybody in the house was insufficient to make up for such trials as had come upon her. A nursing mother was found for the little Lillie in the person of a goodly Irish woman, fair, fat, and loving; and the real mother had none of those awakening influences, from the resting of the little head in her bosom, and the pressure of the little helpless fingers, which magnetize into existence the blessed power of love. She had wasted in years of fashionable folly, and in a life led only for excitement and self-gratification, all the womanly power, all the capability of motherly giving and motherly loving that are the glory of womanhood. Kathleen, the white-armed, the gentle-bosomed, had all the simple pleasures, the tendernesses, the poetry of motherhood; while poor, faded, fretful Lillie had all the prose—the sad, hard, weary prose—of sickness and pain, unglorified by love. John did not well know what to do with himself in Lillie’s darkened room; where it seemed to him he was always in the way, always doing something wrong; where his feet always seemed too large and heavy, and his voice too loud; and where he was sure, in his anxious desire to be still and gentle, to upset something, or bring about some general catastrophe, and to go out feeling more like a criminal than ever. The mother and the nurse, stationed there like a pair of chief mourners, spoke in tones which experienced feminine experts seem to keep for occasions like these, and which, as Hawthorne has said, give an effect as if the voice had been dyed black. It was a comfort and relief to pass from the funeral gloom to the little pink-ruffled chamber among the cherry-trees, where the birds were singing and the summer breezes blowing, and the pretty Kathleen was crooning her Irish songs, and invoking the holy virgin and all the saints to bless the “darlin’” baby. [Illustration: “An’ it’s a blessin’ they brings wid ’em, sir.”] “An’ it’s a blessin’ they brings wid ’em to a house, sir; the angels comes down wid ’em. We can’t see ’em, sir; but, bless the darlin’, she can. And she smiles in her sleep when she sees ’em.” Rose and Grace came often to this bower with kisses and gifts and offerings, like a pair of nice fairy godmothers. They hung over the pretty little waxen miracle as she opened her great blue eyes with a silent, mysterious wonder; but, alas! all these delicious moments, this artless love of the new baby life, was not for the mother. She was not strong enough to enjoy it. Its cries made her nervous; and so she kept the uncheered solitude of her room without the blessing of the little angel. People may mourn in lugubrious phrase about the Irish blood in our country. For our own part, we think the rich, tender, motherly nature of the Irish girl an element a thousand times more hopeful in our population than the faded, washed-out indifferentism of fashionable women, who have danced and flirted away all their womanly attributes, till there is neither warmth nor richness nor maternal fulness left in them,—mere paper-dolls, without milk in their bosoms or blood in their veins. Give us rich, tender, warm-hearted Bridgets and Kathleens, whose instincts teach them the real poetry of motherhood; who can love unto death, and bear trials and pains cheerfully for the joy that is set before them. We are not afraid for the republican citizens that such mothers will bear to us. They are the ones that will come to high places in our land, and that will possess the earth by right of the strongest. Motherhood, to the woman who has lived only to be petted, and to be herself the centre of all things, is a virtual dethronement. Something weaker, fairer, more delicate than herself comes,—something for her to serve and to care for more than herself. It would sometimes seem as if motherhood were a lovely artifice of the great Father, to wean the heart from selfishness by a peaceful and gradual process. The babe is self in another form. It is so interwoven and identified with the mother’s life, that she passes by almost insensible gradations from herself to it; and day by day the distinctive love of self wanes as the child-love waxes, filling the heart with a thousand new springs of tenderness. But that this benignant transformation of nature may be perfected, it must be wrought out in Nature’s own way. Any artificial arrangement that takes the child away from the mother interrupts that wonderful system of contrivances whereby the mother’s nature and being shade off into that of the child, and her heart enlarges to a new and heavenly power of loving. When Lillie was sufficiently recovered to be fond of any thing, she found in her lovely baby only a new toy,—a source of pride and pleasure, and a charming occasion for the display of new devices of millinery. But she found Newport indispensable that summer to the re-establishment of her strength. “And really,” she said, “the baby would be so much better off quietly at home with mamma and Kathleen. The fact is,” she said, “she quite disregards me. She cries after Kathleen if I take her; so that it’s quite provoking.” And so Lillie, free and unencumbered, had her gay season at Newport with the Follingsbees, and the Simpkinses, and the Tompkinses, and all the rest of the nice people, who have nothing to do but enjoy themselves; and everybody flattered her by being incredulous that one so young and charming could possibly be a mother.	{ "id": "12354" }
27	_CHECKMATE._	IF ever our readers have observed two chess-players, both ardent, skilful, determined, who have been carrying on noiselessly the moves of a game, they will understand the full significance of this decisive term. Up to this point, there is hope, there is energy, there is enthusiasm; the pieces are marshalled and managed with good courage. At last, perhaps in an unexpected moment, one, two, three adverse moves follow each other, and the decisive words, _check-mate_, are uttered. This is a symbol of what often goes on in the game of life. Here is a man going on, indefinitely, conscious in his own heart that he is not happy in his domestic relations. There is a want of union between him and his wife. She is not the woman that meets his wants or his desires; and in the intercourse of life they constantly cross and annoy each other. But still he does not allow himself to look the matter fully in the face. He goes on and on, hoping that to-morrow will bring something better than to-day,—hoping that this thing, or that thing or the other thing will bring a change, and that in some indefinite future all will round and fashion itself to his desires. It is very slowly that a man awakens from the illusions of his first love. It is very unwillingly that he ever comes to the final conclusion that he has made _there_ the mistake of a whole lifetime, and that the woman to whom he gave his whole heart not only is not the woman that he supposed her to be, but never in any future time, nor by any change of circumstances, will become that woman,—that the difficulty is radical and final and hopeless. In “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” we read that the poor man, Christian, tried to persuade his wife to go with him on the pilgrimage to the celestial city; but that finally he had to make up his mind to go alone without her. Such is the lot of the man who is brought to the conclusion, positively and definitely, that his wife is always to be a hinderance, and never a help to him, in any upward aspiration; that whatever he does that is needful and right and true must be done, not by her influence, but in spite of it; that, if he has to swim against the hard, upward current of the river of life, he must do so with her hanging on his arm, and holding him back, and that he cannot influence and cannot control her. Such hours of disclosure to a man are among the terrible hidden tragedies of life,—tragedies such as are never acted on the stage. Such a time of disclosure came to John the year after Grace’s marriage; and it came in this way:— The Spindlewood property had long been critically situated. Sundry financial changes which were going on in the country had depreciated its profits, and affected it unfavorably. All now depended upon the permanency of one commercial house. John had been passing through an interval of great anxiety. He could not tell Lillie his trouble. He had been for months past nervously watching all the in-comings and out-goings of his family, arranged on a scale of reckless expenditure, which he felt entirely powerless to control. Lillie’s wishes were importunate. She was nervous and hysterical, wholly incapable of listening to reason; and the least attempt to bring her to change any of her arrangements, or to restrict any of her pleasures, brought tears and faintings and distresses and scenes of domestic confusion which he shrank from. He often tried to set before her the possibility that they might be obliged, for a time at least, to live in a different manner; but she always resisted every such supposition as so frightful, so dreadful, that he was utterly discouraged, and put off and off, hoping that the evil day never might arrive. But it did come at last. One morning, when he received by mail the tidings of the failure of the great house of Clapham & Co., he knew that the time had come when the thing could no longer be staved off. He was an indorser to a large amount on the paper of this house; and the crisis was inevitable. It was inevitable also that he must acquaint Lillie with the state of his circumstances; for she was going on with large arrangements and calculations for a Newport campaign, and sending the usual orders to New York, to her milliner and dressmaker, for her summer outfit. It was a cruel thing for him to be obliged to interrupt all this; for she seemed perfectly cheerful and happy in it, as she always was when preparing to go on a pleasure-seeking expedition. But it could not be. All this luxury and indulgence must be cut off at a stroke. He must tell her that she could not go to Newport; that there was no money for new dresses or new finery; that they should probably be obliged to move out of their elegant house, and take a smaller one, and practise for some time a rigid economy. John came into Lillie’s elegant apartments, which glittered like a tulip-bed with many colored sashes and ribbons, with sheeny silks and misty laces, laid out in order to be surveyed before packing. “Gracious me, John! what on earth is the matter with you to-day? How perfectly awful and solemn you do look!” “I have had bad news, this morning, Lillie, which I must tell you.” “Oh, dear me, John! what is the matter? Nobody is dead, I hope!” “No, Lillie; but I am afraid you will have to give up your Newport journey.” “Gracious, goodness, John! what for?” “To say the truth, Lillie, I cannot afford it.” “Can’t afford it? Why not? Why, John, what is the matter?” “Well, Lillie, just read this letter!” Lillie took it, and read it with her hands trembling. “Well, dear me, John! I don’t see any thing in this letter. If they have failed, I don’t see what that is to you!” “But, Lillie, I am indorser for them.” “How very silly of you, John! What made you indorse for them? Now that is too bad; it just makes me perfectly miserable to think of such things. I know _I_ should not have done so; but I don’t see why you need pay it. It is their business, anyhow.” “But, Lillie, I shall have to pay it. It is a matter of honor and honesty to do it; because I engaged to do it.” “Well, I don’t see why that should be! It isn’t your debt; it is their debt: and why need you do it? I am sure Dick Follingsbee said that there were ways in which people could put their property out of their hands when they got caught in such scrapes as this. Dick knows just how to manage. He told me of plenty of people that had done that, who were living splendidly, and who were received everywhere; and people thought just as much of them.” “O Lillie, Lillie! my child,” said John; “you don’t know any thing of what you are talking about! That would be dishonorable, and wholly out of the question. No, Lillie dear, the fact is,” he said, with a great gulp, and a deep sigh,—“the fact is, I have failed; but I am going to fail honestly. If I have nothing else left, I will have my honor and my conscience. But we shall have to give up this house, and move into a smaller one. Every thing will have to be given up to the creditors to settle the business. And then, when all is arranged, we must try to live economically some way; and perhaps we can make it up again. But you see, dear, there can be no more of this kind of expenses at present,” he said, pointing to the dresses and jewelry on the bed. “Well, John, I am sure I had rather die!” said Lillie, gathering herself into a little white heap, and tumbling into the middle of the bed. “I am sure if we have got to rub and scrub and starve so, I had rather die and done with it; and I hope I shall.” John crossed his arms, and looked gloomily out of the window. “Perhaps you had better,” he said. “I am sure I should be glad to.” “Yes, I dare say!” said Lillie; “that is all you care for me. Now there is Dick Follingsbee, he would be taking care of his wife. Why, he has failed three or four times, and always come out richer than he was before!” “He is a swindler and a rascal!” said John; “that is what he is.” “I don’t care if he is,” said Lillie, sobbing. “His wife has good times, and goes into the very first society in New York. People don’t care, so long as you are rich, what you do. Well, I am sure I can’t do any thing about it. I don’t know how to live without money,—that’s a fact! and I can’t learn. I suppose you would be glad to see me rubbing around in old calico dresses, wouldn’t you? and keeping only one girl, and going into the kitchen, like Miss Dotty Peabody? I think I see myself! And all just for one of your Quixotic notions, when you might just as well keep all your money as not. That is what it is to marry a reformer! I never have had any peace of my life on account of your conscience, always something or other turning up that you can’t act like anybody else. I should think, at least, you might have contrived to settle this place on me and poor little Lillie, that we might have a house to put our heads in.” “Lillie, Lillie,” said John, “this is too much! Don’t you think that _I_ suffer at all?” “I don’t see that you do,” said Lillie, sobbing. “I dare say you are glad of it; it is just like you. Oh, dear, I wish I had never been married!” “I _certainly_ do,” said John, fervently. “I suppose so. You see, it is nothing to you men; you don’t care any thing about these things. If you can get a musty old corner and your books, you are perfectly satisfied; and you don’t know when things are pretty, and when they are not: and so you can talk grand about your honor and your conscience and all that. I suppose the carriages and horses have got to be sold too?” “Certainly, Lillie,” said John, hardening his heart and his tone. “Well, well,” she said, “I wish you would go now and send ma to me. I don’t want to talk about it any more. My head aches as if it would split. Poor ma! She little thought when I married you that it was going to come to this.” John walked out of the room gloomily enough. He had received this morning his _check-mate_. All illusion was at an end. The woman that he had loved and idolized and caressed and petted and indulged, in whom he had been daily and hourly disappointed since he was married, but of whom he still hoped and hoped, he now felt was of a nature not only unlike, but opposed to his own. He felt that he could neither love nor respect her further. And yet she was his wife, and the mother of his daughter, and the only queen of his household; and he had solemnly promised at God’s altar that “forsaking all others, he would keep only unto her, so long as they both should live, for better, for worse,” John muttered to himself,—“for better, for worse. This is the worse; and oh, it is dreadful!” In all John’s hours of sorrow and trouble, the instinctive feeling of his heart was to go back to the memory of his mother; and the nearest to his mother was his sister Grace. In this hour of his blind sorrow, he walked directly over to the little cottage on Elm Street, which Grace and her husband had made a perfectly ideal home. When he came into the parlor, Grace and Rose were sitting together with an open letter lying between them. It was evident that some crisis of tender confidence had passed between them; for the tears were hardly dry on Rose’s cheeks. Yet it was not painful, whatever it was; for her face was radiant with smiles, and John thought he had never seen her look so lovely. At this moment the truth of her beautiful and lovely womanhood, her sweetness and nobleness of nature, came over him, in bitter contrast with the scene he had just passed through, and the woman he had left. “What do you think, John?” said Grace; “we have some congratulations here to give! Rose is engaged to Harry Endicott.” “Indeed!” said John, “I wish her joy.” “But what is the matter, John?” said both women, looking up, and seeing something unusual in his face. “Oh, trouble!” said John,—“trouble upon us all. Gracie and Rose, the Spindlewood Mills have failed.” “Is it possible?” was the exclamation of both. “Yes, indeed!” said John; “you see, the thing has been running very close for the last six months; and the manufacturing business has been looking darker and darker. But still we could have stood it if the house of Clapham & Co. had stood; but they have gone to smash, Gracie. I had a letter this morning, telling me of it.” Both women stood a moment as if aghast; for the Ferguson property was equally involved. “Poor papa!” said Rose; “this will come hard on him.” “I know it,” said John, bitterly. “It is more for others that I feel than for myself,—for all that are involved must suffer with me.” “But, after all, John dear,” said Rose, “don’t feel so about us at any rate. We shall do very well. People that fail honorably always come right side up at last; and, John, how good it is to think, whatever you lose, you cannot lose your best treasure,—your true noble heart, and your true friends. I feel this minute that we shall all know each other better, and be more precious to each other for this very trouble.” John looked at her through his tears. “Dear Rose,” he said, “you are an angel; and from my soul I congratulate the man that has got _you_. He that has you would be rich, if he lost the whole world.” “You are too good to me, all of you,” said Rose. “But now, John, about that bad news—let me break it to papa and mamma; I think I can do it best. I know when they feel brightest in the day; and I don’t want it to come on them suddenly: but I can put it in the very best way. How fortunate that I am just engaged to Harry! Harry is a perfect prince in generosity. You don’t know what a good heart he has; and it happens so fortunately that we have him to lean on just now. Oh, I’m sure we shall find a way out of these troubles, never fear.” And Rose took the letter, and left John and Grace together. “O Gracie, Gracie!” said John, throwing himself down on the old chintz sofa, and burying his face in his hands, “what a woman there is! O Gracie! I wish I was dead! Life is played out with me. I haven’t the least desire to live. I can’t get a step farther.” “O John, John! don’t talk so!” said Grace, stooping over him. “Why, you will recover from this! You are young and strong. It will be settled; and you can work your way up again.” “It is not the money, Grace; I could let that go. It is that I have nothing to live for,—nobody and nothing. My wife, Gracie! she is worse than nothing,—worse, oh! infinitely worse than nothing! She is a chain and a shackle. She is my obstacle. She tortures me and hinders me every way and everywhere. There will never be a home for me where she is; and, because she is there, no other woman can make a home for me. Oh, I wish she would go away, and stay away! I would not care if I never saw her face again.” [Illustration: “O Gracie! I wish I was dead!”] There was something shocking and terrible to Grace about this outpouring. It was dreadful to her to be the recipient of such a confidence, to hear these words spoken, and to more than suspect their truth. She was quite silent for a few moments, as he still lay with his face down, buried in the sofa-pillow. Then she went to her writing-desk, took out a little ivory miniature of their mother, came and sat down by him, and laid her hand on his head. “John,” she said, “look at this.” He raised his head, took it from her hand, and looked at it. Soon she saw the tears dropping over it. “John,” she said, “let me say to you now what I think our mother would have said. The great object of life is not happiness; and, when we have lost our own personal happiness, we have not lost all that life is worth living for. No, John, the very best of life often lies beyond that. When we have learned to let ourselves go, then we may find that there is a better, a nobler, and a truer life for us.” “I _have_ given up,” said John in a husky voice. “I have lost _all_.” “Yes,” replied Grace, steadily, “I know perfectly well that there is very little hope of personal and individual happiness for you in your marriage for years to come. Instead of a companion, a friend, and a helper, you have a moral invalid to take care of. But, John, if Lillie had been stricken with blindness, or insanity, or paralysis, you would not have shrunk from your duty to her; and, because the blindness and paralysis are moral, you will not shrink from it, will you? You sacrifice all your property to pay an indorsement for a debt that is not yours; and why do you do it? Because society rests on every man’s faithfulness to his engagements. John, if you stand by a business engagement with this faithfulness, how much more should you stand by that great engagement which concerns all other families and the stability of all society. Lillie is your wife. You were free to choose; and you chose her. She is the mother of your child; and, John, what that daughter is to be depends very much on the steadiness with which you fulfil your duties to the mother. I know that Lillie is a most undeveloped and uncongenial person; I know how little you have in common: but your duties are the same as if she were the best and the most congenial of wives. It is every man’s duty to make the best of his marriage.” “But, Gracie,” said John, “is there any thing to be made of her?” “You will never make me believe, John, that there are any human beings absolutely without the capability of good. They may be very dark, and very slow to learn, and very far from it; but steady patience and love and well-doing will at last tell upon any one.” “But, Gracie, if you could have heard how utterly without principle she is: urging me to put my property out of my hands dishonestly, to keep her in luxury!” “Well, John, you must have patience with her. Consider that she has been unfortunate in her associates. Consider that she has been a petted child all her life, and that you have helped to pet her. Consider how much your sex always do to weaken the moral sense of women, by liking and admiring them for being weak and foolish and inconsequent, so long as it is pretty and does not come in your way. I do not mean you in particular, John; but I mean that the general course of society releases pretty women from any sense of obligation to be constant in duty, or brave in meeting emergencies. You yourself have encouraged Lillie to live very much like a little humming-bird.” “Well, I thought,” said John, “that she would in time develop into something better.” “Well, there lies your mistake; you expected too much. The work of years is not to be undone in a moment; and you must take into account that this is Lillie’s first adversity. You may as well make up your mind not to expect her to be reasonable. It seems to me that we can make up our minds to bear any thing that we know must come; and you may as well make up yours, that, for a long time, you will have to carry Lillie as a burden. But then, you must think that she is your daughter’s mother, and that it is very important for the child that she should respect and honor her mother. You must treat her with respect and honor, even in her weaknesses. We all must. We all must help Lillie as we can to bear this trial, and sympathize with her in it, unreasonable as she may seem; because, after all, John, it is a real trial to her.” “I cannot see, for my part,” said John, “that she loves any thing.” “The power of loving may be undeveloped in her, John; but it will come, perhaps, later in life. At all events take this comfort to yourself,—that, when you are doing your duty by your wife, when you are holding her in her place in the family, and teaching her child to respect and honor her, you are putting her in God’s school of love. If we contend with and fly from our duties, simply because they gall us and burden us, we go against every thing; but if we take them up bravely, then every thing goes with us. God and good angels and good men and all good influences are working with us when we are working for the right. And in this way, John, you may come to happiness; or, if you do not come to personal happiness, you may come to something higher and better. You know that you think it nobler to be an honest man than a rich man; and I am sure that you will think it better to be a good man than to be a happy one. Now, dear John, it is not I that say these things, I think; but it seems to me it is what our mother would say, if she should speak to you from where she is. And then, dear brother, it will all be over soon, this life-battle; and the only thing is, to come out victorious.” “Gracie, you are right,” said John, rising up: “I see it myself. I will brace up to my duty. Couldn’t you try and pacify Lillie a little, poor girl? I suppose I have been rough with her.” “Oh, yes, John, I will go up and talk with Lillie, and condole with her; and perhaps we shall bring her round. And then when my husband comes home next week, we’ll have a family palaver, and he will find some ways and means of setting this business straight, that it won’t be so bad as it looks now. There may be arrangements made when the creditors come together. My impression is that, whenever people find a man really determined to arrange a matter of this kind honorably, they are all disposed to help him; so don’t be cast down about the business. As for Lillie’s discontent, treat it as you would the crying of your little daughter for its sugar-plums, and do not expect any thing more of her just now than there is.” * * * * * We have brought our story up to this point. We informed our readers in the beginning that it was not a novel, but a story with a moral; and, as people pick all sorts of strange morals out of stories, we intend to put conspicuously into our story exactly what the moral of it is. Well, then, it has been very surprising to us to see in these our times that some people, who really at heart have the interest of women upon their minds, have been so short-sighted and reckless as to clamor for an easy dissolution of the marriage-contract, as a means of righting their wrongs. Is it possible that they do not see that this is a liberty which, once granted, would always tell against the weaker sex? If the woman who finds that she has made a mistake, and married a man unkind or uncongenial, may, on the discovery of it, leave him and seek her fortune with another, so also may a man. And what will become of women like Lillie, when the first gilding begins to wear off, if the man who has taken one of them shall be at liberty to cast her off and seek another? Have we not enough now of miserable, broken-winged butterflies, that sink down, down, down into the mud of the street? But are women-reformers going to clamor for having every woman turned out helpless, when the man who has married her, and made her a mother, discovers that she has not the power to interest him, and to help his higher spiritual development? It was because woman is helpless and weak, and because Christ was her great Protector, that he made the law of marriage irrevocable. “Whosoever putteth away his wife causeth her to commit adultery.” If the sacredness of the marriage-contract did not hold, if the Church and all good men and all good women did not uphold it with their might and main, it is easy to see where the career of many women like Lillie would end. Men have the power to reflect before the choice is made; and that is the only proper time for reflection. But, when once marriage is made and consummated, it should be as fixed a fact as the laws of nature. And they who suffer under its stringency should suffer as those who endure for the public good. “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not, he shall enter into the tabernacle of the Lord.”	{ "id": "12354" }
28	_AFTER THE STORM._	THE painful and unfortunate crises of life often arise and darken like a thunder-storm, and seem for the moment perfectly terrific and overwhelming; but wait a little, and the cloud sweeps by, and the earth, which seemed about to be torn to pieces and destroyed, comes out as good as new. Not a bird is dead; not a flower killed: and the sun shines just as he did before. So it was with John’s financial trouble. When it came to be investigated and looked into, it proved much less terrible than had been feared. It was not utter ruin. The high character which John bore for honor and probity, the general respect which was felt for him by all to whom he stood indebted, led to an arrangement by which the whole business was put into his hands, and time given him to work it through. His brother-in-law came to his aid, advancing money, and entering into the business with him. Our friend Harry Endicott was only too happy to prove his devotion to Rose by offers of financial assistance. In short, there seemed every reason to hope that, after a period of somewhat close sailing, the property might be brought into clear water again, and go on even better than before. To say the truth, too, John was really relieved by that terrible burst of confidence in his sister. It is a curious fact, that giving full expression to bitterness of feeling or indignation against one we love seems to be such a relief, that it always brings a revulsion of kindliness. John never loved his sister so much as when he heard her plead his wife’s cause with him; for, though in some bitter, impatient hour a man may feel, which John did, as if he would be glad to sunder all ties, and tear himself away from an uncongenial wife, yet a good man never can forget the woman that once he loved, and who is the mother of his children. Those sweet, sacred visions and illusions of first love will return again and again, even after disenchantment; and the better and the purer the man is, the more sacred is the appeal to him of woman’s weakness. Because he is strong, and she is weak, he feels that it would be unmanly to desert her; and, if there ever was any thing for which John thanked his sister, it was when she went over and spent hours with his wife, patiently listening to her complainings, and soothing her as if she had been a petted child. All the circle of friends, in a like manner, bore with her for his sake. Thanks to the intervention of Grace’s husband and of Harry, John was not put to the trial and humiliation of being obliged to sell the family place, although constrained to live in it under a system of more rigid economy. Lillie’s mother, although quite a commonplace woman as a companion, had been an economist in her day; she had known how to make the most of straitened circumstances, and, being put to it, could do it again. To be sure, there was an end of Newport gayeties; for Lillie vowed and declared that she would not go to Newport and take cheap board, and live without a carriage. She didn’t want the Follingsbees and the Tompkinses and the Simpkinses talking about her, and saying that they had failed. Her mother worked like a servant for her in smartening her up, and tidying her old dresses, of which one would think that she had a stock to last for many years. And thus, with everybody sympathizing with her, and everybody helping her, Lillie subsided into enacting the part of a patient, persecuted saint. She was touchingly resigned, and wore an air of pleasing melancholy. John had asked her pardon for all the hasty words he said to her in the terrible interview; and she had forgiven him with edifying meekness. “Of course,” she remarked to her mother, “she knew he would be sorry for the way he had spoken to her; and she was very glad that he had the grace to confess it.” So life went on and on with John. He never forgot his sister’s words, but received them into his heart as a message from his mother in heaven. From that time, no one could have judged by any word, look, or action of his that his wife was not what she had always been to him. Meanwhile Rose was happily married, and settled down in the Ferguson place; where her husband and she formed one family with her parents. It was a pleasant, cosey, social, friendly neighborhood. After all, John found that his cross was not so very heavy to carry, when once he had made up his mind that it must be borne. By never expecting much, he was never disappointed. Having made up his mind that he was to serve and to give without receiving, he did it, and began to find pleasure in it. By and by, the little Lillie, growing up by her mother’s side, began to be a compensation for all he had suffered. The little creature inherited her mother’s beauty, the dazzling delicacy of her complexion, the abundance of her golden hair; but there had been given to her also her father’s magnanimous and generous nature. Lillie was a selfish, exacting mother; and such women often succeed in teaching to their children patience and self-denial. As soon as the little creature could walk, she was her father’s constant play-fellow and companion. He took her with him everywhere. He was never weary of talking with her and playing with her; and gradually he relieved the mother of all care of her early training. When, in time, two others were added to the nursery troop, Lillie became a perfect model of a gracious, motherly, little older sister. Did all this patience and devotion of the husband at last awaken any thing like love in the wife? Lillie was not naturally rich in emotion. Under the best education and development, she would have been rather wanting in the loving power; and the whole course of her education had been directed to suppress what little she had, and to concentrate all her feelings upon herself. The factitious and unnatural life she had lived so many years had seriously undermined the stamina of her constitution; and, after the birth of her third child, her health failed altogether. Lillie thus became in time a chronic invalid, exacting, querulous, full of troubles and wants which tasked the patience of all around her. During all these trying years, her husband’s faithfulness never faltered. As he gradually retrieved his circumstances, she was first in every calculation. Because he knew that here lay his greatest temptation, here he most rigidly performed his duty. Nothing that money could give to soften the weariness of sickness was withheld; and John was for hours and hours, whenever he could spare the time, himself a personal, assiduous, unwearied attendant in the sick-room.	{ "id": "12354" }
29	_THE NEW LILLIE._	[Illustration] WE have but one scene more before our story closes. It is night now in Lillie’s sick-room; and her mother is anxiously arranging the drapery, to keep the fire-light from her eyes, stepping noiselessly about the room. She lies there behind the curtains, on her pillow,—the wreck and remnant only of what was once so beautiful. During all these years, when the interests and pleasures have been slowly dropping, leaf by leaf, and passing away like fading flowers, Lillie has learned to do much thinking. It sometimes seems to take a stab, a thrust, a wound, to open in some hearts the capacity of deep feeling and deep thought. There are things taught by suffering that can be taught in no other way. By suffering sometimes is wrought out in a person the power of loving, and of appreciating love. During the first year, Lillie had often seemed to herself in a sort of wild, chaotic state. The coming in of a strange new spiritual life was something so inexplicable to her that it agitated and distressed her; and sometimes, when she appeared more petulant and fretful than usual, it was only the stir and vibration on her weak nerves of new feelings, which she wanted the power to express. These emotions at first were painful to her. She felt weak, miserable, and good for nothing. It seemed to her that her whole life had been a wretched cheat, and that she had ill repaid the devotion of her husband. At first these thoughts only made her bitter and angry; and she contended against them. But, as she sank from day to day, and grew weaker and weaker, she grew more gentle; and a better spirit seemed to enter into her. On this evening that we speak of, she had made up her mind that she would try and tell her husband some of the things that were passing in her mind. “Tell John I want to see him,” she said to her mother. “I wish he would come and sit with me.” This was a summons for which John invariably left every thing. He laid down his book as the word was brought to him, and soon was treading noiselessly at her bedside. “Well, Lillie dear,” he said, “how are you?” She put out her little wasted hand; “John dear,” she said, “sit down; I have something that I want to say to you. I have been thinking, John, that this can’t last much longer.” “What can’t last, Lillie?” said John, trying to speak cheerfully. “I mean, John, that I am going to leave you soon, for good and all; and I should not think you would be sorry either.” “Oh, come, come, my girl, it won’t do to talk so!” said John, patting her hand. “You must not be blue.” “And so, John,” said Lillie, going on without noticing this interruption, “I wanted just to tell you, before I got any weaker, that I know and feel just how patient and noble and good you have always been to me.” “O Lillie darling!” said John, “why shouldn’t I be? Poor little girl, how much you have suffered!” “Well, now, John, I know perfectly well that I have never been the wife that I ought to be to you. You know it too; so don’t try to say anything about it. I was never the woman to have made you happy; and it was not fair in me to marry you. I have lived a dreadfully worldly, selfish life. And now, John, I am come to the end. You dear good man, your trials with me are almost over; but I want you to know that you really have succeeded. John, I do love you now with all my heart, though I did not love you when I married you. And, John, I do feel that God will take pity on me, poor and good for nothing as I am, just because I see how patient and kind you have always been to me when I have been so very provoking. You see it has made me think how good God must be,—because, dear, we know that he is better than the best of us.” “O Lillie, Lillie!” said John, leaning over her, and taking her in his arms, “do live, I want you to live. Don’t leave me now, now that you really love me!” “Oh, no, John! it is best as it is,—I think I should not have strength to be _very_ good, if I were to get well; and you would still have your little cross to carry. No, dear, it is all right. And, John, you will have the best of me in our Lillie. She looks like me: but, John, she has your good heart; and she will be more to you than I could be. She is just as sweet and unselfish as I _was_ selfish. I don’t think I am quite so bad now; and I think, if I lived, I should try to be a great deal better.” “O Lillie! I cannot bear to part with you! I never have ceased to love you; and I never have loved any other woman.” “I know that, John. Oh! how much truer and better you are than I have been! But I like to think that you love me,—I like to think that you will be sorry when I am gone, bad as I am, or _was_; for I insist on it that I am a little better than I was. You remember that story of Undine you read me one day? It seems as if most of my life I have been like Undine before her soul came into her. But this last year I have felt the coming in of a soul. It has troubled me; it has come with a strange kind of pain. I have never suffered so much. But it has done me good—it has made me feel that I have an immortal soul, and that you and I, John, shall meet in some better place hereafter. —And there you will be rewarded for all your goodness to me.” As John sat there, and held the little frail hand, his thoughts went back to the time when the wild impulse of his heart had been to break away from this woman, and never see her face again; and he gave thanks to God, who had led him in a better way. . . . . . . . . And so, at last, passed away the little story of Lillie’s life. But in the home which she has left now grows another Lillie, fairer and sweeter than she,—the tender confidant, the trusted friend of her father. And often, when he lays his hand on her golden head, he says, “Dear child, how like your mother you look!” Of all that was painful in that experience, nothing now remains. John thinks of her only as he thought of her in the fair illusion of first love,—the dearest and most sacred of all illusions. The Lillie who guides his household, and is so motherly to the younger children; who shares every thought of his heart; who enters into every feeling and sympathy,—she is the pure reward of his faithfulness and constancy. She is a sacred and saintly Lillie, springing out of the sod where he laid her mother, forgetting all her faults for ever. [Illustration] Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son. * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 47, “embroided” changed to “embroidered” (embroidered under-linen) Page 79, “wo ld” changed to “world” (do it for the world) Page 203, “spirt” changed to “spirit” (little spirit of gayety) Page 223, “Syndenham” changed to “Sydenham” (with which Walter Sydenham was)	{ "id": "12354" }
1	The Three Cranes in the Vintry.	Adjoining the Vintry Wharf, and at the corner of a narrow lane communicating with Thames Street, there stood, in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, a tavern called the Three Cranes. This old and renowned place of entertainment had then been in existence more than two hundred years, though under other designations. In the reign of Richard II., when it was first established, it was styled the Painted Tavern, from the circumstance of its outer walls being fancifully coloured and adorned with Bacchanalian devices. But these decorations went out of fashion in time, and the tavern, somewhat changing its external features, though preserving all its internal comforts and accommodation, assumed the name of the Three Crowns, under which title it continued until the accession of Elizabeth, when it became (by a slight modification) the Three Cranes; and so remained in the days of her successor, and, indeed, long afterwards. Not that the last-adopted denomination had any reference, as might be supposed, to the three huge wooden instruments on the wharf, employed with ropes and pulleys to unload the lighters and other vessels that brought up butts and hogsheads of wine from the larger craft below Bridge, and constantly thronged the banks; though, no doubt, they indirectly suggested it. The Three Cranes depicted on the large signboard, suspended in front of the tavern, were long-necked, long-beaked birds, each with a golden fish in its bill. But under whatever designation it might be known--Crown or Crane--the tavern had always maintained a high reputation for excellence of wine: and this is the less surprising when we take into account its close proximity to the vast vaults and cellars of the Vintry, where the choicest produce of Gascony, Bordeaux, and other wine-growing districts, was deposited; some of which we may reasonably conclude would find its way to its tables. Good wine, it may be incidentally remarked, was cheap enough when the Three Cranes was first opened, the delicate juice of the Gascoign grape being then vended, at fourpence the gallon, and Rhenish at sixpence! Prices, however, had risen considerably at the period of which we propose to treat; but the tavern was as well-reputed and well-frequented as ever: even more so, for it had considerably advanced in estimation since it came into the hands of a certain enterprising French skipper, Prosper Bonaventure by name, who intrusted its management to his active and pretty little wife Dameris, while he himself prosecuted his trading voyages between the Garonne and the Thames. And very well Madame Bonaventure fulfilled the duties of hostess, as will be seen. Now, as the skipper was a very sharp fellow, and perfectly understood his business--practically anticipating the Transatlantic axiom of buying at the cheapest market and selling at the dearest--he soon contrived to grow rich. He did more: he pleased his customers at the Three Cranes. Taking care to select his wines judiciously, and having good opportunities, he managed to obtain possession of some delicious vintages, which, could not be matched elsewhere; and, with this nectar at his command, the fortune of his house was made. All the town gallants flocked to the Three Cranes to dine at the admirable French ordinary newly established there, and crush a flask or so of the exquisite Bordeaux, about which, and its delicate flavour and bouquet, all the connoisseurs in claret were raving. From, mid-day, therefore, till late in the afternoon, there were nearly as many gay barges and wherries as lighters lying off the Vintry Wharf; and sometimes, when accommodation was wanting, the little craft were moored along the shore all the way from Queenhithe to the Steelyard; at which latter place the Catherine Wheel was almost as much noted for racy Rhenish and high-dried neat's tongues, as our tavern was for fine Bordeaux and well-seasoned pâtés. Not the least, however, of the attractions of the Three Cranes, was the hostess herself. A lively little brunette was Madame Bonaventure, still young, or, at all events, very far from being old; with extremely fine teeth, which she was fond of displaying, and a remarkably neat ankle, which she felt no inclination to hide beneath the sweep of her round circling farthingale. Her figure was quite that of a miniature Venus; and as, like most of her country-women, she understood the art of dress to admiration, she set off her person to the best advantage; always attiring herself in a style, and in colours, that suited her, and never indulging in an unwarrantable extravagance of ruff, or absurd and unbecoming length of peaked boddice. As to the stuffs she wore, they were certainly above her station, for no Court dame could boast of richer silks than those in which the pretty Dameris appeared on fête days; and this was accounted for by reason that the good skipper seldom returned from a trip to France without bringing his wife a piece of silk, brocade, or velvet from Lyons; or some little matter from Paris, such as a ruff, cuff, partlet, bandlet, or fillet. Thus the last French mode might be seen at the Three Crowns, displayed by the hostess, as well as the last French _entremet_ at its table; since, among other important accessories to the well-doing of the house, Madame Bonaventure kept a _chef de cuisine_--one of her compatriots--of such superlative skill, that in later times he must infallibly have been distinguished as a _cordon bleu_. But not having yet completed our description of the charming Bordelaise we must add that she possessed a rich southern complexion, fine sparkling black eyes, shaded by long dark eye-lashes, and over-arched by jetty brows, and that her raven hair was combed back and gathered in a large roll over her smooth forehead, which had the five points of beauty complete. Over this she wore a prettily-conceived coif, with a frontlet. A well-starched, well-plaited ruff encompossed her throat. Her upper lip was darkened, but in the slightest degree, by down like the softest silk; and this peculiarity (a peculiarity it would be in an Englishwoman, though frequently observable in the beauties of the South of France) lent additional piquancy and zest to her charms in the eyes of her numerous adorers. Her ankles we have said were trim; and it may be added that they were oftener displayed in an embroidered French velvet shoe than in one of Spanish leather; while in walking out she increased her stature "by the altitude of a chopine." Captain Bonaventure was by no means jealous; and even if he had been, it would have mattered little, since he was so constantly away. Fancying, therefore, she had some of the privileges of a widow, our lively Dameris flirted a good deal with the gayest and handsomest of the galliards frequenting her house. But she knew where to stop; no licence or indecorum was ever permitted at the Three Cranes; and that is saying a great deal in favour of the hostess, when the dissolute character of the age is taken into consideration. Besides this, Cyprien, a stout well-favoured young Gascon, who filled the posts of drawer and chamberlain, together with two or three other trencher-scrapers, who served at table, and waited on the guests, were generally sufficient to clear the house of any troublesome roysterers. Thus the reputation of the Three Cranes was unblemished, in spite of the liveliness and coquetry of its mistress; and in spite, also, of the malicious tongues of rival tavern-keepers, which were loud against it. A pretty woman is sure to have enemies and calumniators, and Madame Bonaventure had more than enow; but she thought very little about them. There was one point, however, on which it behoved her to be careful: and extremely careful she was,--not leaving a single loop-hole for censure or attack. This was the question of religion. On first taking the house, Madame Bonaventure gave it out that she and the skipper were Huguenots, descended from families who had suffered much persecution during the time of the League, for staunch adherence to their faith; and the statement was generally credited, though there were some who professed to doubt it. Certain it was, our hostess did not wear any cross, beads, or other outward symbol of Papacy. And though this might count for little, it was never discovered that she attended mass in secret. Her movements were watched, but without anything coming to light that had reference to religious observances of any kind. Those who tried to trace her, found that her visits were mostly paid to Paris Garden, the Rose, and the Globe (where our immortal bard's plays were then being performed), or some other place of amusement; and if she did go on the river at times, it was merely upon a party of pleasure, accompanied by gay gallants in velvet cloaks and silken doublets, and by light-hearted dames like herself, and not by notorious plotters or sour priests. Still, as many Bordeaux merchants frequented the house, as well as traders from the Hanse towns, and other foreigners, it was looked upon by the suspicious as a hotbed of Romish heresy and treason. Moreover, these maligners affirmed that English recusants, as well as seminary priests from abroad, had been harboured there, and clandestinely spirited away from the pursuit of justice by the skipper; but the charges were never substantiated, and could, therefore, only proceed from envy and malice. Whatever Madame Bonaventure's religious opinions might be, she kept her own council so well that no one ever found them out. But evil days were at hand. Hitherto, all had been smiling and prosperous. The prospect now began to darken. Within the last twelve months a strange and unlooked for interference had taken place with our hostess's profits, which she had viewed, at first, without much anxiety, because she did not clearly comprehend its scope; but latterly, as its formidable character became revealed, it began to fill her with uneasiness. The calamity, as she naturally enough regarded it, arose in the following manner. The present was an age of monopolies and patents, granted by a crown ever eager to obtain money under any pretext, however unjustifiable and iniquitous, provided it was plausibly coloured; and these vexatious privileges were purchased by greedy and unscrupulous persons for the purpose of turning them into instruments of extortion and wrong. Though various branches of trade and industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no means of redress. The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them down as they pleased, farming out whole districts, and dividing the spoil. Their miserable victims dared scarcely murmur; having ever the terrible court of Star-Chamber before them, which their persecutors could command, and which punished libellers--as they would be accounted, if they gave utterance to their wrongs, and charged their oppressors with mis-doing,--with fine, branding, and the pillory. Many were handled in this sort, and held up _in terrorem_ to the others. Hence it came to pass, that the Star-Chamber, from the fearful nature of its machinery; its extraordinary powers; the notorious corruption and venality of its officers; the peculiarity of its practice, which always favoured the plaintiff; and the severity with which it punished any libelling or slanderous words uttered against the king's representative (as the patentees were considered), or any conspiracy or false accusation brought against them; it came to pass, we say, that this terrible court became as much dreaded in Protestant England as the Inquisition in Catholic Spain. The punishments inflicted by the Star-Chamber were, as we learn from a legal authority, and a counsel in the court, "fine, imprisonment, loss of ears, or nailing to the pillory, slitting the nose, branding the forehead, whipping of late days, wearing of papers in public places, or any punishment but death." And John Chamberlain, Esq., writing to Sir Dudley Carlton, about the same period, observes, that "The world is now much terrified with the Star-Chamber, there being not so little an offence against any proclamation, but is liable and subject to the censure of that court. And for proclamations and patents, they are become so ordinary that there is no end; every day bringing forth some new project or other. As, within these two days, here is one come forth for tobacco, wholly engrossed by Sir Thomas Roe and his partners, which, if they can keep and maintain against the general clamour, will be a great commodity; unless, peradventure, indignation, rather than all other reasons, may bring that filthy weed out of use." [What, would be the effect of such a patent now-a-days? Would it, at all, restrict the use of the "filthy weed?"] "In truth," proceeds Chamberlain, "the world doth even groan under the burthen of these perpetual patents, which are become so frequent, that whereas at the king's coming in there were complaints of some eight or nine monopolies then in being, they are now said to be multiplied to as many scores." From the foregoing citation, from a private letter of the time, the state of public feeling may be gathered, and the alarm occasioned in all classes by these oppressions perfectly understood. Amongst those who had obtained the largest share of spoil were two persons destined to occupy a prominent position in our history. They were Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell,--both names held in general dread and detestation, though no man ventured to speak ill of them openly, since they were as implacable in their animosities, as usurious and griping in their demands; and many an ear had been lost, many a nose slit, many a back scourged at the cart's tail, because the unfortunate owners had stigmatized them according to their deserts. Thus they enjoyed a complete immunity of wrong; and, with the terrible court of Star-Chamber to defend them and to punish their enemies, they set all opposition at defiance. Insatiable as unscrupulous, this avaricious pair were ever on the alert to devise new means of exaction and plunder, and amongst the latest and most productive of their inventions were three patents, which they had obtained through the instrumentality of Sir Edward Villiers (half-brother of the ruling favourite, the Marquess of Buckingham)--and for due consideration-money, of course,--for the licensing of ale-houses the inspection of inns and hostelries, and the exclusive manufacture of gold and silver thread. It is with the two former of these that we have now to deal; inasmuch as it was their mischievous operation that affected Madame Bonaventure so prejudicially; and this we shall more fully explain, as it will serve to show the working of a frightful system of extortion and injustice happily no longer in existence. By the sweeping powers conferred upon them by their patents, the whole of the inns of the metropolis were brought under the control of the two extortioners, who levied such imposts as they pleased. The withdrawal of a license, or the total suppression of a tavern, on the plea of its being a riotous and disorderly house, immediately followed the refusal of any demand, however excessive; and most persons preferred the remote possibility of ruin, with the chance of averting it by ready submission, to the positive certainty of losing both substance and liberty by resistance. Fearful was the havoc occasioned by these licensed depredators, yet no one dared to check them--no one ventured to repine. They had the name of law to justify their proceedings, and all its authority to uphold them. Compromises were attempted in some instances, but they were found unavailing. Easily evaded by persons who never intended to be bound by them, they only added keenness to the original provocation, without offering a remedy for it. The two bloodsuckers, it was clear, would not desist from draining the life-current from the veins of their victims while a drop remained. And they were well served in their iniquitous task,--for the plain reason that they paid their agents, well. Partners they had none; none, at least, who cared to acknowledge themselves as such. But the subordinate officers of the law (and indeed some high in office, it was hinted), the sheriff's followers, bailiffs, tipstaves, and others, were all in their pay; besides a host of myrmidons,--base, sordid knaves, who scrupled not at false-swearing, cozenage, or any sort of rascality, even forgery of legal documents, if required. No wonder poor Madame Bonaventure, finding she had got into the clutches of these harpies, began to tremble for the result.	{ "id": "12396" }
2	Sir Giles Mompesson and his partner.	Madame Bonaventure had already paid considerable sums to the two extortioners, but she resisted their last application; in consequence of which she received a monition from Sir Giles Mompesson, to the effect that, in a month's time, her license would be withdrawn, and her house shut up, unless, in the interim, she consented to make amends to himself and his co-patentee, Sir Francis Mitchell, by payment of the sum in question, together with a further sum, equal to it in amount, by way of forfeit; thus doubling the original demand. Our pretty hostess, it would seem, had placed herself in an awkward predicament by her temerity. Sir Giles was not a man to threaten idly, as all who had incurred his displeasure experienced to their cost. His plan was to make himself feared; and he was inexorable, as fate itself, to a creditor. He ever exacted the full penalty of his bond. In this instance, according to his own notion, he had acted with great leniency; and certainly, judged by his customary mode of proceeding in such cases, he had shown some little indulgence. In this line of conduct he had been mainly influenced by his partner, who, not being insensible to the attractions of the fair hostess, hoped to win her favour by a show of consideration. But though Madame Bonaventure was willing enough, for her own purposes, to encourage Sir Francis Mitchell's attentions (she detested him in her secret heart), she by no means relied upon him for security. A more powerful friend was held in reserve, whom she meant to produce at the last moment; and, consequently, she was not so ill at ease as she otherwise would have been, though by no means free from misgiving. Sir Giles Mompesson was a terrible enemy, and seldom thwarted in his purpose. That she knew. But no man was more keenly alive to his own interest than he; and she persuaded herself he would find it to his advantage not to molest her: in which case she was safe. Of Sir Francis Mitchell she had less apprehension; for, though equally mischievous and malevolent with his partner, he was far feebler of purpose, and for the most part governed by him. Besides, she felt she had the amorous knight in her toils, and could easily manage him if he were alone. So the case stood with respect to our pretty hostess; but, before proceeding further, it may be well to give a more complete description of the two birds of prey by whom she was threatened with beak and talon. The master-spirit of the twain was undoubtedly Sir Giles Mompesson. Quick in conception of villainy, he was equally daring in execution. How he had risen to his present bad eminence no one precisely knew; because, with the craft and subtlety that distinguished him, he laid his schemes so deeply, and covered his proceedings with so thick a veil, that they had been rarely detected. Report, however, spoke of him as a usurer of the vilest kind, who wrung exorbitant interest from needy borrowers,--who advanced money to expectant heirs, with the intention of plundering them of their inheritance,--and who resorted to every trick and malpractice permitted by the law to benefit himself at his neighbour's expense. These were bad enough, but even graver accusations were made against him. It was whispered that he had obtained fraudulent possession of deeds and family papers, which had enabled him to wrest estates from their rightful owners; and some did not scruple to add to these charges that he had forged documents to carry out his nefarious designs. Be this as it may, from comparative poverty he speedily rose to wealth; and, as his means increased, so his avaricious schemes were multiplied and extended. His earlier days were passed in complete obscurity, none but the neediest spendthrift or the most desperate gambler knowing where he dwelt, and every one who found him out in his wretched abode near the Marshalsea had reason to regret his visit. Now he was well enough known by many a courtly prodigal, and his large mansion near Fleet Bridge (it was said of him that he always chose the neigbourhood of a prison for his dwelling) was resorted to by the town gallants whose necessities or extravagance compelled them to obtain supplies at exorbitant interest. Lavish in his expenditure on occasions, Sir Giles was habitually so greedy and penurious, that he begrudged every tester he expended. He wished to keep up a show of hospitality without cost, and secretly pleased himself by thinking that he made his guests pay for his entertainments, and even for his establishment. His servants complained of being half-starved, though he was constantly at war with them for their wastefulness and riot. He made, however, a great display of attendants, inasmuch as he had a whole retinue of myrmidons at his beck and call; and these, as before observed, were well paid. They were the crows that followed the vultures, and picked the bones of the spoil when their ravening masters had been fully glutted. In the court of Star-Chamber, as already remarked, Sir Giles Mompesson found an instrument in every way fitted to his purposes; and he worked it with terrible effect, as will be shown hereafter. With him it was at once a weapon to destroy, and a shield to protect. This court claimed "a superlative power not only to take causes from other courts and punish them there, but also to punish offences secondarily, when other courts have punished them." Taking advantage of this privilege, when a suit was commenced against him elsewhere, Sir Giles contrived to remove it to the Star-Chamber, where, being omnipotent with clerks and counsel, he was sure of success,--the complaints being so warily contrived, the examinations so adroitly framed, and the interrogatories so numerous and perplexing, that the defendant, or delinquent, as he was indifferently styled, was certain to be baffled and defeated. "The sentences of this court," it has been said by one intimately acquainted with its practice, and very favourably inclined to it, "strike to the root of men's reputations, and many times of their estates;" and, again, it was a rule with it, that the prosecutor "was ever intended to be favoured." Knowing this as well as the high legal authority from whom we have quoted, Sir Giles ever placed himself in the favoured position, and, with the aid of this iniquitous tribunal, blasted many a fair reputation, and consigned many a victim of its injustice to the Fleet, there to rot till he paid him the utmost of his demands, or paid the debt of nature. In an age less corrupt and venal than that under consideration, such a career could not have long continued without check. But in the time of James the First, from the neediness of the monarch himself, and the rapacity of his minions and courtiers and their satellites,--each striving to enrich himself, no matter how--a thousand abuses, both of right and justice, were tolerated or connived at, crime stalking abroad unpunished. The Star-Chamber itself served the king as, in a less degree, it served Sir Giles Mompesson, and others of the same stamp, as a means of increasing his revenue; half the fines mulcted from those who incurred its censure or its punishments being awarded to the crown. Thus nice inquiries were rarely made, unless a public example was needed, when the wrongdoer was compelled to disgorge his plunder. But this was never done till the pear was fully ripe. Sir Giles, however, had no apprehensions of any such result in his case. Like a sly fox, or rather like a crafty wolf, he was too confident in his own cunning and resources to fear being caught in such a trap. His title was purchased, and he reaped his reward in the consequence it gave him. Sir Francis Mitchell acted likewise; and it was about this time that the connection between the worthy pair commenced. Hitherto they had been in opposition, and though very different in temperament and in modes of proceeding, they had one aim in common; and recognizing great merit in each other, coupled with a power of mutual assistance, they agreed to act in concert. Sir Francis was as cautious and timid as Sir Giles was daring and inflexible: the one being the best contriver of a scheme, and the other the fittest to carry it out. Sir Francis trembled at his own devices and their possible consequences: Sir Giles adopted his schemes, if promising, and laughed at the difficulties and dangers that beset them. The one was the head; the other the arm. Not that Sir Giles lacked the ability to weave as subtle a web of deceit as his partner; but each took his line. It saved time. The plan of licensing and inspecting taverns and hotels had originated with Sir Francis, and very profitable it proved. But Sir Giles carried it out much further than his partner had proposed, or thought prudent. And they were as different in personal appearance, as in mental qualities and disposition. Mompesson was the dashing eagle; Mitchell the sorry kite. Sir Francis was weakly, emaciated in frame; much given to sensual indulgence; and his body conformed to his timorous organization. His shrunken shanks scarcely sufficed to support him; his back was bent; his eyes blear; his head bald; and his chin, which was continually wagging, clothed with a scanty yellow beard, shaped like a stiletto, while his sandy moustachios were curled upward. He was dressed in the extremity of the fashion, and affected the air of a young court gallant. His doublet, hose, and mantle were ever of the gayest and most fanciful hues, and of the richest stuffs; he wore a diamond brooch in his beaver, and sashes, tied like garters, round his thin legs, which were utterly destitute of calf. Preposterously large roses covered his shoes; his ruff was a "treble-quadruple-dedalion;" his gloves richly embroidered; a large crimson satin purse hung from his girdle; and he was scented with powders and pulvilios. This withered coxcomb affected the mincing gait of a young man; and though rather an object of derision than admiration with the fair sex, persuaded himself they were all captivated by him. The vast sums he so unjustly acquired did not long remain in his possession, but were dispersed in ministering to his follies and depravity. Timorous he was by nature, as we have said, but cruel and unrelenting in proportion to his cowardice; and where an injury could be securely inflicted, or a prostrate foe struck with impunity, he never hesitated for a moment. Sir Giles himself was scarcely so malignant and implacable. A strong contrast to this dastardly debauchee was offered by the bolder villain. Sir Giles Mompesson was a very handsome man, with a striking physiognomy, but dark and sinister in expression. His eyes were black, singularly piercing, and flashed with the fiercest fire when kindled by passion. A finely-formed aquiline nose gave a hawk-like character to his face; his hair was coal-black (though he was no longer young), and hung in long ringlets over his neck and shoulders. He wore the handsomely cut beard and moustache subsequently depicted in the portraits of Vandyke, which suited the stern gravity of his countenance. Rich, though sober in his attire, he always affected a dark colour, being generally habited in a doublet of black quilted silk, Venetian hose, and a murrey-coloured velvet mantle. His conical hat was ornamented with a single black ostrich feather; and he carried a long rapier by his side, in the use of which he was singularly skilful; being one of Vincentio Saviolo's best pupils. Sir Giles was a little above the middle height, with a well proportioned athletic figure; and his strength and address were such, that there seemed good reason for his boast when he declared, as he often did, "that he feared no man living, in fair fight, no, nor any two men." Sir Giles had none of the weaknesses of his partner. Temperate in his living, he had never been known to commit an excess at table; nor were the blandishments or lures of the fair sex ever successfully spread for him. If his arm was of iron, his heart seemed of adamant, utterly impenetrable by any gentle emotion. It was affirmed, and believed, that he had never shed a tear. His sole passion appeared to be the accumulation of wealth; unattended by the desire to spend it. He bestowed no gifts. He had no family, no kinsmen, whom he cared to acknowledge. He stood alone--a hard, grasping man: a bond-slave of Mammon. When it pleased him, Sir Giles Mompesson could play the courtier, and fawn and gloze like the rest. A consummate hypocrite, he easily assumed any part he might be called upon to enact; but the tone natural to him was one of insolent domination and bitter raillery. He sneered at all things human and divine; and there was mockery in his laughter, as well as venom in his jests. His manner, however, was not without a certain cold and grave dignity; and he clothed himself, like his purposes, in inscrutable reserve, on occasions requiring it. So ominous was his presence, that many persons got out of his way, fearing to come in contact with him, or give him offence; and the broad walk at Paul's was sometimes cleared as he took his way along it, followed by his band of tipstaves. If this were the case with persons who had no immediate ground of apprehension from him, how much terror his sombre figure must have inspired, when presented, as it was, to Madame Bonaventure, with the aspect of a merciless creditor, armed with full power to enforce his claims, and resolved not to abate a jot of them, will be revealed to the reader in our next chapter.	{ "id": "12396" }
3	The French ordinary.	The month allowed by the notice expired, and Madame Bonaventure's day of reckoning arrived. No arrangement had been attempted in the interim, though abundant opportunities of doing so were afforded her, as Sir Francis Mitchell visited the Three Cranes almost daily. She appeared to treat the matter very lightly, always putting it off when mentioned; and even towards the last seemed quite unconcerned, as if entertaining no fear of the result. Apparently, everything went on just as usual, and no one would have supposed, from Madame Bonaventure's manner, that she was aware of the possibility of a mine being sprung beneath her feet. Perhaps she fancied she had countermined her opponents, and so felt secure. Her indifference puzzled Sir Francis, who knew not whether to attribute it to insensibility or over-confidence. He was curious to see how she would conduct herself when the crisis came; and for that purpose repaired to the tavern, about dinner-time, on the appointed day. The hostess received him very graciously; trifled and jested with him as was her custom, and looked all blandishments and smiles to him and everybody else, as if nothing could possibly happen to disturb her serenity. Sir Francis was more perplexed than ever. With the levity and heedlessness of a Frenchwoman, she must have forgotten all about the claim. What if he should venture to remind her of it? Better not. The application would come soon enough. He was glad it devolved upon his partner, and not on himself, to proceed to extremities with so charming a person. He really could not do it. And yet all the while he chuckled internally as he thought of the terrible dilemma in which she would be speedily caught, and how completely it would place her at his mercy. She must come to terms then. And Sir Francis rubbed his skinny hands gleefully at the thought. On her part, Madame Bonaventure guessed what was passing in his breast, and secretly enjoyed the idea of checkmating him. With a captivating smile she left him to attend to her numerous guests. And very numerous they were on that day. More so than usual. Sir Francis, who had brought a boat from Westminster, where he dwelt, experienced some difficulty in landing at the stairs, invested as they were with barges, wherries and watermen, all of whom had evidently brought customers to the Three Cranes. Besides these, there were two or three gilded pinnaces lying off the wharf, with oarsmen in rich liveries, evidently belonging to persons of rank. The benches and little tables in front of the tavern were occupied by foreign merchants and traders, discussing their affairs over a stoop of Bordeaux. Others, similarly employed, sat at the open casements in the rooms above; each story projecting so much beyond the other that the old building, crowned with its fanciful gables and heavy chimnies, looked top-heavy, and as if it would roll over into the Thames some day. Others, again, were seated over their wine in the pleasant little chamber built over the porch, which, advancing considerably beyond the door, afforded a delightful prospect, from its lantern-like windows, of the river, now sparkling with sunshine (it was a bright May day), and covered with craft, extending on the one hand to Baynard's Castle, and on the other to the most picturesque object to be found then, or since, in London--the ancient Bridge, with its towers, gateways, lofty superstructures, and narrow arches through which the current dashed swiftly; and, of course, commanding a complete view of the opposite bank, beginning with Saint Saviour's fine old church, Winchester House, the walks, gardens, and play-houses, and ending with the fine groves of timber skirting Lambeth Marshes. Others repaired to the smooth and well-kept bowling alley in the narrow court at the back of the house, where there was a mulberry tree two centuries older than the tavern itself--to recreate themselves with the healthful pastime there afforded, and indulge at the same time in a few whiffs of tobacco, which, notwithstanding the king's fulminations against it, had already made its way among the people. The ordinary was held in the principal room in the house; which was well enough adapted for the purpose, being lofty and spacious, and lighted by an oriel window at the upper end. Over the high carved chimney-piece were the arms of the Vintners' Company, with a Bacchus for the crest. The ceiling was moulded, and the wainscots of oak; against the latter several paintings were hung. One of these represented the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and another the triumphal entry of Henri IV. into rebellious Paris. Besides these, there were portraits of the reigning monarch, James the First; the Marquis of Buckingham, his favourite; and the youthful Louis XIII., king of France. A long table generally ran down the centre of the room; but on this occasion there was a raised cross-table at the upper end, with a traverse, or curtain, partially drawn before it, proclaiming the presence of important guests. Here the napery was finer, and the drinking-vessels handsomer, than those used at the lower board. A grand banquet seemed taking place. Long-necked flasks were placed in coolers, and the buffets were covered with flagons and glasses. The table groaned beneath the number and variety of dishes set upon it. In addition to the customary yeomen-waiters, there were a host of serving-men in rich and varied liveries, but these attended exclusively on their lords at the raised table, behind the traverse. As Sir Francis was ushered into the eating-room, he was quite taken aback by the unusually magnificent display, and felt greatly surprised that no hint of the banquet had been given him, on his arrival, by the hostess. The feast had already commenced; and all the yeomen-waiters and trencher-scrapers were too busily occupied to attend to him. Cyprien, who marshalled the dishes at the lower table, did not deign to notice him, and was deaf to his demand for a place. It seemed probable he would not obtain one at all; and he was about to retire, much disconcerted, when a young man somewhat plainly habited, and who seemed a stranger to all present, very good-naturedly made room for him. In this way he was squeezed in. Sir Francis then cast a look round to ascertain who were present; but he was so inconveniently situated, and the crowd of serving-men was so great at the upper table, that he could only imperfectly distinguish those seated at it; besides which, most of the guests were hidden by the traverse. Such, however, as he could make out were richly attired in doublets of silk and satin, while their rich velvet mantles, plumed and jewelled caps, and long rapiers, were carried by their servants. Two or three turned round to look at him as he sat down; and amongst these he remarked Sir Edward Villiers, whose presence was far from agreeable to him,--for though Sir Edward was secretly connected with him and Sir Giles, and took tithe of their spoliations, he disowned them in public, and would assuredly not countenance any open display of their rapacious proceedings. Another personage whom he recognised, from his obesity, the peculiarity of his long flowing periwig, and his black velvet Parisian pourpoint, which contrasted forcibly with the glittering habiliments of his companions, was Doctor Mayerne-Turquet, the celebrated French professor of medicine, then so high in favour with James, that, having been loaded with honours and dignities, he had been recently named the King's first physician. Doctor Mayerne's abilities were so distinguished, that his Protestant faith alone, prevented him from occupying the same eminent position in the court of France that he did in that of England. The doctor's presence at the banquet was unpropitious; it was natural he should befriend a countrywoman and a Huguenot like himself, and, possessing the royal ear, he might make such representations as he pleased to the King of what should occur. Sir Francis hoped he would be gone before Sir Giles appeared. But there was yet a third person, who gave the usurious knight more uneasiness than the other two. This was a handsome young man, with fair hair and delicate features, whose slight elegant figure was arrayed in a crimson-satin doublet, slashed with white, and hose of the same colours and fabric. The young nobleman in question, whose handsome features and prematurely-wasted frame bore the impress of cynicism and debauchery, was Lord Roos, then recently entrapped into marriage with the daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, Secretary of State: a marriage productive of the usual consequences of such imprudent arrangements--neglect on the one side, unhappiness on the other. Lord Roos was Sir Francis's sworn enemy. Like many other such gay moths, he had been severely singed by fluttering into the dazzling lights held up to him, when he wanted money, by the two usurers; and he had often vowed revenge against them for the manner in which they had fleeced him. Sir Francis did not usually give any great heed to his threats, being too much accustomed to reproaches and menaces from his victims to feel alarm or compunction; but just now the case was different, and he could not help fearing the vindictive young lord might seize the opportunity of serving him an ill turn,--if, indeed, he had not come there expressly for the purpose, which seemed probable, from the fierce and disdainful glances he cast at him. An angry murmur pervaded the upper table on Sir Francis's appearance; and something was said which, though he could not gather its precise import did not sound agreeably to his ears. He felt he had unwittingly brought his head near a hornet's nest, and might esteem himself lucky if he escaped without stinging. However, there was no retreating now; for though his fear counselled flight, very shame restrained him. The repast was varied and abundant, consisting of all kinds of fricassees, collops and rashers, boiled salmon from the Thames, trout and pike from the same river, boiled pea-chickens, and turkey-poults, and florentines of puff paste, calves-foot pies, and set custards. Between each guest a boiled salad was placed, which was nothing more than what we should term a dish of vegetables, except that the vegetables were somewhat differently prepared; cinnamon, ginger, and sugar being added to the pulped carrots, besides a handful of currants, vinegar, and butter. A similar plan was adopted with the salads of burrage, chicory, marigold leaves, bugloss, asparagus, rocket, and alexanders, and many other plants discontinued in modern cookery, but then much esteemed; oil and vinegar being used with some, and spices with all; while each dish was garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs. A jowl of sturgeon was carried to the upper table, where there was also a baked swan, and a roasted bustard, flanked by two stately venison pasties. This was only the first service; and two others followed, consisting of a fawn, with a pudding inside it, a grand salad, hot olive pies, baked neats' tongues, fried calves' tongues, baked Italian puddings, a farced leg of lamb in the French fashion, orangeado pie, buttered crabs, anchovies, and a plentiful supply of little made dishes, and _quelquechoses_, scattered over the table. With such a profusion of good things, it may appear surprising that Sir Francis should find very little to eat; but the attendants all seemed in league against him, and whenever he set his eye upon a dish, it was sure to be placed out of reach. Sir Francis was a great epicure, and the Thames salmon looked delicious; but he would have failed in obtaining a slice of it, if his neighbour (the young man who had made room for him) had not given him the well-filled trencher intended for himself. In the same way he secured the wing of a boiled capon, larded with preserved lemons, the sauce of which was exquisite, as he well knew, from experience. Cyprien, however, took care he should get none of the turkey poults, or the florentines, but whipped off both dishes from under his very nose; and a like fate would have attended a lumbar pie but for the interference of his good-natured neighbour, who again came to his aid, and rescued it from the clutches of the saucy Gascon, just as it was being borne away.	{ "id": "12396" }
4	A Star-Chamber victim.	His hunger being somewhat stayed, Sir Francis now found leisure to consider the young man who had so greatly befriended him, and, as a means of promoting conversation between them, began by filling his glass from a flask of excellent Bordeaux, of which, in spite of Cyprien's efforts to prevent him, he had contrived to gain possession. The young man acknowledged his courtesy with a smile, praised the wine, and expressed his astonishment at the wonderful variety and excellence of the repast, for which he said he was quite unprepared. It was not Sir Francis's way to feel or express much interest in strangers, and he disliked young men, especially when they were handsome, as was the case with his new acquaintance; but there was something in the youth that riveted his attention. From the plainness of his attire, and a certain not unpleasing rusticity of air, Sir Francis comprehended at once that he was fresh from the country; but he also felt satisfied, from his bearing and deportment, that he was a gentleman: a term not quite so vaguely applied then, as it is now-a-days. The youth had a fine frank countenance, remarkable for manly beauty and intelligence, and a figure perfectly proportioned and athletic. Sir Francis set him down as well skilled in all exercises; vaulting, leaping, riding, and tossing the pike; nor was he mistaken. He also concluded him to be fond of country sports; and he was right in the supposition. He further imagined the young man had come to town to better his fortune, and seek a place at Court; and he was not far wrong in the notion. As the wily knight scanned the handsome features of his companion, his clean-made limbs, and symmetrical figure, he thought that success must infallibly attend the production of such a fair youth at a Court where personal advantages were the first consideration. "A likely gallant," he reflected, "to take the fancy of the king; and if I aid him with means to purchase rich attire, and procure him a presentation, he may not prove ungrateful. But of that I shall take good security. I know what gratitude is. He must be introduced to my Lady Suffolk. She will know how to treat him. In the first place, he must cast his country slough. That ill-made doublet of green cloth must be exchanged for one of velvet slashed in the Venetian style like mine own, with hose stuffed and bombasted according to the mode. A silk stocking will bring out the nice proportions of his leg; though, as I am a true gentleman, the youth has so well formed a limb that even his own villainous yarn coverings cannot disfigure it. His hair is of a good brown colour, which the king affects much, and seems to curl naturally; but it wants trimming to the mode, for he is rough as a young colt fresh from pasture; and though he hath not much beard on his chin or upper lip, yet what he hath becomes him well, and will become him better, when properly clipped and twisted. Altogether he is as goodly a youth as one would desire to see. What if he should supplant Buckingham, as Buckingham supplanted Somerset? Let the proud Marquis look to himself! We may work his overthrow yet. And now to question him." After replenishing his glass, Sir Francis addressed himself in his blandest accents, and with his most insidious manner, to his youthful neighbour:-- "For a stranger to town, as I conclude you to be, young Sir," he said, "you have made rather a lucky hit in coming hither to-day, since you have not only got a better dinner than I (a constant frequenter of this French ordinary) ever saw served here--(though the attendance is abominable, as you must have remarked--that rascally Cyprien deserves the bastinado,); but your civility and good manners have introduced you to one, who may, without presumption, affirm that he hath the will, and, it may be, the ability to serve you; if you will only point out to him the way." "Nay, worthy Sir, you are too kind," the young man modestly replied; "I have done nothing to merit your good opinion, though I am happy to have gained it. I rejoice that accident has so far befriended me as to bring me here on this festive occasion; and I rejoice yet more that it has brought me acquainted with a worthy gentleman like yourself, to whom my rustic manners prove not to be displeasing. I have too few friends to neglect any that chance may offer; and as I must carve my own way in the world, and fight for a position in it, I gladly accept any hand that may be stretched out to help me in the struggle." "Just as I would have it," Sir Francis thought, "The very man I took him for. As I am a true gentleman, mine shall not be wanting, my good youth," he added aloud, with apparent cordiality, and affecting to regard the other with great interest; "and when I learn the particular direction in which you intend to shape your course, I shall be the better able to advise and guide you. There are many ways to fortune." "Mine should be the shortest if I had any choice," the young man rejoined with a smile. "Right, quite right," the crafty knight returned. "All men would take that road if they could find it. But with some the shortest road would not be the safest. In your case I think it might be different. You have a sufficiently good mien, and a sufficiently good figure, to serve you in lieu of other advantages." "Your fair speech would put me in conceit with myself, worthy Sir," the young man rejoined with a well-pleased air; "were I not too conscious of my own demerits, not to impute what you say of me to good nature, or to flattery." "There you wrong me, my good young friend--on my credit, you do. Were I to resort to adulation, I must strain the points of compliment to find phrases that should come up to my opinion of your good looks; and as to my friendly disposition towards you, I have already said that your attentions have won it, so that mere good nature does not prompt my words. I speak of you, as I think. May I, without appearing too inquisitive, ask from what part of the country you come?" "I am from Norfolk, worthy Sir," the young man answered, "where my life has been spent among a set of men wild and uncouth, and fond of the chase as the Sherwood archers we read of in the ballads. I am the son of a broken gentleman; the lord of a ruined house; with one old servant left me out of fifty kept by my father, and with scarce a hundred acres that I can still call my own, out of the thousands swept away from me. Still I hunt in my father's woods; kill my father's deer; and fish in my father's lakes; since no one molests me. And I keep up the little church near the old tumble-down hall, in which are the tombs of my ancestors, and where my father lies buried; and the tenantry come there yet on Sundays, though I am no longer their master; and my father's old chaplain, Sir Oliver, still preaches there, though my father's son can no longer maintain him." "A sad change, truly," Sir Francis said, in a tone of sympathy, and with a look of well-feigned concern; "and attributable, I much fear, to riot and profusion on the part of your father, who so beggared his son." "Not so, Sir," the young man gravely replied; "my father was a most honourable man, and would have injured no one, much less the son on whom he doated. Neither was he profuse; but lived bountifully and well, as a country gentleman, with a large estate, should live. The cause of his ruin was that he came within the clutches of that devouring monster, which, like the insatiate dragon of Rhodes, has swallowed up the substance of so many families, that our land is threatened with desolation. My father was ruined by that court, which, with a mockery of justice, robs men of their name, their fame, their lands, and goods; which perverts the course of law, and saps the principles of equity; which favours the knave, and oppresses the honest man; which promotes and supports extortion and plunder; which reverses righteous judgments, and asserts its own unrighteous supremacy, which, by means of its commissioners, spreads its hundred arms over the whole realm, to pillage and destroy--so that no one, however distant, can keep out of its reach, or escape its supervision; and which, if it be not uprooted, will, in the end, overthrow the kingdom. Need I say my father was ruined by the Star-Chamber?" "Hush! hush! my good young Sir," Sir Francis cried, having vainly endeavoured to interrupt his companion's angry denunciation. "Pray heaven your words have reached no other ears than mine! To speak of the Star-Chamber as you have spoken is worse than treason. Many a man has lost his ears, and been branded on the brow, for half you have uttered." "Is free speech denied in this free country?" the young man cried in astonishment. "Must one suffer grievous wrong, and not complain?" "Certes, you must not contemn the Star-Chamber, or you will incur its censure," Sir Francis replied in a low tone. "No court in England is so jealous of its prerogatives, nor so severe in punishment of its maligners. It will not have its proceedings canvassed, or its judgments questioned." "For the plain reason, that it knows they will not bear investigation or discussion. Such is the practice of all arbitrary and despotic rule. But will Englishmen submit to such tyranny?" "Again, let me counsel you to put a bridle on your tongue, young Sir. Such matters are not to be talked of at public tables--scarcely in private. It is well you have addressed yourself to one who will not betray you. The Star-Chamber hath its spies everywhere. Meddle not with it, as you value liberty. Light provocation arouses its anger; and once aroused, its wrath is all-consuming."	{ "id": "12396" }
5	Jocelyn Mounchensey.	Notwithstanding the risk incurred, the young man, whose feelings were evidently deeply interested, seemed disposed to pursue the dangerous theme; but perceiving one of their opposite neighbours glancing at them, Sir Francis checked him; and filling his glass essayed to change the conversation, by inquiring how long he had been in town, and where he lodged? "I only arrived in London yesterday," was the reply; "yet I have been here long enough to make me loth to return to the woods and moors of Norfolk. As to my lodging, it is without the city walls, near St. Botolph's Church, and within a bow shot of Aldgate: a pleasant situation enough, looking towards the Spital Fields and the open country. I would fain have got me others in the Strand, or near Charing Cross, if my scanty means would have allowed me. Chance, as I have said, brought me here to-day. Strolling forth early to view the sights of town, I crossed London Bridge, the magnificence of which amazed me; and, proceeding along the Bankside, entered Paris Garden, of which I had heard much, and where I was greatly pleased, both with the mastiffs kept there, and the formidable animals they have to encounter; and, methought, I should like to bait mine enemies with those savage dogs, instead of the bear. Returning to the opposite shore in a wherry, the waterman landed me at this wharf, and so highly commended the Three Cranes, as affording the best French ordinary and the best French wine in London, that seeing many gentlefolk flocking towards it, which seemed to confirm his statement, I came in with them, and have reason to be satisfied with my entertainment, never having dined so sumptuously before, and, certes, never having tasted wine so delicious." "Let me fill your glass again. As I am a true gentleman, it will not hurt you; a singular merit of pure Bordeaux being that you may drink it with impunity; and the like cannot be said of your sophisticated sack. We will crush another flask. Ho! drawer--Cyprien, I say! More wine--and of the best Bordeaux. The best, I say." And for a wonder the order was obeyed, and the flask set before him. "You have been at the Bankside you say, young Sir? On my credit, you must cross the river again and visit the theatres--the Globe or the Rose. Our great actor, Dick Burbadge, plays Othello to-day, and, I warrant me, he will delight you. A little man is Dick, but he hath a mighty soul. There is none other like him, whether it be Nat Field or Ned Alleyn. Our famous Shakespeare is fortunate, I trow, in having him to play his great characters. You must see Burbadge, likewise, in the mad Prince of Denmark,--the part was written for him, and fits him exactly. See him also in gentle and love-sick Romeo, in tyrannous and murderous Macbeth, and in crookback Richard; in all of which, though different, our Dick is equally good. He hath some other parts of almost equal merit,--as Malevole, in the 'Malcontent;' Frankford, in the 'Woman Killed with Kindness;' Brachiano, in Webster's 'White Devil;' and Vendice, in Cyril Tournour's 'Revenger's Tragedy.'" "I know not what may be the nature of that last-named play," the young man rather sternly remarked; "but if the character of Vendice at all bears out its name, it would suit me. I am an avenger." "Forbear your wrongs awhile, I pray you, and drown your resentment in a cup of wine. As I am a true gentleman! a better bottle than the first! Nay, taste it. On my credit, it is perfect nectar. I pledge you in a brimmer; wishing Success may attend you, and Confusion await your Enemies! May you speedily regain your Rights!" "I drink that toast most heartily, worthy Sir," the young man exclaimed, raising his beaded flagon on high. "Confusion to my Enemies--Restoration to my Rights!" And he drained the goblet to its last drop. "By this time he must be in a fit mood for my purpose," Sir Francis thought, as he watched him narrowly. "Harkye, my good young friend," he said, lowering his tone, "I would not be overheard in what I have to say. You were speaking just now of the shortest way to fortune. I will point it out to you. To him, who is bold enough to take it, and who hath the requisites for the venture, the shortest way is to be found at Court. Where think you most of those gallants, of whom you may catch a glimpse through the traverse, derive their revenues? --As I am a true gentleman! --from the royal coffers. Not many years ago, with all of them; not many months ago, with some; those brilliant and titled coxcombs were adventurers like yourself, having barely a Jacobus in their purses, and scarce credit for board and lodging with their respective landladies. Now you see how nobly they feast, and how richly they bedeck themselves. On my credit! the like good fortune may attend you; and haply, when I dine at an ordinary a year hence, I may perceive you at the upper table, with a curtain before you to keep off the meaner company, and your serving-man at your back, holding your velvet mantle and cap, like the best of your fellow nobles." "Heaven grant it may be so!" the young man exclaimed, with a sigh. "You hold a dazzling picture before me; but I have little expectation of realizing it." "It will be your own fault if you do not," the tempter rejoined. "You are equally well-favoured with the handsomest of them; and it was by good looks alone that the whole party rose to their present eminence. Why not pursue the same course; with the same certainty of success? You have courage enough to undertake it, I presume?" "If courage alone were wanting, I have that," the young man replied;--"but I am wholly unknown in town. How then shall I accomplish an introduction at Court, when I know not even its humblest attendant?" "I have already said you were lucky in meeting with me," Sir Francis replied; "and I find you were luckier than I supposed, when I told you so; for I knew not then towards what bent your desires tended, nor in what way I could help you; but now, finding out the boldness of your flight, and the high game you aim at, I am able to offer you effectual assistance, and give you an earnest of a prosperous issue. Through my means you shall be presented to the king, and in such sort that the presentation shall not be idly made. It will rest then with yourself to play your cards dexterously, and to follow up a winning game. Doubtless, you will have many adversaries, who will trip up your heels if they can, and throw every obstacle in your way; but if you possess the strong arm I fancy you do, and daring to second it, you have nothing to fear. As I am a true gentleman! you shall have good counsel, and a friend in secret to back you." "To whom am I indebted for this most gracious and unlooked-for offer?" the young man asked, his breast heaving, and his eye flashing with excitement. "To one you may perchance have heard of," the knight answered, "as the subject of some misrepresentation; how justly applied, you yourself will be able to determine from my present conduct. I am Sir Francis Mitchell." At the mention of this name the young man started, and a deep angry flush overspread his face and brow. Perceiving the effect produced, the wily knight hastened to remove it. "My name, I see, awakens unpleasant associations in your breast," he said; "and your look shows you have been influenced by the calumnies of my enemies. I do not blame you. Men can only be judged of by report; and those I have had dealings with have reported ill enough of me. But they have spoken falsely. I have done no more than any other person would do. I have obtained the best interest I could for my money; and my losses have been almost equal to my gains. Folks are ready enough to tell all they can against you; but slow to mention aught they conceive to be in your favour. They stigmatize me as a usurer; but they forget to add, I am ever the friend of those in need. They use me, and abuse me. That is the way of the world. Wherefore, then, should I complain? I am no worse off than my neighbours. And the proof that I can be disinterested is the way in which I have acted towards you, a perfect stranger, and who have no other recommendation to my good offices than your gracious mien and gentle manners." "I cannot accept your proffered aid, Sir Francis," the young man replied, in an altered tone, and with great sternness. "And you will understand why I cannot, when I announce myself to you as Jocelyn Mounchensey." It was now the knight's turn to start, change colour, and tremble.	{ "id": "12396" }
6	Provocation.	A momentary pause ensued, during which Mounchensey regarded the knight so fiercely, that the latter began to entertain apprehensions for his personal safety, and meditated a precipitate retreat. Yet he did not dare to move, lest the action should bring upon him the hurt he wished to avoid. Thus he remained, like a bird fascinated by the rattlesnake, until the young man, whose power of speech seemed taken from him by passion, went on, in a tone of deep and concentrated rage, that communicated a hissing sound to his words. "Yes, I am Jocelyn Mounchensey," he said, "the son of him whom your arts and those of your partner in iniquity, Sir Giles Mompesson, brought to destruction; the son of him whom you despoiled of a good name and large estates, and cast into a loathsome prison, to languish and to die: I am the son of that murdered man. I am he whom you have robbed of his inheritance; whose proud escutcheon you have tarnished; whose family you have reduced to beggary and utter ruin." "But Sir Jocelyn, my worthy friend," the knight faltered, "have patience, I pray of you. If you consider yourself aggrieved, I am willing to make reparation--ample reparation. You know what were my intentions towards you, before I had the slightest notion who you might be. (If I had but been aware of it, he thought, I would have taken care to keep at a respectful distance from him.) I will do more than I promised. I will lend you any sums of money you may require; and on your personal security. Your bare word shall suffice. No bonds--no written obligations of any kind. Does that sound like usury? As I am a true gentleman! I am most unfairly judged. I am not the extortioner men describe me. You shall find me your friend," he added in a low earnest tone. "I will re-establish your fortune; give you a new title, higher and prouder than that which you have lost; and, if you will follow my counsel, you shall supplant the haughty favourite himself. You shall stand where Buckingham now stands. Hear reason, good Sir Jocelyn. Hear reason, I entreat you." "I will hear nothing further," Jocelyn rejoined. "Were you to talk till Doomsday, you could not alter my feelings towards you a jot. My chief errand in coming to London was to call you and Sir Giles Mompesson to strict account." "And we will answer any charges you may bring against us readily--most readily, Sir Jocelyn. All was done in fairness--according to law. The Star-Chamber will uphold us." "Tut! you think to terrify me with that bugbear; but I am not so easily frightened. We have met for the first time by chance, but our next meeting shall be by appointment." "When and where you please, Sir Jocelyn," the knight replied; "but recollect the duello is forbidden, and, though I would not willingly disappoint you in your desire to cut my throat, I should be sorry to think you might be hanged for it afterwards. Come, Sir Jocelyn, lay aside this idle passion, and look to your true interests, which lie not in quarrelling with me, but in our reconciliation. I can help you effectually, as I have shown; and, as I am a true gentleman, I _will_ help you. Give me your hand, and let us be friends!" "Never!" Jocelyn exclaimed, withdrawing from him, "never shall the hand of a Mounchensey grasp yours in friendship! I would sooner mine rotted off! I am your mortal foe. My father's death has to be avenged." "Provoke him not, my good young Sir," interposed an elderly man, next him, in a long furred gown, with hanging sleeves, and a flat cap on his head, who had heard what was now passing. "You know not the mischief he may do you." "I laugh at his malice, and defy him," Jocelyn cried--"he shall not sit one moment longer beside me. Out, knave! out!" he added, seizing Sir Francis by the wing of his doublet, and forcibly thrusting him from his seat. "You are not fit company for honest men. Ho! varlets, to the door with him! Throw him into the kennel." "You shall rue this, villain! --you shall rue it bitterly," Sir Francis cried, shaking his clenched hands at him. "Your father perished like a dog in the Fleet, and you shall perish there likewise. You have put yourself wholly in my power, and I will make a fearful example of you. You have dared to utter scandalous and contemptuous language against the great and high court of Star-Chamber, before the decrees of which, all men bow; impugning its justice and denying its authority; and you shall feel the full weight of its displeasure. I call upon these worthy gentlemen to testify against you." "We have heard nothing, and can testify nothing," several voices cried. "But you, Sir, who were next him, you must have heard him?" Sir Francis said, addressing the elderly man in the furred gown. "Not I!" rejoined the person appealed to; "I gave no heed to what was said." "But I did, Sir Francis," squeaked a little whey-faced man, in a large ruff and tight-laced yellow doublet, from the opposite side of the table; "I heard him most audaciously vilipend the high court of Star-Chamber and its councils; and I will bear testimony against him when called upon." "Your name, good Sir, your name?" Sir Francis demanded, taking out his tablets. "Set me down as Thopas Trednock, tailor, at the sign of the Pressing Iron, in Cornhill," the whey-faced man replied, in his shrill tones, amid the derisive laughter of the assemblage. "Thopas Trednock, tailor--good!" the knight repeated, as he wrote the name down. "You will be an excellent witness, Master Trednock. Fare you well for the present, _Master_ Jocelyn Mounchensey, for I now mind well your father was degraded from the honour of knighthood. As I am a true gentleman! you may be sure of committal to the Fleet." As may be supposed, the scuffle which had taken place, attracted the attention of those in its immediate vicinity; and when the cause of it became known, as it presently did throughout both tables, great indignation was expressed against Sir Francis, who was censured on all hands, jeered and flouted, as he moved to the door. So great was the clamour, and so opprobrious were the epithets and terms applied to him, that the knight was eager to make his escape; but he met Cyprien in his way; and the droll young Gascon, holding a dish-cover in one hand, by way of buckler, and a long carving-knife in the other, in place of a sword, opposed his egress. "Let me pass, knave," Sir Francis cried in alarm. "By your leave, no," returned Cyprien, encouraged by the laughter and plaudits of the company. "You have come hither uninvited, and must stay till you have permission to depart. Having partaken of the banquet, you must, perforce, tarry for the rerebanquet. The sweets and cates have yet to come, Sir Francis." "What mean you, sirrah?" the knight demanded, in increased trepidation. "Your presence is necessary at a little entertainment I have provided to follow the dinner, sweet Sir Francis," Madame Bonaventure cried, advancing towards him; "and as you have a principal part in it, I can by no means spare you." "No one can spare you, sweet Sir Francis," several voices chimed in, derisively. "You must remain with us a little longer." "But I will not stay. I will not be detained. There is some conspiracy a-foot against me. I will indict you all for it, if you hinder me in going forth," the knight vociferated, in accents of mingled rage and terror. "Stop me at your peril, thou saucy Gascon knave." " _Cornes du diable_! --no more a knave than yourself, _gros usurier_!" Cyprien cried. " _Laissez-lui,_ Cyprien," Madame Bonaventure interposed;--"the courteous knight will yield to my entreaties, and stay of his own free will." "I have business that calls me hence. I must go," Sir Francis said, endeavouring to push by them. "Let the door be closed," an authoritative voice cried from the head of the table. The order was instantly obeyed. Two serving-men stationed themselves before the place of exit, and Sir Francis found himself a prisoner. The roof rang with the laughter and gibes of the guests. "This is a frolic, gentleman, I perceive. You are resolved to make me your sport--ha! ha!" Sir Francis said, trying to disguise his uneasiness under an appearance of levity--"But you will not carry the jest too far. You will not maltreat me. My partner, Sir Giles Mompesson, will be here anon, and will requite any outrage committed upon me." "Sir Giles is impatiently expected by us," a spruce coxcomb near him replied. "Madame Bonaventure had prepared us for his coming. We will give him the welcome he deserves." "Ah! traitress! then it was all planned," Sir Francis thought;--"and, blind owl that I am, I have fallen into the snare." But the poor knight was nearly at his wit's end with fright, when he saw Lord Roos quit his place at the upper table and approach him.	{ "id": "12396" }
7	How Lord Roos obtained Sir Francis Mitchell's signature.	"What, my prince of usurers!" exclaimed Lord Roos, in a mocking tone; "my worthy money-lender, who never takes more than cent. per cent., and art ill content with less; who never exacts more than the penalty of thy bond,--unless more may be got; who never drives a hard bargain with a needy man--by thine own account; who never persecutes a debtor--as the prisons shall vouch for thee; who art just in all thy transactions--as every man who hath had dealings with thee will affirm; and who knows not how to lie, to cheat, to cozen--as some usurers do." "You are pleasant, my lord," Sir Francis replied. "I mean to be so," Lord Roos said; "for I esteem thee for thy rare qualities. I know not thy peer for cunning and knavery. Thy mischievous schemes are so well-conceived that they prove thee to have an absolute genius for villany. Scruples thou hast none; and considerations and feelings which might move men less obdurate than thyself, have no influence over thee. To ruin a man is with thee mere pastime; and groans of the oppressed are music in thine ears." "Aha! a good jest. You were always merry with me, my lord." "Yes, when I borrowed money from thee--but not when I had to repay it twice over. I laughed not then; but was foolish enough to threaten to take thy life. My anger is past now. But we must drink together--a rousing toast." "At your lordship's pleasure," Sir Francis replied. "Cyprien! a flask of wine, and thy largest goblet," Lord Roos cried. " 'Tis well! Now pour the whole into the flagon. Do me reason in this cup, Sir Francis?" "What! in this mighty cup, my lord?" the knight replied. "Nay, 'tis too much, I swear. If I become drunken, the sin will lie at your door." "Off with it! without more ado. And let the toast be what thou practisest--'Pillage and Extortion!'" "I cannot drink that toast, my lord. 'Twill choke me." " 'Sdeath! villain, but thou _shalt_, or thou shalt never taste wine more. Down with it, man! And now your signature to this paper?" "My signature!" Sir Francis cried, reeling from the effect of the wine he had swallowed. "Nay, my good lord; I can sign nothing that I have not read. What is it?" "A blank sheet," Lord Roos rejoined. "I will fill it up afterwards." "Then, my lord, I refuse--that is, I decline--that is, I had rather not, if your lordship pleases." "But my lordship pleases otherwise. Give him pen and ink, and set him near the table." This was done; and Sir Francis regarded the paper with swimming eyes. "Now, your name,--written near the bottom of the sheet," Lord Roos cried. " 'Tis done under com--compulsion; and I pro--protest against it." "Sign, I say," the young nobleman exclaimed, rapping the table peremptorily. On this, Sir Francis wrote his name in the place indicated. "Enough!" Lord Roos cried, snatching up the paper. "This is all I want. Now set him on the table, that his partner may have him in full view when he arrives. 'Twill give him a foretaste of what he may himself expect." "What mean you, ruff--ruffians? 'Tis an indignity to which I shall not submit," cried Sir Francis, who was now, however, too far gone to offer any resistance. A leathern girdle was found, with which he was fastened to the chair, so as to prevent him slipping from it; and in this state he was hoisted upon the table, and set with his face to the door; looking the very picture of inebriety, with his head drooping on one side, his arms dangling uselessly down, and his thin legs stretched idly out. After making some incoherent objections to this treatment, he became altogether silent, and seemed to fall asleep. His elevation was received with shouts of laughter from the whole company. The incident had not taken place many minutes, and a round had scarcely been drunk by the guests, when a loud and peremptory summons was heard at the door. The noise roused even the poor drunkard in the chair, who, lifting up his head, stared about him with vacant eyes. "Let the door be opened," the same authoritative voice exclaimed, which had before ordered its closure. The mandate was obeyed; and, amidst profound silence, which suddenly succeeded the clashing of glasses, and expressions of hilarity, Sir Giles Mompesson entered, with his body-guard of myrmidons behind him. Habited in black, as was his custom, with a velvet mantle on his shoulder, and a long rapier by his side, he came forward with a measured step and assured demeanour. Though he must necessarily have been surprised by the assemblage he found--so much more numerous and splendid than he could have anticipated--he betrayed no signs whatever of embarrassment. Nor, though his quick eye instantly detected Sir Francis, and he guessed at once why the poor knight had been so scandalously treated, did he exhibit any signs of displeasure, or take the slightest notice of the circumstance; reserving this point for consideration, when his first business should be settled. An additional frown might have darkened his countenance; but it was so stern and sombre, without it, that no perceptible change could be discerned; unless it might be in the lightning glances he cast around, as if seeking some one he might call to account presently for the insult. But no one seemed willing to reply to the challenge. Though bold enough before he came, and boastful of what they would do, they all looked awed by his presence, and averted their gaze from him. There was, indeed, something so formidable in the man, that to shun a quarrel with him was more a matter of prudence than an act of cowardice; and on the present occasion, no one liked to be first to provoke him; trusting to his neighbour to commence the attack, or awaiting the general outbreak. There was one exception, however, and that was Jocelyn Mounchensey, who, so far from desiring to shun Sir Giles's searching regards, courted them; and as the knight's eagle eye ranged round the table and fell upon him, the young man (notwithstanding the efforts of his pacific neighbour in the furred cloak to restrain him) suddenly rose up, and throwing all the scorn and defiance he could muster into his countenance, returned Mompesson's glance with one equally fierce and menacing. A bitter smile curled Sir Giles's lip at this reply to his challenge, and he regarded the young man fixedly, as if to grave his features upon his memory. Perhaps they brought Mounchensey's father to mind, for Sir Giles withdrew his gaze for a moment to reflect, and then looked again at Jocelyn with fresh curiosity. If he had any doubts as to whom he beheld, they were removed by Sir Francis, who managed to hiccup forth-- "'Tis he, Sir Giles--'tis Jocelyn Mounchensey." "I thought as much," Sir Giles muttered. "A moment, young man," he cried, waving his hand imperiously to his antagonist. "Your turn will come presently." And without bestowing further notice on Jocelyn, who resisted all his neighbour's entreaties to him to sit down, Sir Giles advanced towards the middle chamber, where he paused, and took off his cap, having hitherto remained covered. In this position, he looked like a grand inquisitor attended by his familiars.	{ "id": "12396" }
8	Of Lupo Vulp, Captain Bludder, Clement Lanyere, and Sir Giles's other Myrmidons.	Close behind Sir Giles, and a little in advance of the rest of the myrmidons, stood Lupo Vulp, the scrivener. Lupo Vulp was the confidential adviser of our two extortioners, to whom they referred all their nefarious projects. He it was who prepared their bonds and contracts, and placed out their ill-gotten gains at exorbitant usance. Lupo Vulp was in all respects worthy of his employers, being just as wily and unscrupulous as they were, while, at the same time, he was rather better versed in legal tricks and stratagems, so that he could give them apt counsel in any emergency. A countenance more replete with cunning and knavery than that of Lupo Vulp, it would be difficult to discover. A sardonic smile hovered perpetually about his mouth, which was garnished with ranges of the keenest and whitest teeth. His features were sharp; his eyes small, set wide apart, of a light gray colour, and with all the slyness of a fox lurking within their furtive glances. Indeed, his general resemblance to that astute animal must have struck a physiognomist. His head was shaped like that of a fox, and his hair and beard were of a reddish-tawny hue. His manner was stealthy, cowering, suspicious, as if he feared a blow from every hand. Yet Lupo Vulp could show his teeth and snap on occasions. He was attired in a close-fitting doublet of russety-brown, round yellow hose, and long stockings of the same hue. A short brown mantle and a fox-skin cap completed his costume. The leader of the troop was Captain Bludder, a huge Alsatian bully, with fiercely-twisted moustachios, and fiery-red beard cut like a spade. He wore a steeple-crowned hat with a brooch in it, a buff jerkin and boots, and a sword and buckler dangled from his waist. Besides these, he had a couple of petronels stuck in his girdle. The captain drank like a fish, and swaggered and swore like twenty troopers. The rear of the band was formed by the tipstaves--stout fellows with hooks at the end of their poles, intended to capture a fugitive, or hale him along when caught. With these were some others armed with brown-bills. No uniformity prevailed in the accoutrements of the party, each man arraying himself as he listed. Some wore old leather jerkins and steel skirts; some, peascod doublets of Elizabeth's time, and trunk-hose that had covered many a limb besides their own; others, slops and galligaskins; while the poorer sort were robed in rusty gowns of tuft-mockado or taffeta, once guarded with velvet or lined with skins, but now tattered and threadbare. Their caps and bonnets were as varied as their apparel,--some being high-crowned, some trencher-shaped, and some few wide in the leaf and looped at the side. Moreover, there was every variety of villainous aspect; the savage scowl of the desperado, the cunning leer of the trickster, and the sordid look of the mean knave. Several of them betrayed, by the marks of infamy branded on their faces, or by the loss of ears, that they had passed through the hands of the public executioner. Amongst these there was one with a visage more frightfully mutilated than those of his comrades; the nose having been slit, and subsequently sewed together again, but so clumsily that the severed parts had only imperfectly united, communicating a strange, distorted, and forbidding look to the physiognomy. Clement Lanyere, the owner of this gashed and ghastly face, who was also reft of his ears, and branded on the cheek, had suffered infamy and degradation, owing to the licence he had given his tongue in respect to the Star-Chamber. Prosecuted in that court by Sir Giles Mompesson, as a notorious libeller and scandaller of the judges and first personages of the realm, he was found guilty, and sentenced accordingly. The court showed little leniency to such offenders; but it was a matter of grace that his clamorous tongue was not torn out likewise, in addition to the punishment actually inflicted. A heavy fine and imprisonment accompanied the corporal penalties. Thus utterly ruined and degraded, and a mark for the finger of scorn to point at, Clement Lanyere, whose prospects had once been fair enough, as his features had been prepossessing, became soured and malevolent, embittered against the world, and at war with society. He turned promoter, or, in modern parlance, informer; lodging complaints, seeking out causes for prosecutions, and bringing people into trouble in order to obtain part of the forfeits they incurred for his pains. Strange to say, he attached himself to Sir Giles Mompesson,--the cause of all his misfortunes,--and became one of the most active and useful of his followers. It was thought no good could come of this alliance, and that the promoter only bided his time to turn upon his master, against whom it was only natural he should nourish secret vengeance. But, if it were so, Sir Giles seemed to entertain no apprehensions of him, probably thinking he could crush him whenever he pleased. Either way the event was long deferred. Clement Lanyere, to all appearance, continued to serve his master zealously and well; and Sir Giles gave no sign whatever of distrust, but, on the contrary, treated him with increased confidence. The promoter was attired wholly in black--cloak, cap, doublet, and hose were of sable. And as, owing to the emoluments springing from his vile calling, his means were far greater than those of his comrades; so his habiliments were better. When wrapped in his mantle, with his mutilated countenance covered with a mask which he generally wore, the informer might have passed for a cavalier; so tall and well formed was his figure, and so bold his deportment. The dangerous service he was employed upon, which exposed him to insult and injury, required him to be well armed; and he took care to be so. Two or three of Sir Giles's myrmidons, having been selected for particular description, the designations of some others must suffice--such as Staring Hugh, a rascal of unmatched effrontery; the Gib Cat and Cutting Dick, dissolute rogues from the Pickt-hatch in Turnbull Street, near Clerkenwell; old Tom Wootton, once a notorious harbourer of "masterless men," at his house at Smart's Quay, but now a sheriffs officer; and, perhaps, it ought to be mentioned, that there were some half-dozen swash-bucklers and sharpers from Alsatia, under the command of Captain Bludder, who was held responsible for their good conduct. Such was Sir Giles's body-guard. On his entrance, it may be remarked, the curtain in front of the raised table was more closely drawn, so as completely to conceal the guests. But their importance might be inferred from the serving-men, in rich liveries, standing before the traverse. Profound silence reigned throughout the assemblage. Having uncovered, as before mentioned, and made a formal reverence to the company, Sir Giles spoke as follows:-- "I crave your pardon, worthy Sirs," he said, in a distinct and resolute voice, "for this intrusion, and regret to be the means of marring your festivity. I came hither wholly unprepared to find such an assemblage. Yet, though I would willingly have chosen a more fitting opportunity for my visit, and would postpone, if I could, to another occasion, the unpleasant duty I have to fulfil; the matter is urgent, and will not admit of delay. You will hold me excused, therefore, if I proceed with it, regardless of your presence; and I am well assured no let or interruption will be offered me, seeing I act with the royal licence and authority, of which I am the unworthy representative." "Truly, your conduct requires explanation," Jocelyn Mounchensey cried, in a mocking tone. "If I had not been here in London, I should have judged, from your appearance, and that of your attendants, that a band of desperate marauders had broken in upon us, and that we must draw our swords to defend our lives, and save the house from pillage. But after what you have said, I conclude you to be the sheriff, come with your followers to execute some writ of attachment; and therefore, however annoying the presence of such a functionary may be,--however ill-timed may be your visit, and unmannerly your deportment,--we are bound not to molest you." Provocation like this was rarely addressed to Sir Giles; and the choler occasioned by it was increased by the laughter and cheers of the company. Nevertheless he constrained his anger, replying in a stern, scornful tone-- "I would not counsel you to molest me, young man. The mistake you have committed in regard to myself may be pardoned in one of your evident inexperience; who, fresh from the boorish society of the country, finds himself, for the first time, amongst well-bred gentlemen. Of all here present you are probably the sole person ignorant that I am Sir Giles Mompesson. But it is scarcely likely that they should be aware, as I chance to be, that the clownish insolent who has dared to wag his tongue against me, is the son of a Star-Chamber delinquent."	{ "id": "12396" }
9	The Letters-Patent.	A slight reaction in Sir Giles's favour was produced by his speech, but Jocelyn quite regained his position with the company when he exclaimed-- "My father was misjudged. His prosecutor was a villain, and his sentence iniquitous." "You have uttered your own condemnation, Jocelyn Mounchensey," Sir Giles cried, with a savage laugh. "Know, to your confusion, that the High Court of Star-Chamber is so tender of upholding the honour of its sentences, that it ever punishes such as speak against them with the greatest severity. You have uttered your scandals openly." "Imprudent young man, you have, indeed, placed yourself in fearful jeopardy," a gentleman near him observed to Jocelyn. "Escape, if you can. You are lost, if you remain here." But instead of following the friendly advice, Jocelyn would have assaulted Sir Giles, if he had not been forcibly withheld by the gentleman. The knight was not slow to follow up the advantage he had gained. "Stand forward, Clement Lanyere," he exclaimed, authoritatively. The promoter instantly advanced. "Look at this man," Sir Giles continued, addressing Jocelyn; "and you will perceive how those who malign the Star-Chamber are treated. This disfigured countenance was once as free from seam or scar as your own; and yet, for an offence lighter than yours, it hath been stamped, as you see, with indelible infamy. Answer, Clement Lanyere,--and answer according to your conscience,--Was the sentence just of the high and honourable court by which you were tried?" "It was just," the promoter replied, a deep flush dyeing his ghastly visage. "And lenient?" "Most lenient. For it left my foul tongue the power of speech it now enjoys." "By whom were you prosecuted in the Star-Chamber?" "By him I now serve." "That is, by myself. Do you bear me malice for what I did?" "I have never said so. On the contrary, Sir Giles, I have always declared I owe you a deep debt." "Which you strive to pay?" "Which I _will_ pay." "You hear what this man says, Mounchensey?" Sir Giles cried. "You have been guilty of the same offence as he. Why should you not be similarly punished?" "If I were so punished, I would stab my prosecutor to the heart," Jocelyn replied. At this rejoinder, Lanyere, who had hitherto kept his eyes on the ground, suddenly raised them, with a look of singular expression at the speaker. "Humph!" Sir Giles ejaculated. "I must proceed to extremities with him, I find. Keep strict watch upon him, Lanyere; and follow him if he goes forth. Trace him to his lair. Now to business. Give me the letters-patent, Lupo," he added, turning to the scrivener, as Lanyere retired. "These Letters-Patent," continued Sir Giles, taking two parchment scrolls with large seals pendent from them from Lupo Vulp, and displaying them to the assemblage, "these Royal Letters," he repeated in his steady, stern tones, and glancing round with a look of half-defiance, "passed under the great seal, and bearing the king's sign-manual, as ye see, gentlemen, constitute the authority on which I act. They accord to me and my co-patentee, Sir Francis Mitchell, absolute and uncontrolled power and discretion in granting and refusing licenses to all tavern-keepers and hostel-keepers throughout London. They give us full power to enter and inspect all taverns and hostels, at any time that may seem fit to us; to prevent any unlawful games being used therein; and to see that good order and rule be maintained. They also render it compulsory upon all ale-house-keepers, tavern-keepers, and inn-keepers throughout London, to enter into their own recognizances with us against the non-observance of our rules and regulations for their governance and maintenance, and to find two sureties: and in case of the forfeiture of such recognizances by any act of the parties, coming within the scope of our authority, it is provided that one moiety of the sum forfeited be paid to the Crown, and the other moiety to us. Lend me your ears yet further, I pray ye, gentlemen. These Royal Letters empower us to inflict certain fines and penalties upon all such as offend against our authority, or resist our claims; and they enable us to apprehend and commit to prison such offenders without further warrant than the letters themselves contain. In brief, gentlemen," he continued in a peremptory tone, as if insisting upon attention, "you will observe, that the absolute control of all houses of entertainment, where exciseable liquors are vended, is delegated to us by his most gracious Majesty, King James. To which end ample powers have been given us by his Majesty, who has armed us with the strong arm of the law. Will it please ye to inspect the letters, gentlemen?" holding them forth. "You will find that his Majesty hath thus written;--'_In cujus rei testimonium has Literas nostras fieri fecimus patentes. Teste Meipso, apud Westm. 10 die Maij, Anno Regni nostri_,' &c. Then follows the royal signature. None of ye, I presume, will question its authenticity?" A deep silence succeeded, in the midst of which Jocelyn Mounchensey broke forth:-- "I, for one, question it," he cried. "I will never believe that a king, who, like our gracious sovereign, has the welfare of his subjects at heart, would sanction the oppression and injustice which those warrants, if entrusted to unscrupulous hands, must inevitably accomplish. I therefore mistrust the genuineness of the signature. If not forged, it has been obtained by fraud or misrepresentation." Some murmurs of applause followed this bold speech; but the gentleman who had previously counselled the young man again interposed, and whispered these words in his ear:-- "Your rash vehemence will undo you, if you take not heed. Beyond question, Sir Giles hath the king's sanction for what he does, and to censure him as you have done is to censure the Crown, which is next to treason. Be ruled by me, my good young Sir, and meddle no more in the matter." Sir Giles, who had some difficulty in controlling his choler, now spoke:-- "You have cast an imputation upon me, Jocelyn Mounchensey," he cried with concentrated fury, "which you shall be compelled to retract as publicly as you have made it. To insult an officer of the Crown, in the discharge of his duty, is to insult the Crown itself, as you will find. In the King's name, I command you to hold your peace, or, in the King's name, I will instantly arrest you; and I forbid any one to give you aid. I will not be troubled thus. Appointed by his Majesty to a certain office, I exercise it as much for the benefit of the Royal Exchequer, as for my own personal advantage. I have his Majesty's full approval of what I do, and I need nothing more. I am accountable to no man--save the King," addressing this menace as much to the rest of the company as to Jocelyn. "But I came not here to render explanation, but to act. What, ho! Madame Bonaventure! Where are ye, Madame? Oh! you are here!" " _Bon jour_, sweet Sir Giles," the landlady said, making him a profound obeisance. "What is your pleasure with me, Sir? And to what am I to attribute the honour of this visit?" "Tut! Madame. You know well enough what brings me hither, and thus attended," he replied. "I come in pursuance of a notice, served upon you a month ago. You will not deny having received it, since the officer who placed it in your hands is here present." And he indicated Clement Lanyere. " _Au contraire_, Sir Giles," Madame Bonaventure replied. "I readily admit the receipt of a written message from you, which, though scarcely intelligible to my poor comprehension, did not seem as agreeably worded as a _billet-doux. Mais, ma foi_! I attached little importance to it. I did not suppose it possible--nor do I suppose it possible now"--with a captivating smile, which was totally lost upon Sir Giles--"that you could adopt such rigorous measures against me." "My measures may appear rigorous, Madame," Sir Giles coldly replied; "but I am warranted in taking them. Nay, I am compelled to take them. Not having made the satisfaction required by the notice, you have deprived yourself of the protection I was willing to afford you. I am now merely your judge. The penalties incurred by your neglect are these: Your licence was suspended a month ago; the notice expressly stating that it would be withdrawn, unless certain conditions were fulfilled. Consequently, as ever since that time you have been vending exciseable liquors without lawful permission, you have incurred a fine of one hundred marks a day, making a total of three thousand marks now due and owing from you, partly to his Majesty, and partly to his Majesty's representatives. This sum I now demand." "Ah! Dieu! three thousand marks!" Madame Bonaventure screamed. "What robbery is this! --what barbarity! ' T is ruin--utter ruin! I may as well close my house altogether, and return to my own fair country. As I am an honest woman, Sir Giles, I cannot pay it. So it is quite useless on your part to make any such demand." "You profess inability to pay, Madame," Sir Giles rejoined. "I cannot believe you; having some knowledge of your means. Nevertheless, I will acquaint you with a rule of law applicable to the contingency you put. ' _Quod non habet in cere, luet in corpore_' is a decree of the Star-Chamber; meaning, for I do not expect you to understand Latin, that he who cannot pay in purse shall pay in person. Aware of the alternative, you will make your choice. And you may thank me that I have not adjudged you at once--as I have the power--to three months within the Wood Street Compter." "Ah, Sir Giles! what an atrocious idea. You are worse than a savage to talk of such a loathsome prison to me. Ah! mon Dieu! what is to happen to me! would I were back again in my lovely Bordeaux!" "You will have an opportunity of revisiting that fine city, Madame; for you will no longer be able to carry on your calling here." "Ciel! Sir Giles! what mean you?" "I mean, Madame, that you are disabled from keeping any tavern for the space of three years." Madame Bonaventure clasped her hands together, and screamed aloud. "In pity, Sir Giles! --In pity!" she cried. The inexorable knight shook his head. The low murmurs of indignation among the company which had been gradually gathering force during the foregoing dialogue, now became clamorous. "A most scandalous proceeding!" exclaimed one. "Deprive us of our best French ordinary!" cried another. "Infamous extortioner!" shouted a third. "We'll not permit such injustice. Let us take the law into our own hands, and settle the question!" shouted a fourth. "Ay, down with the knight!" added a fifth. But Sir Giles continued perfectly unmoved by the tempest raging around, and laughed to scorn these menaces, contenting himself with signing to Captain Bludder to be in readiness. "A truce to this, gentlemen;" he at length thundered forth; "the King's warrant must be respected." Again Madame Bonaventure besought his pity, but in vain. She took hold of his arm, and feigned to kneel to him; but he shook her coldly off. "You are a very charming woman, no doubt, Madame," he said sarcastically; "and some men might find you irresistible; but I am not made of such yielding stuff, and you may spare yourself further trouble, for all your powers of persuasion will fail with me. I renew my demand--and for the last time. Do not compel me to resort to extremities with you. It would grieve me," he added with a bitter smile, "to drag so pretty a woman through the public streets, like a common debtor, to the Compter." "Grace! grace! Sir Giles," cried Madame Bonaventure. Then seeing him remain inflexible, she added, in an altered tone, "I will never submit with life to such an indignity--never!" "We'll all protect you, Madame," cried the assemblage with one voice--"Let him lay hands upon you, and he shall see." Sir Giles glanced at his myrmidons. They stepped quickly towards him in a body. At the same time Jocelyn Mounchensey, whom no efforts of the friendly gentleman could now restrain, sprang forward, and, drawing his sword, was just in time to place himself before Madame Bonaventure, as she drew hastily back. "Have no fear, Madame, you are safe with me," the young man said, glancing fiercely at the knight and his troop. The greatest confusion now reigned throughout the room. Other swords were drawn, and several of the guests mounted upon the benches to overlook the scene. Cyprien, and the rest of the drawers and tradesmen ranged themselves behind their mistress, prepared to resist any attempt on the part of the myrmidons to seize her. The curtain at the head of the room was partly drawn aside, showing that the distinguished persons at the upper table were equally excited. "Gentlemen," Sir Giles said, still maintaining perfect calmness in the midst of the tumult, "a word with you ere it be too late. I don't address myself to you, Jocelyn Mounchensey, for you are undeserving of any friendly consideration--but to all others I would counsel forbearance and non-resistance. Deliver up that woman to me." "I will die upon the spot sooner than you shall be surrendered," said Jocelyn, encouraging the hostess, who clung to his disengaged arm. "Oh! merci! grand merci, mon beau gentilhomme!" she exclaimed. "Am I to understand then, that you mean to impede me in the lawful execution of my purposes, gentlemen?" Sir Giles demanded. "We mean to prevent an unlawful arrest," several voices rejoined. "Be it so," the knight said; "I wash my hands of the consequences." Then turning to his followers, he added--"Officers, at all hazards, attach the person of Dameris Bonaventure, and convey her to the Compter. At the same time, arrest the young man-beside her--Jocelyn Mounchensey,--who has uttered treasonable language against our sovereign lord the King. I will tell you how to dispose of him anon. Do my bidding at once." But ere the order could be obeyed, the authoritative voice which had previously been heard from the upper table exclaimed--"Hold!" Sir Giles paused; looked irresolute for a minute; and then checked his myrmidons with a wave of the hand. "Who is it stays the law?" he said, with the glare of a tiger from whom a bone has been snatched. "One you must needs obey, Sir Giles," replied Lord Roos, coming towards him from the upper table. "You have unconsciously played a part in a comedy--and played it very well, too--but it is time to bring the piece to an end. We are fast verging on the confines of tragedy." "I do not understand you, my lord," Sir Giles returned, gravely. "I discern nothing comic in the matter; though much of serious import." "You do not perceive the comedy, because it has been part of our scheme to keep you in the dark, Sir Giles." "So there is a scheme, then, a-foot here, my lord? --ha!" "A little merry plot; nothing more, Sir Giles--in the working of which your worthy co-patentee, Sir Francis Mitchell, has materially assisted." "Ha!" exclaimed Sir Giles, glancing at his partner, who still occupied his elevated position upon the table--"I presume, then, I have to thank you, my lord, for the indignity offered to my friend?" "As you please, Sir Giles," Lord Roos returned carelessly. "You call it an indignity; but in my opinion the best thing to be done with a man whose head so swims with wine that his legs refuse to support him, is to tie him in a chair. He may else sacrifice his dignity by rolling under the table. But let this pass for the nonce. Before Sir Francis was wholly overcome, he was good enough to give me his signature. You saw him do it, gentlemen?" he added, appealing to the company. "Yes--yes! --we saw him write it!" was the general reply. "And to what end was this done, my lord?" Sir Giles demanded, sternly. "To enable me," replied the imperturbable young nobleman, "to draw out a receipt in full of your joint claims against Madame Bonaventure. I have done it, Sir Giles; and here it is. And I have taken care to grant a renewal of her licence from the date of your notice; so that no penalties or fines can attach to her for neglect. Take it, Madame Bonaventure," he continued, handing her the paper. "It is your full acquittance." "And think you, my lord, that this shallow artifice--to give it no harsher term--will avail you any thing?" Sir Giles cried scornfully. "I set it aside at once." "Your pardon, Sir Giles; you will do no such thing." "And who will hinder me? --You, my lord?" "Even I, Sir Giles. Proceed at your peril." The young nobleman's assurance staggered his opponent. "He must have some one to uphold him, or he would not be thus confident," he thought. "Whose was the voice I heard? It sounded like--No matter! 'Tis needful to be cautious." "You do not, then, hold yourself bound by the acts of your partner, Sir Giles?" Lord Roos said. "I deny this to be his act," the knight replied. "Better question him at once on the subject," Lord Roos said. "Set him free, Cyprien." The Gascon did as he was bidden, and with the aid of his fellow drawers, helped Sir Francis from the table. To the surprise of the company, the knight then managed to stagger forward unassisted, and would have embraced Sir Giles, if the latter had not thrust him off in disgust, with some violence. "What folly is this, Sir Francis?" Sir Giles cried angrily. "You have forgotten yourself strangely, you have taken leave of your senses, methinks!" "Not a whit of it, Sir Giles--not a whit. I never was more my own master than I am at present, as I will prove to you." "Prove it, then, by explaining how you came to sign that paper. You could not mean to run counter to me?" "But I did," Sir Francis rejoined, highly offended. "I meant to run counter to you in signing it, and I mean it now." " 'Sdeath! you besotted fool, you are playing into their hands!" "Besotted fool in your teeth, Sir Giles. I am as sober as yourself. My hand has been put to that paper, and what it contains I stand by." "You design, then, to acquit Madame Bonaventure? Consider what you say?" "No need for consideration; I have always designed it." "Ten thousand thanks, Sir Francis!" the hostess cried. "I knew I had an excellent friend in you." The enamoured knight seized the hand she extended towards him, but in the attempt to kiss it fell to the ground, amid the laughter of the company. "Are you satisfied now, Sir Giles?" asked Lord Roos. "I am satisfied that Sir Francis has been duped," he replied, "and that when his brain is free from the fumes of wine, he will bitterly regret his folly. But even his discharge will be insufficient. Though it may bind me, it will not bind the Crown, which will yet enforce its claims." "That, Sir Giles, I leave competent authority to decide," Lord Roos replied, retiring. And as he withdrew, the curtains before the upper table were entirely withdrawn, disclosing the whole of the brilliant assemblage, and at the head of them one person far more brilliant and distinguished than the rest. "Buckingham!" Sir Giles exclaimed. "I thought I knew the voice." It was, indeed, the King's omnipotent favourite. Magnificently attired, the Marquis of Buckingham as far outshone his companions in splendour of habiliments as he did in stateliness of carriage and beauty of person. Rising from the table, and donning his plumed hat, looped with diamonds, with a gesture worthy of a monarch, while all the rest remained uncovered, as if in recognition of his superior dignity, he descended to where Sir Giles Mompesson was standing. It need scarcely be said that Jocelyn Mounchensey had never seen the superb favourite before; but he did not require to be told whom he beheld, so perfectly did Buckingham realize the descriptions given of him. A little above the ordinary height, with a figure of the most perfect symmetry, and features as aristocratic and haughty as handsome, it was impossible to conceive a prouder or a nobler-looking personage than the marquis. His costume was splendid, consisting of a doublet of white cut velvet, roped with pearls, which fitted him to admiration. Over his shoulders he wore a mantle of watchet-coloured velvet; his neck was encircled by a falling band; and silken hose of the same colour as the doublet completed his costume. His deportment was singularly dignified; but his manner might have conciliated more if it had been less imperious and disdainful. Sir Giles made a profound obeisance as Buckingham advanced towards him. His salutation was haughtily returned. "I have heard something of your mode of proceeding with the keepers of taverns and hostels, Sir Giles," the proud marquis said; "but this is the first occasion on which I have seen it put in practice,--and I am free to confess that you deal not over gently with them, if the present may be considered a specimen of your ordinary conduct. Those letters-patent were not confided to you by his Majesty to distress his subjects, for your own particular advantage and profit, but to benefit the community by keeping such places of entertainment in better order than heretofore. I fear you have somewhat abused your warrant, Sir Giles." "If to devote myself, heart and soul, to his Majesty's service, and to enrich his Majesty's exchequer be to abuse my warrant, I have done so, my lord Marquis,--but not otherwise. I have ever vindicated the dignity and authority of the Crown. You have just heard that, though my own just claims have been defeated by the inadvertence of my co-patentee, I have advanced those of the King." "The King relinquishes all claims in the present case," Buckingham replied. "His gracious Majesty gave me full discretion in the matter, and I act as I know he himself would have acted." And waving his hand to signify that he would listen to no remonstrances, the Marquis turned to Madame Bonaventure, who instantly prostrated herself before him, as she would have done before royalty itself, warmly thanking him for his protection. "You must thank my Lord Roos, and not me, Madame," Buckingham graciously replied, raising her as he spoke. "It was at his lordship's instance I came here. He takes a warm interest in you, Madame." "I shall ever be beholden to his lordship, I am sure," Madame Bonaventure said, casting down her eyes and blushing, or feigning to blush, "as well as to you, Monseigneur." "My Lord Roos avouched," pursued Buckingham, "that at the Three Cranes I should find the prettiest hostess and the best wine in London; and on my faith as a gentleman! I must say he was wrong in neither particular. Brighter eyes I have never beheld--rarer claret I have never drunk." "Oh, Monseigneur! you quite overwhelm me. My poor house can scarcely hope to be honoured a second time with such a presence; but should it so chance"-- "You will give me as good welcome as you have done to-day. No lack of inducement to repeat the visit. Sir Giles Mompesson!" "My lord Marquis." "I lay my commands upon you, good Sir Giles, that no further molestation be offered to Madame Bonaventure, but that you give a good report of her house. Withdraw your followers without delay." "Your commands shall be obeyed, my lord Marquis," Sir Giles rejoined; "but before I go I have an arrest to make. That young man," pointing to Jocelyn, "has been talking treason." "It is false, my lord Marquis," Jocelyn replied. "His Majesty hath not a more loyal subject than myself. I would cut out my tongue rather than speak against him. I have said the King is ill served in such officers as Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell, and I abide by my words. They can reflect no dishonour on his Majesty." "Save that they seem to imply a belief on your part that his Majesty has chosen his officers badly," Buckingham said, regarding the young man fixedly. "Not so, my lord Marquis, These men may have been favourably represented to his Majesty, who no doubt has been kept in ignorance of their iniquitous proceedings." "What are you driving at, Sir?" Buckingham cried, almost fiercely. "I mean, my lord Marquis, that these persons may be the creatures of some powerful noble, whose interest it is to throw a cloak over their malpractices." " 'Fore heaven! some covert insult would seem to be intended," exclaimed Buckingham. "Who is this young man, Sir Giles?" "He is named Jocelyn Mounchensey, my lord Marquis; and is the son of an old Norfolk knight baronet, who, you may remember, was arraigned before the Court of Star-Chamber, heavily fined, and imprisoned." "I do remember the case, and the share you and Sir Francis had in it, Sir Giles," Buckingham rejoined. "I am right glad to hear that, my lord," said Jocelyn. "You will not then wonder that I avow myself their mortal enemy." "We laugh to scorn these idle vapourings," said Sir Giles; "and were it permitted," he added, touching his sword, "I myself would find an easy way to silence them. But the froward youth, whose brains seem crazed with his fancied wrongs, is not content with railing against us, but must needs lift up his voice against all constituted authority. He hath spoken contemptuously of the Star-Chamber,--and that, my lord Marquis, as you well know, is an offence, which cannot be passed over." "I am sorry for it," Buckingham rejoined; "but if he will retract what he has said, and express compunction, with promise of amendment in future, I will exert my influence to have him held harmless." "I will never retract what I have said against that iniquitous tribunal," Jocelyn rejoined firmly. "I will rather die a martyr, as my father did, in the cause of truth." "Your kindness is altogether thrown away upon him, my lord," Sir Giles said, with secret satisfaction. "So I perceive," Buckingham rejoined. "Our business is over," he added, to the nobles and gallants around him; "so we may to our barges. You, my lord," he added to Lord Roos, "will doubtless tarry to receive the thanks of our pretty hostess." And graciously saluting Madame Bonaventure, he quitted the tavern accompanied by a large train, and entering his barge amid the acclamations of the spectators, was rowed towards Whitehall.	{ "id": "12396" }
10	The 'prentices and their leader.	While the Marquis of Buckingham and his suite were moving towards the wharf, amid the acclamations of the crowd (for in the early part of his brilliant career the haughty favourite was extremely popular with the multitude, probably owing to the princely largesses he was in the habit of distributing among them), a very different reception awaited those who succeeded him. The hurrahs and other vociferations of delight and enthusiasm were changed into groans, hootings, and discordant yells, when Sir Francis Mitchell came in sight, supported between two stout myrmidons, and scarcely able to maintain his perpendicular as he was borne by them towards the wherry in waiting for him near the stairs. Though the knight was escorted by Captain Bludder and his Alsatian bullies, several of the crowd did not seem disposed to confine themselves to jeers and derisive shouts, but menaced him with some rough usage. Planting themselves in his path, they shook their fists in his face, with other gestures of defiance and indignity, and could only be removed by force. Captain Bludder and his roaring blades assumed their fiercest looks, swore their loudest oaths, twisted their shaggy moustaches, and tapped their rapier-hilts; but they prudently forbore to draw their weapons, well knowing that the proceeding would be a signal for a brawl, and that the cry of "Clubs!" would be instantly raised. Amongst the foremost of those who thus obstructed Sir Francis and his party was a young man with a lithe active figure, bright black eyes, full of liveliness and malice, an olive complexion, and a gipsy-like cast of countenance. Attired in a tight-fitting brown frieze jerkin with stone buttons, and purple hose, his head was covered with a montero cap, with a cock's feather stuck in it. He was armed neither with sword nor dagger, but carried a large cudgel or club, the well-known and formidable weapon, of the London 'prentices, in the use of which, whether as a quarterstaff or missile, they were remarkably expert. Even a skilful swordsman stood but poor chance with them. Besides this saucy-looking personage, who was addressed as Dick Taverner by his comrades, there were many others, who, to judge from their habiliments and their cudgels, belonged to the same fraternity as himself; that is to say, they were apprentices to grocers, drapers, haberdashers, skinners, ironmongers, vintners, or other respectable artificers or tradesfolk. Now Dick Taverner had an especial grudge against our two extortioners, for though he himself, being 'prentice to a bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, had little concern with them, he was the son of an inn-keeper--Simon Taverner, of the Emperor's Head, Garlick Hill--who had been recently mined by their exactions, his licence taken from him, and his house closed: enough to provoke a less mettlesome spark than Dick, who had vowed to revenge the parental injuries on the first opportunity. The occasion now seemed to present itself, and it was not to be lost. Chancing to be playing at bowls in the alley behind the Three Cranes with some of his comrades on the day in question, Dick learnt from Cyprien what was going forward, and the party resolved to have their share in the sport. If needful, they promised the drawer to rescue his mistress from the clutches of her antagonists, and to drive them from the premises. But their services in this respect were not required. They next decided on giving Sir Francis Mitchell a sound ducking in the Thames. Their measures were quickly and warily taken. Issuing from an arched doorway at the side of the tavern, they stationed some of their number near it, while the main party posted themselves at the principal entrance in front. Scouts were planted inside, to communicate with Cyprien, and messengers were despatched to cry "Clubs!" and summon the neighbouring 'prentices from Queenhithe, Thames Street, Trinity Lane, Old Fish Street, and Dowgate Hill; so that fresh auxiliaries were constantly arriving. Buckingham, with the young nobles and gallants, were, of course, allowed to pass free, and were loudly cheered; but the 'prentices soon ascertained from their scouts that Sir Francis was coming forth, and made ready for him. Utterly unconscious of his danger, the inebriate knight replied to the gibes, scoffs, and menaces addressed to him, by snapping his fingers in his opponents' faces, and irritating them in their turn; but if he was insensible of the risk he ran, those around him were not, and his two supporters endeavoured to hurry him forward. Violently resisting their efforts, he tried to shake them off, and more than once stood stock-still, until compelled to go on. Arrived at the stairhead, he next refused to embark, and a scene of violent altercation ensued between him and his attendants. Many boats were moored off the shore, with a couple of barges close at hand; and the watermen and oarsmen standing up in their craft, listened to what was going forward with much apparent amusement. Hastily descending the steps, Captain Bludder placed himself near the wherry intended for the knight, and called to the others to make short work of it and bring him down. At this juncture the word was given by Dick Taverner, who acted as leader, and in less than two minutes, Sir Francis was transferred from the hands of his myrmidons to those of the 'prentices. To accomplish this, a vigorous application of cudgels was required, and some broken pates were the consequence of resistance; but the attack was perfectly successful; the myrmidons and Alsatians were routed, and the 'prentices remained masters of the field, and captors of a prisoner. Stupefied with rage and astonishment, Captain Bludder looked on; at one moment thinking of drawing his sword, and joining the fray; but the next, perceiving that his men were evidently worsted, he decided upon making off; and with this view he was about to jump into the wherry, when his purpose was prevented by Dick Taverner, and a few others of the most active of his companions, who dashed down the steps to where he stood. The captain had already got one foot in the wherry, and the watermen, equally alarmed with himself, were trying to push off, when the invaders came up, and, springing into the boat, took possession of the oars, sending Bludder floundering into the Thames, where he sunk up to the shoulders, and stuck fast in the mud, roaring piteously for help. Scarcely were the 'prentices seated, than Sir Francis Mitchell was brought down to them, and the poor knight, beginning to comprehend the jeopardy in which he was placed, roared for help as lustily as the half-drowned Alsatian captain, and quite as ineffectually. The latter was left to shift for himself, but the former was rowed out some twenty or thirty yards from the shore, where, a stout cord being fastened to his girdle, he was plunged head-foremost into the river; and after being thrice drawn up, and as often submerged again, he was dragged on board, and left to shiver and shake in his dripping habiliments in the stern of the boat. The bath had completely sobered him, and he bitterly bemoaned himself, declaring that if he did not catch his death of cold he should be plagued with cramps and rheumatism during the rest of his days. He did not dare to utter any threats against his persecutors, but he internally vowed to be revenged upon them--cost what it might. The 'prentices laughed at his complaints, and Dick Taverner told him--"that as he liked not cold water, he should have spared them their ale and wine; but, as he had meddled with their liquors, and with those who sold them, they had given him a taste of a different beverage, which they should provide, free of cost, for all those who interfered with their enjoyments, and the rights of the public." Dick added, "that his last sousing was in requital for the stoppage of the Emperor's Head, and that, with his own free will, he would have left him under the water, with a stone round his neck." This measure of retributive justice accomplished, the 'prentices and their leader made for the stairs, where they landed, after telling the watermen to row their fare to the point nearest his lodgings; an order which was seconded by Sir Francis himself, who was apprehensive of further outrage. Neither would he tarry to take in Captain Bludder, though earnestly implored to do so by that personage, who, having in his struggles sunk deeper into the oozy bed, could now only just keep his bearded chin and mouth above the level of the tide. Taking compassion upon him, Dick Taverner threw him an oar, and, instantly grasping it, the Alsatian was in this way dragged ashore; presenting a very woful spectacle, his nether limbs being covered with slime, while the moisture poured from his garments, as it would from the coat of a water-spaniel. His hat had floated down the stream, and he had left one boot sticking in the mud, while his buff jerkin, saturated with wet, clung to his skin like a damp glove. Leaving him to wring his cloak and dry his habiliments in the best way he could, the leader of the 'prentices collected together his forces, and, disposing them in something like military array, placed himself at their head, and marched towards the tavern, where they set up a great shout. Hitherto they had met with no interruption whatever. On the contrary, the watermen, bargemen, and others, had cheered them on in their work of mischief; and the crowd on shore appeared rather friendly to them than otherwise. Flushed with success, the riotous youths seemed well disposed to carry their work of retribution to extremities, and to inflict some punishment upon Sir Giles proportionate to his enormities. Having ascertained, from their scouts, that no one connected with the usurious knight had come forth, they felt quite secure of their prey, and were organising a plan of attack, when intelligence was brought by a scout that a great disturbance was going on inside, in consequence of a young gentleman having been arrested by Sir Giles and his crew, and that their presence was instantly required by Madame Bonaventure. On hearing this, Dick Taverner shouted--"To the rescue! to the rescue!" and rushed into the house, followed by the 'prentices, who loudly echoed his cries. " _Par ici, Messieurs! Par ici! _--this way, this way!" vociferated Cyprien, who met them in the passage--"the bowling-alley--there they are!" But the Gascon's directions were scarcely needed. The clashing of swords would have served to guide the 'prentices to the scene of conflict.	{ "id": "12396" }
11	John Wolfe.	When Jocelyn Mounchensey called for his reckoning, Madame Bonaventure took him aside, showing, by her looks, that she had something important to communicate to him, and began by telling him he was heartily welcome to all he had partaken of at her ordinary, adding that she considered herself very greatly his debtor for the gallantry and zeal he had displayed in her behalf. "Not that I was in any real peril, my fair young Sir," she continued, "though I feigned to be so, for I have powerful protectors, as you perceive; and indeed this was all a preconcerted scheme between my Lord Roos and his noble friends to turn the tables on the two extortioners. But that does not lessen my gratitude to you; and I shall try to prove it. You are in more danger than, perchance, you wot of; and I feel quite sure Sir Giles means to carry his threat into execution, and to cause your arrest." Seeing him smile disdainfully, as if he had no apprehensions, she added, somewhat quickly--"What will your bravery avail against so many, _mon beau gentilhomme? Mon Dieu_! nothing. No! no! I must get you assistance. Luckily I have some friends at hand, the 'prentices--_grands et forts gaillards, avec des estocs;_--Cyprien has told me they are here. Most certainly they will take your part. So, Sir Giles shall not carry you off, after all." Jocelyn's lips again curled with the same disdainful smile as before. " _Ah I vous etes trop temeraire!" _ Madame Bonaventure cried, tapping his arm. "Sit down here for awhile. I will give you the signal when you may depart with safety. Do not attempt to stir till then. You understand?" Jocelyn did not understand very clearly; but without making any observation to the contrary, he took the seat pointed out to him. The position was well-chosen, inasmuch as it enabled him to command the movements of the foe, and offered him a retreat through a side-door, close at hand; though he was naturally quite ignorant whither the outlet might conduct him. While this was passing, Sir Giles was engaged in giving directions respecting his partner, whose inebriate condition greatly scandalized him; and it was in pursuance of his orders that Sir Francis was transported to the wharf where the misadventure before related befel him. Never for a moment did Sir Giles' watchful eye quit Jocelyn, upon whom he was ready to pounce like a tiger, if the young man made any movement to depart; and he only waited till the tavern should be clear of company to effect the seizure. Meanwhile another person approached the young man. This was the friendly stranger in the furred gown and flat cap, who had sat next him at dinner, and who, it appeared, was not willing to abandon him in his difficulties. Addressing him with much kindness, the worthy personage informed him that he was a bookseller, named John Wolfe, and carried on business at the sign of the Bible and Crown in Paul's Churchyard, where he should be glad to see the young man, whenever he was free to call upon him. "But I cannot disguise from you, Master Jocelyn Mounchensey--for your dispute with Sir Francis Mitchell has acquainted me with your name," John Wolfe said--"that your rashness has placed you in imminent peril; so that there is but little chance for the present of my showing you the hospitality and kindness I desire. Sir Giles seems to hover over you as a rapacious vulture might do before making his swoop. Heaven shield you from his talons! And now, my good young Sir, accept one piece of caution from me, which my years and kindly feelings towards you entitle me to make. An you 'scape this danger, as I trust you may, let it be a lesson to you to put a guard upon your tongue, and not suffer it to out-run your judgment. You are much too rash and impetuous, and by your folly (nay, do not quarrel with me, my young friend--I can give no milder appellation to your conduct) have placed yourself in the power of your enemies. Not only have you provoked Sir Francis Mitchell, whose malice is more easily aroused than appeased, but you have defied Sir Giles Mompesson, who is equally implacable in his enmities; and as if two such enemies were not enough, you must needs make a third, yet more dangerous than either." "How so, good Master Wolfe?" Jocelyn cried. "To whom do you refer?" "To whom should I refer, Master Jocelyn," Wolfe rejoined, "but to my lord of Buckingham, whom you wantonly insulted? For the latter indiscretion there can be no excuse, whatever there may be for the former; and it was simple madness to affront a nobleman of his exalted rank, second only in authority to the King himself." "But how have I offended the Marquis?" demanded Jocelyn, surprised. "Is it possible you can have spoken at random, and without knowledge of the force of your own words?" John Wolfe rejoined, looking hard at him. "It may be so, for you are plainly ignorant of the world. Well, then," he added, lowering his tone, "when you said that these two abominable extortioners were the creatures of some great man, who glozed over their villainous practices to the King, and gave a better account of them than they deserve, you were nearer the truth than you imagined; but it could hardly be agreeable to the Marquis to be told this to his face, since it is notorious to all (except to yourself) that he is the man." "Heavens!" exclaimed Jocelyn, "I now see the error I have committed." "A grave error indeed," rejoined Wolfe, shaking his head, "and most difficult to be repaired--for the plea of ignorance, though it may suffice with me, will scarcely avail you with the Marquis. Indeed, it can never be urged, since he disowns any connection with these men; and it is suspected that his half-brother, Sir Edward Villiers, goes between them in all their secret transactions. Of this, however, I know nothing personally, and only tell you what I have heard. But if it were not almost treasonable to say it, I might add, that his Majesty is far too careless of the means whereby his exchequer is enriched, and his favourites gratified; and, at all events, suffers himself to be too easily imposed upon. Hence all these patents and monopolies under which we groan. The favourites _must_ have money; and as the King has little to give them, they raise as much as they please on the credit of his name. Thus everything is _sold_; places, posts, titles, all have their price--bribery and corruption reign everywhere. The lord-keeper pays a pension to the Marquis--so doth the attorney-general--and simony is openly practised; for the Bishop of Salisbury paid him £3,500 for his bishopric. But this is not the worst of it. Is it not terrible to think of a proud nobleman, clothed almost with supreme authority, being secretly leagued with sordid wretches, whose practices he openly discountenances and contemns, and receiving share of their spoil? Is it not yet more terrible to reflect that the royal coffers are in some degree supplied by similar means?" " 'Tis enough to drive an honest man distracted," Jocelyn said, "and you cannot wonder at my indignation, though you may blame my want of caution. I have said nothing half so strong as you have just uttered, Master Wolfe." "Ah! but, my good young Sir, I do not publicly proclaim my opinions as you do. My lord of Buckingham's name must no more be called in question than his Majesty's. To associate the Marquis's name with those of his known instruments were to give him mortal offence. Even to hint at such a connection is sufficient to provoke his displeasure! But enough of this. My purpose is not to lecture you, but to befriend you. Tell me frankly, my good young Sir--and be not offended with the offer--will my purse be useful to you? If so, 'tis freely at your service; and it may help you in your present emergency--for though there is not enough in it to bribe the master to forego his purpose against you, there is amply sufficient to procure your liberation, privily, from the men." "I thank you heartily, good Master Wolfe, and believe me, I am not withheld by false pride from accepting your offer," Jocelyn replied; "but I must trust to my own arm to maintain my liberty, and to my own address to regain it, if I be taken. Again, I thank you, Sir." "I grieve that I cannot lend you other aid," John Wolfe replied, looking compassionately at him; "but my peaceful avocations do not permit me to take any part in personal conflicts, and I am loath to be mixed up in such disturbances. Nevertheless, I do not like to stand by, and see outrage done." "Concern yourself no more about me, worthy Sir," interrupted Jocelyn. "Perhaps I shall not be molested, and if I should be, I am well able to take care of myself. Let those who assail me bear the consequences." But John Wolfe still lingered. "If some of my apprentices were only here," he said, "and especially that riotous rogue, Dick Taverner, something might be done to help you effectually. --Ha! what is that uproar?" as a tumultuous noise, mixed with the cries of "Clubs! --Clubs!" was heard without, coming from the direction of the wharf. "As I live! the 'prentices _are_ out, and engaged in some mischievous work, and it will be strange if Dick Taverner be not among them. I will see what they are about." And as he spoke he hurried to the oriel window which looked out upon the wharf, exclaiming--"Ay, ay,--'t is as I thought. Dick _is_ among them, and at their head. 'Fore heaven! they are attacking those ruffianly braggarts from Whitefriars, and are laying about them lustily with their cudgels. Ha! what is this I see? The Alsatians and the myrmidons are routed, and the brave lads have captured Sir Francis Mitchell. What are they about to do with him? I must go forth and see." His purpose, however, was prevented by a sudden movement on the part of Sir Giles and his attendants. They came in the direction of Jocelyn Mounchensey, with the evident intention of seizing the young man. Jocelyn instantly sprang to his feet, drew his sword, and put himself in a posture of defence. The myrmidons prepared to beat down the young man's blade with their halberds, and secure him, when Jocelyn's cloak was plucked from behind, and he heard Madame Bonaventure's voice exclaim--"Come this way! --follow me instantly!" Thus enjoined, he dashed through the door, which was instantly fastened, as soon as he had made good his retreat.	{ "id": "12396" }
12	The Arrest and the Rescue.	Lupo Vulp had endeavoured to dissuade Sir Giles from putting his design of arresting Jocelyn into immediate execution; alleging the great risk he would incur, as well from the resolute character of the young man himself, who was certain to offer determined resistance, as from the temper of the company, which, being decidedly adverse to any such step, might occasion a disturbance that would probably result in the prisoner's rescue. "In any case, Sir Giles," said the wily scrivener, "let me counsel you to tarry till the greater part of the guests be gone, and the assemblage outside dispersed; for I noted many turbulent 'prentices among the mob, who are sure to be troublesome." "Since the young man shows no present disposition to quit the house," Sir Giles replied, looking askance at Jocelyn, who just then had moved to another part of the room with Madame Bonaventure, "there is no urgency; and it may be prudent to pause a few moments, as you suggest, good Lupo. But I will not suffer him to depart. I perceive, from her gestures and glances, that our tricksy hostess is plotting some scheme with him. Plot away, fair mistress; you must have more cunning than I give you credit for, if you outwit me a second time in the same day. I can guess what she proposes. You note that side door near them, Lupo? She is advising the youth's flight that way; and he, like a hair-brained fool, will not listen to the suggestion. But it will be well to watch the outlet. Hark ye, Lanyere," he added to the promoter, "take three men with you, and go round quickly to the passage with which yon door communicates. Station yourselves near the outlet; and if Mounchensey comes forth, arrest him instantly. You see the door I mean? About it, quick!" And Lanyere instantly departed with three of the myrmidons. "I would this arrest could be lawfully effected, Sir Giles," said Lupo Vulp, "by a serjeant-at-arms or pursuivant. There would then be no risk. Again I venture to counsel you to proceed regularly. No great delay would be occasioned, if your worship went to Westminster, and made a complaint against the young man before the Council. In that case a messenger of the Court would be despatched to attach his person; and even if he should quit the house in the meanwhile, Lanyere will keep on his track. That were the surest course. As to the manner of proceeding, I conclude it will be by _Ore tenus_. It is not likely that this youth's headstrong temper, coupled with his fantastic notions of honour, will permit him to deny your worship's accusation, and therefore his confession being written down, and subscribed by himself, will be exhibited against him when he is brought to the bar of the Star-Chamber, and he will be judged _ex ore suo_. Your worship will make quick work of it." " _Cum confitente reo citius est agendum_" replied Sir Giles. "No one knows better than thou, good Lupo, how promptly and effectually the court of Star-Chamber will vindicate its authority, and how severely it will punish those who derogate from its dignity. No part of the sentence shall be remitted with my consent. This insolent youth shall suffer to the same extent as Lanyere. Pilloried, branded, mutilated, degraded, he shall serve as a warning to my enemies." "Your worship can scarce make him more of a scarecrow than you have made of Lanyere," Lupo remarked with a grin. "But do you decide on applying in the first instance to the Council?" "No," Sir Giles replied, "I will not lose sight of him. He shall not have a chance of escape. Marked you not, Lupo, how the rash fool committed himself with Buckingham? And think you the proud Marquis would hold me blameless, if, by accident, he should get off scot-free, after such an outrage? But see! the room is well-nigh cleared. Only a few loiterers remain. The time is come." And he was about to order the attack, when the disturbance outside reached his ears, and checked him for a moment. Sir Giles was considering what could be the cause of the tumult, and hesitating whether to go forth and support Sir Francis, in case he stood in need of assistance, when the discomfited myrmidons rushed into the room. A few words sufficed to explain what had occurred, and indeed the bloody visages of some of the men showed how roughly they had been handled. Though greatly exasperated, Sir Giles was determined not to be baulked of his prey; and fearing Jocelyn might escape in the confusion, which an attack upon the 'prentices would occasion, he gave the word for his instant seizure, and rushed towards him, as before related. How he was baffled has already been told. His wrath knew no bounds when the young man disappeared. He hurled himself furiously against the door, but it resisted all his efforts to burst it open. Suddenly the bolt was withdrawn, and Clement Lanyere and his men stood before him. "Have you secured him?" Sir Giles demanded, trying to descry the fugitive among them. "Death and fiends! you have not let him escape?" "No one has passed us, except Madame Bonaventure," the promoter replied. "She was wholly unattended, and came in this direction. We were stationed within yon anti-chamber, which appears to be the sole means of communication with this passage, and we ought therefore to have intercepted the young man when he came forth." "You were not wont to be thus short-sighted, Lanyere. There must be some other mode of exit, which you have failed to discover," Sir Giles cried furiously. "Ha! here it is!" he exclaimed, dashing aside a piece of tapestry that seemed merely hung against the wall, but in reality concealed a short flight of steps. "Purblind dolts that you are, not to find this out. You shall answer for your negligence hereafter, if we take him not." And, accompanied by the troop, he hurried down the steps, which brought him to a lower room, communicating on one hand with a small court, and, on the other, with the kitchen and offices attached to the tavern. Directing Lanyere to search the latter, Sir Giles rushed into the court, and uttered a shout of savage joy on perceiving Jocelyn, sword in hand, scaling a wall which separated the court from the bowling-green. Some difficulty, it appeared, had occurred to the hostess in forcing open a private door in the yard leading to the green, which being rarely used (for the principal entrance was situated elsewhere), its fastenings were rusty, and refused to act. This delay favoured the pursuers; and on hearing their approach, Jocelyn strove to effect his retreat in the manner described. But Sir Giles was further served, though unintentionally, by Madame Bonaventure, who succeeded in drawing back the rusty bolt at the very moment he came up; and no impediment now existing, the knight thrust her rudely aside, and sprang through the doorway just as Jocelyn leaped from the wall. Disregarding Sir Giles's summons to surrender, the young man hurried on till he reached the middle of the bowling-green, where, finding flight impossible, as there was no apparent outlet at the further end of the garden, while it was certain that the tipstaves would pluck him from the wall with their hooks if he attempted to clamber over it, he turned, and stood upon his defence. Willing to have the credit of disarming him unaided, and confident in his own superior strength and skill, Sir Giles signed to his myrmidons to stand back, while he alone advanced towards the young man. A turn in his strong wrist would, he imagined, suffice to accomplish his purpose. But he found out his error the moment he engaged with his opponent. In dexterity and force the latter was fully his match, while in nimbleness of body Jocelyn surpassed him. The deadly glances thrown at him by the young man showed that the animosity of the latter would only be satisfied with blood. Changing his purpose, therefore, Sir Giles, in place of attempting to cross his antagonist's sword, rapidly disengaged his point, and delivered a stoccata, or in modern terms of fence, a thrust in carte, over the arm, which was instantly parried. For some minutes the conflict continued without material success on either side. Holding his rapier short, with the point towards his adversary's face, Jocelyn retreated a few paces at first, but then, charging in turn, speedily won back his ground. Stoccatas, imbroccatas, drittas, mandrittas, and riversas were exchanged between them in a manner that delighted the myrmidons, most of whom were amateurs of sword-play. Infuriated by the unexpected resistance he encountered, Sir Giles, at length, resolved to terminate the fight; and, finding his antagonist constantly upon some sure ward, endeavoured to reach him with a half incartata; but instantly shifting his body with marvellous dexterity, Jocelyn struck down the other's blade, and replied with a straight thrust, which must infallibly have taken effect, if his rapier had not been beaten from his grasp by Clement Lanyere at the very moment it touched his adversary's breast. At the same time the young man's arms were grasped from behind by two of the myrmidons, and he lay at his enemy's disposal. Sir Giles, however, sheathed his rapier, saying, with a grim smile, "that he did not mean to deprive himself of the satisfaction of seeing his foe stand in the pillory, and submit to the sworn torturer's knife;" adding, "it was somewhat strange that one who could guard his body so well, should keep such indifferent watch over his tongue." Jocelyn made no reply to the sarcasm, and the knight was preparing to depart with his followers, when a loud and tumultuous uproar proclaimed the approach of the apprentices. The posse of victorious youths made their way to the bowling-green by the principal entrance, situated, as before mentioned, at a different point from the door by which the others had gained it. More apprehensive of losing his prisoner, than concerned for his personal safety (for though the aggressive party greatly exceeded his own in numbers, he knew well how to deal with them, being accustomed to such encounters), Sir Giles gave some orders respecting Jocelyn to Clement Lanyere, and then prepared to resist the onslaught, by causing his band to form a solid square; those armed with bills and staves being placed in the foremost ranks. This disposition being quickly made, he drew his sword, and in a loud authoritative tone commanded the apprentices to stand back. Such was the effect produced by his voice, and the terrors of his countenance, which seldom failed to strike awe into beholders, that the intending rescuers came to a halt, and showed some hesitation in engaging him. "What means this disturbance?" thundered Sir Giles; "and why do you offer to molest me in the execution of my duty? Know you not that assemblages like yours are unlawful, and that you are liable to severe punishment, unless you immediately disperse yourselves, and peaceably depart to your own habitations? About your business, I say, and trouble me no longer! But first, I command you to deliver up your ringleaders, and especially those who, as I am told, have perpetrated the gross outrage and violence upon the person of Sir Francis Mitchell. An example shall be made of them." "You waste your breath, Sir Giles, and your big words will avail you nothing with us," Dick Taverner replied. "Now hear me in return. We, the bold and loyal 'prentices of London, who serve our masters and our masters' master, the king's highness, well and truly, will not allow an unlawful arrest to be made by you or by any other man. And we command you peaceably to deliver up your prisoner to us; or, by the rood! we will take him forcibly from your hands!" "Out, insolent fellow!" cried Sir Giles; "thou wilt alter thy tune when thou art scourged at the cart's-tail." "You must catch me first, Sir Giles," replied Dick; "and two words will go to that. We have read Sir Francis Mitchell a lesson he is not likely to forget; and we will read you one, an you provoke us. We have a few old scores to wipe off." "Ay, marry! have we," cried an embroiderer's apprentice; "these extortioners have ruined my master's trade by their gold-and-silver-thread monopoly." "Hundreds of worthy men have been thrown out of employment by their practices," said a vintner's 'prentice. "We sell not half the wine we used to do. And no wonder! seeing two-thirds of the inns in London are shut up." "The brewers will be all ruined," said a burly 'prentice, with a wooden shovel over his shoulder; "since every day a fresh ale-house is closed; and no new licences are granted. Murrain seize all such monopolists! They are worse than the fly in hops, or smut in barley." "Ay, plague take 'em!" exclaimed Dick Taverner. "They are as bad as the locusts of Egypt. When they have devoured the substance of one set of tradesfolk they will commence upon that of another. No one is safe from them. It will be your turn next, Master Mercer. Yours after him, Master Ironmonger, however hard of digestion may be your wares. You will come third, Master Fishmonger. You fourth, Master Grocer. And when they are surfeited with spiceries and fish, they will fall upon you, tooth and nail, Master Goldsmith." "I trow not," cried the apprentice last appealed to. "Our masters are too rich and too powerful to submit to such usage." "The very reason they will undergo it," replied Dick. "Their riches are only a temptation to plunder. I repeat, no man is safe from these extortioners. Since the law will not give us redress, and put them down, we must take the law into our own hands. They shall have Club Law." "Ay, ay--'Prentices' law--Club law!" chorussed the others. "Sir Giles will make a Star-Chamber matter of it. He will have us up before the Council," laughed the goldsmith's 'prentice. "He will buy a monopoly of cudgels to deprive us of their use," cried a bowyer. "We will bestow that patent upon him gratis," quoth Dick, making his staff whistle round his head. "The prisoner! --gentlemen 'prentices--do not forget him!" cried Cyprien, who, with two other serving-men and the cook, had joined the assailing party. "Madame Bonaventure implores you to effect his rescue." "And so we will, my jovial Gascon," replied Dick. "Come, Sir Giles! are we to have the young gentleman from you by force or free-will?" "You shall have him in neither way, sirrah," the knight rejoined. "You, yourself, shall bear him company in the Fleet. Upon them, my men, and make for the door!" And as the command was given, he and his troop made a sudden dash upon the 'prentices, who, unable to stand against the bills levelled against their breasts, gave way. Still, the gallant youths were by no means routed. Instantly closing upon their opponents, and being quite as nimble of foot as they, they contrived to cut off their retreat from the garden; and a sharp conflict took place between the parties, as they came to close quarters near the entrance. Three of the myrmidons were felled by Dick Taverner's cudgel; and at last, watching his opportunity, with both hands he launched a bowl which he had picked up at Sir Giles's head. If the missile had taken effect, the fight would have been over; but the knight avoided the blow by stooping down, and the bowl, passing over him, hit Lupo Vulp full in the stomach, and brought him to the ground deprived of breath. Meanwhile, Sir Giles, springing quickly forward, pinned the apprentice against the wall with his rapier's point. "I have thee at last, knave," he cried, seizing Dick by the collar, and delivering him to the custody of the myrmidons nearest him--"I told thee thou should'st visit the Fleet. And so thou shalt." Notwithstanding the capture of their leader, the 'prentices fought manfully, and it still appeared doubtful whether Sir Giles would be able to effect a retreat after all, embarrassed as he now was with two prisoners. Under these circumstances he made a sign to Clement Lanyere to withdraw with Jocelyn through the other door, ordering the two myrmidons who had charge of Dick Taverner to follow him with their captive. It was no easy task to carry out the order; but the promoter managed to accomplish it. Single-handed he drove back all who opposed his progress, while the two prisoners were borne towards the door by the men having them in custody. Hitherto Jocelyn had made no attempt at self-liberation; awaiting, probably, the result of the 'prentices' efforts in his behalf, or some more favourable opportunity than had hitherto presented itself. On reaching the little court the time for exertion seemed to be come. Shaking off the myrmidons who pinioned him, and seizing a bill from one of them, he instantly stretched the fellow at his feet, and drove off his comrade. This done, he lent immediate assistance to Dick Taverner, setting him free, and arming him with as much promptitude as he had used to effect his own deliverance. While thus engaged, he received no interruption from Clement Lanyere, though, if he had chosen, the promoter might no doubt have effectually opposed him. But Lanyere either was, or feigned to be, engaged with some skirmishers at the door; and it was only when both the prisoners had got free, that he rushed towards them, loudly reprehending the men for their carelessness. But if they were to blame, he was no less so, for he showed little address in following the fugitives, and managed to take a wrong turn in the passage, which led both him and the myrmidons astray, so that the prisoners got clear off. How Jocelyn and Dick Taverner contrived to reach the Vintry Wharf, neither of them very distinctly knew,--such was the hurried manner in which they passed through the tavern; but there they were, precisely at the moment that Sir Giles Mompesson, having fought his way through all opposition, issued from the porch at the head of his band. Quite satisfied with his previous encounter with the redoubtable knight, and anxious to escape before his evasion should be discovered, Dick beckoned to his companion, and, making all the haste they could to the stairs, they both jumped into the nearest wherry, when the apprentice ordered the two watermen within it to row for their lives to London-bridge.	{ "id": "12396" }
13	How Jocelyn Mounchensey encountered a masked horseman on Stamford Hill.	Two days after the events last recorded, a horseman, followed at a respectful distance by a mounted attendant, took his way up Stamford Hill. He was young, and of singularly prepossessing appearance, with a countenance full of fire and spirit, and blooming with health, and it was easy to see that his life had been passed in the country, and in constant manly exercise; for though he managed his horse--a powerful bay charger--to perfection, there was nothing of the town gallant, or of the soldier, about him. His doublet and cloak were of a plain dark material, and had seen service; but they well became his fine symmetrical figure, as did the buff boots defending his well-made, vigorous limbs. Better seat in saddle, or lighter hand with bridle, no man could possess than he; and his noble steed, which like himself was full of courage and ardour, responded to all his movements, and obeyed the slightest indication of his will. His arms were rapier and dagger; and his broad-leaved hat, ornamented with a black feather, covered the luxuriant brown locks that fell in long ringlets over his shoulders. So _débonnair_ was the young horseman in deportment, so graceful in figure, and so comely in looks, that he had excited no little admiration as he rode forth at an early hour that morning from Bishopgate Street, and passing under the wide portal in the old city walls, speeded towards the then rural district of Shoreditch, leaving Old Bedlam and its saddening associations on the right, and Finsbury Fields, with its gardens, dog-houses, and windmills, on the left. At the end of Bishopgate-Street-Without a considerable crowd was collected round a party of comely young milkmaids, who were executing a lively and characteristic dance to the accompaniment of a bagpipe and fiddle. Instead of carrying pails as was their wont, these milkmaids, who were all very neatly attired, bore on their heads a pile of silver plate, borrowed for the occasion, arranged like a pyramid, and adorned with ribands and flowers. In this way they visited all their customers and danced before their doors. A pretty usage then observed in the environs of the metropolis in the month of May. The merry milkmaids set up a joyous shout as the youth rode by; and many a bright eye followed his gallant figure till it disappeared. At the Conduit beyond Shoreditch, a pack of young girls, who were drawing water, suspended their task to look after him; and so did every buxom country lass he encountered, whether seated in tilted cart, or on a pillion behind her sturdy sire. To each salutation addressed to him the young man cordially replied, in a voice blithe as his looks; and in some cases, where the greeting was given by an elderly personage, or a cap was respectfully doffed to him, he uncovered his own proud head, and displayed his handsome features yet more fully. So much for the master: now for the man. In his own opinion, at least--for he was by no means deficient in self-conceit--the latter came in for an equal share of admiration; and certes, if impudence could help him to win it, he lacked not the recommendation. Staring most of the girls out of countenance, he leered at some of them so offensively, that their male companions shook their fists or whips at him, and sometimes launched a stone at his head. Equally free was he in the use of his tongue; and his jests were so scurrilous and so little relished by those to whom they were addressed, that it was, perhaps, well for him, in some instances, that the speed at which he rode soon carried him out of harm's reach. The knave was not ill-favoured; being young, supple of limb, olive-complexioned, black-eyed, saucy, roguish-looking, with a turned-up nose, and extremely white teeth. He wore no livery, and indeed his attire was rather that of a citizen's apprentice than such as beseemed a gentleman's lacquey. He was well mounted on a stout sorrel horse; but though the animal was tractable enough, and easy in its paces, he experienced considerable difficulty in maintaining his seat on its back. In this way, Jocelyn Mounchensey and Dick Taverner (for the reader will have had no difficulty in recognising the pair) arrived at Stamford Hill; and the former, drawing in the rein, proceeded slowly up the gentle ascent. * * * * * It was one of those delicious spring mornings, when all nature seems to rejoice; when the newly-opened leaves are greenest and freshest; when the lark springs blithest from the verdant mead, and soars nearest heaven; when a thousand other feathered choristers warble forth their notes in copse and hedge; when the rooks caw mellowly near their nests in the lofty trees; when gentle showers, having fallen overnight, have kindly prepared the earth for the morrow's genial warmth and sunshine; when that sunshine, each moment, calls some new object into life and beauty; when all you look upon is pleasant to the eye, all you listen to is delightful to the ear;--in short, it was one of those exquisite mornings, only to be met with in the merry month of May, and only to be experienced in full perfection in Merry England. * * * * * Arrived at the summit of the hill, commanding such extensively charming views, Jocelyn halted and looked back with wonder at the vast and populous city he had just quitted, now spread out before him in all its splendour and beauty. In his eyes it seemed already over-grown, though it had not attained a tithe of its present proportions; but he could only judge according to his opportunity, and was unable to foresee its future magnitude. But if London has waxed in size, wealth, and population during the last two centuries and a-half, it has lost nearly all the peculiar features of beauty which distinguished it up to that time, and made it so attractive to Jocelyn's eyes. The diversified and picturesque architecture of its ancient habitations, as yet undisturbed by the innovations of the Italian and Dutch schools, and brought to full perfection in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, gave the whole city a characteristic and fanciful appearance. Old towers, old belfries, old crosses, slender spires innumerable, rose up amid a world of quaint gables and angular roofs. Story above story sprang those curious dwellings; irregular yet homogeneous; dear to the painter's and the poet's eye; elaborate in ornament; grotesque in design; well suited to the climate, and admirably adapted to the wants and comforts of the inhabitants; picturesque like the age itself, like its costume, its manners, its literature. All these characteristic beauties and peculiarities are now utterly gone. All the old picturesque habitations have been devoured by fire, and a New City has risen in their stead;--not to compare with the Old City, though--and conveying no notion whatever of it--any more than you or I, worthy reader, in our formal, and, I grieve to say it, ill-contrived attire, resemble the picturesque-looking denizens of London, clad in doublet, mantle, and hose, in the time of James the First. Another advantage in those days must not be forgotten. The canopy of smoke overhanging the vast Modern Babel, and oftentimes obscuring even the light of the sun itself, did not dim the beauties of the Ancient City,--sea coal being but little used in comparison with wood, of which there was then abundance, as at this time in the capital of France. Thus the atmosphere was clearer and lighter, and served as a finer medium to reveal objects which would now be lost at a quarter the distance. Fair, sparkling, and clearly defined, then, rose up Old London before Jocelyn's gaze. Girded round with gray walls, defended by battlements, and approached by lofty gates, four of which--to wit, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopgate, and Aldgate--were visible from where he stood; it riveted attention from its immense congregation of roofs, spires, pinnacles, and vanes, all glittering in the sunshine; while in the midst of all, and pre-eminent above all, towered one gigantic pile--the glorious Gothic cathedral. Far on the east, and beyond the city walls, though surrounded by its own mural defences, was seen the frowning Tower of London--part fortress and part prison--a structure never viewed in those days without terror, being the scene of so many passing tragedies. Looking westward, and rapidly surveying the gardens and pleasant suburban villages lying on the north of the Strand, the young man's gaze settled for a moment on Charing Cross--the elaborately-carved memorial to his Queen, Eleanor, erected by Edward I.--and then ranging over the palace of Whitehall and its two gates, Westminster Abbey--more beautiful without its towers than with them--it became fixed upon Westminster Hall; for there, in one of its chambers, the ceiling of which was adorned with gilded stars, were held the councils of that terrible tribunal which had robbed him of his inheritance, and now threatened him with deprivation of liberty, and mutilation of person. A shudder crossed him as he thought of the Star-Chamber, and he turned his gaze elsewhere, trying to bring the whole glorious city within his ken. A splendid view, indeed! Well might King James himself exclaim when standing, not many years previously, on the very spot where Jocelyn now stood, and looking upon London for the first time since his accession to the throne of England--well might he exclaim in rapturous accents, as he gazed on the magnificence of his capital--"At last the richest jewel in a monarch's crown is mine!" After satiating himself with this, to him, novel and wonderful prospect, Jocelyn began to bestow his attention on objects closer at hand, and examined the landscapes on either side of the eminence, which, without offering any features of extraordinary beauty, were generally pleasing, and exercised a soothing influence upon his mind. At that time Stamford Hill was crowned with a grove of trees, and its eastern declivity was overgrown with brushwood. The whole country, on the Essex side, was more or less marshy, until Epping Forest, some three miles off, was reached. Through a swampy vale on the left, the river Lea, so dear to the angler, took its slow and silent course; while through a green valley on the right, flowed the New River, then only just opened. Pointing out the latter channel to Jocelyn, Dick Taverner, who had now come up, informed him that he was present at the completion of that important undertaking. And a famous sight it was, the apprentice said. The Lord Mayor of London, the Aldermen, and the Recorder were all present in their robes and gowns to watch the floodgate opened, which was to pour the stream that had run from Amwell Head into the great cistern near Islington. And this was done amidst deafening cheers and the thunder of ordnance. "A proud day it was for Sir Hugh Myddleton," Dick added; "and some reward for his perseverance through difficulties and disappointments." "It is to be hoped the good gentleman has obtained more substantial reward than that," Jocelyn replied. "He has conferred an inestimable boon upon his fellow-citizens, and is entitled to their gratitude for it." "As to gratitude on the part of the citizens, I can't say much for that, Sir. And it is not every man that meets with his desserts, or we know where our friends Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell would be. The good cits are content to drink the pure water of the New River, without bestowing a thought on him who has brought it to their doors. Meantime, the work has well-nigh beggared Sir Hugh Myddleton, and he is likely to obtain little recompense beyond what the consciousness of his own beneficent act will afford him." "But will not the King requite him?" Jocelyn asked. "The King _has_ requited him with a title," Dick returned. "A title, however, which may be purchased at a less price than good Sir Hugh has paid for it, now-a-days. But it must be owned, to our sovereign's credit, that he did far more than the citizens of London would do; since when they refused to assist Master Myddleton (as he then was) in his most useful work, King James undertook, and bound himself by indenture under the great seal, to pay half the expenses. Without this, it would probably never have been accomplished." "I trust it may be profitable to Sir Hugh in the end," Jocelyn said; "and if not, he will reap his reward hereafter." "It is not unlikely we may encounter him, as he now dwells near Edmonton, and is frequently on the road," Dick said; "and if so, I will point him out to you, I have some slight acquaintance with him, having often served him in my master's shop in Paul's Churchyard. Talking of Edmonton, with your permission, Sir, we will break our fast at the Bell,[1] where I am known, and where you will be well served. The host is a jovial fellow and trusty, and may give us information which will be useful before we proceed on our perilous expedition to Theobalds." "I care not how soon we arrive there," Jocelyn cried; "for the morning has so quickened my appetite, that the bare idea of thy host's good cheer makes all delay in attacking it unsupportable." "I am entirely of your opinion, Sir," Dick said, smacking his lips. "At the Bell at Edmonton we are sure of fresh fish from the Lea, fresh eggs from the farm-yard, and stout ale from the cellar; and if these three things do not constitute a good breakfast, I know not what others do. So let us be jogging onwards. We have barely two miles to ride. Five minutes to Tottenham; ten to Edmonton; 'tis done!" It was not, however, accomplished quite so soon as Dick anticipated. Ere fifty yards were traversed, they were brought to a stop by an unlooked-for incident. Suddenly emerging from a thick covert of wood, which had concealed him from view, a horseman planted himself directly in their path; ordering them in a loud, authoritative voice, to stand; and enforcing attention to the injunction by levelling a caliver at Jocelyn's head. The appearance of this personage was as mysterious as formidable. The upper part of his features was concealed by a black mask. His habiliments were sable; and the colour of his powerful steed was sable likewise. Boots, cap, cloak, and feather, were all of the same dusky hue. His frame was strongly built, and besides the caliver he was armed with sword and poniard. Altogether, he constituted an unpleasant obstacle in the way. Dick Taverner was not able to render much assistance on the occasion. The suddenness with which the masked horseman burst forth upon them scared his horse; and the animal becoming unmanageable, began to rear, and finally threw its rider to the ground--luckily without doing him much damage. Meanwhile the horseman, lowering his caliver, thus addressed Jocelyn, who, taking him for a robber, was prepared to resist the attack. "You are mistaken in me, Master Jocelyn Mounchensey," he said; "I have no design upon your purse. I call upon you to surrender yourself my prisoner." "Never, with life," the young man replied. "In spite of your disguise, I recognise you as one of Sir Giles Mompesson's myrmidons; and you may conclude from our former encounter, whether my resistance will be determined or not." "You had not escaped on that occasion, but for my connivance, Master Jocelyn," the man in the mask rejoined. "Now, hear me. I am willing to befriend you on certain conditions; and, to prove my sincerity, I engage you shall go free if you accept them." "I do not feel disposed to make any terms with you," Jocelyn said sternly; "and as to my freedom of departure, I will take care that it is not hindered." "I hold a warrant from the Star-Chamber for your arrest," said the man in the mask; "and you will vainly offer resistance if I choose to execute it. Let this be well understood before I proceed. And now to show you the extent of my information concerning you, and that I am fully aware of your proceedings, I will relate to you what you have done since you fled with that froward apprentice, whose tricks will assuredly bring him to Bridewell, from the Three Cranes. You were landed at London Bridge, and went thence with your companion to the Rose at Newington Butts, where you lay that night, and remained concealed, as you fancied, during the whole of the next day. I say, you fancied your retreat was unknown, because I was aware of it, and could have seized you had I been so disposed. The next night you removed to the Crown in Bishopgate Street, and as you did not care to return to your lodgings near Saint Botolph's Church without Aldgate, you privily despatched Dick Taverner to bring your horses from the Falcon in Gracechurch Street, where you had left them, with the foolhardy intention of setting forth this morning to Theobalds, to try and obtain an interview of the King." "You have spoken the truth," Jocelyn replied in amazement; "but if you designed to arrest me, and could have done so, why did you defer your purpose?" "Question me not on that point. Some day or other I may satisfy you. Not now. Enough that I have conceived a regard for you, and will not harm you, unless compelled to do so by self-defence. Nay more, I will serve you. You must not go to Theobalds. 'Tis a mad scheme, conceived by a hot brain, and will bring destruction upon you. If you persist in it, I must follow you thither, and prevent greater mischief." "Follow me, then, if you list," Jocelyn cried; "for go I shall. But be assured I will liberate myself from you if I can." "Go, hot-headed boy," the man in the mask rejoined, but he then added quickly; "yet no! --I will not deliver you thus to the power of your enemies, without a further effort to save you. Since you are resolved to go to Theobalds you must have a protector--a protector able to shield you even from Buckingham, whose enmity you have reason to dread. There is only one person who can do this, and that is Count Gondomar, the Spanish lieger-ambassador. Luckily, he is with the King now. In place of making any idle attempts to obtain an interview of his Majesty, or forcing yourself unauthorised on the royal presence, which will end in your arrest by the Knight Marshall, seek out Count Gondomar, and deliver this token to him. Tell him your story; and do what he bids you." And as he spoke the man in the mask held forth a ring, which Jocelyn took. "I intended to make certain conditions with you," the mysterious personage pursued, "for the service I should render you, but you have thwarted my plans by your obstinacy, and I must reserve them to our next meeting. For we _shall_ meet again, and that ere long; and then when you tender your thanks for what I have now done, I will tell you how to requite the obligation." "I swear to requite it if I can--and as you desire," Jocelyn cried, struck by the other's manner. "Enough!" the masked personage rejoined. "I am satisfied. Proceed on your way, and may good fortune attend you! Your destiny is in your own hands. Obey Count Gondomar's behests, and he will aid you effectually." And without a word more, the man in the mask struck spurs into his horse's sides, and dashed down the hill, at a headlong pace, in the direction of London. Jocelyn looked after him, and had not recovered from his surprise at the singular interview that had taken place when he disappeared. By this time, Dick Taverner having regained his feet, limped towards him, leading his horse. "It must be the Fiend in person," quoth the apprentice, contriving to regain the saddle. "I trust you have made no compact with him, Sir." "Not a sinful one I hope," Jocelyn replied, glancing at the ring. And they proceeded on their way towards Tottenham, and were presently saluted by the merry ringing of bells, proclaiming some village festival. NOTE: [1] Lest we should be charged with an anachronism, we may mention that the Bell at Edmonton, immortalized in the story of John Gilpin, was in good repute in the days we treat of, as will appear from the following extract from John Savile's Tractate entitled, _King James, his Entertainment at Theobald's, with his Welcome to London_. Having described the vast concourse of people that flocked forth to greet their new Sovereign on his approach to the metropolis, honest John says--"After our breakfast at Edmonton at the sign of _the Bell_, we took occasion to note how many would come down in the next hour, so coming up into a chamber next to the street, where we might both best see, and likewise take notice of all passengers, we called for an hour-glass, and after we had disposed of ourselves who should take the number of the horse, and who the foot, we turned the hour-glass, which before it was half run out, we could not possibly truly number them, they came so exceedingly fast; but there we broke off, and made our account of 309 horses, and 137 footmen, which course continued that day from four o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon, and the day before also, as the host of the house told us, without intermission." Besides establishing the existence of the renowned _Bell_ at this period, the foregoing passage is curious in other respects.	{ "id": "12396" }
14	The May-Queen and the Puritan's Daughter.	Popular sports and pastimes were wisely encouraged by James the First, whose great consideration for the enjoyments of the humbler classes of his subjects cannot be too highly commended; and since the main purpose of this history is to point out some of the abuses prevalent during his reign, it is but fair that at least one of the redeeming features should be mentioned. It has ever been the practice of sour-spirited sectarianism to discountenance recreations of any kind, however harmless, on the Sabbath; and several flagrant instances of this sort of interference, on the part of the puritanical preachers and their disciples, having come before James during his progress through the northern counties of England, and especially Lancashire, he caused, on his return to London, his famous Declaration concerning Lawful Sports on Sundays and holidays to be promulgated; wherein a severe rebuke was administered to the Puritans and precisians, and the cause of the people espoused in terms, which, while most creditable to the monarch, are not altogether inapplicable to other times besides those in which they were delivered. "Whereas," says King James, in his Manifesto, "We did justly rebuke some Puritans and precise people, and took order that the like unlawful carriage should not be used by any of them hereafter, in the prohibiting and unlawful punishing of our good people for using their lawful recreations and honest exercises upon Sundays and other holidays, after the afternoon sermon or service: we now find that two sorts of people wherewith that country is much infested (we mean Papists and Puritans) have maliciously traduced those our just and honourable proceedings. And therefore we have thought good hereby to clear and make our pleasure to be manifested to all our good people in those parts." And he sums up his arguments, in favour of the license granted, as follows:--"For when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and win their living in all working days?" Truly, an unanswerable proposition. At the same time that these provisions for rational recreation were made, all unlawful games were prohibited. Conformity was strictly enjoined on the part of the Puritans themselves; and disobedience was rendered punishable by expatriation, as in the case of recusants generally. Such was the tenor of the royal mandate addressed to the bishop of each diocese and to all inferior clergy throughout the kingdom. Arbitrary it might be, but it was excellent in intention; for stubborn-necked personages had to be dealt with, with whom milder measures would have proved ineffectual. As it was, violent opposition was raised against the decree, and the Puritanical preachers wore loud in its condemnation, and as far as was consistent with safety, vehement in their attacks upon its royal author. The boon, however, was accepted by the majority of the people in the spirit in which it was offered, and the licence afforded them was but little abused. Perfect success, indeed, must have attended the benign measure, had it not been for the efforts of the Puritanical and Popish parties, who made common cause against it, and strove by every means to counteract its beneficial influence: the first because in the austerity of their faith they would not have the Sabbath in the slightest degree profaned, even by innocent enjoyment; the second, not because they cared about the fancied desecration of the Lord's day, but because they would have no other religion enjoy the same privileges as their own. Thus sectarianism and intolerance went for once hand in hand, and openly or covertly, as they found occasion, did their best to make the people dissatisfied with the benefit accorded them, trying to persuade them its acceptance would prejudice their eternal welfare. Such arguments, however, had no great weight with the masses, who could not be brought to see any heinous or deadly sin in lawful recreation or exercises after divine service, always provided the service itself were in no respect neglected; and so the King's decree prevailed over all sectarian opposition, and was fully carried out. The merry month of May became really a season of enjoyment, and was kept as a kind of floral festival in every village throughout the land. May-games, Whitsun-ales, Morrice-dances, were renewed as in bygone times; and all robust and healthful sports, as leaping, vaulting, and archery, were not only permitted on Sundays by the authorities, but enjoined. These preliminary remarks are made for the better understanding of what is to follow. We have already stated that long before Jocelyn and his companion reached Tottenham, they were made aware by the ringing of bells from its old ivy-grown church tower, and by other joyful sounds, that some festival was taking place there; and the nature of the festival was at once revealed, as they entered the long straggling street, then, as now, constituting the chief part of the pretty little village, and beheld a large assemblage of country folk, in holiday attire, wending their way towards the green for the purpose of setting up a May-pole upon it, and making the welkin ring with their gladsome shouts. All the youths and maidens of Tottenham and its vicinity, it appeared, had risen before daybreak that morning, and sallied forth into the woods to cut green boughs, and gather wild--flowers, for the ceremonial. At the same time they selected and hewed down a tall, straight tree--the tallest and straightest they could find; and, stripping off its branches, placed it on a wain, and dragged it to the village with the help of an immense team of oxen, numbering as many as forty yoke. Each ox had a garland of flowers fastened to the tip of its horns; and the tall spar itself was twined round with ropes of daffodils, blue-bells, cowslips, primroses, and other early flowers, while its summit was surmounted with a floral crown, and festooned with garlands, various-coloured ribands, kerchiefs, and streamers. The foremost yokes of oxen had bells hung round their necks, which they shook as they moved along, adding their blithe melody to the general hilarious sounds. When the festive throng reached the village, all its inhabitants--male and female, old and young--rushed forth to greet them; and such as were able to leave their dwellings for a short while joined in the procession, at the head of which, of course, was borne the May-pole. After it, came a band of young men, armed with the necessary implements for planting the shaft in the ground; and after them a troop of maidens, bearing bundles of rushes. Next came the minstrels, playing merrily on tabor, fife, sacbut, rebec, and tambourine. Then followed the Queen of the May, walking by herself,--a rustic beauty, hight Gillian Greenford,--fancifully and prettily arrayed for the occasion, and attended, at a little distance, by Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, the Hobby-horse, and a band of morrice-dancers. Then came the crowd, pellmell, laughing, shouting, and huzzaing,--most of the young men and women bearing green branches of birch and other trees in their hands. The spot selected for the May-pole was a piece of green sward in the centre of the village, surrounded by picturesque habitations, and having, on one side of it, the ancient Cross. The latter, however, was but the remnant of the antique structure, the cross having been robbed of its upper angular bar, and otherwise mutilated, at the time of the Reformation, and it was now nothing more than a high wooden pillar, partly cased with lead to protect it from the weather, and supported by four great spurs. Arrived at the green, the wain was brought to a halt; the crowd forming a vast circle round it, so as not to interfere with the proceedings. The pole was then taken out, reared aloft, and so much activity was displayed, so many eager hands assisted, that in an inconceivably short space of time it was firmly planted in the ground; whence it shot up like the central mast of a man-of-war, far overtopping the roofs of the adjoining houses, and looking very gay indeed, with its floral crown a-top, and its kerchiefs and streamers fluttering in the breeze. Loud and reiterated shouts broke from the assemblage on the satisfactory completion of the ceremony, the church bells pealed merrily, and the minstrels played their most enlivening strains. The rushes were strewn on the ground at the foot of the May-pole, and arbours were formed, with marvellous celerity, in different parts of the green, with the branches of the trees. At the same time, the ancient Cross was decorated with boughs and garlands. The whole scene offered as pretty and cheerful a sight as could be desired; but there was one beholder, as will presently appear, who viewed it in a different light. It now came to the Queen of the May's turn to advance to the pole, and stationing herself beneath it, the morrice-dancers and the rest of the mummers formed a ring round her, and, taking hands, footed it merrily to the tune of "Green Sleeves." Long before this, Jocelyn and his attendant had come up, and both were so much interested that they felt no disposition to depart. Gillian's attractions had already fired the inflammable heart of the apprentice, who could not withdraw his gaze from her; and so ardent were his looks, and so expressive his gestures of admiration, that ere long he succeeded, to his no small delight, in attracting her notice in return. Gillian Greenford was a bright-eyed, fair-haired young creature; light, laughing, radiant; with cheeks soft as peach bloom, and beautifully tinged with red, lips carnation-hued, and teeth white as pearls. Her parti-coloured, linsey-woolsey petticoats looped up on one side disclosed limbs with no sort of rustic clumsiness about them; but, on the contrary, a particularly neat formation both of foot and ankle. Her scarlet bodice, which, like the lower part of her dress, was decorated with spangles, bugles, and tinsel ornaments of various kinds,--very resplendent in the eyes of the surrounding swains, as well as in those of Dick Taverner,--her bodice, we say, spanning a slender waist, was laced across, while the snowy kerchief beneath it did not totally conceal a very comely bust. A wreath of natural flowers was twined very gracefully within her waving and almost lint-white locks, and in her hand she held a shepherdess's crook. Such was the Beauty of Tottenham, and the present Queen of the May. Dick Taverner thought her little less than angelic, and there were many besides who shared in his opinion. If Dick had been thus captivated on the sudden, Jocelyn had not escaped similar fascination from another quarter. It befel in this way: At an open oriel window, in one of the ancient and picturesque habitations before described as facing the green, stood a young maiden, whose beauty was of so high an order, and so peculiar a character, that it at once attracted and fixed attention. Such, at least, was the effect produced by it on Jocelyn. Shrinking from the public gaze, and, perhaps, from some motive connected with religious scruples, scarcely deeming it right to be a spectator of the passing scene, this fair maiden was so placed as to be almost screened from general view. Yet it chanced that Jocelyn, from the circumstance of being on horseback, and from his position, was able to command a portion of the room in which she stood; and he watched her for some minutes before she became aware she was the object of his regards. When, at length, she perceived that his gaze was steadily fixed upon her, a deep blush suffused her cheeks, and she would have instantly retired, if the young man had not at once lowered his looks. Still, he ever and anon ventured a glance towards the oriel window, and was delighted to find the maiden still there,--nay, he fancied she must have advanced a step or two, for he could unquestionably distinguish her features more plainly. And lovely they were--most lovely! pensive in expression, and perhaps a thought too pale, until the crimsoning tide had mounted to her cheek. Thus mantled with blushes, her countenance might gain something in beauty, but it lost much of the peculiar charm which it derived from extreme transparency and whiteness of skin--a tint which set off to perfection the splendour of her magnificent black eyes, with their darkly-fringed lids and brows, while it also relieved, in an equal degree, the jetty lustre of her hair. Her features were exquisitely chiselled, delicate and classical in mould, and stamped with refinement and intelligence. Perfect simplicity, combined with a total absence of personal ornament, distinguished her attire; and her raven hair was plainly, but by no means unbecomingly, braided over her snowy forehead. Something in this simplicity of costume and in her manner inclined Jocelyn to think the fair maiden must belong to some family professing Puritanical opinions; and he found, upon inquiry from one of his neighbours in the throng--an old farmer--that this was actually the case. The young lady was Mistress Aveline Calveley, his informant said, only child of Master Hugh Calveley, who had but lately come to dwell in Tottenham, and of whom little was known, save that he was understood to have fought at the battle of Langside, and served with great bravery, under Essex, both in Spain and in Ireland, in the times of good Queen Bess--such times as England would never see again, the old farmer parenthetically remarked, with a shake of the head. Master Hugh Calveley, he went on to say, was a strict Puritan, austere in his life, and morose in manner; an open railer against the licence of the times, and the profligacy of the court minions,--in consequence of which he had more than once got himself into trouble. He abhorred all such sports as were now going forward; and had successfully interfered with the parish priest, Sir Onesimus, who was somewhat of a precisian himself, to prevent the setting up the May-pole on the past Sunday,--for which, the farmer added, some of the young folks owe him a grudge; and he expressed a hope, at the same time, that the day might pass by without any exhibition being made of their ill-will towards him. "These Puritans are not in favour with our youth," the old man said; "and no great marvel they be not; for they check them in their pleasures, and reprove them for harmless mirth. Now, as to Mistress Aveline herself, she is devout and good; but she takes no part in the enjoyments proper to her years, and leads a life more like a nun in a convent, or a recluse in a cell, than a marriageable young lady. She never stirs forth without her father, and, as you may suppose, goes more frequently to lecture, or to church, or to some conventicle, than anywhere else. Such a life would not suit my grandchild, Gillian, at all. Nevertheless, Mistress Aveline is a sweet young lady, much beloved for her kindness and goodness; and her gentle words have healed many a wound occasioned by the harsh speech and severe reproofs of her father. There, Sir,--you may behold her fair and saintly countenance now. She seems pleased with the scene, and I am sure she well may be; for it is always a pleasant and a heart-cheering sight to see folks happy and enjoying themselves; and I cannot think that the beneficent Power above ever intended we should make ourselves miserable on earth, in order to win a place in heaven. I am an old man, Sir; and feeling this to be true, I have ever inculcated my opinions upon my children and grandchildren. Yet I confess I am surprised--knowing what I do of her father's character--that Mistress Aveline should indulge herself with beholding this profane spectacle, which ought, by rights, to be odious in her eyes." The latter part of this speech was uttered with a sly chuckle on the part of the old farmer, not altogether agreeable to Jocelyn. The growing interest he felt in the fair Puritan rendered him susceptible. The eyes of the two young persons had met again more than once, and were not quite so quickly withdrawn on either side as before; perhaps, because Aveline was less alarmed by the young man's appearance, or more attracted by it; and perhaps, on his part, because he had grown a little bolder. We know not how this might be; but we _do_ know that the fair Puritan had gradually advanced towards the front of the window, and was now leaning slightly out of it, so that her charms of face and figure were more fully revealed. Meanwhile, the May-pole had been planted, and the first dance round it concluded. At its close, Gillian, quitting her post of honour near the tree, and leaving the morrice-dancers and mummers to resume their merry rounds, unsanctioned by her sovereign presence, took a tambourine from one of the minstrels, and proceeded to collect gratuities within it intended for the hired performers in the ceremony. She was very successful in her efforts, as the number of coins, soon visible within the tambourine, showed. Not without blushing and some hesitation did the May Queen approach Dick Taverner. The 'prentice made a pretence of fumbling in his pouch in order to prolong the interview, which chance had thus procured him; and after uttering all the complimentary phrases he could muster, and looking a great deal more than he said, he wound up his speech by declaring he would bestow a mark (and that was no slight sum, for the highest coin yet given was a silver groat) upon the minstrels, if they would play a lively dance for him, and she, the May Queen, would grace him with her hand in it. Encouraged by the laughter of the bystanders, and doubtless entertaining no great dislike to the proposal, Gillian, with a little affected coyness, consented; and the mark was immediately deposited in the tambourine by Dick, who, transported by his success, sprang from his saddle, and committing his steed to the care of a youth near him, whom he promised to reward for his trouble, followed close after the May Queen, as she proceeded with her collection. Ere long she came to Jocelyn, and held out the tambourine towards him. An idea just then occurred to the young man. "You have a pretty nosegay there, fair maiden," he said, pointing to a bunch of pinks and other fragrant flowers in her breast. "I will buy it from you, if you list." "You shall have it and welcome, fair Sir," Gillian replied, detaching the bouquet from her dress, and offering it to him. "Well done, Gillian," the old farmer cried approvingly. "Ah! are you there, grandsire!" the May Queen exclaimed. "Come! your gift for the minstrels and mummers--quick! quick!" And while old Greenford searched for a small coin, Jocelyn placed a piece of silver in the tambourine. "Will you do me a favour, my pretty maiden?" he said courteously. "That I will, right willingly, fair Sir," she replied; "provided I may do it honestly." "You shall not do it else," old Greenford observed. "Come, your gift, grandsire--you are slow in finding it." "Have patience, wench, have patience. Young folks are always in a hurry. Here 'tis!" "Only a silver groat!" she exclaimed, tossing her head. "Why, this young man behind me gave a mark; and so did this gallant gentleman on horseback." "Poh! poh! go along, wench. They will take better care of their money when they grow older." "Stay, my pretty maiden," Jocelyn cried; "you have promised to do me a favour." "What is it?" she inquired. "Present this nosegay on my part to the young lady in yonder window." "What! offer this to Mistress Aveline Calveley?" Gillian exclaimed in surprise. "Are you sure she will accept it, Sir?" "Tut! do his bidding, child, without more ado," old Greenford interposed. "I shall like to see what will come of it--ha! ha!" Gillian could not help smiling too, and proceeded on her mission. Jocelyn put his horse into motion, and slowly followed her, almost expecting Aveline to withdraw. But he was agreeably disappointed by finding her maintain her place at the window. She must have remarked what was going forward, and therefore her tarrying emboldened him, and buoyed up his hopes. Arrived beneath the window, Gillian committed the tambourine to Dick Taverner, who still hovered behind her like her shadow, and fastening the bouquet to the end of her shepherdess's crook held it up towards Aveline, crying out, in a playful tone, and with an arch look, "'Tis a love gift to Mistress Aveline Calveley on the part of that young cavalier." Whether the offering, thus presented, would have been accepted may be questioned; but it was never destined to reach her for whom it was intended. Scarcely was the flower-laden crook uplifted, than a man of singularly stern aspect, with gray hair cut close to the head, grizzled beard, and military habiliments of ancient make, suddenly appeared behind Aveline, and seizing the nosegay, cast it angrily and contemptuously forth; so that it fell at Jocelyn's feet.	{ "id": "12396" }
15	Hugh Calveley.	Jocelyn at once comprehended that the person who had thus dashed the nosegay to the ground could be no other than Hugh Calveley. But all doubt on the point was removed by Aveline herself who exclaimed in a reproachful tone--"O father! what have you done?" "What have I done?" the Puritan rejoined, speaking in a loud voice, as if desirous that his words should reach the assemblage outside. "I have done that which thou thyself should'st have done, Aveline. I have signified my abhorrence of this vain ceremonial. But wherefore do I find you here? This is no fitting sight for any discreet maiden to witness; and little did I think that daughter of mine would encourage such profane displays by her presence. Little did I think that you, Aveline, would look on and smile while these ignorant and benighted folk set up their idol, piping, dancing, and singing around it as the Gentiles did at the dedications of their deities. For it _is_ an idol they have set up, and they have become like the heathens, worshippers of stocks and stones. Are we not expressly forbidden by the Holy Scriptures to make unto ourselves idols and graven images? The sins of idolatry and superstition will assuredly provoke the Divine displeasure, and kindle the fire of its wrath, as they did in the days of Moses, after the worshipping of the Golden Calf by the Israelites. Thus spake offended Heaven:--'Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them.' Grievously will the Lord punish such as are guilty of these sins, for hath He not declared, as we read in Leviticus, 'I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries to desolation?' And be assured, O daughter, that heavy judgments will descend upon the land, if warning be not taken in time." "Nay, dear father, I cannot view the matter in the same serious light that you do," Aveline rejoined, "neither do I think evil can be derived from pastimes like the present, unless by the evil disposed. I must frankly own that it is pleasant to me to witness such innocent enjoyment as is here exhibited; while as to yon May-pole, with its pretty floral decorations, I can never be brought to regard it as an emblem of superstition and idolatry. Nevertheless, had you commanded me to refrain from the sight, I would unhesitatingly have obeyed you. But I thought I was free to follow my own inclinations." "Why so you were, child," the Puritan rejoined, "because I had full reliance on you, and did not conceive you could have been so easily beguiled by Satan. I lament to find you cannot discern the superstition and wickedness lurking within this false, though fair-seeming spectacle. Do you not perceive that in setting up this wooden idol, and worshipping it, these people are returning to the dark and sinful practices of Paganism of which it is an undoubted remnant? If you cannot discern this, I will make it manifest to you anon. But I tell you now briefly," he continued in a voice of thunder, calculated to reach those at a distance, "that the ceremony is impious; that those who take part in it are idolaters; and that those who look on and approve are participators in the sin; yea, are equal in sin to the actors themselves." Hereupon some murmurs of displeasure arose among the crowd, but they were instantly checked by the curiosity generally felt to hear Aveline's reply, which was delivered in clear and gentle, but distinct tones. "Far be it from me to dispute with you, dear father," she said; "and it is with reluctance that I offer an opinion at all adverse to your own. But it seems to me impossible to connect these pastimes with heathenish and superstitious rites; for though they may bear some resemblance to ceremonials performed in honour of the goddesses Maia and Flora, yet, such creeds being utterly forgotten, and their spirit extinct, it cannot revive in sports that have merely reference to harmless enjoyment. Not one, I am sure, of these worthy folk has the slightest thought of impiety." "You know not what you say, girl," the Puritan rejoined sharply. "The evil spirit is _not_ extinct, and these growing abominations prove it to be again raising its baleful crest to pollute and destroy. Listen to my words, ye vain and foolish ones!" he continued, advancing to the front of the window, and stretching forth his arms towards the assemblage. "Repent! and amend your ways ere it be too late! Hew down the offensive idol, which you term your May-pole, and cast it into the flames! Cease your wanton sports, your noisy pipings, your profane dances, your filthy tipplings. Hear what the prophet Isaiah saith:--'Wo to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink.' And again:--'Wo to the drunkards of Ephraim.' And I say Wo unto you also, for you are like unto those drunkards. ' O do not this abominable thing that my soul hateth.' Be not guilty of the brutish sin of drunkenness. Reflect on the words of holy Job,--'They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in mirth, and in a moment go down, to the grave.' Hew down your idol I say again. Consume it utterly, and scatter its ashes to the winds. Strip off the gaudes and tinsel in which you have decked your foolish May Queen. Have done with your senseless and profane mummeries; and dismiss your Robin Hoods, your Friar Tucks, and your Hobby-horses. Silence your pestilent minstrels, and depart peaceably to your own homes. Abandon your sinful courses, or assuredly 'the Lord will come upon you unawares, and cut you in sunder, and appoint your portion among unbelievers.'" So sonorous was the voice of the Puritan, so impressive were his looks and gestures, that his address commanded general attention. While he continued to speak, the sports were wholly stopped. The minstrels left off playing to listen to him, and the mummers suspended their merry evolutions round the May-pole. The poor denounced May Queen, who on the rejection of her nosegay had flown back to Jocelyn, now looked doubly disconcerted at this direct attack upon her and her finery, and pouted her pretty lips in vexation. Dick Taverner, who stood by her side, seemed disposed to resent the affront, and shook his fist menacingly at the Puritan. Jocelyn himself was perplexed and annoyed, for though inclined to take part with the assemblage, the growing interest he felt in Aveline forbade all interference with her father.	{ "id": "12396" }
16	Of the sign given by the Puritan to the Assemblage.	Meanwhile, a great crowd had collected beneath the window, and though no interruption was offered to the speaker, it was easy to discern from the angry countenances of his hearers what was the effect of the address upon them. When he had done, Hugh Calveley folded his arms upon his breast, and sternly regarded the assemblage. He was well-stricken in years, as his grizzled hair and beard denoted, but neither was his strength impaired, nor the fire of his eye dimmed. Squarely built, with hard and somewhat massive features, strongly stamped with austerity, he was distinguished by a soldier-like deportment and manner, while his bronzed countenance, which bore upon it more than one cicatrice, showed he must have been exposed to foreign suns, and seen much service. There was great determination about the mouth, and about the physiognomy generally, while at the same time there was something of the wildness of fanaticism in his looks. He was habited in a buff jerkin, with a brown, lackered, breast-plate over it, thigh-pieces of a similar colour and similar material, and stout leathern boots. A broad belt with a heavy sword attached to, it crossed his breast, and round his neck was a plain falling band. You could not regard Hugh Calveley without feeling he was a man to die a martyr in any cause he had espoused. A deep groan was now directed against him. But it moved not a muscle of his rigid countenance. Jocelyn began to fear from the menacing looks of the crowd that some violence might be attempted, and he endeavoured to check it. "Bear with him, worthy friends," he cried, "he means you well, though he may reprove you somewhat too sharply." "Beshrew him for an envious railer," cried a miller, "he mars all our pleasures with his peevish humours. He would have us all as discontented with the world as himself--but we know better. He will not let us have our lawful sports as enjoined by the King himself on Sundays, and he now tries to interfere with our recreations on holidays. A pest upon him for a cankerbitten churl!" "His sullen looks are enough to turn all the cream in the village sour," observed an old dame. "Why doth he not betake himself to the conventicle and preach there?" old Greenford cried. "Why should we have all these bitter texts of scripture thrown at our heads? Why should we be likened to the drunkards of Ephraim because we drink our Whitsun-ales? I have tasted nothing more than my morning cup as yet." "Why should our May-pole be termed an idol? Answer me that, good grandsire?" Gillian demanded. "Nay, let him who called it so answer thee, child, for I cannot," the old farmer rejoined. "I can see naught idolatrous in it." "Why should our pretty May Queen be despoiled of her ornaments because they please not his fanatical taste?" Dick Taverner demanded. "For my part I can discern no difference between a Puritan and a knave, and I would hang both." This sally met with a favourable reception from the crowd, and a voice exclaimed--"Ay, hang all knavish Puritans." Again Hugh Calveley lifted up his voice. "Think not to make me afraid," he cried; "I have confronted armed hosts with boldness when engaged in a worse cause than this, and I am not likely to give way before a base rabble, now that I have become a soldier of Christ and fight his battles. I repeat my warnings to you, and will not hold my peace till you give heed to them. Continue not in the sins of the Gentiles lest their punishment come upon you. These are fearful times we live in. London is become another Nineveh, and will be devoured by flames like that great city. It is full of corruption and debauchery, of oppressions, thefts, and deceits. With the prophet Nahum I exclaim--'Wo to the city, it is full of lies and robbery! What griping usury, what extortion are practised within it! What fraud, what injustice, what misrule! But the Lord's anger will be awakened against it. Palaces of kings are of no more account in His eyes than cottages of peasants. --He cutteth off the spirits of Princes: he is terrible to the Kings of the earth.' He knoweth no difference between them that sit on thrones, and those that go from door to door. For what saith the prophet Isaiah? --'I will punish the stout heart of the King of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.' Let the Great Ones of the land be warned as well as the meanest, or judgment will come upon them." "Methinks that smacks of treason," cried Dick Taverner. "Our Puritan has quitted us poor fowl to fly at higher game. Hark ye, Sir!" he added to Hugh Calveley. "You would not dare utter such words as those in the King's presence." "Thou art mistaken, friend," the other rejoined. "It is my purpose to warn him in terms strong as those I have just used. Why should I hold my peace when I have a mission from on high? I shall speak to the King as Nathan spoke to David." "He speaks like a prophet," cried the miller; "I begin to have faith in him. No doubt the iniquities of London are fearful." "If he preach against extortioners and usurers only, I am with him," Dick Taverner said. "If he rid London of Sir Giles Mompesson and his peers he will do good service--still better, if he will put down corruption and injustice as exhibited in the Court of Star-Chamber--eh, Master Jocelyn Mounchensey?" At the mention of this name the Puritan appeared greatly surprised, and looked round inquiringly, till his eye alighted upon the young man. After regarding him for a moment fixedly, he demanded--"Art thou Jocelyn Mounchensey?" The young man, equally surprised, replied in the affirmative. "The son of Sir Ferdinando Mounchensey, of Massingham, in Norfolk?" inquired the Puritan. "The same," Jocelyn answered. "Thy father was my nearest and dearest friend, young man," Hugh Calveley said; "and thy father's son shall be welcome to my dwelling. Enter, I pray of you. Yet pause for a moment. I have a word more to declare to these people. Ye heed not my words, and make a mock of me," he continued, addressing the assemblage: "but I will give you a sign that I have spoken the truth." "He will bring the devil among us, I trow," cried Dick Taverner. " 'Tis to be hoped he will not split the May-pole with a thunderbolt," said the miller. "Nor spoil our Whitsun-ales," cried old Greenford. "Nor lame our Hobby-horse," said one of the mummers. "Nor rob me of my wreath and garlands," said Gillian. "That he shall not, I promise you, fair May Queen!" Dick Tavernor rejoined, gallantly. "I will do none of these things. I would not harm you, even if I had the power," the Puritan said. "But I will discharge a bolt against the head of yon idol," he added, pointing towards the flower-crowned summit of the May-pole; "and if I break its neck and cast it down, ye will own that a higher hand than mine directs the blow, and that the superstitious symbol ought not to be left standing." "As to what we may do, or what we may acknowledge, we will give no promise, Master Hugh Calveley," rejoined old Greenford. "But e'en let fly thy bolt, if thou wilt." Some dissent was offered to this singular proposition, but the majority of voices overruled it; and withdrawing for a moment, Hugh Calveley returned with an arbalist, which he proceeded deliberately to arm in view of the crowd, and then placed a quarrel within it. "In the name of the Lord, who cast down the golden idol made by Aaron and the Israelites, I launch this bolt," he cried, as he took aim, and liberated the cord. The short, iron-headed, square-pointed arrow whizzed through the air, and, by the mischief it did as it hit its mark, seemed to confirm the Puritan's denunciation. Striking the May-pole precisely at the summit, it shattered the wood, and brought down the floral crown surmounting it, as well as the topmost streamers. The spectators stared aghast. "Be warned by this," thundered Hugh Calveley, with gloomy triumph. "Your idol is smitten--not by my hand, but by His who will chastise your wickedness." Whereupon he closed the window, and departed. Presently afterwards, the door was opened by an old, grave-looking, decently-clad serving-man. Addressing Jocelyn, who had already dismounted and given his horse in charge to the youth engaged for a similar purpose by Dick Taverner, this personage invited him, in his master's name, to enter; and, with a heart throbbing with emotion, the young man complied. Chance seemed to befriend him in a way he could never have anticipated; and he now hoped to obtain an interview with Aveline. His conductor led him through a passage to a large chamber at the back of the house, with windows looking upon a garden. The room was panelled with dark shining oak, had a polished floor, an immense chimney-piece, and a moulded ceiling. Within it were a few high-backed chairs, and some other cumbrous furniture, while on an oak table at the side, was spread the simple morning repast of the Puritan and his daughter. But all these things were lost upon Jocelyn, who had eyes only for one object. She was there, and how lovely she appeared! How exquisite in figure--how faultless in feature! Some little embarrassment was discoverable in her manner as the young man entered; but it quickly disappeared. Her father was with her; and advancing towards Jocelyn, he took him kindly by the hand, and bade him welcome. Then, without relinquishing his grasp, he presented the young man to his daughter, saying-- "This is Jocelyn, the son of my dear departed friend, Sir Ferdinando Mounchensey. Some inscrutable design of Providence has brought him hither, and right glad I am to behold him. Years ago, his father rendered me a signal service, which I requited as I best could; and there is nothing I would not gladly do for the son of such a friend. You will esteem him accordingly, Aveline." "I will not fail in my duty, father," she replied, blushing slightly. And Jocelyn thought these words were the sweetest he had ever heard pronounced. "I would pray you to break your fast with us, if our simple fare will content you," said Hugh Calveley, pointing to the table. "I am not over-dainty, and shall do ample justice to whatever is set before me," Jocelyn replied, smiling. "It is well," said the Puritan. "I am glad to find the son of my old friend is not a slave to his appetites, as are most of the young men of this generation." With this they approached the board; and, a lengthy grace being pronounced by Hugh Calveley, Jocelyn sat down by the side of Aveline, scarcely able to believe in the reality of his own happiness--so like a dream it seemed.	{ "id": "12396" }
17	A rash promise.	During the slender repast, Jocelyn, in reply to the inquiries of the Puritan, explained the two-fold motive of his coming to London; namely, the desire of taking vengeance on his father's enemies, and the hope of obtaining some honourable employment, such as a gentleman might accept. "My chances in the latter respect are not very great," he said, "seeing I have no powerful friends to aid me in my endeavours, and I must consequently trust to fortune. But as regards my enemies, if I can only win an audience of the King, and plead my cause before him, I do not think he will deny me justice." "Justice!" exclaimed the Puritan with deep scorn. "James Stuart knows it not. An archhypocrite, and perfidious as hypocritical, he holdeth as a maxim that Dissimulation is necessary to a Ruler. He has the cowardice and the ferocity of the hyaena. He will promise fairly, but his deeds will falsify his words. Recollect how his Judas kiss betrayed Somerset. Recollect his conduct towards the Gowries. But imagine not, because you have been evil intreated and oppressed, that the King will redress your wrongs, and reinstate you in your fallen position. Rather will he take part with the usurers and extortioners who have deprived you of your inheritance. How many poor wretches doth he daily condemn to the same lingering agonies and certain destruction that he doomed your father. Lamentable as is the good Sir Ferdinando's case, it stands not alone. It is one of many. And many, many more will be added to the list, if this tyrannical Herodias be suffered to govern." And as if goaded by some stinging thought, that drove him nigh distracted, Hugh Calveley arose, and paced to and fro within the chamber. His brow became gloomier and his visage sterner. "Bear with him, good Master Jocelyn," Aveline said in a low tone. "He hath been unjustly treated by the King, and as you see can ill brook the usage. Bear with him, I pray of you." Jocelyn had no time to make reply. Suddenly checking himself, and fixing his earnest gaze upon the young man, the Puritan said-- "Give ear to me, my son. If I desired to inflame your breast with rage against this tyrant, I should need only to relate one instance of his cruelty and injustice. I had a friend--a very dear friend," he continued, in a tone of deep pathos--"confined within the Fleet Prison by a decree of the Star-Chamber. He was to me as a brother, and to see him gradually pining away cut me to the soul. Proud by nature, he refused to abase himself to his oppressor, and could not be brought to acknowledge wrongs he had never committed. Pardon, therefore, was denied him--not pardon merely, but all mitigation of suffering. My friend had been wealthy; but heavy fines and penalties had stripped him of his possessions, and brought him to destitution. Lord of an ancient hall, with woods and lands around it, wherein he could ride for hours without quitting his own domains, his territories were now narrowed to a few yards; while one dark, dreary chamber was alone accorded him. Finding he must necessarily perish, if left to rot there, I prevailed upon him (not without much reluctance on his part) to petition the King for liberation; and was myself the bearer of his prayer. Earnestly pleading the cause of the unfortunate man, and representing his forlorn condition, I besought his Majesty's gracious intercession. But when I had wearied the royal ear with entreaties, the sharp reply was--'Doth he make submission? Will he confess his offence?' And as I could only affirm, that as he was guilty of no crime, so he could confess none, the King returned me the petition, coldly observing--'The dignity of our Court of Star-Chamber must be maintained before all things. He hath been guilty of contempt towards it, and must purge him of the offence.' 'But the man will die, Sire,' I urged, 'if he be not removed from the Fleet. His prison-lodging is near a foul ditch, and he is sick with fever. Neither can he have such aid of medicine or of nursing as his case demands.' 'The greater reason he should relieve himself by speedy acknowledgment of the justice of his sentence,' said the King. 'The matter rests not with us, but with himself.' 'But he is a gentleman, Sire,' I persisted, 'to whom truth is dearer than life, and who would rather languish in misery for thrice the term he is likely to last, than forfeit his own self-esteem by admitting falsehood and injustice.' 'Then let him perish in his pride and obstinacy,' cried the King impatiently. And thereupon he dismissed me." "O Sir!" exclaimed Jocelyn, rising and throwing, his arms round the Puritan's neck; "you, then, were the friend who tended my poor father in his last moments. Heaven bless you for it!" "Yes, Jocelyn, it was I who heard your father's latest sigh," the Puritan replied, returning his embrace, "and your own name was breathed with it. His thoughts were of his son far away--too young to share his distresses, or to comprehend them." "Alas! alas!" cried Jocelyn mournfully. "Lament not for your father, Jocelyn," said the Puritan, solemnly; "he is reaping the reward of his earthly troubles in heaven! Be comforted, I say. The tyrant can no longer oppress him. He is beyond the reach of his malice. He can be arraigned at no more unjust tribunals. He is where no cruel and perfidious princes, no iniquitous judges, no griping extortioners shall ever enter." Jocelyn endeavoured to speak, but his emotion overpowered him. "I have already told you that your father rendered me a service impossible to be adequately requited," pursued the Puritan. "What that service was I will one day inform you. Suffice it now, that it bound me to him in chains firmer than brass. Willingly would I have laid down my life for him, if he had desired it. Gladly would I have taken his place in the Fleet prison, if that could have procured him liberation. Unable to do either, I watched over him while he lived--and buried him when dead." "O Sir, you have bound me to you as strongly as you were bound to my father," cried Jocelyn. "For the devotion shown to him, I hold myself eternally your debtor." The Puritan regarded him steadfastly for a moment. "What if I were to put these professions to the test?" he asked. "Do so," Jocelyn replied earnestly. "My life is yours!" "Your life!" exclaimed Hugh Calveley, grasping his arm almost fiercely, while his eye blazed. "Consider what you offer." "I need not consider," Jocelyn rejoined. "I repeat my life is yours, if you demand it." "Perhaps I _shall_ demand it," cried Hugh Calveley. "Ere long, perhaps." "Demand it when you will," Jocelyn said. "Father!" Aveline interposed, "do not let the young man bind himself by this promise. Release him, I pray of you." "The promise cannot be recalled, my child," the Puritan replied. "But I shall never claim its fulfilment save for some high and holy purpose." "Are you sure your purpose _is_ holy, father?" Aveline said in a low tone. "What mean you, child?" cried Hugh Calveley, knitting his brows. "I am but an instrument in the hands of Heaven, appointed to do its work; and as directed, so I must act. Heaven may make me the scourge of the oppressor and evil-doer, or the sword to slay the tyrant. I may die a martyr for my faith, or do battle for it with carnal weapons. For all these I am ready; resigning myself to the will of God. Is it for nothing, think'st thou, that this young man--the son of my dear departed friend--has been brought hither at this particular conjuncture? Is it for nothing that, wholly unsolicited, he has placed his life at my disposal, and in doing so has devoted himself to a great cause? Like myself he hath wrongs to avenge, and the Lord of Hosts will give him satisfaction." "But not in the way you propose, father," Aveline rejoined. "Heaven will assuredly give you both satisfaction for the wrongs you have endured; but it must choose its own means of doing so, and its own time." "It _hath_ chosen the means, and the time is coming quickly," cried the Puritan, his eye again kindling with fanatical light. " 'The Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail.'" "These things are riddles to me," observed Jocelyn, who had listened to what was passing with great uneasiness. "I would solicit an explanation?" "You shall have it, my son," Hugh Calveley replied. "But not now. My hour for solitary prayer and self-communion is come, and I must withdraw to my chamber. Go forth into the garden, Jocelyn--and do thou attend him, Aveline. I will join you when my devotions are ended." So saying he quitted the room, while the youthful pair went forth as enjoined.	{ "id": "12396" }
18	How the promise was cancelled.	It was a large garden, once fairly laid out and planted, but now sadly neglected. The broad terrace walk was overgrown with weeds; the stone steps and the carved balusters were broken in places, and covered with moss; the once smooth lawn was unconscious of the scythe; the parterres had lost their quaint devices; and the knots of flowers--tre-foil, cinque-foil, diamond, and cross-bow--were no longer distinguishable in their original shapes. The labyrinths of the maze were inextricably tangled, and the long green alleys wanted clearing out. But all this neglect passed unnoticed by Jocelyn, so completely was he engrossed by the fair creature at his side. Even the noise of the May Games, which, temporarily interrupted by Hugh Calveley, had recommenced with greater vigour than ever--the ringing of the church bells, the shouts of the crowd, and the sounds of the merry minstrelsy, scarcely reached his ear. For the first time he experienced those delicious sensations which new-born love excites within the breast; and the enchantment operated upon him so rapidly and so strongly, that he was overpowered by its spell almost before aware of it. It seemed that he had never really lived till this moment; never, at least, comprehended the bliss afforded by existence in the companionship of a being able to awaken the transports he now experienced. A new world seemed suddenly opened to him, full of love, hope, sunshine, of which he and Aveline were the sole inhabitants. Hitherto his life had been devoid of any great emotion. The one feeling latterly pervading it had been a sense of deep wrong, coupled with the thirst of vengeance. No tenderer influence had softened his almost rugged nature; and his breast continued arid as the desert. Now the rock had been stricken, and the living waters gushed forth abundantly. Not that in Norfolk, and even in the remote part of the county where his life had been passed, female beauty was rare. Nowhere, indeed, is the flower of loveliness more thickly sown than in that favoured part of our isle. But all such young damsels as he had beheld had failed to move him; and if any shaft had been aimed at his breast it had fallen wide of the mark. Jocelyn Mounchensey was not one of those highly susceptible natures--quick to receive an impression, quicker to lose it. Neither would he have been readily caught by the lures spread for youth by the designing of the sex. Imbued with something of the antique spirit of chivalry, which yet, though but slightly, influenced the age in which he lived, he was ready and able to pay fervent homage to his mistress's sovereign beauty (supposing he had one), and maintain its supremacy against all questioners, but utterly incapable of worshipping at any meaner shrine. Heart-whole, therefore, when he encountered the Puritan's daughter, he felt that in her he had found an object he had long sought, to whom he could devote himself heart and soul; a maiden whose beauty was without peer, and whose mental qualities corresponded with her personal attractions. Nor was it a delusion under which he laboured. Aveline Calveley was all his imagination painted her. Purity of heart, gentleness of disposition, intellectual endowments, were as clearly revealed by her speaking countenance as the innermost depths of a fountain are by the pellucid medium through which they are viewed. Hers was a virgin heart, which, like his own, had received no previous impression. Love for her father alone had swayed her; though all strong demonstrations of filial affection had been checked by that father's habitually stern manner. Brought up by a female relative in Cheshire, who had taken charge of her on her mother's death, which had occurred during her infancy, she had known little of her father till late years, when she had come to reside with him, and, though devout by nature, she could ill reconcile herself to the gloomy notions of religion he entertained, or to the ascetic mode of life he practised. With no desire to share in the pomps and vanities of life, she could not be persuaded that cheerfulness was incompatible with righteousness; nor could all the railings she heard against them make her hate those who differed from her in religious opinions. Still she made no complaint. Entirely obedient to her father's will, she accommodated herself, as far as she could, to the rule of life prescribed by him. Aware of his pertinacity of opinion, she seldom or ever argued a point with him, even if she thought right might be on her side; holding it better to maintain peace by submission, than to hazard wrath by disputation. The discussion on the May Games was an exception to her ordinary conduct, and formed one of the few instances in which she had ventured to assert her own opinion in opposition to that of her father. Of late, indeed, she had felt great uneasiness about him. Much changed, he seemed occupied by some dark, dread thought, which partially revealed itself in wrathful exclamations and muttered menaces. He seemed to believe himself chosen by Heaven as an instrument of vengeance against oppression; and her fears were excited lest he might commit some terrible act under this fatal impression. She was the more confirmed in the idea from the eagerness with which he had grasped at Jocelyn's rash promise, and she determined to put the young man upon his guard. If, in order to satisfy the reader's curiosity, we are obliged to examine the state of Aveline's heart, in reference to Jocelyn, we must state candidly that no such ardent flame was kindled within it as burnt in the breast of the young man. That such a flame might arise was very possible, nay even probable, seeing that the sparks of love were there; and material for combustion was by no means wanting. All that was required was, that those sparks should be gently fanned--not heedlessly extinguished. Little was said by the two young persons, as they slowly paced the terrace. Both felt embarrassed: Jocelyn longing to give utterance to his feelings, but restrained by timidity--Aveline trembling lest more might be said than she ought to hear, or if obliged to hear, than she could rightly answer. Thus they walked on in silence. But it was a silence more eloquent than words, since each comprehended what the other felt. How much they would have said was proclaimed by the impossibility they found of saying anything! At length, Jocelyn stopped, and plucking a flower, observed, as he proffered it for her acceptance, "My first offering to you was rejected. May this be more fortunate." "Make me a promise, and I will accept it," she replied. "Willingly,", cried Jocelyn, venturing to take her hand, and gazing at her tenderly. "Most willingly." "You are far too ready to promise," she rejoined with a sad, sweet smile. "What I desire is this. Recall your hasty pledge to my father, and aid me in dissuading him from the enterprise in which he would engage you." As the words were uttered the Puritan stepped from behind the alley which had enabled him to approach them unperceived, and overhear their brief converse. "Hold!" he exclaimed in a solemn tone, and regarding Jocelyn with great earnestness. "That promise is sacred. It was made in a father's name, and must be fulfilled. As to my purpose it is unchangeable." The enthusiast's influence over Jocelyn would have proved irresistible but for the interposition of Aveline. "Be not controlled by him," she said in a low tone to the young man; adding to her father, "For my sake, let the promise be cancelled." "Let him ask it, and it shall be," rejoined the Puritan, gazing steadily at the young man, as if he would penetrate his soul. "Do you hesitate?" he cried in accents of deep disappointment, perceiving Jocelyn waver. "You cannot misunderstand his wishes, father," said Aveline. "Let him speak for himself," Hugh Calveley exclaimed angrily. "Jocelyn Mounchensey!" he continued, folding his arms upon his breast, and regarding the young man fixedly as before, "son of my old friend! son of him who died in my arms! son of him whom I committed to the earth! if thou hast aught of thy father's true spirit, thou wilt rigidly adhere to a pledge voluntarily given, and which, uttered as it was uttered by thee, has all the sanctity, all the binding force of a vow before Heaven, where it is registered, and approved by him who is gone before us." Greatly moved by this appeal, Jocelyn might have complied with it, but Aveline again interposed. "Not so, father," she cried. "The spirits of the just made perfect--and of such is the friend you mention--would never approve of the design with which you would link this young man, in consequence of a promise rashly made. Discharge him from it, I entreat you." Her energy shook even the Puritan's firmness. "Be it as thou wilt, daughter," he said, after the pause of a few moments, during which he waited for Jocelyn to speak; but, as the young man said nothing, he rightly interpreted his silence,--"be it as thou wilt, since he, too, wills it so. I give him back his promise. But let me see him no more." "Sir, I beseech you--" cried Jocelyn. But he was cut short by the Puritan, who, turning from him contemptuously, said to his daughter--"Let him depart immediately." Aveline signed to the young man to go; but finding him remain motionless, she took him by the hand, and led him some way along the terrace. Then, releasing her hold, she bade him farewell! "Wherefore have you done this?" inquired Jocelyn reproachfully. "Question me not; but be satisfied I have acted for the best," she replied. "O Jocelyn!" she continued anxiously, "if an opportunity should occur to you of serving my father, do not neglect it." "Be assured I will not," the young man replied. "Shall we not meet again?" he asked, in a tone of deepest anxiety. "Perhaps," she answered. "But you must go. My father will become impatient. Again farewell!" On this they separated: the young man sorrowfully departing, while her footsteps retreated in the opposite direction. Meanwhile the May games went forward on the green with increased spirit and merriment, and without the slightest hinderance. More than once the mummers had wheeled their mazy rounds, with Gillian and Dick Taverner footing it merrily in the midst of them. More than once the audacious 'prentice, now become desperately enamoured of his pretty partner, had ventured to steal a kiss from her lips. More than once he had whispered words of love in her ear; though, as yet, he had obtained no tender response. Once--and once only--had he taken her hand; but then he had never quitted it afterwards. In vain other swains claimed her for a dance. Dick refused to surrender his prize. They breakfasted together in a little bower made of green boughs, the most delightful and lover-like retreat imaginable. Dick's appetite, furious an hour ago, was now clean gone. He could eat nothing. He subsisted on love alone. But as she was prevailed upon to sip from a foaming tankard of Whitsun ale, he quaffed the remainder of the liquid with rapture. This done, they resumed their merry sports, and began to dance, again. The bells continued to ring blithely, the assemblage to shout, and the minstrels to play. A strange contrast to what was passing in the Puritan's garden.	{ "id": "12396" }
19	Theobalds' Palace.	The magnificent palace of Theobalds, situated near Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, originally the residence of the great Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and the scene of his frequent and sumptuous entertainments to Queen Elizabeth and the ambassadors to her Court, when she "was seen," says Stow, "in as great royalty, and served as bountifully and magnificently as at any other time or place, all at his lordship's charge; with rich shows, pleasant devices, and all manner of sports, to the great delight of her Majesty and her whole train, with great thanks from all who partook of it, and as great commendations from all that heard of it abroad:"--this famous and delightful palace, with its stately gardens, wherein Elizabeth had so often walked and held converse with her faithful counsellor; and its noble parks and chases, well stocked with deer, wherein she had so often hunted; came into possession of James the First, in the manner we shall proceed to relate, some years before the date of this history. James first made acquaintance with Theobalds during his progress from Scotland to assume the English crown, and it was the last point at which he halted before entering the capital of his new dominions. Here, for four days, he and his crowd of noble attendants were guests of Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, who proved himself the worthy son of his illustrious and hospitable sire by entertaining the monarch and his numerous train in the same princely style that the Lord Treasurer had ever displayed towards Queen Elizabeth. An eyewitness has described the King's arrival at Theobalds on this occasion. "Thus, then," says John Savile, "for his Majesty's coming up the walk, there came before him some of the nobility, barons, knights, esquires, gentlemen, and others, amongst whom was the sheriff of Essex, and most of his men, the trumpets sounding next before his highness, sometimes one, sometimes another; his Majesty riding not continually betwixt the same two, but sometimes one, sometimes another, as seemed best to his highness; the whole nobility of our land and Scotland round about him observing no place of superiority, all bare-headed, all of whom alighted from their horses at their entrance into the first court, save only his Majesty alone, who rid along still, four noblemen laying their hands upon his steed, two before and two behind. In this manner he came to the court door, where I myself stood. At the entrance into that court stood many noblemen, amongst whom was Sir Robert Cecil, who there meeting his Majesty conducted him into his house, all which was practised with as great applause of the people as could be, hearty prayer, and throwing up of hats. His Majesty had not stayed above an hour in his chamber, but hearing the multitude throng so fast into the uppermost court to see his highness, he showed himself openly out of his chamber window by the space of half an hour together; after which time he went into the labyrinth-like garden to walk, where he secreted himself in the Meander's compact of bays, rosemary, and the like overshadowing his walk, to defend him from the heat of the sun till supper time, at which was such plenty of provision for all sorts of men in their due places as struck me with admiration. And first, to begin with the ragged regiments, and such as were debarred the privilege of any court, these were so sufficiently rewarded with beef, veal, mutton, bread, and beer, that they sung holiday every day, and kept a continual feast. As for poor maimed and distressed soldiers, which repaired thither for maintenance, the wine, money, and meat which they had in very bounteous sort, hath become a sufficient spur to them to blaze it abroad since their coming to London." The reader will marvel at the extraordinary and unstinting hospitality practised in those days, which, as we have shown, was exhibited to all comers, irrespective of rank, even to the "ragged regiments," and which extended its bounties in the shape of alms to the wounded and disabled veteran. We find no parallel to it in modern times. Theobalds produced a highly favourable impression upon James, who, passionately attached to the chase, saw in its well-stocked parks the means of gratifying his tastes to the fullest extent. Its contiguity to Enfield Chase was also a great recommendation; and its situation, beautiful in itself, was retired, and yet within easy distance of the metropolis. It appeared to him to combine all the advantages of a royal hunting-seat with all the splendours of a palace; and his predilections were confirmed by a second visit paid by him to it in 1606, when he was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Christianus, King of Denmark, and when the two monarchs were gloriously entertained by the Earl of Salisbury. The Danish king drank inordinately; so did the whole of his suite: and they soon inoculated the English Court with their sottish tastes. Bonnie King Jamie himself got _fou_ twice a-day; and, melancholy to relate, the ladies of the Court followed the royal example, and, "abandoning their sobriety, were seen to roll about in intoxication." So says Sir John Harington, who has given a very diverting account of the orgies at Theobalds, and the inebriate extravagances of Christianus. "One day," writes Sir John, "a great feast was held; and after dinner the representation of Solomon's Temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to have been made before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But alas! as all earthly things do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment thereof. The lady that did play the Queen's part did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties, but forgetting the steps arising to the canopy, overset her casket into his Danish Majesty's lap, and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was into his face. Much was the hurry and confusion. Cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majesty then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state. The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper chambers." Worthy Sir John seems to have been greatly scandalized, as he well might be, at these shameless proceedings, and he exclaims pathetically, "The Danes have again conquered the Britons; for I see no man, or woman either, that can command himself or herself." Nor does he fail to contrast these "strange pageantries" with what occurred of the same sort, in the same place, in Queen Elizabeth's time, observing, "I never did see such lack of good order, discretion, and sobriety as I have now done." Having set his heart upon Theobalds, James offered the Earl of Salisbury, in exchange for it, the palace and domains of Hatfield; and the proposal being accepted (it could not very well be refused), the delivery of the much-coveted place was made on the 22nd May, 1607; the Prince Joinville, brother to the Duke de Guise, being present on the occasion, where fresh festivities were held, accompanied by an indifferent Masque from Ben Jonson. Whether the King or the Earl had the best of the bargain, we are not prepared to decide. Enchanted with his acquisition, James commenced the work of improvement and embellishment by enlarging the park, appropriating a good slice of Enfield Chace, with parts of Northaw and Cheshunt Commons, and surrounding the whole with a high brick wall ten miles in circumference. Within this ring he found ample scope for the indulgence of his hunting propensities, since it contained an almost inexhaustible stock of the finest deer in the kingdom; and within it might be heard the sound of his merry horn, and the baying of his favourite stag-hounds, whenever he could escape from the cares of state, or the toils of the council-chamber. His escapes from these demands upon his time were so frequent, and the attraction of the woods of Theobalds so irresistible, that remonstrances were made to him on the subject; but they proved entirely ineffectual. He declared he would rather return to Scotland than forego his amusements. Theobalds, in the time of its grandeur, might be styled the Fontainebleau of England. Though not to be compared with Windsor Castle in grandeur of situation, or magnificence of forest scenery, still it was a stately residence, and worthy of the monarch of a mighty country. Crowned with four square towers of considerable height and magnitude, each with a lion and vane on the top; it had besides, a large, lantern-shaped central turret, proudly domineering over the others, and "made with timber of excellent workmanship, curiously wrought with divers pinnacles at each corner, wherein were hung twelve bells for chimage, and a clock with chimes of sundry work." The whole structure was built, says the survey, "of excellent brick, with coigns, jambs, and cornices of stone." Approached from the south by a noble avenue of trees, planted in double rows, and a mile in length, it presented a striking and most picturesque appearance, with its lofty towers, its great gilded vanes, supported, as we have said, by lions, its crowd of twisted chimnies, its leaded and arched walks, its balconies, and its immense bay windows. Nor did it lose its majestic and beautiful aspect as you advanced nearer, and its vast proportions became more fully developed. Then you perceived its grand though irregular facades, its enormous gates, its cloistered walks, and its superb gardens; and comprehended that with its five courts and the countless apartments they contained, to say nothing of the world of offices, that the huge edifice comprised a town within itself--and a well-peopled town too. The members of the household, and the various retainers connected with it, were multitudinous as the rooms themselves. One charm and peculiarity of the palace, visible from without, consisted in the arched walks before referred to, placed high up on the building, on every side. Screened from the weather, these walks looked upon the different courts and gardens, and commanded extensive views of the lovely sylvan scenery around. Hence Cheshunt and Waltham Abbey, Enfield, and other surrounding villages, could be distinguished through the green vistas of the park. On the south, facing the grand avenue, was "a large open cloister, built upon several large fair pillars of stone, arched over with seven arches, with a fair rail, and balusters, well painted with the Kings and Queens of England, and the pedigree of the old Lord Burleigh, and divers other ancient families." The body of the palace consisted of two large quadrangles: one of which, eighty-six feet square, was denominated the Fountain Court, from the circumstance of a fountain of black and white marble standing within it. The other quadrangle, somewhat larger, being one hundred and ten feet square, was called the Middle Court. In addition to these, there were three other smaller courts, respectively entitled the Dial Court, the Buttery Court, and the Dove-house Court, wherein the offices were situated. On the east side of the Fountain Court stood an arched cloister; and on the ground-floor there was a spacious hall, paved with marble, and embellished with a curiously-carved ceiling. Adjoining it were the apartments assigned to the Earl of Salisbury as Keeper of Theobalds, the council-chamber, and the chambers of Sir Lewis Lewkener, Master of the Ceremonies, and Sir John Finett. Above was the presence-chamber, wainscotted with oak, painted in liver-colour and gilded, having rich pendents from the ceiling, and vast windows resplendent with armorial bearings. Near this were the privy-chamber and the King's bed-chamber, together with a wide gallery, one hundred and twenty-three feet in length, wainscotted and roofed like the presence-chamber, but yet more gorgeously fretted and painted. Its walls were ornamented with stags' heads with branching antlers. On the upper floor were the rooms assigned to the Duke of Lennox, as Lord Chamberlain, and close to them was one of the external leaded walks before alluded to, sixty-two feet long-and eleven wide, which, from its eminent position, carried the gaze to Ware. In the Middle-court were the Queen's apartments, comprising her chapel, presence-chamber, and other rooms, and over them a gallery nearly equal in length to that reserved for the King. In this quadrangle, also, were Prince Charles's lodgings. Over the latter was the Green Gallery, one hundred and nine feet in length, and proportionately wide. And above the gallery was another external covered walk, wherein were two "lofty arches of brick, of no small ornament to the house, and rendering it comely and pleasant to all that passed by." The gardens were enchanting, and in perfect keeping with the palace. Occupying several acres. They seemed infinitely larger than they were, since they abounded in intricate alleys, labyrinths, and mazes; so that you were easily lost within them, and sometimes wanted a clue to come forth. They contained some fine canals, fountains, and statues. In addition to the great gardens were the priory-gardens, with other inclosures for pheasants, aviaries, and menageries; for James was very fond of wild beasts, and had a collection of them worthy of a zoological garden. In one of his letters to Buckingham when the latter was at Madrid, we find him inquiring about the elephant, camels, and wild asses. He had always a camel-house at Theobalds. To close our description, we may add that the tennis-court, _manége_ stable kennels, and falconry were on a scale of magnitude proportionate to the palace. Beneath the wide-spreading branches of a noble elm, forming part of the great avenue, and standing at a short distance from the principal, entrance to the palace, were collected together, one pleasant afternoon in May, a small group of persons, consisting almost entirely of the reader's acquaintances. Chief amongst them was Jocelyn Mounchensey, who, having dismounted and fastened his horse to the branch, was leaning against the large trunk of the tree, contemplating the magnificent structure we have attempted to describe. Unacquainted as yet with its internal splendours, he had no difficulty in comprehending them from what he beheld from without. The entrance gates were open, and a wide archway beyond leading to the great quadrangle, gave him a view of its beautiful marble fountain in the midst, ornamented with exquisite statues of Venus and Cupid. Numerous officers of the household, pages, ushers, and serving-men in the royal liveries, with now and then some personage of distinction, were continually passing across the Fountain Court. Gaily attired courtiers, in doublets of satin and mantles of velvet, were lounging in the balconies of the presence-chamber, staring at Jocelyn and his companions for, want of better occupation. Other young nobles, accompanied by richly-habited dames--some of them the highest-born and loveliest in the land--were promenading to and fro upon the garden terrace on the right, chattering and laughing loudly. There was plenty of life and movement everywhere. Even in the Lord Chamberlain's walk, which, as we have said, was contrived in the upper part of the structure, and formed a sort of external gallery, three persons might be discerned; and to save the reader any speculation, we will tell him that these persons were the Duke of Lennox (Lord Chamberlain), the Conde de Gondomar (the Spanish lieger-ambassador), and the Lord Roos. In front of the great gates were stationed four warders with the royal badge woven in gold on the front and back of their crimson doublets, with roses in their velvet hats, roses in their buskins, and halberts over their shoulders. Just within the gates stood a gigantic porter, a full head and shoulders taller than the burly warders themselves. From the summit of the lofty central tower of the palace floated the royal banner, discernible by all the country round. On the other side of the tree against which Jocelyn was leaning, and looking down the long avenue, rather than towards the palace, stood Dick Taverner, who however bestowed little attention upon his master, being fully occupied by a more attractive object close at hand. Dickon, it appeared, had succeeded in inducing Gillian Greenford to accompany him in the expedition to Theobalds, and as the fair damsel could not of course go alone, she had cajoled her good-natured old grandsire into conveying her thither; and she was now seated behind him upon a pillion placed on the back of a strong, rough-coated, horse. Dick was in raptures at his success. The ride from Tottenham had been delightful. They had tarried for a short time to drink a cup of ale at the Bell at Edmonton, where Dick meant to have breakfasted, though chance had so agreeably prevented him, and where the liquor was highly approved by the old farmer, who became thenceforth exceedingly chatty, and talked of nothing else but good Queen Bess and her frequent visits to Theobalds in the old Lord Burleigh's time, during the rest of the journey. Little heed was paid to his garrulity by the young couple. They let him talk on, feigning to listen, but in reality noting scarce a word he said. As they entered the park of Theobalds, however, they found their tongues, and Gillian became loud in her admiration of the beautiful glades that opened before them, and of the dappled denizens of the wood that tripped lightsomely across the sward, or hurried towards the thickets. The park, indeed, looked beautiful with its fine oaks in their freshly-opened foliage of the tenderest green, its numerous spreading beeches, its scattered thorns white with blossom, and the young fern just springing from the seed in the brakes. No wonder Gillian was delighted. Dick was equally enchanted, and regretted he was not like King James, master of a great park, that he might hunt within it at his pleasure. Of course, if he had been king, Gillian would naturally have been his queen, and have hunted with him. Old Greenford, too, admired the scene, and could not but admit that the park was improved, though he uttered something like a groan as he thought that Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Treasurer could be seen in it no longer. After riding for a couple of miles along a road which led them over beautifully undulating ground, affording glimpses of every variety of forest scenery--sometimes plunging them into the depths of groves, where the path was covered by over-arching trees--sometimes crossing the open chace, studded by single aged oaks of the largest size--sometimes, skirting the margin of a pool, fringed with flags, reeds, and bulrushes for the protection of the water-fowl--now passing the large heronry, to the strict preservation of which James attached the utmost importance; they at length approached the long avenue leading to the palace. At its entrance they found Jocelyn waiting for them. The young man, who cared not for their company, had ridden on in advance. The strange events of the morning gave him plenty of material for reflection, and he longed to commune with himself. Accordingly, when the others stopped at Edmonton, he quitted them, promising to halt till they came up, before entering the precincts of the palace. If his ride was not so agreeable as their's, it at least enabled him to regain, in some degree, his composure of mind, which had been greatly disturbed by his abrupt parting with Aveline. Her image was constantly before him, and refusing to be dismissed, connected itself with every object he beheld. At first he despaired of meeting her again; but as he gradually grew calmer, his hopes revived, and difficulties which seemed insuperable began to disperse. By the time Dick Taverner and his companions came up, he felt some disposition to talk, and Gillian's hearty merriment and high spirits helped to enliven him. Having ascertained, from one of the royal keepers whom he had encountered, that the King, with a large company, was out hawking on the banks of the New River, which was cut through the park, and that he would in all probability return through the great avenue to the palace, he proposed that they should station themselves somewhere within it, in order to see him pass. This arrangement pleased all parties, so proceeding slowly up the avenue, they took up a position as described. More than an hour, however, elapsed, and still James, who no doubt was pleased with his sport, came not. Without being aware of their high quality, or having the slightest notion that the Conde Gondomar was one of them, Jocelyn had remarked the three personages in the Lord Chamberlain's Walk. He had seen them pause, and apparently look towards the little group of which he himself formed part. Shortly after this, two of the party retired, leaving the third alone in the gallery. By-and-by these two individuals were seen to cross the Fountain Court, and passing through the great gates, to direct their steps towards the avenue. As they approached, Jocelyn recognised one of them as Lord Roos, whom he had seen play so singular a part at Madame Bonaventure's ordinary. The other was wholly unknown to him. But that he was a person of the utmost distinction he felt convinced, as well from his haughty bearing and sumptuous attire, as from the evident respect paid him by his companion. In stature he was rather short, being somewhat under the ordinary standard; but his figure was admirably proportioned, and was displayed to the greatest advantage by his rich habiliments. His doublet was of sea-green satin, embroidered with silver and black, with rich open sleeves, and his Spanish cloak was of velvet of the same colour and similarly embroidered. His hose were of tawny silk, and the plumes in his bonnet black, striped with white. He was decorated with the order of the Golden Fleece, and bore at his side a genuine blade of Toledo, with a handle of rarest workmanship. Bound his throat he wore a large, triple ruff, edged with pointed lace. His face was oval in shape, his complexion of a rich olive hue, his eyes large, dark, and keen, his features singularly handsome, and his looks penetrating. His hair was raven-black, cut short, and removed from the forehead. Lord Roos and his companion passed close to Jocelyn without appearing to notice him; but they halted before Gillian, regarding her with insolent admiration. Evidently she was the object that had brought them forth. The poor damsel was terribly confused by their ardent glances and libertine scrutiny, and blushed to her very temples. As to Dick Taverner, he trembled with rage and jealousy, and began to repent having brought his treasure into such a dangerous neighbourhood. The person who seemed to be most struck with Gillian's charms was the wearer of the Spanish mantle. "En verdad!" he exclaimed, "that is the loveliest piece of rusticity I have seen since I came to England. I thought mine eyes did not deceive me, as to her beauty, when I caught sight of her from the Lord Chamberlain's gallery." "The Conde de Gondomar hath ever an eagle's eye for a pretty woman," Lord Roos replied, laughing. "The Conde de Gondomar!" mentally ejaculated Jocelyn, who had overheard what he said. "Why, this is he to whom the ring must be shown. The opportunity must not be lost." Accordingly, regardless of the impropriety of the proceeding, he uncovered his head, and advancing towards the Spaniard said-- "I believe I have the honour of addressing the Conde de Gondomar?" "What means this intrusion, Sir?" Lord Roos demanded insolently. "What have you to say to his Excellency?" "I bring him a token, my lord," the young man replied, exhibiting the ring, given him by the masked horseman, to the ambassador. "Ha!" exclaimed De Gondomar, glancing at the ring, and then regarding Jocelyn steadfastly, "I must speak with this young man, my lord." "And abandon the damsel?" demanded Lord Roos. "No--no--you must take care of her," De Gondomar replied in a low tone. "Can you not induce Lady Exeter to take her into her service?" "I will try," Lord Roos replied. "And see!" he added, pointing down the avenue, "the royal party is returning, so I can at once ascertain whether her ladyship will second your Excellency's designs." "Do so," said De Gondomar, "and I shall be for ever indebted to you. This girl has quite taken my fancy, and I must not lose her. And now, Sir," he added, stepping aside with Jocelyn, "you have brought me the token from my assured agent, and I understand from it that you are a person upon whom I may rely." "In all that beseems a gentleman and a man of honour and loyalty your Excellency may rely on me," Jocelyn replied. "I shall require nothing inconsistent with those principles," the Spanish Ambassador said. "This point disposed of, let me know how I can serve you, for I presume you have some request to prefer?" "Your Excellency can very materially serve me," Jocelyn returned. "I am in danger." "I thought as much," De Gondomar observed with a smile. "Since you have placed yourself under my protection, I will do my best to hold you harmless. But who is your enemy?" "I have two deadly enemies, Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell," Jocelyn rejoined. "I know them well--instruments of Buckingham," said De Gondomar. "They are indeed dangerous enemies." "I have another yet more dangerous," returned Jocelyn. "I have reason to fear that, by boldness of speech I have incurred the enmity of the Marquis of Buckingham himself." "Ah! this, indeed, is serious," said De Gondomar. "I am threatened with arrest by the Star-Chamber," pursued Jocelyn; "so your Excellency will perceive that my position is fraught with extreme peril. Still I persuade myself, if I could obtain a hearing of the King, I should be able to set my enemies at defiance and obtain my right." De Gondomar smiled somewhat scornfully. "You will obtain little in that way," he said, "and your enemies will crush you effectually. But you must explain to me precisely how you are circumstanced, and I will then consider what can be done for you. And begin by acquainting me with your name and condition, for as yet I am entirely ignorant whom I am addressing." Upon this Jocelyn succinctly related to the Ambassador all such particulars of his history as have been laid before the reader. De Gondomar listened to him with attention, and put some questions to him as he proceeded. At its close his countenance brightened. "You are in an awkward dilemma, it must be owned, Master Jocelyn Mounchensey," he said. "But I think I can protect you in spite of them all--in spite of Buckingham himself. Luckily, he is not at Theobalds at present--so the coast is clear for action. The first blow is half the battle. I must present you to the King without delay. And see, his Majesty approaches. Stand close behind me, and act as I advise you by a sign."	{ "id": "12396" }
20	King James the First.	Meantime the royal cavalcade came slowly up the avenue. It was very numerous, and all the more brilliant in appearance, since it comprised nearly as many high-born dames as nobles. Amongst the distinguished foreigners who with their attendants swelled the party were the Venetian lieger-ambassador Giustiniano, and the Marquis de Tremouille, of the family des Ursins, ambassador from France. These exalted personages rode close behind the King, and one or the other of them was constantly engaged in conversation with him. Giustiniano had one of those dark, grave, handsome countenances familiarized to us by the portraits of Titian and Tintoretto, and even the King's jests failed in making him smile. He was apparelled entirely in black velvet, with a cloak bordered with the costly fur of the black fox. All his followers were similarly attired. The sombre Venetian presented a striking contrast to his vivacious companion, the gay and graceful De Tremouille, who glittered in white satin, embroidered with leaves of silver, while the same colour and the same ornaments were adopted by his retinue. No order of precedence was observed by the court nobles. Each rode as he listed. Prince Charles was absent, and so was the supreme favourite Buckingham; but their places were supplied by some of the chief personages of the realm, including the Earls of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery, the Marquis of Hamilton, and the Lords Haddington, Fenton, and Doncaster. Intermingled with the nobles, the courtiers of lesser rank, and the ambassadors' followers, were the ladies, most of whom claimed attention from personal charms, rich attire, and the grace and skill with which they managed their horses. Perhaps the most beautiful amongst them was the young Countess of Exeter, whose magnificent black eyes did great execution. The lovely Countess was mounted on a fiery Spanish barb, given to her by De Gondomar. Forced into a union with a gouty and decrepit old husband, the Countess of Exeter might have pleaded this circumstance in extenuation of some of her follies. It was undoubtedly an argument employed by her admirers, who, in endeavouring to shake her fidelity to her lord, told her it was an infamy that she should be sacrificed to such an old dotard as he. Whether these arguments prevailed in more cases than one we shall not inquire too nicely; but, if court-scandal may be relied on, they did--Buckingham and De Gondomar being both reputed to have been her lovers. The last, however, in the list, and the one who appeared to be most passionately enamoured of the beautiful Countess, and to receive the largest share of her regard, was Lord Roos; and as this culpable attachment and its consequences connect themselves intimately with our history we have been obliged to advert to them thus particularly. Lord Roos was a near relative of the Earl of Exeter; and although the infirm and gouty old peer had been excessively jealous of his lovely young wife on former occasions, when she had appeared to trifle with his honour, he seemed perfectly easy and unsuspicious now, though there was infinitely more cause for distrust. Possibly he had too much reliance on Lord Roos's good feelings and principles to suspect him. Very different was Lady Roos's conduct. This unhappy lady, whom we have already mentioned as the daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, Secretary of State, had the misfortune to be sincerely attached to her handsome but profligate husband, whose neglect and frequent irregularities she had pardoned, until the utter estrangement, occasioned by his passion for the Countess of Exeter, filled her with such trouble, that, overpowered at length by anguish, she complained to her mother Lady Lake,--an ambitious and imperious woman, whose vanity had prompted her to bring about this unfortunate match. Expressing the greatest indignation at the treatment her daughter had experienced, Lady Lake counselled her to resent it, undertaking herself to open the eyes of the injured Earl of Exeter to his wife's infidelity; but she was dissuaded from her purpose by Sir Thomas Lake. Though generally governed by his wife, Sir Thomas succeeded, in this instance, in over-ruling her design of proceeding at once to extremities with the guilty pair, recommending that, in the first instance, Lord Roos should be strongly remonstrated with by Lady Lake and her daughter, when perhaps his fears might be aroused, if his sense of duty could not be awakened. This final appeal had not yet been made; but an interview had taken place between Lady Roos and her husband, at which, with many passionate entreaties, she had implored him to shake off the thraldom in which he had bound himself, and to return to her, when all should be forgiven and forgotten,--but without effect. Thus matters stood at present. As we have seen, though the Countess of Exeter formed one of the chief ornaments of the hawking party, Lord Roos had not joined it; his absence being occasioned by a summons from the Conde de Gondomar, with some of whose political intrigues he was secretly mixed up. Whether the Countess missed him or not, we pretend not to say. All we are able to declare is, she was in high spirits, and seemed in no mood to check the advances of other aspirants to her favour. Her beautiful and expressive features beamed with constant smiles, and her lustrous black eyes seemed to create a flame wherever their beams alighted. But we must quit this enchantress and her spells, and proceed with the description of the royal party. In the rear of those on horseback walked the falconers, in liveries of green cloth, with bugles hanging from the shoulder; each man having a hawk upon his fist, completely 'tired in its hood, bells, varvels, and jesses. At the heels of the falconers, and accompanied by a throng of varlets, in russet jerkins, carrying staves, came two packs of hounds,--one used for what was termed, in the language of falconry, the Flight at the River,--these were all water-spaniels; and the other, for the Flight at the Field. Nice music they made, in spite of the efforts of the varlets in russet to keep them quiet. Hawking, in those days, was what shooting is in the present; fowling-pieces being scarcely used, if at all. Thus the varieties of the hawk-tribe were not merely employed in the capture of pheasants, partridges, grouse, rails, quails, and other game, besides water-fowl, but in the chase of hares; and in all of these pursuits the falconers were assisted by dogs. Game, of course, could only be killed at particular seasons of the year; and wild-geese, wild-ducks, woodcocks, and snipes in the winter; but spring and summer pastime was afforded by the crane, the bustard, the heron, the rook, and the kite; while, at the same periods, some of the smaller description of water-fowl offered excellent sport on lake or river. A striking and picturesque sight that cavalcade presented, with its nodding plumes of many colours, its glittering silks and velvets, its proud array of horsemen, and its still prouder array of lovely women, whose personal graces and charms baffle description, while they invite it. Pleasant were the sounds that accompanied the progress of the train: the jocund laugh, the musical voices of women, the jingling of bridles, the snorting and trampling of steeds, the baying of hounds, the shouts of the varlets, and the winding of horns. But having, as yet, omitted the principal figure, we must hasten to describe him by whom the party was headed. The King, then, was mounted on a superb milk-white steed, with wide-flowing mane and tail, and of the easiest and gentlest pace. Its colour was set off by its red chanfrein, its nodding crest of red feathers, its broad poitrinal with red tassels, and its saddle with red housings. Though devoted to the chase, as we have shown, James was but an indifferent horseman; and his safety in the saddle was assured by such high-bolstered bows in front and at the back, that it seemed next to impossible he could be shaken out of them. Yet, in spite of all these precautions, accidents had befallen him. On one occasion, Sir Symonds D'Ewes relates that he was thrown headlong into a pond; and on another, we learn from a different source that he was cast over his horse's head into the New River, and narrowly escaped drowning, his boots alone being visible above the ice covering the stream. Moreover the monarch's attire was excessively stiff and cumbrous, and this, while it added to the natural ungainliness of his person, prevented all freedom of movement, especially on horseback. His doublet, which on the present occasion was of green velvet, considerably frayed,--for he was by no means particular about the newness of his apparel,--was padded and quilted so as to be dagger-proof; and his hose were stuffed in the same manner, and preposterously large about the hips. Then his ruff was triple-banded, and so stiffly starched, that the head was fixed immovably amidst its plaits. Though not handsome, James's features were thoughtful and intelligent, with a gleam of cunning in the eye, and an expression of sarcasm about the mouth, and they contained the type of the peculiar physiognomy that distinguished all his unfortunate line. His beard was of a yellowish brown, and scantily covered his chin, and his thin moustaches were of a yet lighter hue. His hair was beginning to turn gray, but his complexion was ruddy and hale, proving that, but for his constant ebriety and indulgence in the pleasures of the table, he might have attained a good old age--if, indeed, his life was not unfairly abridged. His large eyes were for ever rolling about, and his tongue was too big for his mouth, causing him to splutter in utterance, besides giving him a disagreeable appearance when eating; while his legs were so weak, that he required support in walking. Notwithstanding these defects, and his general coarseness of manner, James was not without dignity, and could, when he chose, assume a right royal air and deportment. But these occasions were rare. As is well known, his pedantry and his pretensions to superior wisdom and discrimination, procured him the title of the "Scottish Solomon." His general character will be more fully developed as we proceed; and we shall show the perfidy and dissimulation which he practised in carrying out his schemes, and tried to soften down under the plausible appellation of "King-craft." James was never seen to greater advantage than on occasions like the present. His hearty enjoyment of the sport he was engaged in; his familiarity with all around him, even with the meanest varlets by whom he was attended, and for whom he had generally some droll nickname; his complete abandonment of all the etiquette which either he or his master of the ceremonies observed elsewhere; his good-tempered vanity and boasting about his skill as a woodsman,--all these things created an impression in his favour, which was not diminished in those who were not brought much into contact with him in other ways. When hunting or hawking, James was nothing more than a hearty country gentleman engaged in the like sports. The cavalcade came leisurely on, for the King proceeded no faster than would allow the falconers to keep easily up with those on horseback. He was in high good humour, and laughed and jested sometimes with one ambassador, sometimes with the other, and having finished a learned discussion on the manner of fleeing a hawk at the river and on the field, as taught by the great French authorities, Martin, Malopin, and Aimé Cassian, with the Marquis de Tremouille, had just begun a similar conversation with Giustiniano as to the Italian mode of manning, hooding, and reclaiming a falcon, as practised by Messer Francesco Sforzino Vicentino, when he caught sight of the Conde de Gondomar, standing where we left him at the side of the avenue, on which he came to a sudden halt, and the whole cavalcade stopped at the same time. "Salud! Conde magnifico!" exclaimed King James, as the Spaniard advanced to make his obeisance to him; "how is it that we find you standing under the shade of the tree friendly to the vine,--_amictoe vitibus ulmi_ as Ovid hath it? Is it that yon blooming Chloe," he continued, leering significantly at Gillian, "hath more attraction for you than our court dames? Troth! the quean is not ill-favoured; but ye ha' lost a gude day's sport, Count, forbye ither losses which we sall na particularize. We hae had a noble flight at the heron, and anither just as guid after the bustard. God's santy! the run the lang-leggit loon gave us. Lady Exeter, on her braw Spanish barb--we ken whose gift it is--was the only one able to keep with us; and it was her leddyship's ain peregrine falcon that checked the fleeing carle at last. By our faith the Countess understands the gentle science weel. She cared not to soil her dainty gloves by rewarding her hawk with a _soppa_, as his Excellency Giustiniano would term it, of the bustard's heart, bluid, and brains. But wha hae ye gotten wi' ye?" he added, for the first time noticing Jocelyn. "A young gentleman in whom I am much interested, and whom I would crave permission to present to your Majesty," replied De Gondomar. "Saul of our body, Count, the permission is readily granted," replied James, evidently much pleased with the young man's appearance. "Ye shall bring him to us in the privy-chamber before we gang to supper, and moreover ye shall hae full licence to advance what you please in his behoof. He is a weel-grown, weel-favoured laddie, almost as much sae as our ain dear dog Steenie; but we wad say to him, in the words of the Roman bard, ````'O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori!' Gude pairts are better than gude looks; not that the latter are to be undervalued, but baith should exist in the same person. We shall soon discover whether the young man hath been weel nurtured, and if all correspond we shall not refuse him the light of our countenance." "I tender your Majesty thanks for the favour you have conferred upon him," replied De Gondomar. "But ye have not yet tauld us the youth's name, Count?" said the King. "Your Majesty, I trust, will not think I make a mystery where none is needed, if I say that my protegé claims your gracious permission to preserve, for the moment, his incognito," De Gondomar replied. "When I present him of course his name will be declared." "Be it as you will, Count," James replied. "We ken fu' weel ye hae gude reason for a' ye do. Fail not in your attendance on us at the time appointed." As De Gondomar with a profound obeisance drew back, the King put his steed in motion. General attention having been thus called to Jocelyn, all eyes were turned towards him, his appearance and attire were criticised, and much speculation ensued as to what could be the Spanish Ambassador's motive for undertaking the presentation. Meanwhile, Lord Roos had taken advantage of the brief halt of the hunting party to approach the Countess of Exeter, and pointing out Gillian to her, inquired in a low tone, and in a few words, to which, however, his looks imparted significance, whether she would take the pretty damsel into her service as tire-woman or handmaiden. The Countess seemed surprised at the request, and, after glancing at the Beauty of Tottenham, was about to refuse it, when Lord Roos urged in a whisper, "'T is for De Gondomar I ask the favour." "In that case I readily assent," the Countess replied. "I will go speak to the damsel at once, if you desire it. How pretty she is! No wonder his inflammable Excellency should be smitten by her." And detaching her barb, as she spoke, from the cavalcade, she moved towards Gillian, accompanied by Lord Roos. The pretty damsel was covered with fresh confusion at the great lady's approach; and was, indeed, so greatly alarmed, that she might have taken to her heels, if she had been on the ground, and not on the pillion behind her grandsire. "Be not abashed, my pretty maiden," the Countess said, in a kind and encouraging tone; "there is nothing to be afraid of. Aware that I am in want of a damsel like yourself, to tire my hair and attend upon me, Lord Roos has drawn my attention to you; and if I may trust to appearances--as I think I may," she added, with a very flattering and persuasive smile, "in your case--you are the very person to suit me, provided you are willing to enter my service. I am the Countess of Exeter." "A Countess!" exclaimed Gillian. "Do you hear that, grandsire? The beautiful lady is a countess. What an honour it would be to serve her!" "It might be," the old man replied, with hesitation, and in a whisper; "yet I do not exactly like the manner of it." "Don't accept the offer, Gillian. Don't go," said Dick Taverner, whose breast was full of uneasiness. "Your answer, my pretty maiden?" the Countess said, with a winning smile. "I am much beholden to you, my lady," Gillian replied, "and it will delight me to serve you as you propose--that is, if I have my grandsire's consent to it." "And the good man, I am sure, has your welfare too much at heart to withhold it," the Countess replied. "But follow me to the palace, and we will confer further upon the matter. Inquire for the Countess of Exeter's apartments." And with another gracious smile, she rejoined the cavalcade, leaving Lord Roos behind. He thanked her with a look for her complaisance. "O Gillian, I am sure ill will come of this," Dick Taverner exclaimed. "Wherefore should it?" she rejoined, almost beside herself with delight at the brilliant prospect suddenly opened before her. "My fortune is made." "You are right, my pretty damsel, it is," Lord Roos remarked. "Fail not to do as the Countess has directed you, and I will answer for the rest." "You hear what the kind young nobleman says, grandsire?" Gillian whispered in his ear. "You cannot doubt his assurance?" "I hear it all," old Greenford replied; "but I know not what to think. I suppose we must go to the palace." "To be sure we must," Gillian cried; "I will go there alone, if you will not go with me." Satisfied with what he had heard, Lord Roos moved away, nodding approval at Gillian. The cavalcade, as we have said, was once more in motion, but before it had proceeded far, it was again, most unexpectedly, brought to a halt. Suddenly stepping from behind a large tree which had concealed him from view, a man in military habiliments, with grizzled hair and beard, and an exceedingly resolute and stern cast of countenance, planted himself directly in the monarch's path, and extending his hand towards him, exclaimed, in a loud voice, "Stand! O King!" "Who art thou, fellow? and what wouldst thou?" demanded James, who had checked his horse with such suddenness as almost to throw himself out of his high-holstered saddle. "I have a message to deliver to thee from Heaven," replied Hugh Calveley. "Aha!" exclaimed James, recovering in some degree, for he thought he had a madman to deal with. "What may thy message be?" And willing to gain a character for courage, though it was wholly foreign to his nature, he motioned those around him to keep back. "Thy message, fellow!" he repeated. "Hear, then, what Heaven saith to thee," the Puritan replied. "Have I not brought thee out of a land of famine into a land of plenty? Thou oughtest, therefore, to have judged my people righteously! But thou hast perverted justice, and not relieved the oppressed. Therefore, unless thou repent, I will rend thy kingdom from thee, and from thy posterity after thee! Thus saith the Lord, whose messenger I am."	{ "id": "12396" }
21	Consequences of the Puritan's warning.	Coupling Hugh Calveley's present strange appearance and solemn warning with his previous denunciations uttered in secret, and his intimations of some dread design, with which he had sought to connect the young man himself, intimating that its execution would jeopardize his life; putting these things together, we say, Jocelyn could not for an instant doubt that the King was in imminent danger, and he felt called upon to interfere, even though he should be compelled to act against his father's friend, and the father of Aveline. No alternative, in fact, was allowed him. As a loyal subject, his duty imperiously required him to defend his sovereign; and perceiving that no one (in consequence of the King's injunctions) advanced towards the Puritan, Jocelyn hastily quitted the Conde de Gondomar, and rushing forward stationed himself between the monarch and his bold admonisher; and so near to the latter, that he could easily prevent any attack being made by him upon James. Evidently disconcerted by the movement, Hugh Calveley signed to the young man to stand aside, but Jocelyn refused compliance; the rather that he suspected from the manner in which the other placed his hand in his breast that he had some weapon concealed about his person. Casting a look of bitterest reproach at him, which plainly as words said--"Ungrateful boy, thou hast prevented my purpose," the Puritan folded his hands upon his breast with an air of deep disappointment. "Fly!" cried Jocelyn, in a tone calculated only to reach his ears. "I will defend you with my life. Waste not another moment--fly!" But Hugh Calveley regarded him with cold disdain, and though he moved not his lips, he seemed to say, "You have destroyed me; and I will not remove the guilt of my destruction from your head." The Puritan's language and manner had filled James with astonishment and fresh alarm; but feeling secure in the propinquity of Jocelyn to the object of his uneasiness, and being closely environed by his retinue, the foremost of whom had drawn their swords and held themselves in readiness to defend him from the slightest hostile attempt, it was not unnatural that even so timorous a person as he, should regain his confidence. Once more, therefore, he restrained by his gestures the angry impetuosity of the nobles around him, who were burning to chastise the rash intruder, and signified his intention of questioning him before any measures were adopted against him. "Let him be," he cried. "He is some puir demented creature fitter for Bedlam than anywhere else; and we will see that he be sent thither; but molest him not till we hae spoken wi' him, and certified his condition more fully. Quit not the position ye hae sae judiciously occupied, young Sir, albeit against our orders," he cried to Jocelyn. "Dinna draw your blade unless the fellow seeks to come till us. Not that we are under ony apprehension; but there are bluidthirsty traitors even in our pacific territories, and as this may be ane of them, it is weel not to neglect due precaution. And now, man," he added, raising his voice, and addressing the Puritan, who still maintained a steadfast and unmoved demeanour, with his eye constantly fixed upon his interrogator. "Ye say ye are a messenger frae heaven. An it be sae,--whilk we take leave to doubt, rather conceiving ye to be an envoy from the Prince of Darkness than an ambassador from above,--an ill choice hath been made in ye. Unto what order of prophets do ye conceive yourself to belong?" To this interrogation, propounded in a jeering tone, the Puritan deigned no reply; but an answer was given for him by Archee, the court jester, who had managed in the confusion to creep up to his royal master's side. "He belongs to the order of Melchisedec," said Archee. A reply that occasioned some laughter among the nobles, in which the King joined heartily. "Tut, fule! ye are as daft as the puir body before us," cried James. "Ken ye not that Melchisedec was a priest and not a prophet; while to judge frae yon fellow's abulyiements, if he belongs to any church at all, it maun be to the church militant. And yet, aiblins, ye are na sae far out after a'. Like aneuch, he may be infected with the heresy of the Melchisedecians,--a pestilent sect, who plagued the early Christian Church sairly, placing their master aboon our Blessed Lord himself, and holding him to be identical wi' the Holy Ghaist. Are ye a Melchisedecian, sirrah?" "I am a believer in the Gospel," the Puritan replied. "And am willing to seal my faith in it with my blood. I am sent hither to warn thee, O King, and thou wilt do well not to despise my words. Repent ere it be too late. Wonderfully hath thy life been preserved. Dedicate the remainder of thy days to the service of the Most High. Persecute not His people, and revile them not. Purge thy City of its uncleanness and idolatry, and thy Court of its corruption. Profane not the Sabbath"-- "I see how it is," interrupted Archee with a scream; "the man hath been driven stark wud by your Majesty's Book of Sports." "A book devised by the devil," cried Hugh Calveley, catching at the suggestion; "and which ought to be publicly burnt by the hangman, instead of being read in the churches. How much, mischief hath that book done! How many abominations hath it occasioned! And, alas! how much persecution hath it caused; for have not many just men, and sincere preachers of the Word, been prosecuted in thy Court, misnamed of justice, and known, O King! as the Star-Chamber; suffering stripes and imprisonment for refusing to read thy mischievous proclamation to their flocks." "I knew it! --I knew it!" screamed Archee, delighted with the effect he had produced. "Take heed, sirrah," he cried to the Puritan, "that ye make not acquaintance wi' 'that Court misnamed of justice' yer ain sell." "He is liker to be arraigned at our court styled the King's Bench, and hanged, drawn, and quartered afterwards," roared James, far more enraged at the disrespectful mention made of his manifesto, than by anything that had previously occurred. "The man is not sae doited as we supposed him." "He is not sane enough to keep his neck from the halter," rejoined Archee. "Your Majesty should spare him, since you are indirectly the cause of his malady." "Intercede not for me," cried Hugh Calveley. "I would not accept any grace at the tyrant's hands. Let him hew me in pieces, and my blood shall cry out for vengeance upon his head." "By our halidame! a dangerous traitor!" exclaimed James. "Hear me, O King!" thundered the Puritan. "For the third and last time I lift up my voice to warn thee. Visions have appeared to me in the night, and mysterious voices have whispered in mine ear. They have revealed to me strange and terrible things--but not more strange and terrible than true. They have told me how thy posterity shall suffer for the injustice thou doest to thy people. They have shown me a scaffold which a King shall mount--and a block whereon a royal head shall be laid. But it shall be better for that unfortunate monarch, though he be brought to judgment by his people, than for him who shall be brought to judgment by his God. Yet more. I have seen in my visions two Kings in exile: one of whom shall be recalled, but the other shall die in a foreign land. As to thee, thou mayst live on yet awhile in fancied security. But destruction shall suddenly overtake thee. Thou shalt be stung to death by the serpent thou nourishest in thy bosom." Whatever credit might be attached to them, the Puritan's prophetic forebodings produced, from the manner in which they were delivered, a strong impression upon all his auditors. Unquestionably the man was in earnest, and spoke like one who believed that a mission had been entrusted to him. No interruption was offered to his speech, even by the King, though the latter turned pale as these terrible coming events were shadowed forth before him. "His words are awsome," he muttered, "and gar the flesh creep on our banes. Will nane o' ye stap his tongue?" "Better hae stapt it afore this," said Archee; "he has said ower meikle, or not aneuch, The Deil's malison on thee, fellow, for a prophet of ill! Hast thou aught to allege why his Majesty should not tuck thee up with a halter?" "I have spoken," responded the Puritan; "let the King do with me what he lists." "Seize him! arrest him! ye are nearest to him, Sir," shouted the king to Jocelyn. The command could not be disobeyed. As Jocelyn drew near, and laid his hand upon Hugh Calveley, the latter looked reproachfully at him, saying, "Thou doest well, son of my old friend." Jocelyn was unable to reply, for a crowd now pressed forward on all sides, completely surrounding the prisoner. Some of the nobles threatened him with their swords, and the warders, who had come up from the gateway, thrust at him with their partizans. Jocelyn had great difficulty in shielding him from the infuriated throng. "Touch him not!" he cried, clearing a space around them with the point of his sword. "His Majesty has committed him to my custody, and I am responsible for him. Pardon me if I disarm you, Sir," he added in an undertone to the prisoner. "Here is my sword," replied Hugh Calveley, unbuckling his belt and delivering up the weapon it sustained to Jocelyn; "it hath never been dishonoured, and," he added, lowering his voice, "it hath been twice drawn in thy father's defence." The reproach cut Jocelyn to the heart. At this moment the crowd drew aside to allow the King's approach. "Hath he been searched to see whether any deadly or offensive weapon is concealed about him?" demanded James. "He cannot have any more offensive weapon than his tongue," cried Archee, who accompanied his royal master. "I counsel your Majesty to deprive him of that." "There is something hidden in his breast," cried one of the warders, searching in his jerkin, and at length drawing forth a short, clumsy pistol, or dag, as the weapon was then called. "It is loaded, an please your Majesty," the man continued, after examining it. Exclamations of horror arose from those around, and Jocelyn had again some difficulty in protecting the prisoner from their fury. "A dag!" ejaculated James, "a loaded dag, crammed to the muzzle wi' bullets, nae doubt. Haud it down, man! haud it down! it may fire off of itsel', and accomplish the villain's murtherous and sacrilegious design. And sae this was to be the instrument of our destruction! Dost thou confess thy guilt, thou bluid-thirsty traitor, or shall the torture force the truth from thee?" "The torture will force nothing from me," replied Hugh Calveley. "But I tell thee, tyrant, that I would have slain thee, had not my hand been stayed." "Heard ye ever the like o' that?" exclaimed James, his ruddy cheek blanched with fright, and his voice quavering. "Why, he exceedeth in audacity the arch-traitor Fawkes himsel'. And what stayed thy hand, villain?" he demanded,--"what stayed thy hand, thou blood-thirsty traitor?" "The presence of this youth, Jocelyn Mounchensey," rejoined Hugh Calveley. "Had he not come between us when he did, and checked my purpose, I had delivered my country from oppression. I told thee, tyrant, thou hadst been marvellously preserved. Thy preserver stands before thee." "Heaven defend us!" exclaimed James, trembling. "What an escape we hae had. There hath been a special interposition o' Providence in our behoof. Our gratitude is due to Him who watcheth ower us." "And in some degree to him who hath been made the instrument of your Majesty's preservation," observed the Conde de Gondomar, who formed one of the group near the King. "Since the foul traitor hath proclaimed the name of my young protegé, there can be no need for further concealment. Master Jocelyn Mounchensey hath been singularly fortunate in rendering your Majesty a service, and may for ever congratulate himself on his share--accidental though it be--in this affair." "By my halidame! he shall have reason for congratulation," cried James, graciously regarding the young man. "Ay, let him rise by my fall. 'Tis meet he should," cried the Puritan, bitterly. "Shower thy honours upon him, tyrant. Give him wealth and titles. I could not wish him worse misfortune than thy favour." "Hold thy scurril tongue, villain, or it shall be torn out by the roots," said James. "Thou shalt see that I can as promptly reward those that serve me, as thou shalt presently feel I can severely punish those that seek to injure me. Hark ye, Count!" he added to the Spanish Ambassador, while those around drew back a little, seeing it was his Majesty's pleasure to confer with him in private, "this youth--this Jocelyn Mounchensey, hath gentle bluid in his veins? --he comes of a good stock, ha?" "He is the representative of an old Norfolk family," De Gondomar replied. "What! the son of Sir Ferdinando?" demanded James, a shade crossing his countenance, which did not escape the wily ambassador's notice. "You have guessed right, Sire," he said. "This is Sir Ferdinando's son; and, if I may be permitted to say so, your Majesty owes him some reparation for the wrongs done his father." "How! Count!" exclaimed James, with a look of slight displeasure. "Do you venture to question our judgments on hearsay--for ye can know naething o' your ain knowledge?" "I know enough to be satisfied that misrepresentations were made to your Majesty respecting this young man's father," De Gondomar replied; "for I am well assured that if you ever erred at all, it must have been through ignorance, and want of due information. This was what I designed to explain more fully than I can well do now, when I availed myself of your Majesty's gracious permission to bring the young man into your presence; and I should then have taken leave to express how much he merited your Majesty's favour and protection. Fortune, however, has outrun my wishes, and given him a stronger claim upon you than any I could urge." "Ye are right, Count," rejoined James cautiously. "He hath the strongest claim upon us, and he shall not find us ungrateful. We will confer wi' Steenie--wi' Buckingham, we mean--about him." "Pardon me, Sire," said De Gondomar, "if I venture to suggest that your Majesty hath an admirable opportunity, which I should be sorry to see neglected, of showing your goodness and clemency, and silencing for ever the voice of calumny, which will sometimes be raised against you." "What mean ye, Count?" cried James. "Ye wad na hae me pardon yon traitor?" "Most assuredly not, Sire," De Gondomar rejoined. "But I would urge some present mark of favour for him who hath saved you from the traitor's fell designs. And I am emboldened to ask this, because I feel assured it must be consonant to your Majesty's own inclinations to grant the request." "It is sae, Count," rejoined James. "We only desired to consult wi' Buckingham to ascertain whether he had ony objections; but as this is altogether unlikely, we will follow our ain inclinations and do as your Excellency suggests." De Gondomar could scarcely conceal his satisfaction. At this moment Lord Roos pressed towards the King. "I have something to say in reference to this young man, my liege," he cried. "In his favour?" demanded the King. "Yes, yes; in his favour, Sire," said De Gondomar, looking hard at the young nobleman. "You need not trouble his Majesty further, my lord. He is graciously pleased to accede to our wishes." "Ay, ay; nae mair need be said," cried James. "Let the young man stand forward." And as Jocelyn obeyed the injunction which was immediately communicated to him by De Gondomar, the King bade him kneel down, and taking Lord Roos's sword, touched him with it upon the shoulder, exclaiming, "Arise! Sir Jocelyn." "You are safe now," whispered De Gondomar. "This is the first blow, and it has been well struck." So confused was the new-made knight by the honour thus unexpectedly conferred upon him, that when he rose to his feet he could scarcely command himself sufficiently to make the needful obeisance, and tender thanks to the King. For a moment, his brow was flushed with pride, and his breast beat high; but the emotions were instantly checked, as he thought how the title had been purchased. Looking towards the prisoner, he beheld him in the hands of the warders, to whose custody he had been committed, with his arms bound behind him by thongs. His gaze had never quitted the young man during the ceremony which had just taken place, and he still regarded him sternly and reproachfully. "Let the prisoner be removed, and kept in a place of safety till our pleasure respecting him be made known," cried James. "And now, my lords and ladies, let us forward to the palace." And the cavalcade was once more put in motion, and passing through the great gateway entered the Fountain Court, where the nobility of both sexes dismounted, while their attendants and the falconers and varlets passed off to the offices. The prisoner was conveyed to the porter's lodge, and strictly guarded, till some secure chamber could be prepared for him. On the way thither Jocelyn contrived to approach him, and to say in a low tone--"Can I do aught for Aveline?" "Concern not yourself about her, _Sir_ Jocelyn," rejoined Hugh Calveley, with stern contempt. "She is in a place of safety. You will never behold her more."	{ "id": "12396" }
22	Wife and Mother-in-Law.	Quick steps descended the narrow staircase--steps so light and cautious that they made no sound. Before drawing aside the arras that covered the secret entrance to the chamber, the lady paused to listen; and hearing nothing to alarm her, she softly raised a corner of the woof and looked in. What did she behold? A young man seated beside a carved oak table, with his back towards her. He was reading a letter, the contents of which seemed greatly to disturb him, for he more than once dashed it aside, and then compelled himself to resume its perusal. No one else was in the room, which was spacious and lofty, though somewhat sombre, being wholly furnished with dark oak; while the walls were hung with ancient tapestry. Heavy curtains were drawn before the deep bay windows, increasing the gloom. The chamber was lighted by a brass lamp suspended from the moulded ceiling, the ribs of which were painted, and the bosses, at the intersections, gilded. Near the concealed entrance where the lady stood was placed a large curiously-carved ebony cabinet, against which leaned a suit of tilting armour and a lance; while on its summit were laid a morion, a brigandine, greaves, gauntlets, and other pieces of armour. On the right of the cabinet the tapestry was looped aside, disclosing a short flight of steps, terminated by the door of an anti-chamber. Almost as the lady set foot within the room, which she did after a brief deliberation, dropping the arras noiselessly behind her, the young man arose. Her entrance had not been perceived, so violently was he agitated. Crushing the letter which had excited him so much between his fingers, and casting it furiously from him, he gave vent to an incoherent expression of rage. Though naturally extremely handsome, his features at this moment were so distorted by passion that they looked almost hideous. In person he was slight and finely-formed; and the richness of his attire proclaimed him of rank. The lady who, unperceived, had witnessed his violent emotion was remarkably beautiful. Her figure was superb; and she had the whitest neck and arms imaginable, and the smallest and most delicately-formed hands. Her features derived something of haughtiness from a slightly aquiline nose and a short curled upper lip. Her eyes were magnificent--large, dark, and almost Oriental in shape and splendour. Jetty brows, and thick, lustrous, raven hair, completed the catalogue of her charms. Her dress was of white brocade, over which she wore a loose robe of violet-coloured velvet, with open hanging sleeves, well calculated to display the polished beauty of her arms. Her ruff was of point lace, and round her throat she wore a carcanet of pearls, while other precious stones glistened in her dusky tresses. This beautiful dame, whose proud lips were now more compressed than usual, and whose dark eyes emitted fierce rays--very different from their customary tender and voluptuous glances--was the Countess of Exeter. He whom she looked upon was Lord Roos, and the chamber she had just entered was the one assigned to the young nobleman in the Palace of Theobalds. She watched him for some time with curiosity. At length his rage found vent in words. "Perdition seize them both!" he exclaimed, smiting his forehead with his clenched hand. "Was ever man cursed with wife and mother-in-law like mine! They will, perforce, drive me to desperate measures, which I would willingly avoid; but if nothing else will keep them quiet, the grave must. Ay, the grave," he repeated in a hollow voice; "it is not my fault if I am compelled to send them thither. Fools to torment me thus!" Feeling she had heard more than she ought, the Countess would have retired; but as retreat might have betrayed her, she deemed it better to announce her presence by saying, "You are not alone, my Lord." Startled by her voice, Lord Roos instantly turned, and regarded her with haggard looks. "You here, Frances?" he exclaimed; "I did not expect you so soon." "I came before the hour, because--but you seem greatly agitated. Has anything happened?" "Little more than what happens daily," he replied. "And yet it _is_ more; for the crisis has arrived, and a fearful crisis it is. O, Frances!" he continued vehemently, "how dear you are to me. To preserve your love I would dare everything, even my soul's welfare. I would hesitate at no crime to keep you ever near me. Let those beware who would force you from me." "What means this passion, my Lord?" inquired the Countess. "It means that since there are those who will mar our happiness; who, jealous of our loves, will utterly blight and destroy them; who will tear us forcibly asunder, recking little of the anguish they occasion: since we have enemies who will do this; who will mortally wound us--let us no longer hesitate, but strike the first blow. We must rid ourselves of them at any cost, and in any way." "I will not affect to misunderstand you, my Lord," the Countess replied, her beautiful features beginning to exhibit traces of terror. "But has it arrived at this point? Is the danger imminent and inevitable?" "Imminent, but not inevitable," Lord Roos rejoined. "It _can_ be avoided, as I have hinted, in one way, and in one way only. There is a letter I have just received from my wife; wherein, after her usual upbraidings, remonstrances, and entreaties, she concludes by saying, that if I continue deaf to her prayers, and refuse to break off entirely with you, and return to her, our 'criminal attachment,'--for so she terms our love--should be divulged to the deluded Earl of Exeter, who will know how to redress her wrongs, and avenge his own injured honour. What answer, save one, can be returned to that letter, Frances? If we set her at defiance, as we have hitherto done, she will act, for she is goaded on by that fury, her mother. We must gain a little time, in order that the difficulties now besetting us may be effectually removed." "I shudder to think of it, William," said the Countess, trembling and turning deathly pale. "No; it must not be. Rather than such a crime should be committed, I will comply with their demand." "And leave me?" cried Lord Roos, bitterly. "Frances, your affection is not equal to mine, or you could not entertain such a thought for a moment. You almost make me suspect," he added, sternly, "that you have transferred your love to another. Ah! beware! beware! I am not to be trifled with, like your husband." "I forgive you the doubt, my Lord--unjust though it be--because your mind is disturbed; but were you calm enough to view the matter as it really is, you would perceive that my resolution has nothing in it inconsistent with affection for you; but rather that my very love for you compels me to the step. What _I_ propose is best for both of us. The remedy you suggest would work our ruin here and hereafter; would drive us from society, and render us hateful to each other. My soul revolts at it. And though I myself have received a mortal affront from your wife's mother, Lady Lake; though she has poured forth all the malice of which she is capable upon my devoted head; yet I would rather forgive her--rather sue for pity from her than go the fearful length you propose. No, William. The pang of parting from you will indeed be terrible, but it must be endured. Fate wills it so, and it is therefore useless to struggle against it." "O, recall those words, Frances!" cried the young nobleman, throwing himself at her feet, and clasping her hands passionately. "Recall them, I implore' of you. In uttering them you pronounce my doom--a doom more dreadful than death, which would be light in comparison with losing you. Plunge this sword to my heart," he exclaimed, plucking the shining weapon from his side, and presenting it to her. "Free me from my misery at once, but do not condemn me to lingering agony." "Rise, William! rise, I pray of you," ejaculated the Countess, overcome by the intensity of his emotion, "and put up your sword. The love you display for me deserves an adequate return, and it shall meet it. Come what will, I will not leave you. But, O! let us not plunge deeper in guilt if it can be avoided." "But how _can_ it be avoided?" cried Lord Roos. "Will _they_ listen to our prayers? Will _they_ pity us? Will _they_ hesitate at our destruction?" "I know not--I know not," replied the Countess, bewildered; "but I stand appalled before the magnitude of the offence." "They will _not_ spare us," pursued Lord Roos; "and therefore we cannot spare them." "In my turn I bend to you, William," said the Countess, sinking on her knee before him, and taking his hand. "By the love you bear me, I beseech you not to harm your wife! We have wronged her deeply--let us not have her death to answer for. If the blow _must_ fall, let it be upon the mother's head. I have less compassion for her." "Lady Lake deserves no compassion," replied Lord Roos, raising the Countess, and embracing her tenderly, "for she is the cause of all this mischief. It is to her agency we owe the storm which threatens us with ruin. But things have gone too far now to show compunction for either of them. Our security demands that both should be removed." "I may now say as you have just said, William, and with, far greater reason," cried the Countess, "that you love me not, or you would not refuse my request." "How can I comply with it?" he rejoined. "Nothing were done, if only partly done. Know you the charge that Lady Roos means to bring against you? Though alike false and improbable, it is one to find easy credence with the King; and it has been framed with that view. You will understand this, when I tell you what it is. In this letter," he added, picking up the paper he had thrown down, and unfolding it, "she accuses you of practising sorcery to enslave my affections. She declares you have bewitched me; and that she has proof of the manner in which it was done, and of the sinful compact you have entered into for the purpose." "O William! this is false--utterly false!" exclaimed the Countess, in despair. "I know it," he rejoined. "You have no need to practise other enchantments with me than those you possess by nature. But what I tell you will show you the extent of their malice, and steel your heart, as it hath already steeled mine, against them." "But this accusation is too monstrous. It will not be believed," cried the Countess. "Monstrous as it is, it is more likely to be believed--more certain to be maintained--than the other which they lay at our door. We may deny all their assertions; may intimidate or give the lie to the witnesses they may produce against us; may stamp as forgeries your letters which have unluckily fallen into their hands; but if this charge of witchcraft be once brought against you, it will not fall to the ground. The King will listen to it, because it flatters his prejudices; and even my voice would fail to save you from condemnation--from the stake." "Horrible!" exclaimed Lady Exeter spreading her hands before her eyes, as if to exclude some dreadful object. "O to live in an age when such enormities can be perpetrated! when such frightful weapons can be used against the innocent--for I _am_ innocent, at least of this offence. All seems against me; all doors of escape--save _one_--closed. And whither does that door lead? To the Bottomless Pit, if there be truth in aught we are told by Heaven." Lord Roos seemed unable or unwilling to reply; and a deep pause ensued for a few moments, during which the guilty pair shunned each other's regards. It was broken at length by Lady Exeter, who said, reproachfully, "You should have burnt my letters, William. Without them, they would have had no evidence against me. Imprudent that you were, you have destroyed me!" "Reproach me not, Prances," he rejoined. "I admit my imprudence, and blame myself severely for it. But I could not part with a line I had received from you. I inclosed the letters in a little coffer, which I deposited in a secret drawer of that cabinet, as in a place of perfect safety. The coffer and its contents mysteriously disappeared. How it was purloined I cannot inform you." "Do your suspicions alight on no one?" she inquired. "They have fallen on several; but I have no certainty that I have been right in any instance," he replied. "That I have some spy near me, I am well aware; and if I detect him, he shall pay for his perfidy with his life." "Hist!" cried Lady Exeter. "Did you not hear a noise?" "No," he rejoined. "Where?" She pointed to the little passage leading to the ante-chamber. He instantly went thither, and examined the place, but without discovering any listener. "There is no one," he said, as he returned. "No one, in fact, could have obtained admittance without my knowledge, for my Spanish servant, Diego, in whom I can place full confidence, is stationed without." "I distrust that man, William," she observed. "When I asked whom you thought had removed the letters, my own suspicions had attached to him." "I do not think he would have done it," Lord Roos replied. "He has ever served me faithfully; and, besides, I have a guarantee for his fidelity in the possession of a secret on which his own life hangs. I can dispose of him as I please." "Again that sound!" exclaimed the Countess. "I am sure some one is there." "Your ears have deceived you," said the young nobleman, after examining the spot once more, and likewise the secret entrance by which the Countess had approached the chamber. "I heard nothing, and can find nothing. Your nerves are shaken, and make you fanciful." "It may be so," she rejoined. But it was evident she was not convinced, for she lowered her tones almost to a whisper as she continued. It might be that the question she designed to put was one she dared not ask aloud. "What means do you purpose to employ in the execution of your design?" "The same as those employed by Somerset and his Countess in the removal of Sir Thomas Overbury; but more expeditious and more certain," he replied under his breath. "Dreadful!" she exclaimed, with a shudder. "But the same judgment that overtook the Somersets may overtake us. Such crimes are never hidden." "Crimes fouler than theirs have never been brought to light, and never will. There was one in which Somerset himself was concerned, involving the destruction of a far higher personage than Overbury; and this dare not even be hinted at." "Because the greatest person in the land was connected with it," returned the Countess, "I conclude you refer to the death of Prince Henry?" "I do," answered Lord Roos. "Somerset would never have been questioned about Overbury, if his fall had not been resolved upon by the King." "One other question, and I ask no more," said the Countess, scarcely able to syllable her words. "Who is to administer the deadly draught?" "Luke Hatton, Lady Lake's apothecary. He is a creature of mine, and entirely devoted to me." "Our lives will be in his hands ever afterwards," said the Countess, in a deep whisper. "They will be in safe keeping," he rejoined, endeavouring to reassure her. "O, William! I would I could prevail upon you to defer this project." "To what end? The sooner it is done the better. It cannot, indeed, be deferred. I shall send for Luke Hatton to-night." At this announcement, the Countess, who had gradually been growing fainter and becoming paler, lost all power of supporting herself, and, uttering a cry, fell into his outstretched arms in a state of complete insensibility. While Lord Roos, half distracted, was considering what means he could adopt for her restoration, a man, with an almost tawny complexion, hair and eyes to match, and habited in the young nobleman's livery of crimson and white, suddenly entered from the ante-chamber. "How dare you come in unsummoned, Diego?" cried Lord Roos, furiously. "Begone instantly, sirrah!" . "I crave your lordship's pardon," replied the Spanish servant; "but I was obliged to apprise you that your wife, the Baroness Roos, and Lady Lake are without, and will not be denied admission." "Damnation!" exclaimed Lord Roos. "What brings them here at such an hour? But you must on no account admit them, Diego--at least, till I have had time to remove the Countess to her own chamber. What a cursed mischance!" Diego instantly withdrew, apparently to obey his lord's command; but he had scarcely entered the little passage when two ladies pushed past him, and made their way into the room. They arrived just in time to intercept Lord Roos, who was conveying his insensible burthen towards the secret staircase. The young nobleman was as much confounded by their appearance as if two spectres had risen before him. Both ladies were very richly attired, and the younger of the two was by no means destitute of beauty, though of a pale and pensive character. The elder had a full, noble figure, haughty features, now lighted up with a smile of triumph as she gazed on Lord Roos. Very different was the expression of the other, who seemed so much grieved and agitated by what she beheld, as to be almost ready to lapse into the same condition as the Countess. If Lord Roos could have seen the grin upon Diego's swarthy visage, as he stood at the entrance of the passage leading to the ante-chamber, he would have had little doubt to whom he was indebted for this surprise. It is needless to say that the ladies who had thus broken upon Lord Roos's privacy, and obtained full confirmation of their suspicions (if they had any doubts remaining) were his wife and mother-in-law.	{ "id": "12396" }
23	The Tress of Hair.	How to extricate himself from the dilemma in which he was placed, Lord Roos scarcely knew. But he had a good deal of self-possession, and it did not desert him on the present trying occasion. After such consideration as circumstances permitted, he could discern only one chance of escape, and though well-nigh hopeless, he resolved to adopt it. If consummate audacity could carry him through--and it was required in the present emergency--he had no lack of it. Hitherto, not a word had passed between him and the intruders on his privacy. Lady Lake seemed to enjoy his confusion too much to do anything to relieve it, and his wife was obliged to regulate her movements by those of her mother. Without breaking the silence, which by this time had become painfully oppressive, he proceeded to deposit the still inanimate person of the Countess of Exeter upon a couch, and, casting a handkerchief, as if undesignedly, over her face, he marched quickly up to the spot where Diego was standing, and said to him, in a deep, determined tone, but so low as not to be overheard by the others: "You have betrayed me, villain; and unless you obey me unhesitatingly, and corroborate all my assertions, however startling they may appear, you shall pay for your treachery with your life." This done, he turned towards the two ladies, and with more calmness than might have been expected, addressed himself to Lady Lake: "You imagine you have made an important discovery, Madam," he said; "a discovery which will place me and a noble lady, whose reputation you and your daughter seek to injure, in great perplexity. And you conclude that, being completely (as you fancy) in your power, I shall consent to any terms you and Lady Roos may propose, rather than suffer you to go forth from this chamber and reveal what you have seen in it. Is it not so, Madam?" "Ay, my lord," Lady Lake replied, bitterly. "You have stated the matter correctly enough, except in one particular. We do not _imagine_ we have made a discovery; because we are quite sure of it. We do not _fancy_ you will agree to our terms; because we are certain you will only too gladly screen yourself and the partner of your guilt from exposure and disgrace, at any sacrifice. And allow me to observe, that the tone adopted by your lordship is neither befitting the circumstances in which you are placed, nor the presence in which you stand. Some sense of shame must at least be left you--some show of respect (if nothing more) ought to be observed towards your injured wife. Were I acting alone in this matter, I would show you and my lady of Exeter no consideration whatever; but I cannot resist the pleadings of my daughter; and for her sake--and _hers_ alone--I am content to suspend the blow, unless forced to strike; in which case, nothing shall stay my hands." "I thank your ladyship for your clemency," said Lord Roos, with mock humility. "O, my dear lord! do not for ever close the door between us!" cried Lady Roos. "Return to me, and all shall be forgiven." "Peace, Elizabeth!" exclaimed Lady Lake, impatiently. "Know you not, from sad experience, that your husband is inaccessible to all gentle entreaty? His heart is steeled to pity. Solicit not that which is your right, and which must be conceded, whether he like or not. Let him bend the knee to you. Let him promise amendment, and implore pardon, and it will then be for you to consider whether you will extend forgiveness to him." Lady Roos looked as if she would fain interrupt her mother, but she was too much under her subjection to offer a remark. "It is time to undeceive you, Madam," said Lord Roos, wholly unmoved by what was said. "I am not in the strait you suppose; and have not the slightest intention of soliciting Lady Roos's pardon, or making any promise to her." "O mother! you see that even _you_ fail to move him," said Lady Roos, tearfully. "What is to happen to me?" "You will make me chide you, daughter, if you exhibit this weakness," cried Lady Lake, angrily. "Let me deal with him. In spite of your affected confidence, my lord, you cannot be blind to the position in which you stand. And though you yourself personally may be careless of the consequences of a refusal of our demands, you cannot, I conceive, be equally indifferent to the fate of the Countess of Exeter, which that refusal will decide." "I am so little indifferent to the safety of the Countess, Madam, that I cannot sufficiently rejoice that she is out of the reach of your malice." "How, my lord!" exclaimed Lady Lake, astounded at his assurance. "Out of reach, when she is here! You cannot mean," she added, with an undefinable expression of satisfaction, "that she is dead?" "Dead!" ejaculated Lady Roos; "the Countess dead! I thought she was only in a swoon." "What riddle is it you would have us read, my lord?" demanded Lady Lake. "No riddle whatever, Madam," replied Lord Roos. "I only mean to assert that the person you behold upon that couch is not the Countess of Exeter." "Not the Countess!" exclaimed Lady Roos. "Oh, if this were possible! But no, no! I cannot be deceived." "I now see the reason why her face has been covered with a 'kerchief," cried Lady Lake. "But it shall not save her from our scrutiny." So saying, she advanced towards the couch, with the intention of removing the covering, when Lord Roos barred her approach. "Not a step nearer, Madam," he cried, in a peremptory tone. "I will not allow you to gratify your curiosity further. You and Lady Roos may make the most of what you have seen; and proclaim abroad any tale your imaginations may devise forth. You will only render yourselves ridiculous, and encounter derision in lieu of sympathy. No one will credit your assertions, because I shall be able to prove that, at this moment, Lady Exeter is in a different part of the palace." "This bold falsehood will not serve your turn, my lord. Whoever she may be, the person on that couch shall be seized, and we shall then ascertain the truth." And she would have moved towards the door, if Lord Roos had not caught hold of her arm, while at the same time he drew his sword. Thinking from his fierce looks and menacing gestures that her mother might be sacrificed to his fury, Lady Roos fell on her knees before him, imploring pity; and she continued in this supplicating posture till Lady Lake angrily bade her rise. "You have come here without my permission, Madam," Lord Roos cried furiously to his mother-in-law, "and you shall not depart until I choose. Secure the door, Diego, and bring me the key. It is well," he continued, as the injunction was obeyed. Lady Lake submitted without resistance to the constraint imposed upon her. She could not well do otherwise; for though her screams would have brought aid, it might have arrived too late. And, after all, she did not intend to settle matters in this way. But she betrayed no symptoms of fear, and, as we have stated, ordered her daughter to discontinue her supplications. "And now, Madam," said Lord Roos, releasing Lady Lake, as he took the key from Diego, "I will tell you who that person is," pointing to the couch. "Add not to the number of falsehoods you have already told, my lord," rejoined Lady Lake, contemptuously. "I am perfectly aware who she is." "But I would fain hear his explanation, mother," said Lady Roos. "What explanation can be offered?" cried Lady Lake. "Do you doubt the evidence of your senses?" "I know not what I doubt, or what I believe," exclaimed Lady Roos distractedly. "Then believe what I tell you, Bess," said her husband. "This is the countess's handmaiden, Gillian Greenford." "An impudent lie!" cried Lady Lake. "A truth, my lady," interposed Diego. "A truth to which I am ready to swear." "No doubt of it, thou false knave, and double traitor! thou art worthy of thy lord. There is no lie, however absurd and improbable, which he can invent, that thou wilt not support. Thou art ready now to perjure thyself for him; but let him place little reliance on thee, for thou wilt do the same thing for us to-morrow." "I scarcely think it probable, my lady," Diego replied, bowing. Lady Lake turned from him in supreme disgust. "Admitting for a moment the possibility of your lordship's assertion being correct," said Lady Roos, "how comes Gillian Greenford (for so methinks you name her) in her mistress's attire?" "' T is easily explained, chuck," Lord Roos rejoined. "Anxious, no doubt, to set herself off to advantage, she hath made free with the countess's wardrobe. Your own favourite attendant, Sarah Swarton, hath often arranged herself in your finest fardingales, kirtlets, and busk-points, as Diego will tell you. Is it not so, rascal?" "' T is precisely as my lord hath stated, my lady," said the Spaniard to Lady Roos. "When Sarah Swarton hath been so habited, I have more than once mistaken her for your ladyship." "Yet Sarah is very unlike me," said Lady Roos. "That only shows how deceptive appearances are, chuck, and how little we ought to trust to them," observed Lord Roos. "How can you suffer yourself to be thus duped, Elizabeth?" said Lady Lake. "Because her ladyship would rather believe me than you, Madam," rejoined Lord Roos. "But she is _not_ duped." "Heaven forgive him!" exclaimed Diego, aside. "And supposing it were Gillian, how would the case be mended, as far as you are concerned, Elizabeth?" said Lady Lake. "Are you not as much injured by one as by the other?" "It may be," replied her daughter, "but I am jealous only of the Countess. I would kneel to any other woman, and thank her, who would tear my husband from her embraces!" "Weak fool! I disown you," exclaimed Lady Lake, angrily. "What a wife!" cried Diego, apart. "His lordship is quite unworthy of her. Now I should appreciate such devotion." At this juncture there was a slight movement on the part of Lady Exeter, and something like a sigh escaped her. "She revives!" whispered Lady Lake to her daughter. "We shall soon learn the truth. I will find a means to make her speak. Well, my lord," she added aloud, and speaking in a sarcastic tone, "if you will have it so, it is idle to dispute it. But what will the Countess say, when she discovers your infidelity?" On this a brisker movement took place on the couch, and a hand was raised as if to snatch away the 'kerchief. "We have her," whispered Lady Lake triumphantly to her daughter. "Surely," she proceeded aloud, "the Countess will deeply resent the transfer of your affections to her handmaiden." Lord Roos saw the peril in which he stood. A moment more and Lady Lake had gained her point, and the Countess betrayed herself. "Lady Exeter will place little reliance on any representations you may make, Madam," he said, giving particular significance to his words, "except so far as they concern herself, and then she will take care to refute them. As to the circumstance of Gillian Greenford visiting me, fainting in my arms (from excess of timidity, poor girl!) and being discovered by you and Lady Roos in that position, the Countess will laugh at it when it comes to her knowledge--as why should she do otherwise? But she will feel very differently when she finds that you and your daughter insist that it was she herself, and not her handmaiden, whom you beheld. Rely on it, Madam, Lady Exeter will contradict that assertion, and disprove it." "Let it be disproved now. Let the person on that couch disclose her features, and we shall then see whether she be the Countess or Gillian." "Ay, let her do that, my lord,--let her speak to us," urged Lady Roos. "Diablo! how is this request to be complied with, I marvel?" said Diego apart. But Lord Roos was too experienced a player to be defeated by this turn in the game. "Gillian has already been sufficiently annoyed," he cried; "and shall not submit to this ordeal. Besides, she has relapsed into insensibility, as you see." "She does what your lordship wills her, it is clear," said Lady Lake, contemptuously. "We know what construction to put upon your refusal." "I care not what construction you put upon it," cried Lord Roos, losing patience. "You and Lady Roos may think what you please, and act as you please. Enough for me, you can prove nothing." "Why, this is more like yourself, my lord," retorted Lady Lake, derisively. "Having thrown aside the mask, you will be spared the necessity of further subterfuge. The Countess, doubtless, will imitate your example, lay aside her feigned insensibility, and defy us. She need be under no apprehension; since she has your own warrant that we can prove nothing." "Your purpose, I perceive, is to irritate me, Madam," cried Lord Roos, fiercely; "and so far you are likely to succeed, though you fail in all else. I have no mask to throw off; but if you will have me declare myself your enemy, I am ready to do so. Henceforth, let there be no terms kept between us--let it be open warfare." "Be it so, my lord. And you will soon find who will be worsted in the struggle." "Oh, do not proceed to these fearful extremities, dear mother, and dearest husband!" cried Lady Roos, turning from one to the other imploringly. "Cease these provocations, I pray of you. Be friends, and not enemies." "As you please--peace or war; it is the same to me," said Lord Roos. "Meantime, I am wearied of this scene, and must put an end to it. Diego!" And beckoning his servant to him, he whispered some directions in his ear. "My lord shall be obeyed," said Diego, as he received his commission. "Gillian shall be conveyed with all care to her chamber." "We must have some proof that she has been here," thought Lady Lake. But how to obtain it? I have it. "Take these," she added in a whisper to her daughter, and giving a pair of scissors; "and contrive, if possible, to sever a lock of her hair before she be removed." By a look Lady Roos promised compliance. While this was passing, Diego had approached the couch; and fastening the kerchief securely round the Countess's face, he raised her in his arms, and moved towards the secret staircase, the tapestried covering of which was held aside by Lord Roos to give him passage. Rapidly as the Spaniard moved, he did not outstrip Lady Roos, whose design being favoured by the escape from its confinement of one of the Countess's long dark tresses, she had no difficulty of possessing, herself of it in the manner prescribed by her mother. Lady Exeter was aware of the loss she had sustained, and uttered a stifled cry; but this was attributed to the fright natural to the occasion by Lord Roos, who had not noticed what had taken place, and only caused him to hurry Diego's departure. But before the latter had wholly disappeared with his burthen, the perfumed and silken tress of hair was delivered to Lady Lake, who muttered triumphantly as she received it--"This will convict her. She cannot escape us now." The prize was scarcely concealed when Lord Roos, sheathing the sword which he had hitherto held drawn, advanced towards his mother-in-law. "Now that the object of your disquietude is removed, Madam, it will not be necessary to prolong this interview," he said. "Have we then your lordship's permission to depart?" rejoined Lady Lake, coldly. "We are not, I presume, to avail ourselves of the private means of exit contrived for your amorous adventures, lest we should make other discoveries." "Your ladyship will leave by the way you entered," rejoined Lord Roos. "I will attend you to the door--and unfasten it for you." "Before we go, I would have a word with my husband--it may be my last," said Lady Roos to her mother. "I pray you withdraw a little, that we may be alone." "Better not," rejoined Lady Lake. But unable to resist her daughter's imploring looks, she added, "Well, as you will. But it is useless." With this she proceeded to the little passage, and remained there. As Lady Roos turned to her husband, she saw, from the stern and inflexible look he had assumed, that any appeal made to him would be unavailing, and she attempted none. A moment elapsed before she could utter a word, and then it was only a murmur to heaven for guidance and support. "What say you, Elizabeth?" demanded Lord Roos, thinking she had addressed him. "I asked for support from on High, William, and it has been accorded to me," she replied in a low sweet voice. "I can now speak to you. It is not to weary you with supplications or reproaches that I thus detain you. I have something to impart to you, and I am sure you will eagerly listen to it. Come nearer, that we may not be overheard." Lord Roos, whose curiosity was aroused by her manner, obeyed her. "I am all attention," he said. "I feel I am in your way, William," she rejoined, in a deep whisper; "and that you desire my death. Nay, interrupt me not; I am sure you desire it; and I am equally sure that the desire will be gratified, and that you will kill me." "Kill you, Bess!" cried Lord Roos, startled. "How can you imagine aught so frightful?" "There is a power granted to those who love deeply as I do, of seeing into the hearts of those they love, and reading their secrets. I have read yours, William. Nay, be not alarmed. I have kept it to myself hitherto, and will keep it to the end. You wish me dead, I say; and you shall have your wish--but not in the way you propose. Having lost your love, I am become indifferent to life--or, rather, life is grown intolerable to me. But though death may be a release, it must not come from your hand." "You cannot mean to destroy yourself, Elizabeth?" cried Lord Roos, appalled. "I mean to trouble you no longer. I mean to make the last and greatest sacrifice I can for you; and to save you from a crime--or, if you must share the crime, at least to screen you from punishment. Look, here!" she added, producing a small phial. "Bid me drink of this, and ere to-morrow you are free, and I am at rest. Shall I do it?" "No--no," rejoined Lord Roos, snatching the phial from her. "Live, Bess, live!" "Am I to live for you, William?" she cried, with inexpressible joy. He made no answer, but averted his head. "In mercy give me back the phial," she exclaimed, again plunged into the depths of despair. "I must refuse your request," he replied. "Have you done, Elizabeth?" demanded Lady Lake, coming forth from the passage. "A moment more, mother," cried Lady Roos. "One word--one look!" she added to her husband. But he neither spoke to her, nor regarded her. "I am ready to accompany you now, mother," said the poor lady faintly. "Nerve yourself, weak-hearted girl," said Lady Lake, in a low tone. "Revenge is ours." "If I could only strike her without injuring him, I should not heed," thought Lady Roos. "But where he suffers, I must also suffer, and yet more acutely." And scarcely able to support herself, she followed her mother to the door of the ante-chamber, which was unlocked, and thrown open for them by her husband. He did not bid her farewell! As Lady Lake passed forth, she paused for a moment, and said-- "To-morrow, my Lord, we will ascertain whether the tress of hair we have obtained from the fair visitant to your chamber, matches with that of Gillian Greenford or with the raven locks of the Countess of Exeter." And satisfied with the effect produced by this menace, she departed with her daughter, before Lord Roos could utter a reply.	{ "id": "12396" }
24	The Fountain Court.	On the morning after the eventful passage in his life, previously related, our newly-created knight was standing, in a pensive attitude, beside the beautiful fountain, adorned with two fair statues, representing the Queen of Love and her son, heretofore described as placed in the centre of the great quadrangle of the Palace of Theobalds. Sir Jocelyn was listening to the plashing of the sparkling jets of water, as they rose into the air, and fell back into the broad marble basin, and appeared to be soothed by the pleasant sound. His breast had been agitated by various and conflicting emotions. In an incredibly short space of time events had occurred, some of which seemed likely to influence the whole of his future career; while one of them, though it had advanced him far beyond what he could have anticipated, appeared likely to mar altogether his prospects of happiness. Though the difficulties, therefore, that surrounded him had been unexpectedly overcome; though, by the exertions of the Conde de Gondomar, who had followed up his first success with wonderful promptitude and perseverance, and had dexterously contrived, by all the insidious arts of which lie was so perfect a master, to ingratiate his protegé still further with the King, without the protegé himself being aware of the manner in which he was served; though James himself appeared greatly pleased with him, at the banquet in the evening, to which, owing to the skilful management of the Spanish ambassador, he was invited, and bestowed such marked attention upon him, that the envy and jealousy of most of the courtiers were excited by it; though he seemed on the high-road to still greater favour, and was already looked upon as a rising favourite, who might speedily supplant others above him in this ever-changing sphere, if he did not receive a check; though his present position was thus comparatively secure, and his prospects thus brilliant, he felt ill at ease, and deeply dissatisfied with himself. He could not acquit himself of blame for the part he had played, though involuntarily, in the arrest of Hugh Calveley. It was inexpressibly painful to him; and he felt it as a reproach from which he could not free himself, to have risen, however unexpectedly on his own part, by the unfortunate Puritan's fall. How could he ever face Aveline again! She must regard him with horror and detestation, as the involuntary cause of her father's destruction. A bar had been placed between them, which nothing could ever remove. And though, on the one hand, he was suddenly exalted far beyond his hopes; yet on the other he was as suddenly cast down, and threatened to be for ever deprived of the bliss he had in view, the possession of which he coveted far more than wealth or grandeur. Additional complexity had been given to his position from the circumstance that, at De Gondomar's secret instance, of which, like all the rest, he was unaware, he had been appointed as officer in custody of Hugh Calveley, until the latter, who was still detained a close prisoner in the porter's lodge, should be removed to the Tower, or the Fleet, as his Majesty might direct. This post he would have declined, had there been a possibility of doing so. Any plan he might have formed of aiding the prisoner's escape was thus effectually prevented, as he could not violate his duty; and it was probably with this view that the wily ambassador had obtained him the appointment. In fact, he had unconsciously become little more than a puppet in the hands of the plotting Spaniard, who pulled the strings that moved him at pleasure, regardless of the consequences. What De Gondomar's ulterior designs were with him had not yet become manifest. These perplexing thoughts swept through Sir Jocelyn's breast, as he stood by the marble fountain, and listened to the sound of its falling waters. While thus occupied, he perceived two persons issue from the arched entrance fronting the gate (adjoining the porter's lodge, in which the prisoner was still detained), and make their way slowly across the quadrangle, in the direction of the cloister on its eastern side, above which were apartments assigned to the Secretary of State, Sir Thomas Lake. The foremost of the two was merely a yeoman of the guard, and would not for a moment have attracted Sir Jocelyn's attention, if it had not been for a female who accompanied him, and whom he was evidently conducting to Sir Thomas Lake's rooms, as Sir Jocelyn not only saw the man point towards them, but heard him mention the Secretary of State's name. Something whispered him that this closely-hooded female,--the lower part of whose face was shrouded in a muffler, so that the eyes alone were visible,--was Aveline. Little could be discerned of the features; but the exquisitely-proportioned figure, so simply yet so tastefully arrayed, could only be hers; and if he _could_ have doubted that it was Aveline, the suddenness with which her looks were averted as she beheld him, and the quickness with which she stepped forward, so as even to outstrip her companion--these circumstances, coupled with the violent throbbing of his own heart, convinced him he was right. He would have flown after her, if he had dared; would have poured forth all his passionate feelings to her, had he been permitted; would have offered her his life, to deal with as she pleased; but his fears restrained him, and he remained riveted to the spot, gazing after her until she entered the great hall on the ground floor, beneath the Secretary of State's apartments. Why she sought Sir Thomas Lake he could easily understand. It was only from him that authority to visit her father could be obtained. After remaining irresolute for a few minutes, during which the magnificent structure around him faded entirely from his view like a vision melting into air, and he heard no more the pleasant plashing of the fountain, he proceeded to the great hall near the cloister, resolved to wait there till her return.	{ "id": "12396" }
25	Sir Thomas Lake.	A grave-looking man, of a melancholy and severe aspect, and attired in a loose robe of black velvet, was seated alone in a chamber, the windows of which opened upon the Fountain Court, which we have just quitted. He wore a silken skull-cap, from beneath which a few gray hairs escaped; his brow was furrowed with innumerable wrinkles, occasioned as much by thought and care as by age; his pointed beard and moustaches were almost white, contrasting strikingly with his dark, jaundiced complexion, the result of an atrabilarious temperament; his person was extremely attenuated, and his hands thin and bony. He had once been tall, but latterly had lost much of his height, in consequence of a curvature of the spine, which bowed down his head almost upon his breast, and fixed it immoveably in that position. His features were good, but, as we have stated, were stamped with melancholy, and sharpened by severity. This person was Sir Thomas Lake, Secretary of State. The table at which he sat was strewn over with official documents and papers. He was not, however, examining any of them, but had just broken the seal of a private packet which he had received from his wife, when an usher entered, and intimated that a young maiden, who was without, solicited a moment's audience. The request would have been refused, if the man had not gone on to say that he believed the applicant was the daughter of the crazy Puritan, who had threatened the King's life on the previous day. On hearing this, Sir Thomas consented to see her, and she was admitted accordingly. As soon as the usher had retired, Aveline unmuffled herself, and, cold and apathetic as he was, Sir Thomas could not help being struck by her surpassing beauty, unimpaired even by the affliction under which she laboured; and he consequently softened in some degree the customary asperity of his tones in addressing her. "Who are you, maiden, and what seek you?" he demanded, eyeing her with curiosity. "I am daughter to the unfortunate Hugh Calveley, now a prisoner in the palace," she replied. "I am sorry to hear it," rejoined Sir Thomas, resuming his habitually severe expression; "for you are the daughter of a very heinous offender. The enormity of Hugh Calveley's crime, which is worse than parricide, deprives him of all human sympathy and compassion. In coming to me you do not, I presume, intend to weary me with prayers for mercy; for none is deserved, and none will be shown. For my own part, I shall not utter a word in mitigation of the dreadful sentence certain to be pronounced upon him; nor shall I advise the slightest clemency to be shown him on the part of his Majesty. Such an offender cannot be too severely punished. I do not say this," he continued, somewhat softening his harshness, "to aggravate the distress and shame you naturally feel; but I wish to check at once any hopes you may have formed. Yet though I have no pity for him, I have much for you, since, doubtless, you are innocent of all knowledge of your father's atrocious design--happily prevented. And I would therefore say to you, shut out all feelings for him from your heart. The man who raises his hand against his sovereign cuts off by the act all ties of kindred and love. Affection is changed to abhorrence; and such detestation does his horrible offence inspire, that those of his own blood are bound to shun him, lest he derive comfort and consolation from their presence. Thus considered, you are no longer his daughter, for he has himself severed the links between you. You no longer owe him filial duty and regard, for to such he is no more entitled. Leave him to his fate; and, if possible, for ever obliterate his memory from your breast." "You counsel what I can never perform, honourable Sir," replied Aveline; "and were he even branded like Cain, I could not shut my heart towards him. Nothing can make me forget that I am his daughter. That his offence will be dreadfully expiated, I do not doubt; but if I can alleviate his sufferings in any way, I will do so; and I will never cease to plead for mercy for him. And O, honourable Sir! you regard his offence in a darker light than it deserves. You treat him as if he had actually accomplished the direful purpose attributed to him; whereas, nothing has been proven against him beyond the possession of a weapon, which he might keep about his person for self-defence." "The plea you urge is futile, maiden," rejoined Sir Thomas; "he is judged out of his own mouth, for his own lips have avowed his criminal intention." "Still, it was but the intention, honourable Sir!" "In such cases, the intention is equal to the crime--at least in the eyes of law and justice. No plea will save Hugh Calveley. Of that rest assured." "One plea may be urged for him, which, whether it avail or not, is the truth, and shall be made. It is painful to speak of my father as I must now do; but there is no help for it. Of late years he has been subject to strange mental hallucinations, which have bordered close upon madness, if they have not reached that terrible point. Nocturnal vigils, fastings, and prayers have affected his health. He has denied himself sufficient rest, and has only partaken of food barely sufficient to sustain nature, and no more. The consequence has been that strange fancies have troubled his brain; that at dead of night, when alone in his chamber, he has imagined that visions have appeared to him; that voices have spoken--awful voices--talking of prophecies, lamentations, and judgments, and charging him with a mighty and terrible mission. All these things I have heard from his own lips, and I have heard and seen much more, which has satisfied me that his intellects are disordered, and that he cannot be held accountable for his actions." "If such be the case, he should have been kept under restraint, and not suffered to go abroad," said Sir Thomas. "Such madmen are highly mischievous and dangerous. Much blame rests with you, maiden." "The whole blame is mine!" she exclaimed. "I confess my error--my crime--and will atone for it willingly with my life, provided he be spared. If a sacrifice must be made, let me be the victim." "There is no sacrifice, and no victim," returned Sir Thomas gravely, though he was not unmoved by her filial devotion. "There is an offender, and there will be justice; and justice must be satisfied. Inexorable as fate, her dread sentences cannot be averted." "O, honourable Sir! you may one day recall those words; for which of us can hold himself free from offence? My father is not guilty in the eyes of Heaven; or if he be, I am equally culpable, since I ought to have prevented the commission of the crime. O, I shall never forgive myself that I did not follow him when he parted from me yesterday!" "Let me hear how that occurred, maiden?" asked Sir Thomas. "It chanced in this way, Sir. I have already described my father's state of mind, and the distempered view he has been accustomed to take of all things. Yesterday, May-day sports were held in the village of Tottenham, where we dwelt; and as such things are an abomination in his sight, he took upon him to reprove the actors in the pastimes. They who witnessed his conduct on that occasion would hardly hold him to be under the due control of reason. Amongst the spectators was the son of an old friend, whose name having accidentally reached my father, he invited him into the house, and a misunderstanding having arisen between them, the latter suddenly left--dismissed almost with rudeness. On his departure, my father was greatly disturbed--more so than I have ever seen him. After awhile, he withdrew to his own chamber, as was his habit, to pray, and I hoped would become tranquillized; but the very reverse happened, for when he reappeared, I saw at once that a fearful change had taken place in him. His eye blazed with preternatural light, his gestures were wild and alarming, and his language full of menace and denunciation. He again spoke of his mission from Heaven, and said that its execution could no longer be delayed." "This should have been a warning to you," observed Sir Thomas, knitting his brows. "It should, honourable Sir. But I did not profit by it. I knew and felt that he was no longer under the dominion of reason--that he was labouring under some terrible delusion that approached its crisis; but I did not check him. I yielded passive obedience to his injunction, that I should depart instantly with an old servant to London; and I agreed to tarry at a house, which he mentioned, till I heard from him. I had sad forebodings that I should never hear from him again--or if I _did_, that the tidings would be worse than none at all; but I obeyed. I could not, indeed, resist his will. I set forth with my attendant, and my father parted with us at the door. He placed money in my hand, and bade me farewell! but in such a tone, and with such a look, that I felt his senses were gone, and I would have stayed him, but it was then too late. Breaking from my embrace, he sprang upon his horse, which was ready saddled, and rode off, taking the direction of Edmonton; while I, with a heart full of distress and misgiving, pursued my way to London. Ere midnight, my sad presentiments were verified. A messenger traced me out, bringing intelligence of the direful event that had happened, and informing me that my father was a prisoner at Theobalds. As soon as I could procure means of reaching the palace, I set forth, and arrived here about an hour ago, when, failing in my efforts to obtain an interview with my father, who is closely confined, and none suffered to come near him save with authority from the Secretary of State, I sought an audience of you, honourable Sir, in the hope that you would grant me permission to see him." "If I do grant it, the interview must take place in the presence of the officer to whom his custody has been committed," replied Sir Thomas. "With this restriction, I am willing to sign an order for you." "Be it as you please, honourable Sir; and take my heartfelt gratitude for the grace." Sir Thomas struck a small bell upon the table, and the usher appeared at the summons. "Bid the officer in charge of Hugh Calveley attend me," he said. The man bowed, and departed. Sir Thomas Lake then turned to the paper which he had just opened before Aveline's appearance, and was soon so much engrossed by it that he seemed quite unconscious of her presence. His countenance became gloomier and more austere as he read on, and an expression of pain--almost a groan--escaped him. He appeared then to feel sensible that he had committed an indiscretion, for he laid down the paper, and, as if forcibly diverting himself from its contents, addressed Aveline. "What you have said respecting your father's condition of mind," he observed, "by no means convinces me that it is so unsound as to render him irresponsible for his actions. It were to put a charitable construction upon his conduct to say that no one but a madman could be capable of it; but there was too much consistency in what he has said and done to admit of such an inference. But for the interposition of another person he owned that he would have killed the King; and the disappointment he exhibited, and the language he used, prove such to have been his fixed intention. His mind may have been disturbed; but what of that? All who meditate great crimes, it is to be hoped, are not entirely masters of themselves. Yet for that reason they are not to be exempt from punishment. He who is sane enough to conceive an act of wickedness, to plan its execution, and to attempt to perpetrate it, although he may be in other respects of unsettled mind, is equally amenable to the law, and ought equally to suffer for his criminality with him who has a wiser and sounder head upon his shoulders." Aveline attempted no reply, but the tears sprang to her eyes. At this moment the door was thrown open by the usher to admit Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey. The emotion displayed by the young couple when thus brought together passed unnoticed by the Secretary of State, as he was occupied at the moment in writing the authority for Aveline, and did not raise his eyes towards them. "Are you the officer to whom my father's custody has been entrusted?" exclaimed Aveline, as soon as she could give utterance to her surprise. "Why do you ask that question, mistress?" demanded Sir Thomas, looking up. "What can it signify to you who hath custody of your father, provided good care be taken of him? There is a Latin maxim which his Majesty cited at the banquet last night--_Etiam aconito inest remedium_--and which may be freely rendered by our homely saying, that 'It is an ill wind that bloweth nobody good luck;' and this hath proved true with Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey--for the gust that hath wrecked your father hath driven him into port, where he now rides securely in the sunshine of the King's favour. Nor is this to be wondered at, since it was by Sir Jocelyn that his Majesty's life was preserved." "The King preserved by him!" exclaimed Aveline, in bewilderment. "Ay, marry and indeed, young mistress," rejoined Sir Thomas. "He arrested the fell traitor; was knighted on the spot for the service, by the King; was invited afterwards to the grand banquet in the evening, and received with more distinction than any other guest; and he is now, as you find, entrusted with the custody of the prisoner. Thus, if your father has done little good to himself, he hath done much to Sir Jocelyn." Aveline could not repress an exclamation of anguish. "No more of this, I entreat, Sir Thomas," cried Sir Jocelyn. "It is right she should hear the truth," replied the Secretary of State. "Here is her authority for admittance to her father," he continued, giving it to him. "It must take place in your presence, Sir Jocelyn. And you will pay strict attention to what they say," he added in a low tone, "for you will have to report all that passes between them to the council. Something may arise to implicate the girl herself, so let naught escape you. Be vigilant in your office, as is needful. I mention this as you are new to it. If the prisoner continues obstinate, as he hath hitherto shown himself, threaten him with the torture. The rack will certainly be applied when he reaches the Tower. I need not give you further instructions I think, Sir Jocelyn. Be pleased to return to me when the interview is over." Upon this, he bowed gravely, and sounded the bell for the usher. Unable to offer any remonstrance, Sir Jocelyn approached Aveline, who could scarcely support herself, with the intention of offering her assistance; but she shrank from him, and again muffling her face, went forth, while he slowly followed her.	{ "id": "12396" }
26	The forged Confession.	Some little time had elapsed since Aveline's departure on her sorrowful errand, and Sir Thomas Lake was still alone, and once more deeply engrossed in the consideration of the document, which, it will be recollected, had occasioned him so much disquietude; and the feeling by no means diminished when the usher entered and announced Lady Lake. Severe and inflexible as we have described him, the Secretary of State was generally yielding enough towards his lady, of whom he stood in great awe, and whom he treated with the utmost deference; but on this occasion, contrary to habitude, he received her very coldly, and without rising motioned her to a seat beside him. Disregarding the want of attention, which, under other circumstances, she would have resented, Lady Lake took the seat indicated without remark, and continued silent till the usher had retired. Then turning quickly towards her husband, and fixing an inquiring look upon him, she said in a low voice-- "What think you of this document, Sir Thomas?" "This forgery?" he rejoined in the same tone, but without raising his eyes towards her. "Ay, this forgery, if you choose to call it so," she returned. "Let me have your opinion upon it? Is it as it should be? Are its expressions such as would be used by a guilty woman, like the Countess, imploring pity, and seeking to shield herself from disgrace? Do you find fault with it? Can it be amended in any particular?" "I find such grave fault with it," replied the Secretary of State, still without looking up, "that I would amend it by casting it into the flames. Lady Lake, it is my duty to warn you. This is a fearful crime you would commit, and severely punishable by the law. You may excuse it to yourself, because you have an end in view which seems to justify the means; but the excuse will not avail you with others. You have said that in a conflict with one so cunning and unscrupulous as our noble son-in-law, you are compelled to fight him with his own weapons--to meet trick with trick, manoevre with manoeuvre; but take my word for it, you would more easily defeat him by straight-forward means. Be ruled by me in this one instance. Abandon a scheme which must inevitably lead to consequences I shudder to contemplate; and let this fabricated confession be destroyed." "Give it me," she cried, snatching the paper from him. "You were ever timid, Sir Thomas; and if you had not lacked courage, this expedient would not have been necessary. Odious and dangerous as it is, the measure is forced upon me, and I shall not shrink from it. But you shall not be called upon to play any part in the transaction. I alone will do it. I alone will be responsible for all that may ensue." "We shall all be responsible!" he rejoined. "You will not only ruin yourself, but all your family, if this fearful step be taken. Hitherto we have had right on our side, but henceforth we shall be more culpable than the others." "I am resolved upon the course," cried Lady Lake; "and all your arguments--all your warnings will not dissuade me from it, so you may spare your breath, Sir Thomas. As you see, I have omitted the charge of witchcraft, and have only made the Countess confess her criminality with Lord Roos, and of this we have had abundant proofs; nay, we should have them still, if those condemnatory letters of hers, which had come into our possession, had not been stolen. That mischance necessitates the present measure. Having managed to deprive us of our weapons, Lord Roos thinks himself secure. But he will find his mistake when this document is produced to confound him." "I tremble at the thought," groaned the Secretary of State. "These fears are worse than womanish," exclaimed his lady. "Shake them off, and be yourself. Who is to prove that the confession proceeds not from the Countess? Not she herself; since no one will believe her. Not Lord Roos; for he will be equally discredited. Not Diego; for his testimony would be valueless. The Countess's hand-writing has been so skilfully imitated, that the falsification cannot be detected. Compare it with this note written by herself to Lady Roos, and which, though it proves nothing, has so far answered my purpose. Compare, I say, the writing of the confession and the signature with this note, and declare if you can discern any difference between them. As to the signatures of Lord Roos and Diego affixed to the document, they are equally well simulated." "That the forgery is skilfully executed, I do not deny," replied the Secretary of State; "and that circumstance, though it does not lessen the crime, may lessen the chance of detection. Since nothing I can urge will turn you from your design, and you are determined to employ this dangerous instrument, at least be cautious in its use. Terrify Lord Roos with it, if you choose. Threaten to lay it before the Earl of Exeter--before the King himself--in case of our son-in-law's non-compliance with your demands. But beware how you proceed further. Do not part with it for a moment; so that, if need be, you may destroy it. Do you heed me, my lady?" "I do, Sir Thomas," she replied. "Be assured I will act with due caution. --I am glad to find you are coming round to my views, and are disposed to countenance the measure." "I countenance it!" exclaimed the Secretary of State, in alarm. "No such thing. I disapprove of it entirely, and cannot sufficiently reprehend it. But, as I well know, when you have once made up your mind, the fiend himself cannot turn you from your purpose, I give you the best counsel I can under the circumstances. I wash my hands of it altogether. Would to Heaven I had never been consulted upon it--never even been made acquainted with the project. However, as you have gone so far with me you may go a step further, and let me know what story you mean to attach to this confession? How will you feign to have obtained it?" "The statement I shall make will be this, and it will be borne out by so many corroborative circumstances that it will be impossible to contradict it. You observe that the document is dated on the 10th of April last. It is not without reason that it is so dated. On that day I and our daughter, Lady Roos, attended by her maid, Sarah Swarton, proceeded to the Earl of Exeter's residence at Wimbledon, for the purpose of having an interview with the Countess, and we then saw her in the presence of Lord Roos and his servant Diego." "But you gained nothing by the journey?" remarked her husband. "Your pardon, Sir Thomas," she rejoined; "I gained this confession. On the way back I reflected upon what had occurred, and I thought how flushed with triumph I should have been if, instead of meeting with discomfiture, I had gained my point--if I had brought the haughty Countess to her knees--had compelled her to write out and sign a full avowal of her guilt, coupled with supplications for forgiveness from my injured daughter and myself--and as a refinement of revenge, had forced Lord Roos and his servant to attest by their signatures the truth of the confession! I thought of this--and incensed that I had not done it, resolved it _should_ be done." "An ill resolve!" muttered her husband. "In Luke Hatton, our apothecary, I had the man for my purpose," pursued Lady Lake. "Aware of his marvellous talent for imitating any writing he pleased--aware, also, that I could entirely rely upon him, I resolved to call in his aid." "Imprudent woman! You have placed yourself wholly in his power," groaned Sir Thomas. "Suppose he should betray the terrible trust you have reposed in him?" "He will not betray it," replied Lady Lake. "He is too deeply implicated in the matter not to keep silence for his own sake. But to proceed. The document, such as you see it, was drawn out by myself and transcribed by Luke Hatton, and the writing so admirably counterfeited that Lady Exeter herself may well doubt if it be not her own. Then, as to the circumstances, they will all bear me out. We were known to have been at Wimbledon on the day in question. We were known to have had an interview with Lady Exeter, at which Lord Roos and Diego were present. The interview was private, and therefore no one can tell what took place at it; but the probabilities are that what I shall assert really did occur." Sir Thomas signified his assent, and she went on. "The plot is well contrived, and, with prudent management, cannot fail of success. We have the time of the supposed occurrence--the actors in it--and the scene--for I shall describe the particular room in which the interview really did take place, and I shall further bring forward Sarah Swarton, who will declare that she was concealed behind the hangings, and heard the Countess read over the confession before she signed it." "Another party to the affair--and a woman!" ejaculated Sir Thomas. "The dangers of discovery are multiplied a hundredfold." "The danger exists only in your imagination," said his Lady. "Come, admit, Sir Thomas, that the scheme is well contrived, and that they must be cunning indeed if they escape from the meshes I have woven for them." "You have displayed ingenuity enough, I am free to own, if it had been directed to a better end; but in the best contrived scheme some flaw is ever found, which is sure to mar it." "You can detect no flaw in this I am persuaded, Sir Thomas. If you can, let me know it?" "Nay, it is only when too late that such things are found out. The supposed armour of proof is then found wanting at some vital point. However, I will say no more," he observed, perceiving her impatience. "What is done cannot be undone. Have you prepared our daughter? Will she consent to aid you?" "She will," replied Lady Lake. "I had some difficulty with her at first, but I found means to overrule her scruples, and she consented at last to act as I desired, provided all other means failed of accomplishing the object in view. And they _have_ failed since we have lost those letters, for though I have one other proof left which might perhaps be adduced, I do not attach much importance to it." "What is it?" inquired Sir Thomas, quickly. "You shall know anon," she answered. "Suffice it, I have done all I could to avoid having recourse to the present measure; and have delayed--its execution to the last moment." "But that proof of which you were speaking?" cried Sir Thomas. "Let me hear it? Perhaps it may obviate the necessity of this dangerous proceeding?" "I do not think so. But you shall judge. Last night, our daughter and myself obtained secret admittance to Lord Roos's chamber, and we found the Countess there, and fainting in his arms." "Why that is enough to convict them. You want nothing more." "Hear me to an end, and you will change your opinion. Placing the inanimate Countess on a couch, and covering her face with a handkerchief, Lord Roos had the effrontery to assert that we were mistaken; insisting that it was not Lady Exeter we beheld--but her hand-maiden, Gillian Greenford; and he appealed to the perfidious knave, Diego, in confirmation of his assertion." "But you did not leave without satisfying yourselves of the truth?" demanded Sir Thomas. "His lordship took care we should have no means of doing so," she answered. "He caused Diego to convey her away by a secret staircase." " 'Sdeath! that was unlucky. You have no proof then that it was the Countess you beheld?" "Nothing beyond a lock of her hair, which was secured by Lady Roos as the man was removing her." "That may be enough," cried the Secretary of State; "and prevent the necessity of resorting to this frightful expedient. We must see the girl, and interrogate her. Gillian Greenford you say she is called. She shall be brought hither at once." "It is possible she may be without," returned Lady Lake. "Before I came here, I summoned her in your name." "We will see," cried Sir Thomas, striking upon the bell. And the usher, appearing to the summons, informed him that in effect the damsel in question was in attendance. "She seems much alarmed, Sir Thomas," said the usher, "and has with her a young man, who appears to take a tender interest in her, and wishes to be present at the investigation." "Let him come in with her," said the Secretary of State. And seeing the usher pause, he inquired if he had anything further to say. "His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador and my Lord Roos are without, and desire admittance," replied the man. Sir Thomas consulted his lady by a look; and as she made no objection, he signified his pleasure that they should be admitted, and accordingly the door was thrown open for the entrance of all the persons mentioned. Gillian came first, and seemed much embarrassed by the situation in which she found herself. She had been well tutored for the part she had to play; but the instructions she had received entirely fled from her mind as she found herself in the presence of two such awful personages as Sir Thomas Lake and his lady, both of whom fixed keen glances upon her. Feeling ready to drop with fright, she looked at Dick Taverner, as if imploring his support. But this Dick declined to afford. His jealousy having been roused by what he had heard, he determined to be governed in his conduct towards her by the result of the investigation. Accordingly, though it cost him an effort, he held back. As the Conde de Gondomar appeared, Sir Thomas Lake arose, and made him a profound salutation, which was returned with equal ceremony by the Spanish Ambassador. The latter, however, did not take a seat, but remained standing with Lord Roos, whose presence was acknowledged by a cold and distant bow from his father-in-law. The young nobleman did not appear in the slightest degree disconcerted by the reception he met with, or apprehensive of the result of the investigation. He jested apart with De Gondomar; and both he and the Spanish Ambassador appeared greatly amused by Gillian's embarrassment. Behind him stood his servant Diego. "You are handmaiden to the Countess of Exeter, I presume?" demanded Lady Lake of the damsel. "I am, my lady," she answered. "The girl does not look as if the imputations cast upon her character can be true," observed Sir Thomas Lake. As this was said, poor Gillian became suffused with blushes, and hung her head. "Before I put any further questions to her," remarked Lady Lake, "I will ask Lord Roos if he still persists in affirming that it was this damsel who visited him last night?" Dick Taverner looked as if his fate depended upon the response the young nobleman might make to the inquiry. "I must decline to answer your ladyship's question," returned Lord Roos. "Why cannot he speak out?" muttered Dick. "This uncertainty is worse than anything." "What says the damsel herself," observed Sir Thomas Lake. "Does she admit the charge?" "You cannot expect her to do that, Sir Thomas," interposed Lord Roos. "I expect her to answer my question," rejoined the Secretary of State, sharply. "Were you in Lord Roos's room last night?" he added, to Gillian. "Oh, dear! I am ready to faint," she exclaimed. "Catch me, Dick--catch me!" "Answer 'yes' or 'no,' or I won't," he rejoined. "Well, then, 'yes!' if I must say something," she replied. Poor Dick fell back, as if struck by a shot. "I don't believe it," cried Sir Thomas. "Nor I either," said Dick, recovering himself. "I don't believe she could do such a wicked thing. Besides, it was the foreign ambassador, there," he added, pointing to De Gondomar, "who seemed most enamoured of her yesterday; and I shouldn't have been so much surprised if she had gone to see him. Perhaps she did," he continued, addressing the poor damsel, who again hung her head. "I can take upon me to affirm that such was not the case," observed De Gondomar. "Have you the lock of hair with you?" whispered Sir Thomas to his lady. "I have," she replied, taking a small packet from her bosom. The movement did not pass unnoticed by Lord Roos and the Spanish Ambassador, between whom an almost imperceptible smile passed. "If you have put all the interrogations you desire to make to Gillian, Madam," said Lord Roos to his mother-in-law, "perhaps she may be permitted to depart? The situation cannot be agreeable to her." "A moment more, my lord," cried Lady Lake. "If I detain her it is to clear her character. I know her to be perfectly innocent." At this announcement, Dick Taverner's countenance brightened, and he extended his arms towards Gillian, who gladly availed herself of his support. "I am quite sure she was not the person I surprised in your chamber last night," continued Lady Lake. "Indeed, Madam! How do you arrive at that conviction?" "Because that person's hair was jet black, whereas Gillian's, as we see, is of the exactly opposite colour." Dick Taverner could not help pressing his lips against the back of the pretty damsel's neck as this was uttered. "Your proof of this, Madam?" demanded Lord Roos. "Behold it!" she cried. "This look of hair was cut off before your visitant escaped, and has remained in my possession ever since. Ha! how is this?" she exclaimed, as she unfolded the packet, and disclosed a tress of fair hair, evidently matching Gillian's lint-white locks. "What transformation has taken place! Witchcraft has been practised. This is the Countess's work." "The minion must have been there, after all," cried Dick Taverner, thrusting Gillian from him. "The charge of witchcraft will not serve your turn, Madam," said Lord Roos derisively. "The explanation is simple. Your eyes have deceived you." "Most palpably," cried the Conde de Gondomar, who had caught Gillian in his arms, as the jealous apprentice cast her from him. "I am afraid her ladyship cannot see very clearly." "I see clearly enough that a trick has been practised upon me," Lady Lake rejoined sharply. "But let Lord Roos look to himself. I will have my revenge, and a terrible one it shall be." "Do not commit yourself," said Sir Thomas in a low tone. "Your business here is at an end, fair maiden," said the Conde de Gondomar to Gillian; "and as your lover abandons you, I am ready to take charge of you." So saying he led her forth, followed by Lord Roos, whose smile of triumph exasperated his mother-in-law almost beyond endurance. For a moment Dick Tayerner remained irresolute; but his mistress had no sooner disappeared, than he rushed after her, vowing he would have her back if it cost him his life.	{ "id": "12396" }
27	The Puritan's Prison.	Hugh Calveley, it has already been intimated, was lodged in a vault beneath the gateway. The place was commonly used as a sort of black-hole for the imprisonment of any refractory member of the royal household, or soldier on guard guilty of neglect of duty. Circular in shape, it contained a large pillar, to which iron rings and chains were attached. The walls were of stone, the roof arched with ribs springing from the pillar that supported it, and the floor was paved. Window there was none; but air was admitted through a small grated aperture in the roof; and thus imperfectly ventilated, it will not be wondered at that the vault should be damp. Moisture constantly trickled down the walls, and collected in pools on the broken pavement; but unwholesome as it was, and altogether unfit for occupation, it was deemed good enough for those generally thrust into it, and far too good for its present tenant. As the prisoner exhibited no violence, the thongs with which his hands were bound were removed on his entrance to the vault, and he was allowed the free use of his limbs. The breast-plate in which he was clad was taken from him, and his vesture was again closely searched, but no further discovery was made either of concealed weapon, or of any paper or letter tending to show that he had accomplices in his dread design. The only thing found upon him, indeed, was a small Bible, and this, after it had been examined, he was permitted to retain. To the interrogatories put to him by Master Dendy, the serjeant-at-arms, he returned the briefest answers; and when he had said as much as he thought fit, he obstinately refused to make further reply. Incensed at his perversity, and determined to extort a full confession, in order that it might be laid before the King, the serjeant-at-arms ordered the manacles to be applied. But though the torture was exquisite, he bore it with firmness, and without uttering a groan; maintaining the same determined silence as before. Had he dared, Master Dendy would have had recourse to severer measures; but having no warrant for any such proceeding, he was obliged to content himself with threats. To these Hugh Calveley replied by a grim smile of contempt; but as the serjeant-at-arms was departing to make his report to Sir Thomas Lake, he said, "I have something to disclose; but it is for the King's ear alone." "Better reveal it to me," rejoined Dendy, halting. "I have it in my power to render your situation far more tolerable, or to inflict greater torment upon you. Make your choice." "Deal with me as you please," returned Hugh Calveley sternly. "What I have to say is to the King, and to the King only; and though you break every bone in my body with your engines, and tear off my flesh with red-hot pincers, you shall not force the secret from me." Master Dendy looked at him, and felt disposed to place him in the dreadful instrument of torture called Skeffington's irons, which was hanging against the wall; but the consideration that had hitherto restrained him--namely, that he was without authority for the step, and might be called to account for it--weighed with him still; wherefore he contented himself with ordering the prisoner to be chained to the pillar; and having seen the injunction obeyed, he left him. In this miserable plight Hugh Calveley remained for some hours, without light and without food. How the time was passed none knew; but the two yeomen of the guard who entered the vault found him on his knees absorbed in prayer. They brought a lamp with them, and refreshments of a better kind than those usually afforded to a prisoner, and set them before him. But he refused to partake of them. The only favour he besought was permission to read his Bible; and the lamp placed within reach, he was soon deeply engrossed in the perusal of those pages from which, when earnestly sought, consolation has ever been derived under the most trying circumstances. Sir Jocelyn had forborne to visit the prisoner from a fear that his presence might be painful; but the office imposed upon him by the King left him no alternative; and about midnight he descended to the vault, to ascertain from personal inspection that Hugh Calveley was in safe custody. The door was unlocked by the halberdier stationed at it, and the young man found himself alone with the prisoner. He was inexpressibly shocked by the spectacle he beheld, as he had no idea how severely the unfortunate Puritan had been treated, nor of the sort of prison in which he was confined. Hugh Calveley, who was still intently reading the Bible, which he had placed upon his knee while he held the lamp near it, to throw the light upon its leaves, did not appear to be disturbed by the opening of the door, nor did he raise his eyes. But, at last, a deep groan issuing from the breast of the young man aroused him, and he held up the lamp to ascertain who was near. On discovering that it was Sir Jocelyn, he knitted his brow, and, after sternly regarding him for a moment, returned to his Bible, without uttering a word; but finding the other maintained his post, he demanded, almost fiercely, why he was disturbed? "Can I do aught for your relief?" rejoined the young man. "At least, I can have those chains taken off." "Thou speakest as one in authority," cried Hugh Calveley, regarding him, fixedly. "Art thou appointed to be my jailer?" Sir Jocelyn made no answer, but averted his head. "This only was wanting to fill up the measure of my scorn for thee," pursued the Puritan. "Thou art worthy of thine office. But show me no favour, for I will receive none at thy hands. I would rather wear these fetters to my death, however much they may gall my limbs, than have them struck off by thee. I would rather rot in this dungeon--ay, though it were worse than it is--than owe my liberation to thee. The sole favour thou canst show me is to rid me of thy presence, which is hateful to me, and chases holy thoughts from my breast, putting evil in their place." "Why should this be so, O friend of my father?" exclaimed Sir Jocelyn. "And why should my presence be hateful to you? There is no man living whom I would less willingly offend than yourself; and in all I have done, where you have been concerned, I have had no free agency. Judge me not then too harshly. I commiserate your situation from the depths of my heart, and would relieve it were it possible." "Then wherefore persist in troubling me?" rejoined Hugh Calveley. "Have I not good cause for my dislike of you? You have disappointed the expectations I had formed of you. You failed me when I put your professions to the test. You thwarted my design at the moment when its success was certain, and when the tyrant was completely in my power. But for you I should not be here, loaded with these fetters; or if I were, I should be consoled by the thought that I had liberated my country from oppression, instead of being crushed by the sense of failure. What seek you from me, miserable time-server? Have you not had your reward for the service you have rendered the King? Is he not grateful enough? I have served as your stepping-stone to promotion. What more can I do?" "You can cease to do me injustice," returned Sir Jocelyn. "Honours, procured as mine have been, are valueless, and I would rather be without them. I sought them not. They have been forced upon me. Look at the matter fairly, and you will see that all these consequences, whether for good or ill, have sprung from your own desperate act." "It may be so," rejoined the Puritan. "I will not dispute it. But though ill has accrued to me, and good to you, I would not change positions with you. You will wear the tyrant's fetters for ever. I shall soon be free from mine." "Have you nothing to say concerning your daughter?" demanded the young man. "Nothing," replied the Puritan, with an expression of deep pain, which, however, he checked by a mighty effort. "I have done with the world, and desire not to be brought back to it." "And you refuse to be freed from your chains?" "My sole desire, as I have said, is to be freed from you." "That wish, at least, shall be granted," replied Sir Jocelyn, as, with a sad heart, he departed.	{ "id": "12396" }
28	The Secret.	Thrice was the guard relieved during that long night, and as often was the prisoner visited. On the first occasion, he was found to be still engaged with his Bible, and he so continued during the whole time the man remained in the vault. The next who came discovered him on his knees, praying loudly and fervently, and, unwilling to disturb him, left him at his devotions. But the third who entered was struck with terror at the prisoner's appearance. He had risen from the ground, and was standing as erect as the fetters would permit, with his hands outstretched, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. He was muttering something, but his words were unintelligible. He looked like one who beheld a vision; and this impression was produced upon the man, who half expected some awful shape to reveal itself to him. But whatever it might be, spirit of good or ill, it was visible to the Puritan alone. After gazing at him for some minutes, in mixed wonderment and fright, the halberdier ventured to draw near him. As he touched him, the Puritan uttered a fearful cry, and attempted to spring forward, as if to grasp some vanishing object, but being checked in the effort by the chain, he fell heavily to the ground, and seemed to sustain severe injury; for when the man raised him, and set him against the pillar, though he made no complaint, it was evident he suffered excruciating pain. The halberdier poured out a cup of wine, and offered it to him; but, though well-nigh fainting, he peremptorily refused it. From this moment a marked change was perceptible in his looks. The hue of his skin became cadaverous; his eyes grew dim and glassy; and his respiration was difficult. Everything betokened that his sufferings would be speedily over, and that, however he might deserve it, Hugh Calveley would be spared the disgrace of death by the hands of the executioner. The halberdier was not unaware of his condition, and his first impulse was to summon assistance; but he was deterred from doing so by the earnest entreaty of the Puritan to be left alone; and thinking this the most merciful course he could pursue under the circumstances, he yielded to the request, scarcely expecting to behold him alive again. It was by this same man that the door of the vault was opened to Sir Jocelyn and Aveline. The shock experienced by the maiden at the sight of her father had well-nigh overcome her. She thought him dead, and such was Sir Jocelyn's first impression. The unfortunate Puritan was still propped against the pillar, as the halberdier had left him, but his head had fallen to one side, and his arms hung listlessly down. With a piercing shriek his daughter flew towards him, and kneeling beside him, raised his head gently, and gazing eagerly into his face, perceived that he still lived, though the spirit seemed ready to wing its flight from its fleshly tabernacle. The situation was one to call forth every latent energy in Aveline's character. Controlling her emotion, she uttered no further cry, but set herself, with calmness, to apply such restoratives as were at hand to her father. After bathing his temples and chafing his hands, she had the satisfaction, ere long, of seeing him open his eyes. At first, he seemed to have a difficulty in fixing his gaze upon her, but her voice reached his ears, and the feeble pressure of his hand told that he knew her. The power of speech returned to him at length, and he faintly murmured, "My child, I am glad to see you once more. I thought all was over; but it has pleased Heaven to spare me for a few moments to give you my blessing. Bow down your head, O my daughter, and take it; and though given by a sinner like myself, it shall profit you! May the merciful God, who pardoneth all that repent, even at the last hour, and watcheth over the orphan, bless you, and protect you!" "Amen!" exclaimed Jocelyn, fervently. "Who was it spoke?" demanded the Puritan. And as no answer was returned, he repeated the inquiry. "It was I--Jocelyn Mounchensey, the son of your old friend," replied the young man. "Come nigh to me, Jocelyn," said the dying man. "I have done you wrong, and entreat your pardon." "O, talk not thus!" cried Jocelyn, springing towards him. "I have nothing to forgive, but much to be forgiven." "You have a noble heart, Jocelyn," rejoined Hugh Calveley; "and in that respect resemble your father. In his name, I conjure you to listen to me. You will not refuse my dying request. I have a sacred trust to commit to you." "Name it!" cried the young man; "and rest assured it shall be fulfilled." "Give me some wine," gasped the Puritan, faintly. "My strength is failing fast, and it may revive me." And with, great effort he swallowed a few drops from the cup filled for him by Jocelyn. Still, his appearance was so alarming, that the young man could not help urging him not to delay. "I understand," replied Hugh Calveley, slightly pressing his hand. "You think I have no time to lose; and you are right. My child, then, is the trust I would confide to you. Son, behold thy sister! Daughter, behold thy brother!" "I will be more than a brother to her," cried Sir Jocelyn, earnestly. "More thou canst not be," rejoined Hugh Calveley; "unless--" "Unless what?" demanded Sir Jocelyn. "I cannot explain," cried the Puritan, with an expression of agony; "there is not time. Suffice it, she is already promised in marriage." "Father!" exclaimed Aveline, in surprise, and with something of reproach. "I never heard of such an engagement before. It has been made without my consent." "I charge you to fulfil it, nevertheless, my child, if it be required," said Hugh Calveley, solemnly. "Promise me this, or I shall not die content. Speak! Let me hear you." And she reluctantly gave the required promise. Sir Jocelyn uttered an exclamation of anguish. "What afflicts you, my son?" demanded the Puritan. "To whom have you promised your daughter in marriage?" inquired the young man. "You have constituted me her brother, and I am therefore entitled to inquire." "You will learn when the demand is made," said the Puritan. "You will then know why I have given the promise, and the nature of the obligation imposed upon my daughter to fulfil it." "But is this obligation ever to remain binding?" demanded Sir Jocelyn. "If the claim be not made within a year after my death, she is discharged from it," replied Hugh Calveley. "O, thanks, father, thanks!" exclaimed Aveline. At this moment the door of the vault was thrown open, and two persons entered, the foremost of whom Sir Jocelyn instantly recognised as the King. The other was his Majesty's physician, Doctor Mayerne Turquet. A glance sufficed to explain to the latter the state of the Puritan. "Ah! parbleu! the man is dying, your Majesty," he exclaimed. "Deeing! is he?" cried James. "The mair reason he suld tell his secret, to us without procrastination. Harkye, prophet of ill!" he continued, as he strode forward. "The judgment of Heaven ye predicated for us, seems to have fallen on your ainsell, and to have laid you low, even afore our arm could touch you. Ye have gude reason to be thankful you have escaped the woodie; sae e'en make a clean breast of it, confess your enormities, and reveal to us the secret matter whilk we are tauld ye hae to communicate!" "Let all else withdraw a few paces," said Hugh Calveley, "and do thou, O King, approach me. What I have to say is for thine ear alone." "There will be no danger in granting his request?" inquired James of his physician. "None whatever," replied Doctor Mayerne Turquet. "The only danger is in delay. Your Majesty should lose no time. The man is passing rapidly away. A few moments more, and he will have ceased to exist." On a sign from the King, Sir Jocelyn then stepped aside, but Aveline refused to quit her father, even for a moment. As James drew near, Hugh Calveley raised himself a little in order to address him. "I say unto thee, O King," he cried, "as Elijah said unto Ahab, 'Because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord--behold! I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity. And I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.'" "Now the muckle Diel seize thee, villain!" exclaimed James furiously. "Is it to listen to thy texts that thou hast brought me hither?" And as Hugh Calveley, exhausted by the effort he had made, fell back with a groan, he bent his head towards him, crying, "The secret, man, the secret! or the tormenter shall wring it from thee?" The Puritan essayed to speak, but his voice was so low that it did not reach the ears of the King. "What sayest thou?" he demanded. "Speak louder. Saul of our body!" he exclaimed, after a moment's pause, during which the sudden alteration that took place in the prisoner's features made him suspect that all was over. "Our belief is he will never speak again. He hath escaped us, and ta'en his secret wi' him." A loud shriek burst from Aveline, as she fell upon her father's lifeless body. "Let us forth," cried the King, stopping his ears. "We carena to be present at scenes like this. We hae had a gude riddance o' this traitor, though we wad hae gladly heard what he had to tell. Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey, ye will see that this young woman be cared for; and when ye have caused her to be removed elsewhere, follow us to the tennis-court, to which we shall incontinently adjourn." So saying, he quitted the vault with his physician.	{ "id": "12396" }
29	Luke Hatton.	Feigning sudden indisposition (and the excuse was not altogether without foundation), the Countess of Exeter quitted Theobalds Palace on the day after her unlucky visit to Lord Roos's chamber, and proceeded to her husband's residence at Wimbledon, where she was speedily joined by her lover, who brought her word of the advantage he had gained over their foe. "I have fairly checkmated my gracious mother-in-law," he cried, with a laugh; "and it would have diverted you as much as it did me and De Gondomar, who was present on the occasion, if you could have witnessed her rage and mortification, when she discovered the change that had been effected; and that in place of your magnificent black ringlet (which I now wear next my heart, and shall ever keep as a love-token), she had only a sorry specimen of your hand-maiden's lint-white locks. As I live, it was truly laughable. The good lady would have annihilated me if she could; and threatened me with terrible reprisals. At first, she tried to attribute the transformation, which she could not otherwise account for, to witchcraft; and though I derided the charge, I must needs say, the trick was so cleverly performed, that it _did_ look like magic. The packet containing the tress of hair had never been out of her own keeping. This she affirmed; and it was true. But there was a friendly hand to open it nevertheless; to purloin its priceless treasure; and to substitute something of a similar kind, though of comparatively little value in its place. That hand,--one not likely to be suspected, was no other than that of my lady's confidential attendant, Sarah Swarton. The juggle was played by her at the instance of Diego. Anticipating some such occurrence as the present, and desirous of having a spy upon the movements of our enemies, I some time since directed Diego to pay secret court to Sarah, and my forethought has now been rewarded. The main difficulty lay with poor Gillian. She was greatly embarrassed by her situation; and her perplexity was increased by the presence of a jealous lover in the shape of an apprentice, who refused to leave her till his doubts should be satisfied. This was awkward, as the story could not be very well reconciled so as to suit all parties. Accordingly, when the discovery was made, which seemed to proclaim the poor girl's infidelity, the youth's rage and consternation were nearly equal to Lady Lake's; a circumstance that added considerable zest to the comedy. But I see it does not divert you so much as I expected, and therefore, to relieve your mind, I may tell you that the jealous varlet soon repented of his rash determination, and pursuing his mistress, whom Do Gondomar had considerately taken under his protection, prevailed upon her to give the amorous ambassador the slip, and return with him to her father's abode at Tottenham." "I am right glad to hear it," said the Countess. "Though I have seen so little of Gillian, I cannot help taking an interest in her; she is so pretty, and so innocent in appearance, and her manners are so artless and engaging. I owe her some reparation for the mischief I have done her, and will not neglect to make it. I am sorry I ever was induced by you to take her into my service; and I am thankful to hear she has escaped De Gondomar's snares." "You are wonderfully interested about her, methinks, Frances; and I hope she will be grateful for your consideration," rejoined Lord Roos, with a laugh. "But I should not be surprised if De Gondomar still gained his point. It is not his way to give up a pursuit he has once undertaken. However, to leave the pretty damsel to her fate, which will depend entirely on her own conduct, let us return to ourselves. We have good reason to be satisfied with the issue of this adventure of the lock of hair. Nevertheless, that recurrence to the charge of witchcraft on the part of my vindictive mother-in-law shows the extent of her malice, and I cannot doubt that in threatening me with reprisals she will be as good as her word. It behoves us, therefore, to be beforehand with her. What she may intend I cannot say, but I am satisfied she has a formidable scheme on foot, and that nothing but her husband's interposition prevented its disclosure when she was so violently incensed against me." "You fill me with terror, William," exclaimed the Countess. "Will this woman's hostility towards me never cease?" "Never," replied Lord Roos, with a sudden change of manner, and laying aside the levity he had hitherto exhibited. "There is but one way of ending the struggle. Luke Hatton can help us to it. Persuaded we should require him, I have brought him with me. He waits in the hall below with Diego. Shall I summon him to our conference?" "On no account," exclaimed Lady Exeter hastily; "I will not see him. You have done wrong to bring that poisoner here, my lord. You will destroy me." "Listen to me, Frances," replied Lord Roos. "The next step taken by Lady Lake will be fatal to us. There must be no delay, no irresolution on our part, or all is lost. I cannot depend upon myself, or I would not call in another's aid. You will comprehend how wanting in firmness I am, when I tell you what happened the other night. Incredible as it may sound, my wife, in order to prove her devotion to me and to free me from further annoyance on her part, offered to take poison; and but for my interference (fool that I was to stay her!) would have drained the phial containing the deadly potion. The weakness was momentary, and I reproached myself for it when too late. But it convinced me that a firmer hand than mine must be employed in the task." "And can you, after what you have related, William,--can you seriously meditate the destruction of a fond woman, who has generosity enough to lay down her life for you? This is more incredible than the rest--more monstrously wicked." "Wicked it may be; but the excuse--if I have any--lies in my overwhelming passion for you, Frances," replied Lord Roos in a frenzied tone. "And it seems decided by the relentless destiny that governs me, that the continued indulgence of the fatal passion shall only be purchased at the price of my soul. That penalty I am prepared to pay rather than lose you. I will become obdurate, will turn my heart to stone, so that it shall no more melt at the tears of this fond, foolish woman; and I will slay her without remorse. Any other obstacle between us shall be removed;--be it her mother, her father--your husband! I will immolate a hundred victims at the altar of our love. I will shrink from nothing to make you mine for ever. For I would rather share eternal bale with you, Frances, than immortal bliss with another." "You almost make me fancy some evil being has obtained possession of you, William," said the Countess, gazing at him with affright. "It may be that the Fiend himself hath accepted my wild offer," he rejoined gloomily; "but if my wish be granted it matters not." "I will not listen to such fearful impiety," said the Countess, shuddering. "Let us dismiss this subject for the present, and recur to it when you are calmer." "It cannot be postponed, Frances. Time presses, and even now Lady Lake may have got the start of us. I shall be calm enough when this is over. Will you consent to see Luke Hatton?" "Why need I see him?" inquired the Countess with increasing uneasiness. "Why will you force his hateful presence upon me? If the deed must be done, why can you not alone undertake it?" "I will tell why I cannot," he replied in a sombre tone, and regarding her fixedly. "I must have a partner in the crime. It will bind us to each other in links not to be severed. I shall have no fear of losing you then, Countess. I go to bring Luke Hatton to you." And without waiting for her reply he strode out of the room. Lady Exeter would have arrested him, but she had not the nerve to do so, and with an exclamation of anguish she fell back in her chair. "What dominion sin has usurped over me!" she mentally ejaculated. "I have lost the power of resisting its further encroachment. I see the enormity of the offence I am about to commit, and though my soul revolts at it, I cannot hold back. I am as one on the brink of a precipice, who beholds the dreadful gulf before him, into which another step must plunge him, yet is too giddy to retreat, and must needs fall over. Pity me, kind Heaven! I am utterly helpless without thy aid." While the unhappy lady thus unavailingly deplored the sad position in which her own misconduct had placed her, and from which she felt wholly incapable of extricating herself; while in this wretched frame of mind, she awaited her lover's return,--with, as we have shown, some remains of good struggling with the evil in her bosom,--we will cast a hasty glance round the chamber in which she sat. And we are prompted to do this, not because it merits particular description, but because it was the room referred to by Lady Lake as the scene of the confession she had forged. The apartment, then, was spacious and handsomely furnished in the heavy taste of the period, with but little to distinguish it from other rooms visited by us in the course of this story. Like most of them, it had a gloomy air, caused by the dark hue of its oaken panels, and the heavy folds of its antiquated and faded tapestry. The latter was chiefly hung against the lower end of the chamber, and served as a screen to one of the doors. At the opposite end, there was a wide and deep bay window, glowing with stained glass, amid the emblazonry of which might be discerned the proud escutcheon of the house of Exeter, with the two lions rampant forming its supporters. On the right of the enormous carved mantel-piece, which, with its pillars, statues, 'scutcheons, and massive cornice, mounted to the very ceiling, was hung a portrait of the Earl of Exeter--a grave, dignified personage, clad in the attire of Elizabeth's time; and on the left, was a likeness of the Countess herself, painted in all the pride of her unequalled beauty, and marvellous in resemblance then; but how different in expression from her features now! In the recess of the window stood an oak table, covered with a piece of rich carpet fringed with gold, on which a massive silver inkstand and materials for writing were placed; and this table was seized upon by Lady Lake as a feature in her plot. Here she would have it the confession was signed by the Countess. Another point in reference to this scheme must not be passed unnoticed. We have mentioned the heavy hangings at the lower end of the room. According to the plotter, it was behind these that Sarah Swarton--the intended witness of the imaginary scene--was concealed. The principal subjects represented on the arras were the Judgment of Solomon, and the Temptation of our first Parents in the Garden by the Serpent. The hangings had evidently not been removed for years, and did not reach within two feet of the ground--a circumstance that had escaped the attention of Lady Lake--proving the truth of her husband's observation, that in the best contrived plot some imperfection will exist certain to operate in its detection. To return to the unhappy Countess. So lost was she in reflection, that she did not remark Lord Roos's return till made aware of it by a slight touch on the shoulder. When she raised her eyes, they fell upon an object that inspired her with the dread and aversion that a noxious reptile might have produced. She had never seen Luke Hatton before; and if she had figured him to her mind at all, it was not as anything agreeable; but she was not prepared for so hideous and revolting a personage as he appeared to be. His face was like an ugly mask, on which a sardonic grin was stamped. His features were large and gaunt, and he had the long, hooked nose, and the sharp-pointed bestial ears of a satyr, with leering eyes--betokening at once sensuality and cunning. He had the chin and beard of a goat, and crisply-curled hair of a pale yellow colour. With all this, there was something sordid in his looks as well as his attire, which showed that to his other vices he added that of avarice. A mock humility, belied by the changeless sneer upon his countenance, distinguished his deportment. It could be seen at once that, however cringing he might be, he despised the person he addressed. Moreover, in spite of all his efforts to control it, there was something sarcastic in his speech. His doublet and hose, both of which had endured some service, and were well-nigh threadbare, were tawny-coloured; and he wore a short yellow cloak, a great ruff of the same colour, and carried a brown steeple-crowned hat in his hand. "I await your ladyship's commands," said Luke Hatton, bowing obsequiously. "I have none to give you," Lady Exeter rejoined with irrepressible disgust. "I have not sent for you. Go hence." Not at all abashed by this reception, Luke Hatton maintained his place, and threw an inquiring glance at Lord Roos. "My dear Countess," said the young nobleman, seating himself negligently upon a tabouret beside her, "I must pray you not to dismiss this worthy man so hastily. You will find him eminently serviceable; and as to his trustworthiness, I have the best reasons for feeling satisfied of it, because I hold in my hand a noose, which, whenever I please, I can tighten round his neck. Of this he is quite aware, and therefore he will serve us faithfully, as well from fear as from gratitude." "Her ladyship may place entire confidence in me," remarked Luke Hatton, with a grin. "This is not the first affair of the kind in which I have been engaged. I have prepared potions and powders which Mistress Turner (with whose reputation your ladyship must needs be acquainted) used to vend to her customers. My draughts have removed many a troublesome husband, and silenced many a jealous wife. I have helped many an heir to the speedy enjoyment of an inheritance, which, but for my assistance, would not have come to him for years. The lover with a rival in his way, who has come to me, has soon been freed from all anxiety on that score. The courtier, eager for a post which a superior held, has gained it by my aid. Yet none of those whom I have thus benefited have been suspected. Your ladyship, I repeat, need have no fears of me--and no scruples with me. State your wishes, and they shall be implicitly obeyed." "I have no wish, except to be relieved of a presence which is disagreeable to me," replied the Countess. Again Luke Hatton consulted Lord Roos with a regard. "I find I must act for her ladyship," said the young nobleman. "You will take, therefore, the instructions I shall give you, as proceeding from her. What two names do you find upon that paper?" "Those of your lordship's wife and mother-in-law," returned Luke Hatton. "You comprehend what her ladyship would have done with those persons?" said Lord Roos, looking at him steadfastly. "Perfectly," replied Luke Hatton. "O, do not give this fatal order, my Lord!" cried Lady Exeter, trembling. "How many days do you require to effect their removal?" demanded Lord Roos, without appearing to notice her remark. "I do not require many hours," replied Luke Hatton; "but it will be well not to be too precipitate. Neither must they die at the same time. All precaution shall be taken. The names are placed in a particular order. Is it so the Countess would have them taken? In that case I must commence with Lady Roos." "Wretch! dost thou dare to make such an appeal to me?" cried Lady Exeter rising. "Begone, instantly, I say. Thou hast no order whatever from me; or if thou fanciest so, I revoke it." "The order cannot be revoked," cried Lord Roos, grasping her arm. "This is not a time for hesitation or repentance. Having commenced the work, you must go through with it--whether you will or not." "Whether I will or not!" exclaimed Lady Exeter, regarding him with angry surprise. "Have I heard you aright, my Lord? Am I to be forced into association in this foul deed? Have I sunk so low in your esteem that you venture to treat me thus?" "Pardon me, Frances--pardon me!" he cried, imploringly. "I have said more than I intended. If I appear to exercise undue influence over you now, you will forgive me hereafter, because the situation is one that requires decision, and that quality I possess in a higher degree than yourself. Luke Hatton must obey the orders given him. And you must sanction them." "Never!" she exclaimed, emphatically. "Then we part for ever," cried Lord Roos. "No matter what the pang may be--nor what befals me--I will go. Farewell for ever, Countess!" "Stay!" she cried. "We must not part thus." "Then you consent?" he exclaimed. "Luke Hatton receives his orders from you?" "Ask me not that question!" she cried, with a shudder. "If her ladyship will but sign this," said Luke Hatton, holding towards her the paper on which the names were written, "it will suffice for me." "You hear what he says, Frances. You will do it?" cried Lord Roos. " 'Tis but a few strokes of a pen." "Those few strokes will cost me my soul," she rejoined. "But if it must be so, it must. Give me the pen." And as Lord Roos complied, she signed the paper. "Nov you may go," said Lord Roos to Luke Hatton, who received the paper with a diabolical grin. "You may count upon your reward." "In a week's time, my lord," said Luke Hatton, still grinning, and shifting his glance from the half-fainting Countess to the young nobleman; "in a week's time," he repeated, "you will have to put on mourning for your wife--and in a month for your mother-in-law." And with a cringing bow, and moving with a soft cat-like footstep, he quitted the room, leaving the guilty pair alone together. END OF VOL. I.	{ "id": "12396" }
1	THE EXPERIENCES OF GOODY MADGE	"Dear Madam, think me not to blame; Invisible the fairy came. Your precious babe is hence conveyed, And in its place a changeling laid. Where are the father's mouth and nose, The mother's eyes as black as sloes? See here, a shocking awkward creature, That speaks a fool in every feature." GAY. "He is an ugly ill-favoured boy--just like Riquet a la Houppe." "That he is! Do you not know that he is a changeling?" Such were the words of two little girls walking home from a school for young ladies kept, at the Cathedral city of Winchester, by two Frenchwomen of quality, refugees from the persecutions preluding the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and who enlivened the studies of their pupils with the Contes de Commere L'Oie. The first speaker was Anne Jacobina Woodford, who had recently come with her mother, the widow of a brave naval officer, to live with her uncle, the Prebendary then in residence. The other was Lucy Archfield, daughter to a knight, whose home was a few miles from Portchester, Dr. Woodford's parish on the southern coast of Hampshire. In the seventeenth century, when roads were mere ditches often impassable, and country-houses frequently became entirely isolated in the winter, it was usual with the wealthier county families to move into their local capital, where some owned mansions and others hired prebendal houses, or went into lodgings in the roomy dwellings of the superior tradesmen. For the elders this was the season of social intercourse, for the young people, of education. The two girls, who were about eight years old, had struck up a rapid friendship, and were walking hand in hand to the Close attended by the nurse in charge of Mistress Lucy. This little lady wore a black silk hood and cape, trimmed with light brown fur, and lined with pink, while Anne Woodford, being still in mourning for her father, was wrapped in a black cloak, unrelieved except by the white border of her round cap, fringed by fair curls, contrasting with her brown eyes. She was taller and had a more upright bearing of head and neck, with more promise of beauty than her companion, who was much more countrified and would not have been taken for the child of higher station. They had traversed the graveyard of the Cathedral, and were passing through a narrow archway known as the Slype, between the south- western angle of the Cathedral and a heavy mass of old masonry forming part of the garden wall of the present abode of the Archfield family, when suddenly both children stumbled and fell, while an elfish peal of laughter sounded behind them. Lucy came down uppermost, and was scarcely hurt, but Anne had fallen prone, striking her chin on the ground, so as to make her bite her lip, and bruising knees and elbows severely. Nurse detected the cause of the fall so as to avoid it herself. It was a cord fastened across the archway, close to the ground, and another shout of derision greeted the discovery; while Lucy, regaining her feet, beheld for a moment a weird exulting grimace on a visage peeping over a neighbouring headstone. "It is he! it is he! The wicked imp! There's no peace for him! I say," she screamed, "see if you don't get a sound flogging!" and she clenched her little fist as the provoking "Ho! ho! ho!" rang farther and farther off. "Don't cry, Anne dear; the Dean and Chapter shall take order with him, and he shall be soundly beaten. Are you hurt? O nurse, her mouth is all blood." "I hope she has not broken a tooth," said nurse, who had been attending to the sobbing child. "Come in, my lamb, we will wash your face, and make you well." Anne, blinded with tears, jarred, bruised, bleeding, and bewildered, submitted to be led by kind nurse the more willingly because she knew that her mother, together with all the quality, were at Sir Thomas Charnock's. They had dined at the fashionable hour of two, and were to stay till supper-time, the elders playing at Ombre, the juniors dancing. As a rule the ordinary clergy did not associate with the county families, but Dr. Woodford was of good birth and a royal chaplain, and his deceased brother had been a favourite officer of the Duke of York, and had been so severely wounded by his side in the battle of Southwold as to be permanently disabled. Indeed Anne Jacobina was godchild to the Duke and his first Duchess, whose favoured attendant her mother had been. Thus Mrs. Woodford was in great request, and though she had not hitherto gone into company since her widowhood, she had yielded to Lady Charnock's entreaty that she would come and show her how to deal with that strange new Chinese infusion, a costly packet of which had been brought to her from town by Sir Thomas, as the Queen's favourite beverage, wherewith the ladies of the place were to be regaled and astonished. It had been already arranged that the two little girls should spend the evening together, and as they entered the garden before the house a rude voice exclaimed, "Holloa! London Nan whimpering. Has my fine lady met a spider or a cow?" and a big rough lad of twelve, in a college gown, spread out his arms, and danced up and down in the doorway to bar the entrance. "Don't, Sedley," said a sturdy but more gentlemanlike lad of the same age, thrusting him aside. "Is she hurt? What is it?" "That spiteful imp, Peregrine Oakshott," said Lucy passionately. "He had a cord across the Slype to trip us up. I heard him laughing like a hobgoblin, and saw him too, grinning over a tombstone like the malicious elf he is." The college boy uttered a horse laugh, which made Lucy cry, "Cousin Sedley, you are as bad!" but the other boy was saying, "Don't cry, Anne None-so-pretty. I'll give it him well! Though I'm younger, I'm bigger, and I'll show him reason for not meddling with my little sweetheart." "Have with you then!" shouted Sedley, ready for a fray on whatever pretext, and off they rushed, as nurse led little Anne up the broad shallow steps of the dark oak staircase, but Lucy stood laughing with exultation in the intended vengeance, as her brother took down her father's hunting-whip. "He must be wellnigh a fiend to play such wicked pranks under the very Minster!" she said. "And a rascal of a Whig, and that's worse," added Charles; "but I'll have it out of him!" "Take care, Charley; if you offend him, and he does really belong to those--those creatures"--Lucy lowered her voice--"who knows what they might do to you?" Charles laughed long and loud. "I'll take care of that," he said, swinging out at the door. "Elf or no elf, he shall learn what it is to play off his tricks on _my_ sister and my little sweetheart." Lucy betook herself to the nursery, where Anne was being comforted, her bleeding lip washed with essence, and repaired with a pinch of beaver from a hat, and her other bruises healed with lily leaves steeped in strong waters. "Charley is gone to serve him out!" announced Lucy as the sovereign remedy. "Oh, but perhaps he did not mean it," Anne tried to say. "Mean it? Small question of that, the cankered young slip! Nurse, do you think those he belongs to can do Charley any harm if he angers them?" "I cannot say, missie. Only 'tis well we be not at home, or there might be elf knots in the horses' manes to-night. I doubt me whether _that sort_ can do much hurt here, seeing as 'tis holy ground." "But is he really a changeling? I thought there were no such things as--" "Hist, hist, Missie Anne!" cried the dame; "'tis not good to name them." "Oh, but we are on the Minster ground, nurse," said Lucy, trembling a little however, looking over her shoulder, and coming closer to the old servant. "Why do they think so?" asked Anne. "Is it because he is so ugly and mischievous and rude? Not like boys in London." "Prithee, nurse, tell her the tale," entreated Lucy, who had made large eyes over it many a time before. "Ay, and who should tell you all about it save me, who had it all from Goody Madge Bulpett, as saw it all!" "Goody Madge! It was she that came when poor little Kitty was born and died," suggested Lucy, as Anne, laying her aching head upon nurse's knees, prepared to listen to the story. "Well, deary darlings, you see poor Madam Oakshott never had her health since the Great Fire in London, when she was biding with her kinsfolk to be near Major Oakshott, who had got into trouble about some of his nonconforming doings. The poor lady had a mortal fright before she could be got out of Gracechurch Street as was all of a blaze, and she was so afeard of her husband being burnt as he lay in Newgate that she could scarce be got away, and whether it was that, or that she caught cold lying out in a tent on Highgate Hill, she has never had a day's health since." "And the gentleman--her husband?" asked Anne. "They all broke prison, poor fellows, as they had need to do, and the Major's time was nearly up. He made himself busy in saving and helping the folk in the streets; and his brother, Sir Peregrine, who was thick with the King, and is in foreign parts now, took the chance to speak of the poor lady's plight and say it would be the death of her if he could not get his discharge, and his Majesty, bless his kind heart, gave the order at once. So they took madam home to the Chace, but she has been but an ailing body ever since." "But the fairy, the fairy, how did she change the babe?" cried Anne. "Hush, hush, dearie! name them not. I am coming to it all in good time. I was telling you how the poor lady failed and pined from that hour, and was like to die. My gossip Madge told me how when, next Midsummer, this unlucky babe was born they had to take him from her chamber at once because any sound of crying made her start in her sleep, and shriek that she heard a poor child wailing who had been left in a burning house. Moll Owens, the hind's wife, a comely lass, was to nurse him, and they had him at once to her in the nursery, where was the elder child, two years old, Master Oliver, as you know well, Mistress Lucy, a fine-grown, sturdy little Turk as ever was." "Yes, I know him," answered Lucy; "and if his brother's a changeling, he is a bear! The Whig bear is what Charley calls him." "Well, what does that child do but trot out of the nursery, and try to scramble down the stairs. --Never tell me but that they you wot of trained him out--not that they had power over a Christian child, but that they might work their will on the little one. So they must needs trip him up, so that he rolled down the stair hollering and squalling all the way enough to bring the house down, and his poor lady mother, she woke up in a fit. The womenfolk ran, Molly and all, she being but a slip of a girl herself and giddy-pated, and when they came back after quieting Master Oliver, the babe was changed." "Then they didn't see the--" "Hush, hush, missie! no one never sees 'em or they couldn't do nothing. They cannot, if a body is looking. But what had been as likely a child before as you would wish to handle was gone! The poor little mouth was all of a twist, and his eyelid drooped, and he never ceased mourn, mourn, mourn, wail, wail, wail, day and night, and whatever food he took he never was satisfied, but pined and peaked and dwined from day to day, so as his little legs was like knitting pins. The lady was nigh upon death as it seemed, so that no one took note of the child at first, but when Madge had time to look at him, she saw how it was, as plain as plain could be, and told his father. But men are unbelieving, my dears, and always think they know better than them as has the best right, and Major Oakshott would hear of no such thing, only if the boy was like to die, he must be christened. Well, Madge knew that sometimes they flee at touch of holy water, but no; though the thing mourned and moaned enough to curdle your blood and screeched out when the water touched him, there he was the same puny little canker. So when madam was better, and began to fret over the child that was nigh upon three months old, and no bigger than a newborn babe, Madge up and told her how it was, and the way to get her own again." "What was that, nurse?" "There be different ways, my dear. Madge always held to breaking five and twenty eggs and have a pot boiling on a good sea-coal fire with the poker in it red hot, and then drop the shells in one by one, in sight of the creature in the cradle. Presently it will up and ask whatever you are about. Then you gets the poker in your hand as you says, "A-brewing of egg shells." Then it says, "I'm forty hundred years old and odd, and yet I never heard of a-brewing of egg shells." Then you ups with the poker and at him to thrust it down his ugly throat, and there's a hissing and a whirling, and he is snatched away, and the real darling, all plump and rosy, is put back in the cradle." "And did they?" "No, my dears. Madam was that soft-hearted she could not bring her mind to it, though they promised her not to touch him unless he spoke. But nigh on two years later, Master Robert was born, as fine and lusty and straight-limbed as a chrisom could be, while the other could not walk a step, but sat himself about on the floor, a-moaning and a-fretting with the legs of him for all the world like the drumsticks of a fowl, and his hands like claws, and his face wizened up like an old gaffer of a hundred, or the jackanapes that Martin Boats'n brought from Barbary. So after a while madam saw the rights of it, and gave consent that means should be taken as Madge and other wise folk would have it; but he was too old by that time for the egg shells, for he could talk, talk, and ask questions enough to drive you wild. So they took him out under the privet hedge, Madge and her gossip Deborah Clint, and had got his clothes off to flog him with nettles till they changed him, when the ill-favoured elf began to squall and shriek like a whole litter of pigs, and as ill luck would have it, the master was within hearing, though they had watched him safe off to one of his own 'venticles, but it seems there had been warning that the justices were on the look-out, so home he came. And behold, the thing that never knew the use of his feet before, ups and flies at him, and lays hold of his leg, hollering out, "Sir, father, don't let them," and what not. So then it was all over with them, as though that were not proof enow what manner of thing it was! Madge tried to put him off with washing with yarbs being good for the limbs, but when he saw that Deb was there, he saith, saith he, as grim as may be, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," which was hard, for she is but a white witch; and he stormed and raved at them with Bible texts, and then he vowed (men are so headstrong, my dears) that if ever he ketched them at it again, he would see Deb burnt for a witch at the stake, and Madge hung for the murder of the child, and he is well known to be a man of his word. So they had to leave him to abide by his bargain, and a sore handful he has of it." Anne drew a long sigh and asked whether the real boy in fairyland would never come back. "There's no telling, missie dear. Some say they are bound there for ever and a day, some that they as holds 'em are bound to bring them back for a night once in seven years, and in the old times if they was sprinkled with holy water, and crossed, they would stay, but there's no such thing as holy water now, save among the Papists, and if one knew the way to cross oneself, it would be as much as one's life was worth." "If Peregrine was to die," suggested Lucy. "Bless your heart, dearie, he'll never die! When the true one's time comes, you'll see, if so be you be alive to see it, as Heaven grant, he will go off like the flame of a candle and nothing be left in his place but a bit of a withered sting nettle. But come, my sweetings, 'tis time I got your supper. I'll put some nice rosy- cheeked apples down to roast, to be soft for Mistress Woodford's sore mouth." Before the apples were roasted, Charles Archfield and his cousin, the colleger Sedley Archfield, a big boy in a black cloth gown, came in with news of having--together with the other boys, including Oliver and Robert Oakshott--hunted Peregrine all round the Close, but he ran like a lapwing, and when they had pinned him up in the corner by Dr. Ken's house, he slipped through their fingers up the ivy, and grinned at them over the wall like the imp he was. Noll said it was always the way, he was no more to be caught than a bit of thistledown, but Sedley meant to call out all the college boys and hunt and bait him down like a badger on 'Hills.'	{ "id": "12449" }
2	HIGH TREASON	"Whate'er it be that is within his reach, The filching trick he doth his fingers teach." Robin Badfellow. There was often a considerable distance between children and their parents in the seventeenth century, but Anne Woodford, as the only child of her widowed mother, was as solace, comfort, and companion; and on her pillow in early morning the child poured forth in grave earnest the entire story of the changeling, asking whether he could not be "taken to good Dr. Ken, or the Dean, or the Bishop to be ex-- ex--what is it, mother? Not whipped with nettles. Oh no! nor burnt with red hot pokers, but have holy words said so that the right one may come back." "My dear child, did you really believe that old nurse's tale?" "O madam, she _knew_ it. The other old woman saw it! I always thought fairies and elves were only in tales, but Lucy's nurse knows it is true. And _he_ is not a bit like other lads, mamma dear. He is lean and small, and his eyes are of different colours, look two ways at once, and his mouth goes awry when he speaks, and he laughs just like--like a fiend. Lucy and I call him Riquet a la Houppe, because he is just like the picture in Mademoiselle's book, with a great stubbly bunch of hair sticking out on one side, and though he walks a little lame, he can hop and skip like a grasshopper, faster than any of the boys, and leap up a wall in a moment, and grin--oh most frightfully. Have you ever seen him, mamma?" "I think so. I saw a poor boy, who seemed to me to have had a stroke of some sort when he was an infant." "But, madam, that would not make him so spiteful and malicious!" "If every one is against him and treats him as a wicked mischievous elf, it is only too likely to make him bitter and spiteful. Nay, Anne, if you come back stuffed with old wives' tales, I shall not allow you to go home with Lucy Archfield." The threat silenced Anne, who was a grave and rather silent little person, and when she mentioned it to her friend, the answer was, "Did you tell your mother? If I had told mine, I should have been whipped for repeating lying tales." "Oh then you don't believe it!" "It must be true, for Madge knew it. But that's the way always if one lets out that one knows more than they think." "It is not the way with my mother," stoutly said Anne, drawing up her dignified little head. And she kept her resolution, for though a little excited by her first taste of lively youthful companionship, she was naturally a thoughtful reticent child, with a character advanced by companionship with her mother as an only child, through a great sorrow. Thus she was in every respect more developed than her contemporary Lucy, who regarded her with wonder as well as affection, and she was the object of the boyish devotion of Charley, who often defended her from his cousin Sedley's endeavours to put down what he considered upstart airs in a little nobody from London. Sedley teased and baited every weak thing in his way, and Lucy had been his chief butt till Anne Woodford's unconscious dignity and more cultivated manners excited his utmost spleen. Lucy might be incredulous, but she was eager to tell that when her cousin Sedley Archfield was going back to 'chambers,' down from the Close gate came the imp on his shoulders in the twilight and twisted both legs round his neck, holding tight on in spite of plunges, pinches, and endeavours to scrape him off against the wall, which were frustrated or retaliated by hair pulling, choking, till just ere entering the college gateway, where Sedley looked to get his revenge among his fellows, he found his shoulders free, and heard "Ho! ho! ho!" from the top of a wall close at hand. All the more was the young people's faith in the changeling story confirmed, and child-world was in those days even more impenetrable to their elders than at present. Changeling or no, it was certain that Peregrine Oakshott was the plague of the Close, where his father, an ex-officer of the Parliamentary army, had unwillingly hired a house for the winter, for the sake of medical treatment for his wife, a sufferer from a complication of ailments. Oakwood, his home, was about five miles from Dr. Woodford's living of Portchester, and as the families would thus be country neighbours, Mrs. Woodford thought it well to begin the acquaintance at Winchester. While knocking at the door of the house on the opposite side of the Close, she was aware of an elfish visage peering from an upper window. There was the queer mop of dark hair, the squinting light eyes, the contorted grin crooking the mouth, the odd sallow face, making her quite glad to get out of sight of the strange grimaces which grew every moment more hideous. Mrs. Oakshott sat in an arm-chair beside a large fire in a wainscotted room, with a folding-screen shutting off the window. Her spinning-wheel was near, but it was only too plain that 'feeble was the hand, and silly the thread.' She bent her head in its wadded black velvet hood, but excused herself from rising, as she was crippled by rheumatic pains. She had evidently once been a pretty little person, innocent and inane, and her face had become like that of a withered baby, piteous in its expression of pain and weariness, but otherwise somewhat vacant. At first, indeed, there was a look of alarm. Perhaps she expected every visitor to come with a complaint of her unlucky Peregrine, but when Mrs. Woodford spoke cheerfully of being her neighbour in the country, she was evidently relieved and even gratified, prattling in a soft plaintive tone about her sufferings and the various remedies, ranging from woodlice rolled into natural pills, and grease off the church bells, to diamond dust and Goa stones, since, as she said, there was no cost to which Major Oakshott would not go for her benefit. He had even procured for her a pound of the Queen's new Chinese herb, and it certainly was as nauseous as could be wished, when boiled in milk, but she was told that was not the way it was taken at my Lady Charnock's. She was quite animated when Mrs. Woodford offered to show her how to prepare it. Therewith the master of the house came in, and the aspect of affairs changed. He was a tall, dark, grave man, plainly though handsomely dressed, and in a gentlemanly way making it evident that visits to his wife were not welcome. He said that her health never permitted her to go abroad, and that his poor house contained nothing that could please a Court lady. Mrs. Oakshott shrank into herself, and became shy and silent, and Mrs. Woodford felt constrained to take leave, courteously conducted to the door by her unwilling host. She had not taken many steps before she was startled by a sharp shower from a squirt coming sidelong like a blow on her cheek and surprising her into a low cry, which was heard by the Major, so that he hastened out, exclaiming, "Madam, I trust that you are not hurt." "Oh no, sir! It is nothing--not a stone--only water!" she said, wiping it with her handkerchief. "I am grieved and ashamed at the evil pranks of my unhappy son, but he shall suffer for it." "Nay, sir, I pray you. It was only childish mischief." He had not waited to hear her pleadings, and before she was half across the Close he had overtaken her, dragging the cowering struggling boy in his powerful grasp. "Now, Peregrine," he commanded, "let me instantly hear you ask the lady's pardon for your dastardly trick. Or--!" and his other hand was raised for a blow. "I am sure he is sorry," said Mrs. Woodford, making a motion to ward off the stroke, and as the queer eyes glanced up at her in wondering inquiry, she laid her hand on the bony shoulder, saying, "I know you did not mean to hurt me. You are sorry, are you not?" "Ay," the boy muttered, and she saw a look of surprise on his father's face. "There," she said, "he has made his amends, and surely that may suffice." "Nay, madam, it would be a weak and ungodly tenderness that would spare to drive forth the evil spirit which possesses the child by the use of the rod. I should fail in my duty alike to God and man," he added, in reply to a fresh gesture of intercession, "did I not teach him what it is to insult a lady at mine own door." Mrs. Woodford could only go away, heartily sorry for the boy. From that time, however, both she and her little daughter were untouched by his tricks, though every one else had some complaint. Peas were shot from unknown recesses at venerable canons, mice darted out before shrieking ladies, frogs' clammy forms descended on the nape of their necks, hedgehogs were curled up on their chairs, and though Peregrine Oakshott was not often caught in the act, no mischief ever took place that was not attributed to him; and it was popularly believed in the Close that his father flogged him every morning for what he was about to do, and his tutor repeated the castigation every evening for what he had done, besides interludes at each detection. Perhaps frequent usage had toughened his skin, or he had become expert in wriggling from the full force of the blow, or else, as many believed, the elfish nature was impervious; for he was as ready as ever for a trick the moment he was released, like, as his brother said, the dog Keeper, who, with a slaughtered chick hung round his neck in penance, rushed murderously upon the rest of the brood. Yet Mrs. Woodford, on her way through the Cathedral nave, was aware of something leaning against one of the great columns, crouching together so that the dark head, supported on the arms, rested against the pillar which fluted the pier. The organ was pealing softly and plaintively, and the little gray coat seemed to heave as with a sob. She stood, impelled to offer to take him with her into the choir, but a verger, spying him, began rating him in a tone fit for expelling a dog, "Come, master, none of your pranks here! Be not you ashamed of yourself to be lying in wait for godly folk on their way to prayers? If I catch you here again the Dean shall hear of it, and you shall smart for it." Mrs. Woodford began, "He was only hearkening to the music," but she caught such a look of malignity cast upon the verger as perfectly appalled her, and in another moment the boy had dashed, head over heels, out at the nearest door. The next report that reached her related how a cloud of lime had suddenly descended from a broken arch of the cloister on the solemn verger, on his way to escort the Dean to the Minster, powdering his wig, whitening his black gown from collar to hem, and not a little endangering his eyesight. The culprit eluded all pursuit on this occasion; but Mrs. Woodford soon after was told that the Major had caught Peregrine listening at the little south door of the choir, had collared him, and flogged him worse than ever, for being seduced by the sounds of the popish and idolatrous worship, and had told all his sons that the like chastisement awaited them if they presumed to cross the threshold of the steeple house. Nevertheless the Senior Prefect of the college boys, when about to come out of the Cathedral on Sunday morning, found his gown pinned with a skewer so fast to the seat that he was only set free at the expense of a rent. Public opinion decided that the deed had been done by the imp of Oakshott, and accordingly the whole of the Wykeham scholars set on him with hue and cry the first time they saw him outside the Close, and hunted him as far as St. Cross, where he suddenly and utterly vanished from their sight. Mrs. Woodford agreed with Anne that it was a very strange story. For how could he have been in the Cathedral at service time when it was well known that Major Oakshott had all his family together at his own form of worship in his house? Anne, who had been in hopes that her mother would be thus convinced of his supernatural powers, looked disappointed, but she had afterwards to confess that Charles Archfield had found out that it was his cousin Sedley Archfield who had played the audacious trick, in revenge for a well-merited tunding from the Prefect. "And then saddled it on young Oakshott?" asked her mother. "Charley says one such matter more or less makes no odds to the Whig ape; but I cannot endure Sedley Archfield, mamma." "If he lets another lad bear the blame of his malice he cannot indeed be a good lad." "So Charley and Lucy say," returned Anne. "We shall be glad to be away from Winchester, for while Peregrine Oakshott torments slyly, Sedley Archfield loves to frighten us openly, and to hurt us to see how much we can bear, and if Charley tries to stand up for us, Sedley calls him a puny wench, and a milksop, and knocks him down. But, dear madam, pray do not tell what I have said to her ladyship, for there is no knowing what Sedley would do to us." "My little maid has not known before what boys can be!" "No; but indeed Charles Archfield is quite different, almost as if he had been bred in London. He is a very gentleman. He never is rude to any girl, and he is courteous and gentle and kind. He gathered walnuts for us yesterday, and cracked all mine, and I am to make him a purse with two of the shells." Mrs. Woodford smiled, but there was a short thrill of anxiety in her motherly heart as her glance brought up a deeper colour into Anne's cheeks. There was a reserve to bring that glow, for the child knew that if she durst say that Charles called her his little sweetheart and wife, and that the walnut-shell purse would be kept as a token, she should be laughed at as a silly child, perhaps forbidden to make it, or else her uncle might hear and make a joke of it. It was not exactly disingenuousness, but rather the first dawn of maidenly reserve and modesty that reddened her cheek in a manner her mother did not fail to observe. Yet it was with more amusement than misgiving, for children played at courtship like other games in mimicry of being grown up, and a baronet's only son was in point of fact almost as much out of the reach of a sea captain's daughter and clergyman's niece as a prince of the blood royal; and Master Archfield would probably be contracted long before he could choose for himself, for his family were not likely to take into account that if Captain Woodford had not been too severely wounded to come forward after the battle of Southwold Bay he would have been knighted. On the strength of which Anne, as her companions sometimes said, gave herself in consequence more airs than Mistress Lucy ever did. Sedley, a poor cousin, a destitute cavalier's orphan, who had been placed on the foundation at Winchester College in hopes that he might be provided for in the Church, would have been far more on her level, and indeed Lady Archfield, a notable matchmaker, had already hinted how suitable such a thing would be. However, the present school character of Master Sedley, as well as her own observations, by no means inclined Mrs. Woodford towards the boy, large limbed and comely faced, but with a bullying, scowling air that did not augur well for his wife or his parish. Whether it were this lad's threats, or more likely, the fact that all the Close was on the alert, Peregrine's exploits were less frequent there, and began to extend to the outskirts of the city. There were some fine yew trees on the southern borders, towards the chalk down, with massive dark foliage upon stout ruddy branches, among which Peregrine, armed with a fishing-rod, line, and hook, sat perched, angling for what might be caught from unconscious passengers along a path which led beneath. From a market-woman's basket he abstracted thus a fowl! His "Ho! ho! ho!" startled her into looking up, and seeing it apparently resuscitated, and hovering aloft. Full of dismay, she hurried shrieking away to tell the story of the bewitched chick at the market-cross among her gossips. His next capture was a chop from a butcher boy's tray, but this involved more peril, for with a fierce oath that he would be revenged on the Whiggish imp, the lad darted at the tree, in vain, however, for Peregrine had dropped down on the other side, and crept unseen to another bush, where he lay perdu, under the thick green branches, rod and all, while the youth, swearing and growling, was shaking his former refuge. As soon as the coast was clear he went back to his post, and presently was aware of three gentlemen advancing over the down, pointing, measuring, and surveying. One was small and slight, as simply dressed as a gentleman of the period could be; another was clad in a gay coat with a good deal of fluttering ribbon and rich lace; the third, a tall well-made man, had a plain walking suit, surmounted by a flowing periwig and plumed beaver. Coming close beneath Peregrine's tree, and standing with their backs to it, they eagerly conversed. "Such a cascade will drown the honours of the Versailles fountains, if only the water can be raised to such a height. Are you sure of it, Wren?" "As certain as hydraulics can make me, sir," and the lesser man began drawing lines with his stick in the dust of the path in demonstration. The opportunity was irresistible, and the hook from above deftly caught the band of the feathered hat of the taller man, slowly and steadily drawing it up, entirely unperceived by the owner, on whose wig it had rested, and who was bending over the dust-traced diagram in absorbed attention. Peregrine deferred his hobgoblin laughter, for success emboldened him farther. Detaching the hat from his hook, and depositing it safely in a fork of the tree, he next cautiously let down his line, and contrived to get a strong hold of one of the black locks on the top of the wig, just as the wearer was observing, "Oliver's Battery, eh? A cupola with a light to be seen out at sea? Our sailors will make another St. Christopher of you! Ha! what's this'" For feeling as if a branch were touching the structure on his head, he had stepped forward, thus favouring Peregrine's manoeuvres so that the wig dangled in the air, suddenly disclosing the bare skull of a very dark man, with such marked features that it needed not the gentlemen's outcry to show the boy who was the victim of his mischief. "What imp is there?" cried the King, spying up into the tree, while his attendant drew his sword, "How now?" as Peregrine half climbed, half tumbled down, bringing hat and wig with him, and, whether by design or accident, fell at his feet. "Will nothing content you but royal game?" he continued laughing, as Sir Christopher Wren helped him to resume his wig. "Why, what a shrimp it is! a mere goblin sprite! What's thy name, master wag?" "Peregrine Oakshott, so please you," the boy answered, raising himself with a face scared indeed, but retaining its queer impishness. "Sir, I never guessed--" "Young rogue! have you our licence to waylay our loyal subjects?" demanded the King, with an affected fierceness. "Know you not 'tis rank treason to discrown our sacred Majesty, far more to dishevel or destroy our locks? Why! I might behead you on the spot." To his great amazement the boy, with an eager face and clasped hands, exclaimed, "O sir! Oh, please your Majesty, do so." "Do so!" exclaimed the King astounded. "Didst hear what I said?" "Yes, sir! You said it was a beheading matter, and I'm willing, sir." "Of all the petitions that ever were made to me, this is the strangest!" exclaimed Charles. "An urchin like this weary of life! What next? So," with a wink to his companions, "Peregrine Oakshott, we condemn thee for high treason against our most sacred Majesty's beaver and periwig, and sentence thee to die by having thine head severed from thy body. Kneel down, open thy collar, bare thy neck. Ay, so, lay thy neck across that bough. Killigrew, do thy duty." To the general surprise, the boy complied with all these directions, never flinching nor showing sign of fear, except that his lips were set and his cheek whitened. As he knelt, with closed eyes, the flat cold blade descended on his neck, the tension relaxed, and he sank! "Hold!" cried the King. "It is gone too far! He has surely not carried out the jest by dying on our hands." "No, no, sir," said Wren, after a moment's alarm, "he has only swooned. Has any one here a flask of wine to revive him?" Several gentlemen had come up, and as Peregrine stirred, some wine was held to his lips, and he presently asked in a faint voice, "Is this fairyland?" "Not yet, my lad," said Charles, "whatever it may be when Wren's work is done." The boy opened his eyes, and as he beheld the same face, and the too familiar sky and trees, he sighed heavily, and said, "Then it is all the same! O sir, would you but have cut off my head in good earnest, I might be at home again!" "Home! what means the elf?" "An elf! That is what they say I am--changed in the cradle," said Peregrine, incited to confidence by the good-natured eyes, "and I thought if I were close on death mine own people might take me home, and bring back the right one." "He really believes it!" exclaimed Charles much diverted. "Tell me, good Master Elf, who is thy father, I mean not my brother Oberon, but him of the right one, as thou sayst." "Mr. Robert Oakshott of Oakwood, sir," said Peregrine. "A sturdy squire of the country party," said the King. "I am much minded to secure the lad for an elfin page," he added aside to Killigrew. "There's a fund of excellent humour and drollery in those queer eyes of his! So, Sir Hobgoblin, if you are proof against cold steel, I know not what is to be done with you. Get you back, and devise some other mode of finding your way home to fairyland." Peregrine said not a word of his adventure, so that the surprise of his family was the greater when overtures were made through Sir Christopher Wren for his appointment as a royal page. "I would as soon send my son at once to be a page to Beelzebub," returned Major Oakshott. And though Sir Christopher did not return the answer exactly in those terms, he would not say that the Puritan Major did not judge rightly.	{ "id": "12449" }
3	THE FAIRY KING	"She's turned her right and round about, And thrice she blew on a grass-green horn, And she sware by the moon and the stars above That she'd gar me rue the day I was born." Old Ballad of Alison Cross. Dr. Woodford's parish was Portchester, where stood the fine old royal castle at present ungarrisoned, and partly dismantled in the recent troubles, on a chalk peninsula, a spur from Portsdown, projecting above the alluvial flats, and even into the harbour, whose waves at high tide laved the walls. The church and churchyard were within the ample circuit of the fortifications, about two furlongs distant from the main building, where rose the mighty Norman keep, above the inner court, with a gate tower at this date, only inhabited by an old soldier as porter with his family. A massive square tower at each angle of the huge wall likewise defied decay. It was on Midsummer eve, that nearly about sundown, Dr. Woodford was summoned by the severe illness of the gatekeeper's old father, and his sister-in-law went with him to attempt what her skill could accomplish for the old man's relief. They were detained there till the sun had long set, though the air, saturated with his redness, was full of soft twilight, while the moon, scarcely past the full, was just high enough to silver the quiet sea, and throw the shadow of the battlements and towers on the sward whitened with dew. After the close atmosphere of the sickroom the freshness was welcome, and Mrs. Woodford, once a friend of Katherine Phillips, 'the Matchless Orinda,' had an eye and a soul to appreciate the beauty, and she even murmured the lines of Il Penseroso as she leant on the arm of her brother-in-law, who, in his turn, thought of Homer. Suddenly, as they stood in the shadow, they were aware of a small, slight, fantastic figure in the midst of the grass-grown court, where there was a large green mushroom circle or fairy ring. On the borders of this ring it paused with an air of disappointment. Then entering it stood still, took off the hat, whose lopsided appearance had given so strange an outline, and bowed four times in opposite directions, when, as the face was turned towards the spectators, invisible in the dark shadow, the lady recognised Peregrine Oakshott. She pressed the Doctor's arm, and they both stood still watching the boy bathing his hand in the dew, and washing his face with it, then kneeling on one knee, and clasping his hands, as he cried aloud in a piteous chant-- "Fairy mother, fairy mother! Oh, come, come and take me home! My very life is sore to me. They all hate me! My brothers and the servants, every one of them. And my father and tutor say I am possessed with an evil spirit, and I am beaten daily, and more than daily. I can never, never get a good word from living soul! This is the second seven years, and Midsummer night! Oh, bring the other back again! I'm weary, I'm weary! Good elves, good elves, take me home. Fairy mother! Come, come, come!" Shutting his eyes he seemed to be in a state of intense expectation. Tears filled Mrs. Woodford's eyes. The Doctor moved forward, but no sooner did the boy become conscious of human presence than he started up, and fled wildly towards a postern door, but no sooner had he disappeared in the shadow than there was a cry and a fall. "Poor child!" exclaimed Dr. Woodford, "he has fallen down the steps to the vault. It is a dangerous pitfall." They both hurried to the place, and found the boy lying on the steps leading down to the vault, but motionless, and when they succeeded in lifting him up, he was quite unconscious, having evidently struck his head against the mouth of the vault. "We must carry him home between us," said Mrs. Woodford. "That will be better than rousing Miles Gateward, and making a coil." Dr. Woodford, however, took the entire weight, which he declared to be very slight. "No one would think the poor child fourteen years old," he observed, "yet did he not speak of a second seven?" "True," said Mrs. Woodford, "he was born after the Great Fire of London, which, as I have good cause to know, was in the year '66." There was still little sign of revival about the boy when he had been carried into the Parsonage, undressed and laid in the Doctor's own bed, only a few moans when he was handled, and on his thin, sharp features there was a piteous look of sadness entirely unlike his ordinary expression of malignant fun, and which went to the kind hearts of the Doctor and Mrs. Woodford. After exhausting their own remedies, as soon as the early daylight was available Dr. Woodford called up a couple of servants, and sent one into Portsmouth for a surgeon, and another to Oakwood to the parents. The doctor was the first to arrive, though not till the morning was well advanced. He found that three ribs were broken against the edge of the stone step, and the head severely injured, and having had sufficient experience in the navy to be a reasonably safe practitioner, he did nothing worse than bleed the patient, and declared that absolute rest was the only hope of recovery. He was being regaled with cold roast pig and ale when Major Oakshott rode up to the door. Four horses were dragging the great lumbering coach over Portsdown hill, but he had gone on before, to thank Dr. and Mrs. Woodford for their care of his unfortunate son, and to make preparations for his transport home under the care of his wife's own woman, who was coming in the coach in the stead of the invalid lady. "Nay, sir. Master Brent here has a word to say to that matter," replied the Doctor. "Truly, sir, I have," said the surgeon; "in his present state it is as much as your son's life is worth to move him." "Be that as it may seem to man, he is in the hand of Heaven, and he ought to be at home, whether for life or death." "For death it will assuredly be, sir, if he be jolted and shaken along the Portsdown roads--yea, I question whether you would get him to Oakwood alive," said Brent, with naval roughness. "Indeed, sir," added Mrs. Woodford, "Mrs. Oakshott may be assured of my giving him as tender care as though he were mine own son." "I am beholden to you, madam," said the Major; "I know your kindliness of heart; but in good sooth, the unhappy and rebellious lad merits chastisement rather than pity, since what should he be doing at this distance from home, where he was shut up for his misdemeanours, save fleeing like the Prodigal of the parable, or else planning another of his malicious pranks, as I greatly fear, on you or your daughter, madam. If so, he hath fallen into the pit that he made for others." The impulse was to tell what had occurred, but the surgeon's presence, and the dread of making all worse for the poor boy checked both the hosts, and Mrs. Woodford only declared that since the day of the apology he had never molested her or her little girl. "Still," said the Major, "it is not possible to leave him in a stranger's house, where at any moment the evil spirit that is in him may break forth." "Come and see him, and judge," said Dr. Woodford. When the father beheld the deathly face and motionless form, stern as he was, he was greatly shocked. His heavy tread caused a moan, and when he said "What, Perry, how now?" there was a painful shrinking and twitching, which the surgeon greeted as evidence of returning animation, but which made him almost drag the Major out of the room for fear of immediate consequences. Major Oakshott, and still more the servant, who had arrived in the coach and come upstairs, could not but be convinced that removal was not to be thought of. The maid was, moreover, too necessary to her mistress to be left to undertake the nursing, much to her master's regret, but to the joy of Mrs. Woodford, who felt certain that by far the best chance for the poor boy was in his entire separation from all associations with the home where he had evidently suffered so much. There was, perhaps, nothing except the pageship at Court that could have gone more against Major Oakshott's principles than to leave his son in the house of a prelatical minister, but alternative there was none, and he could only express how much he was beholden to the Dr. and Mrs. Woodford. All their desire was that he would remain at a distance, for during the long and weary watch they had to keep over the half-conscious lad, the sound of a voice or even a horse's tread from Oakwood occasioned moans and restlessness. The Major rode over, or sent his sons, or a servant daily to inquire during the first fortnight, except on the Sundays, and on each of these the patient made a step towards improvement. At first he lay in a dull, death-like stupor, only groaning if disturbed, but by and by there was a babbling murmur of words, and soon the sound of his brother's loud voice at the door, demanding from the saddle how it went to-day with Peregrine, caused a shriek of terror and such a fit of trembling that Mrs. Woodford had to go out and make a personal request that Oliver would never again speak under the window. To her great relief, when the balance between life and death had decidedly turned, the inquiries became less frequent, and could often be forestalled by sending messengers to Oakwood. The boy usually lay still all day in the darkened room, only showing pain at light or noise, but at night he often talked and rambled a good deal. Sometimes it was Greek or Latin, sometimes whole chapters of Scripture, either denunciating portions or genealogies from the First Book of Chronicles, the polysyllabic names pouring from his mouth whenever he was particularly oppressed or suffering, so that when Mrs. Woodford had with some difficulty made out what they were, she concluded that they had been set as tasks of penance. At other times Peregrine talked as if he absolutely believed himself in fairyland, accepting a strawberry or cherry as elfin food, promising a tester in Anne's shoe when she helped to change his pillow, or conversing in the style of Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, on intended pranks. Often he fancied himself the lubber fiend resting at the fire his hairy strength, and watching for cock-crow as the signal for flinging out-of-doors. It was wonderful how in the grim and strict Puritanical household he could have imbibed so much fairy lore, but he must have eagerly assimilated and recollected whatever he heard, holding them as tidings from his true kith and kin; and, indeed, when he was running on thus, Mrs. Woodford sometimes felt a certain awe and chill, as of the preternatural, and could hardly believe that he belonged to ordinary human nature. Either she or the Doctor always took the night-watch after the talking mood set in, for they could not judge of the effect it might have on any of the servants. Indeed they sometimes doubted whether this were not the beginning of permanent insanity, as the delusion seemed to strengthen with symptoms of recovery. "Then," said Dr. Woodford, "Heaven help the poor lad!" For sad indeed was the lot in those days of even the most harmless lunatic. "Yet," said the lady, "I scarcely think anything can be worse than what he undergoes at home. When I hear the terror and misery of his voice, I doubt whether we did him any true kindness by hindering his father from killing him outright by the shaking of his old coach." "Nay, sister, we strove to do our duty, though it may be we have taken on ourselves a further charge."	{ "id": "12449" }
4	IMP OR NO IMP	"But wist I of a woman bold Who thrice my brow durst sign, I might regain my mortal mould, As fair a form as thine." SCOTT. At last came a wakening with intelligence in the eyes. In the summer morning light that streamed through the chinks of the shutters Mrs. Woodford perceived the glance of inquiry, and when she brought some cool drink, a rational though feeble voice asked those first questions, "Who? and where?" "I am Mrs. Woodford, my dear child. You remember me at Winchester. You are at Portchester. You fell down and hurt yourself, but you are getting better." She was grieved to see the look of utter disappointment and weariness that overspread the features, and the boy hardly spoke again all day. There was much drowsiness, but also depression, and more than once Mrs. Woodford detected tears, but at other times he received her attentions with smiles and looks of wondering gratitude, as though ordinary kindness and solicitude were so new to him that he did not know what to make of them, and perhaps was afraid of breaking a happy dream by saying too much. The surgeon saw him, and declared him so much better that he might soon be taken home, recommending his sitting up for a little while as a first stage. Peregrine, however, seemed far from being cheered, and showed himself so unwilling to undergo the fatigue of being dressed, even when good Dr. Woodford had brought up his own large chair--the only approach to an easy one in the house--that the proposal was dropped, and he was left in peace for the rest of the day. In the evening Mrs. Woodford was sitting by the window, letting her needlework drop as the light faded, and just beginning to doze, when her repose was broken by a voice saying "Madam." "Yes, Peregrine." "Come near, I pray. Will you tell no one?" "No; what is it?" In so low a tone that she had to bend over him: "Do you know how the Papists cross themselves?" "Yes, I have seen the Queen's confessor and some of the ladies make the sign." "Dear lady, you have been very good to me! If you would only cross me thrice, and not be afraid! They could not hurt you!" "Who? What do you mean?" she asked, for fairy lore had not become a popular study, but comprehension came when he said in an awe- stricken voice, "You know what I am." "I know there have been old wives' tales about you, my poor boy, but surely you do not believe them yourself." "Ah! if you will not believe them, there is no hope. I might have known. You were so good to me;" and he hid his face. She took his unwilling hand and said, "Be you what you will, my poor child, I am sorry for you, for I see you are very unhappy. Come, tell me all." "Nay, then you would be like the rest," said Peregrine, "and I could not bear that," and he wrung her hand. "Perhaps not," she said gently, "for I know that a story is afloat that you were changed in your cradle, and that there are folk ignorant enough to believe it." "They all _know_ it," he said impressively. "My mother and brothers and all the servants. Every soul knows it except my father and Mr. Horncastle, and they will never hear a word, but will have it that I am possessed with a spirit of evil that is to be flogged out of me. Goody Madge and Moll Owens, they knew how it was at the first, and would fain have forced them--mine own people--to take me home, and bring the other back, but my father found it out and hindered them." "To save your life." "Much good does my life do me! Every one hates or fears me. No one has a word for me. Every mischance is laid on me. When the kitchen wench broke a crock, it was because I looked at it. If the keeper misses a deer, he swears at Master Perry! Oliver and Robert will not let me touch a thing of theirs; they bait me for a moon-calf, and grin when I am beaten for their doings. Even my mother quakes and trembles when I come near, and thinks I give her the creeps. As to my father and tutor, it is ever the rod with them, though I can learn my tasks far better than those jolter-heads Noll and Robin. I never heard so many kind words in all my life as you have given me since I have been lying here!" He stopped in a sort of awe, for tears fell from her eyes, and she kissed his forehead. "Will you not help me, good madam?" he entreated. "I went down to Goody Madge, and she said there was a chance for me every seven years. The first went by, but this is my fourteenth year. I had a hope when the King spoke of beheading me, but he was only in jest, as I might have known. Then methought I would try what Midsummer night in the fairy ring would do, but that was in vain; and now you, who could cross me if you would, will not believe. Oh, will you not make the trial?" "Alas! Peregrine, supposing I could do it in good faith, would you become a mere tricksy sprite, a thing of the elements, and yield up your hopes as a Christian soul, a child of God and heir of Heaven?" "My father says I am an heir of hell." "No, no, never," she cried, shuddering at his quiet way of saying it. "You are flesh and blood, christened, and with the hope set before you." "The christening came too late," he said. "O lady, you who are so good and pitiful, let my mother get back her true Peregrine--a straight-limbed, comely dullard, such as would be welcome to her. She would bless and thank you, and for me, to be a Will-of-the-wisp, or what not, would be far better than the life I lead. Never did I know what my mother calls peace till I lay here." "Ah, Peregrine, poor lad, your value for peace and for my poor kindness proves that you have a human heart and are no elf." "Indeed, I meant to flit about and give you good dreams, and keep off all that could hurt or frighten you," he said earnestly. "Only the human soul could feel so, dear boy," she answered tenderly. "And you _really_ disbelieve--the other," he said wistfully. "This is what I verily believe, my child: that there were causes to make you weakly, and that you may have had some palsy stroke or convulsive fit perhaps at the moment you were left alone. Such would explain much of your oddness of face, which made the ignorant nurses deem you changed; and thus it was only your father who, by God's mercy, saved you from a miserable death, to become, as I trust, a good and true man, and servant of God." Then answering a hopeless groan, she added, "Yes, it is harder for you than for many. I see that these silly servants have so nurtured you in this belief that you have never even thought it worth while to strive for goodness, but supposed tricksomeness and waywardness a part of your nature." "The only pleasure in life is paying folk off," said Peregrine, with a glitter in his eye. "It serves them right." "And thus," she said sadly, "you have gone on hating and spiting, deeming yourself a goblin without hope or aim; but now you feel that you have a Christian soul you will strive with evil, you will so love as to win love, you will pray and conquer." "My father and Mr. Horncastle pray," said Peregrine bitterly. "I hate it! They go on for ever, past all bearing; I _must_ do something--stand on my head, pluck some one's stool away, or tickle Robin with a straw, if I am birched the next moment. That's the goblin." "Yet you love the Minster music." "Ay! Father calls it rank Popery. I listened many a time he never guessed, hid away in the Holy Hole, or within old Bishop Wykeham's little house." "Ah, Peregrine, could an imp of evil brook to lie hidden in the Holy Hole behind the very altar?" said Mrs. Woodford. "But I hear Nick bringing in supper, and I must leave you for the present. God in His mercy bless you, His poor child, and lead you in His ways." As she went Peregrine muttered, "Is that a prayer? It is not like father's." She was anxious to consult her brother-in-law on the strange mood of her patient. She found that he had heard more than he had told her of what Major Oakshott deemed the hopeless wickedness of his son, the antics at prayers, the hatred of everything good, the spiteful tricks that were the family torment. No doubt much was due to the boy's entire belief in his own elfship, and these two good people seriously considered how to save him from himself. "If we could only keep him here," said Mrs. Woodford, "I think we might bring him to have some faith and love in God and man." "You could, dear sister," said the Doctor, smiling affectionately; "but Major Oakshott would never leave his son in our house. He abhors our principles too much, and besides, it is too near home. All the servants have heard rumours of this cruel fable, and would ascribe the least misadventure to his goblin origin. I must ride over to Oakwood and endeavour to induce his father to remove him to safe and judicious keeping." Some days, however, elapsed before Dr. Woodford could do this, and in the meantime the good lady did her best to infuse into her poor young guest the sense that he had a human soul, responsible for his actions, and with hope set before him, and that he was not a mere frolicsome and malicious sprite, the creature of unreasoning impulse. It was a matter only to be attempted by gentle hints, for though reared in a strictly religious household, Peregrine's ears seemed to have been absolutely closed, partly by nursery ideas of his own exclusion from the pale of humanity, partly by the harsh treatment that he was continually bringing on himself. Preachings and prayers to him only meant a time of intolerable restraint, usually ending in disgrace and punishment; Scripture and the Westminster Catechism contained a collection of tasks more tedious and irksome than the Latin and Greek Grammar; Sunday was his worst day of the week, and these repugnances, as he had been taught to believe, were so many proofs that he was a being beyond the power of grace. Mrs. Woodford scrupled to leave him to any one else on this first Sunday of his recovered consciousness, and in hopes of keeping him quiet through fatigue, she contrived that it should be the first day of his being dressed, and seated in the arm-chair, resting against cushions beside the open window, whence he could watch the church- goers, Anne in her little white cap, with her book in one hand, and a posy in the other, tripping demurely beside her uncle, stately in gown, cassock, and scarlet hood. Peregrine could not refrain from boasting to his hostess how he had once grimaced from outside the church window at Havant, and at the women shrieking that the fiend was there. She would not smile, and shook her head sadly, so that he said, "I would never do so here." "Nor anywhere, I hope." Whereupon, thinking better to please the churchwoman, he related how, when imprisoned for popping a toad into the soup, he had escaped over the leads, and had beaten a drum outside the barn, during a discourse of the godly tinker, John Bunyan, tramping and rattling so that all thought the troopers were come, and rushed out, tumbling one over the other, while he yelled out his "Ho! ho! ho!" from the haystack where he had hidden. "When you feel how kind and loving God is," said Mrs. Woodford gravely, "you will not like to disturb those who are doing Him honour." "Is He kind?" asked Peregrine. "I thought He was all wrath and anger." She replied, "The Lord is loving unto every man, and His mercy is over all His works." He made no answer. If he were sullen, this subsided into sleepiness, and when he awoke he found the lady on her knees going through the service with her Prayer-book. She encountered his wistful eyes, but no remark was made, though on her return from fetching him some broth, she found him peeping into her book, which he laid down hastily, as though afraid of detection. She had to go down to the Sunday dinner, where, according to good old custom, half a dozen of the poor and aged were regaled with the parish priest and his household. There she heard inquiries and remarks showing how widely spread and deeply rooted was the notion of Peregrine's elfish extraction. If Daddy Hoskins did ask after the poor young gentleman as if he were a human being, the three old dames present shook their heads, and while the more bashful only groaned, Granny Perkins demanded, "Well, now, my lady, do he eat and sleep like other folk?" "Exactly, granny, now that he's mending in health." "And don't he turn and writhe when there's prayers?" Mrs. Woodford deposed to having observed no such demonstrations. "Think of that now! Lauk-a-daisy! I've heard tell by my nevvy Davy, as is turnspit at Oak'ood, as how when there's prayers and expounding by Master Horncastle, as is a godly man, saving his Reverence's presence, he have seen him, have Davy--Master Perry, as they calls him, a-twisted round with his heels on the chair, and his head where his heels should be, and a grin on his face enough to give one a turn." "Did Davy never see a mischievous boy fidgeting at prayers?" asked the Doctor, who was nearer than she thought. "If so, he has been luckier than I have been." There was a laugh, out of deference to the clergyman, but the old woman held to her point. "Begging your Reverence's pardon, sir, there be more in this than we knows. They says up at Oakwood, there's no peace in the place for the spite of him, and when they thinks he is safe locked into his chamber, there he be a-clogging of the spit, or changing sugar into pepper, or making the stool break down under one. Oh, he be a strange one, sir, or summat worse. I have heerd him myself hollaing 'Ho! ho! ho!' on the downs enough to make one's flesh creep." "I will tell you what he is, dame," said the Doctor gravely. "He is a poor child who had a fit in his cradle, and whom all around have joined in driving to folly, evil, and despair through your foolish superstitions. He is my guest, and I will have no more said against him at my table." The village gossips might be silenced by awe of the parson, but their opinion was unshaken; and Silas Hewlett, a weather-beaten sailor with a wooden leg, was bold enough to answer, "Ay, ay, sir, you parsons and gentlefolk don't believe naught; but you've not seen what I have with my own two bodily eyes--" and this of course was the prelude to the history of an encounter with a mermaid, which alternated with the Flying Dutchman and a combat with the Moors, as regular entertainment at the Sunday meal. When Mrs. Woodford went upstairs she was met by the servant Nicolas, declaring that she might get whom she would to wait on that there moon-calf, he would not go neist the spiteful thing, and exhibiting a swollen finger, stung by a dead wasp, which Peregrine had cunningly disposed on the edge of his empty plate. She soothed the man's wrath, and healed his wound as best she might, ere returning to her patient, who looked at her with an impish grin on his lips, and yet human deprecation in his eyes. Feeling unprepared for discussion, she merely asked whether the dinner had been relished, and sat down to her book; but there was a grave, sorrowful expression on her countenance, and, after an interval of lying back uneasily in his chair, he exclaimed, "It is of no use; I could not help it. It is my nature." "It is the nature of many lads to be mischievous," she answered; "but grace can cure them." Therewith she began to read aloud. She had bought the Pilgrim's Progress (the first part) from a hawker, and she was glad to have at hand something that could hardly be condemned as frivolous or prelatical. The spell of the marvellous book fell on Peregrine; he listened intently, and craved ever to hear more, not being yet able to read without pain and dizziness. He was struck by hearing that the dream of Christian's adventures had visited that same tinker, whose congregation his own wicked practices had broken up. "He would take me for one of the hobgoblins that beset Master Christian." "Nay," said Mrs. Woodford, "he would say you were Christian floundering in the Slough of Despond, and deeming yourself one of its efts or tadpoles." He made no answer, but on the whole behaved so well that the next day Mrs. Woodford ventured to bring her little daughter in after having extracted a promise that there should be no tricks nor teasing, a pledge honourably kept. Anne did not like the prospect of the interview. "Oh, ma'am, don't leave me alone with him!" she said. "Do you know what he did to Mistress Martha Browning, his own cousin, you know, who lives at Emsworth with her aunt? He put a horsehair slily round her glass of wine, and tipped it over her best gray taffeta, and her aunt whipped her for the stain. She never would say it was his doing, and yet he goes on teasing her the same as ever, though his brother Oliver found it out, and thrashed him for it: you know Oliver is to marry Mistress Martha." "My dear child, where did you hear all this?" asked Mrs. Woodford, rather overwhelmed with this flood of gossip from her usually quiet daughter. "Lucy told me, mamma. She heard it from Sedley, who says he does not wonder at any one serving out Martha Browning, for she is as ugly as sin." "Hush, hush, Anne! Such sayings do not become a young maid. This poor lad has scarce known kindness. Every one's hand has been against him, and so his hand has been against every one. I want my little daughter to be brave enough not to pain and anger him by shrinking from him as if he were not like other people. We must teach him to be happy before we can teach him to be good." "Madam, I will try," said the child, with a great gulp; "only if you would be pleased not to leave me alone with him the first time!" This Mrs. Woodford promised. At first the boy lay and looked at Anne as if she were a rare curiosity brought for his examination, and it took all her resolution, even to a heroic exertion of childish fortitude, not to flinch under the gaze of those queer eyes. However, Mrs. Woodford diverted the glances by producing a box of spillekins, and in the interest of the game the children became better acquainted. Over their next day's game Mrs. Woodford left them, and Anne became at ease since Peregrine never attempted any tricks. She taught him to play at draughts, the elders thinking it expedient not to doubt whether such vanities were permissible at Oakwood. Soon there was such merriment between them that the kind Doctor said it did his heart good to hear the boy's hearty natural laugh in lieu of the "Ho! ho! ho!" of malice or derision. They were odd conversations that used to take place between that boy and girl. The King's offer of a pageship had oozed out in the Oakshott family, and Peregrine greatly resented the refusal, which he naturally attributed to his father's Whiggery and spite at all things agreeable, and he was fond of discussing his wrongs and longings with Anne, who, from her childish point of view, thought the walls of Portchester and the sluggish creek a very bad exchange for her enjoyments at Greenwich, where she had lived during her father's years of broken health, after he had been disabled at Southwold by a wound which had prevented his being knighted by the Duke of York for his daring in the excitement of the critical moment, a fact which Mistress Anne never forgot, though she only knew it by hearsay, as it happened a few weeks after she was born, and her father always averred that he was thankful to have missed the barren and expensive honour, and that the _worst_ which had come of his exploit was the royal sponsorship to his little maid. Anne had, however, been the pet of her father's old friends, the sea captains, had played with the little Evelyns under the yew hedges of Says Court, had been taken to London to behold the Lord Mayor's show and more than one Court pageant, had been sometimes at the palaces as the plaything of the Ladies Mary and Anne of York, had been more than once kissed by their father, the Duke, and called a pretty little poppet, and had even shared with them a notable game at romps with their good-natured uncle the King, when she had actually caught him at Blind-man's-buff! Ignorant as she was of evil, her old surroundings appeared to her delightful, and Peregrine, bred in a Puritan home, was at fourteen not much more advanced than she was in the meaning of the vices and corruptions that he heard inveighed against in general or scriptural terms at home, and was only too ready to believe that all that his father proscribed must be enchanting. Thus they built castles together about brilliant lives at a Court of which they knew as little as of that at Timbuctoo. There was another Court, however, of which Peregrine seemed to know all the details, namely, that of King Oberon and Queen Mab. How much was village lore picked up from Moll Owens and her kind, or how much was the work of his own imagination, no one could tell, probably not himself, certainly not Anne. When he appeared on intimate terms with Hip, Nip, and Skip, and described catching Daddy Long Legs to make a fence with his legs, or dwelt upon a terrible fight between two armies of elves mounted on grasshoppers and crickets, and armed with lances tipped with stings of bees and wasps, she would exclaim, "Is it true, Perry?" and he would wink his green eye and look at her with his yellow one till she hardly knew where she was. He would tell of his putting a hornet in a sluttish maid's shoe, which was credible, if scarcely meriting that elfish laughter which made his auditor shrink, but when he told of dancing over the mud banks with a lantern, like a Will-of-the-wisp, till he lured boats to get stranded, or horsemen to get stuck, in the hopeless mud, Anne never questioned the possibility, but listened with wide open eyes, and a restrained shudder, feeling as if under a spell. That mysterious childish feeling which dreads even what common sense forbids the calmer mind to believe, made her credit Peregrine, for the time at least, with strange affinities to the underground folk, and kept her under a strange fascination, half attraction, half repulsion, which made her feel as if she must obey and follow him if he turned those eyes on her, whether she were willing or not. Nor did she ever tell her mother of these conversations. She had been rebuked once for repeating nurse's story of the changeling, and again for her shrinking from him; and this was quite enough in an essentially reserved, as well as proud and sensitive, nature, to prevent further confidences on a subject which she knew would be treated as a foolish fancy, bringing both herself and her companion into trouble.	{ "id": "12449" }
5	PEREGRINE'S HOME	"For, at a word, be it understood, He was always for ill and never for good." SCOTT. A week had passed since any of the family from Oakwood had come to make inquiries after the convalescent at Portchester, when Dr. Woodford mounted his sleek, sober-paced pad, and accompanied by a groom, rode over to make his report and tender his counsel to Major Oakshott. He arrived just as the great bell was clanging to summon the family to the mid-day meal, since he had reckoned on the Squire being more amenable as a 'full man,' especially towards a guest, and he was well aware that the Major was thoroughly a gentleman in behaviour even to those with whom he differed in politics and religion. Accordingly there was a ready welcome at the door of the old red house, which was somewhat gloomy looking, being on the north side of the hill, and a good deal stifled with trees. In a brief interval the Doctor found himself seated beside the pale languid lady at the head of the long table, placed in a large hall, wainscotted with the blackest of oak, which seemed to absorb into itself all the light from the windows, large enough indeed but heavily mullioned, and with almost as much of leading as of octagons and lozenges--greenish glass--in them, while the coats of arms, repeated in upper portions and at the intersections of beams and rafters, were not more cheerful, being sable chevrons on an argent field. The crest, a horse shoe, was indeed azure, but the blue of this and of the coats of the serving-men only deepened the thunderous effect of the black. Strangely, however, among these sad-coloured men there moved a figure entirely differently. A negro, white turbaned, and with his blue livery of a lighter shade, of fantastic make and relieved by a great deal of white and shining silver, so as to have an entirely different effect. He placed himself behind the chair of Dr. Woodford's opposite neighbour, a shrewd business-like looking gentleman, soberly but handsomely dressed, with a certain foreign cut about his clothes, and a cravat of rich Flemish lace. He was presented to the Doctor as Major Oakshott's brother, Sir Peregrine. The rest of the party consisted of Oliver and Robert, sturdy, ruddy lads of fifteen and twelve, and their tutor, Mr. Horncastle, an elderly man, who twenty years before had resigned his living because he could not bring himself to accept all the Liturgy. While Sir Peregrine courteously relieved his sister-in-law of the trouble of carving the gammon of bacon which accompanied the veal which her husband was helping, Dr. Woodford informed her of her son's progress towards recovery. "Ah," she said, "I knew you had come to tell us that he is ready to be brought home;" and her tone was fretful. "We are greatly beholden to you, sir," said the Major from the bottom of the table. "The boy shall be fetched home immediately." "Not so, sir, as yet, I beg of you. Neither his head nor his side can brook the journey for at least another week, and indeed my good sister Woodford will hardly know how to part with her patient." "She will not long be of that mind after Master Perry gets to his feet again," muttered the chaplain. "Indeed no," chimed in the mother. "There will be no more peace in the house when he is come back." "I assure you, madam," said Dr. Woodford, "that he has been a very good child, grateful and obedient, nor have I heard any complaints." "Your kindness, or else that of Mrs. Woodford, carries you far, sir," answered his host. "What? Is my nephew and namesake so peevish a scapegrace?" demanded the visitor. On which anecdotes broke forth from all quarters. Peregrine had greased the already slippery oak stairs, had exchanged Oliver's careful exercise for a ribald broadsheet, had filled Mr. Horncastle's pipe with gunpowder, and mixed snuff with the chocolate specially prepared for the peculiar godly guest Dame Priscilla Waller. Every one had something to adduce, even the serving-men behind the chairs; and if Oliver and Robert did not add their quota, it was because absolute silence at meals was the rule for nonage. However, the subject was evidently distasteful to the father, who changed the conversation by asking his brother questions about the young Prince of Orange and the Grand Pensionary De Witt. For the gentleman had been acting as English attache to the Embassy at the Hague, whence he had come on affairs of State to London, and after being knighted by Charles, had newly arrived at the old home, which he had scarcely seen since his brother's marriage. Dr. Woodford enjoyed his conversation, and his information on foreign politics, and the Major, though now and then protesting, was evidently proud of his brother. When grace had been pronounced by the chaplain the lady withdrew to her parlour, the two boys, each with an obeisance and request for permission, departed for an hour's recreation, and Dr. Woodford intimated that he wished for some conversation with his host respecting the boy Peregrine. "Let us discuss it here," said Major Oakshott, turning towards a small table set in the deep bay window, and garnished with wine, fruit, and long slender glasses. "Good Mr. Horncastle," he added, as he motioned his guest to one of the four seats, "is with me in all that concerns my children, and I desire my brother's counsel respecting the untoward lad with whom it has pleased Heaven to afflict me." When the glasses had been filled with claret Dr. Woodford uttered a diplomatic compliment on the healthful and robust appearance of the eldest and youngest sons, and asked whether any cause had been assigned for the difference between them and the intermediate brother. "None, sir," returned the father with a sigh, "save the will of the Almighty to visit us for our sins with a son who has thus far shown himself one of the marred vessels doomed to be broken by the potter. It may be in order to humble me and prove me that this hath been laid upon me." The chaplain groaned acquiescence, but there was vexation in the brother's face. "Sir," said the Doctor, "it is my opinion and that of my sister-in- law, an excellent, discreet, and devout woman, that the poor child would give you more cause for hope if the belief had not become fixed in his mind that he is really and truly a fairy elf--yes, in very sooth--a changeling!" All the auditors broke out into exclamations that it was impossible that a boy of fourteen could entertain so absurd an idea, and the tutor evidently thought it a fresh proof of depravity that he should thus have tried to deceive his kind hosts. In proof that Peregrine veritably believed it himself, Dr. Woodford related what he had witnessed on Midsummer night, mentioning how in delirium the boy had evidently believed himself in fairyland, and how disappointed he had been, on regaining his senses, to find himself on common earth; telling also of the adventure with the King, which Sir Christopher Wren had described to him, but of which Major Oakshott was unaware, though it explained the offer of the pageship. He was a good deal struck by these revelations, proving misery that he had never suspected, though, as he said, he had often pleaded, "Why will ye revolt more and more? ye _will_ be stricken more and more." "Have you ever sought his confidence?" asked the travelled brother, a question evidently scarcely understood, for the reply was, "I have always required of my sons to speak the truth, nor have they failed of late years save this unfortunate Peregrine." "And," said Sir Peregrine, "if the unlucky lad actually supposes himself to be no human being, admonitions and chastisements would naturally be vain." "I cannot believe it," exclaimed the Major. " 'Tis true, as I now remember, I once came on a couple of beldames, my wife's nurse and another, who has since been ducked for witchcraft, and found them about to flog the babe with nettles, and lay him in the thorn hedge because he was a sickly child, whom, forsooth, they took to be a changeling; but I forbade the profane folly to be ever again mentioned in my household, nor did I ever hear thereof again." "There are a good many more things mentioned in a household, brother, than the master is wont to hear of," remarked Sir Peregrine. Dr. Woodford then begged as a personal favour for an individual examination of the family and servants on their opinion. The master was reluctant thus, as he expressed it, to go a-fooling, but his brother backed the Doctor up, and further prevented a general assembly to put one another to shame, but insisted on the witnesses being called in one by one. Oliver, the first summoned, was beginning to be somewhat less overawed by his father than in his earlier boyhood. To the inquiry what he thought of his brother Peregrine, he made a tentative sort of reply, that he was a strange fellow, who never could keep out of disgrace. "That is not the question," said his father. "I am almost ashamed to speak it! Do you--nay, have you ever supposed him to be a--" he really could not bring out the word. "A changeling, sir?" returned Oliver. "I do not believe so now, knowing that it is impossible, but as a child I always did." "Who durst possess you with so foolish and profane a falsehood?" "Every one, sir. I cannot recollect the time when I did not as entirely deem Peregrine a changeling elf as that Robin was my own brother. He believes so himself." "You have never striven to disabuse him." "Indeed, sir, he would scarce have listened to me had I done go; besides, to tell the truth, it has only been of late, since I have been older, and have studied more, that I have come to perceive the folly of it." Major Oakshott groaned, and bade him call Robert without saying wherefore. The little fellow came in, somewhat frightened, and when asked the question that had been put to his elder, his face lighted up, and he exclaimed, "Oh, have they brought him back again?" "Whom?" "Our real brother, sir, who was carried off to fairyland!" "Who told you so, Robert?" He looked puzzled, and said, "Sir, they all know it. Molly Owens, that was his foster-mother, saw the fairies bear him off on a broomstick up the chimney." "Robert, no lying!" The boy was only restrained from tears by fear of his father, and just managed to say, "'Tis what they all say, and Perry knows." "Knows!" muttered Major Oakshott in despair, but the uncle, drawing Robin towards him, extracted that Perry had been seen flying out of the loft window, when he had been locked up--Robin had never seen it himself, but the maids had often done so. Moreover, there was proof positive, in the mark on Oliver's head, where he had nearly killed himself by tumbling downstairs, being lured by the fairies while they stole away the babe. The Major could not listen with patience. "A boy of that age to repeat such blasphemous nonsense!" he exclaimed; and Robert, restraining with difficulty his sobs of terror, was dismissed to fetch the butler. The old Ironside who now appeared would not avouch his own disbelief in the identity of Master Peregrine, being, as he said, a man who had studied his Bible, listened to godly preachers, and seen the world; but he had no hesitation in declaring that almost every other soul in the household believed in it as firmly as in the Gospel, certainly all the women, and probably all the men, nor was there any doubt that the young gentleman conducted himself more like a goblin than the son of pious Christian parents. In effect both the clergyman and the Diplomate could not help suspecting that in other company the worthy butler's disavowal of all share in the superstition might have been less absolute. "After this," said Major Oakshott with a sigh, "it seems useless to carry the inquiry farther." "What says my sister Oakshott?" inquired Sir Peregrine. "She! Poor soul, she is too feeble to be fretted," said her husband. "She has never been the same woman since the Fire of London, and it would be vain to vex her with questions. She would be of one mind while I spoke to her, and another while her women were pouring their tales into her ear. Methinks I now understand why she has always seemed to shrink from this unfortunate child, and to fear rather than love him." "Even so, sir," added the tutor. "Much is explained that I never before understood. The question is how to deal with him under this fresh light. I will, so please your honour, assemble the family this very night, and expound to them that such superstitions are contrary to the very word of Scripture." "Much good will that do," muttered the knight. "I should humbly suggest," put in Dr. Woodford, "that the best hope for the poor lad would be to place him where these foolish tales were unknown, and he could start afresh on the same terms with other youths." "There is no school in accordance with my principles," said the Squire gloomily. "Godly men who hold the faith as I do are inhibited by the powers that be from teaching in schools." "And," said his brother, "you hold these principles as more important than the causing your son to be bred up a human being instead of being pointed at and rendered hopeless as a demon." "I am bound to do so," said the Major. "Surely," said Dr. Woodford, "some scholar might be found, either here or in Holland, who might share your opinions, and could receive the boy without incurring penalties for opening a school without license." "It is a matter for prayer and consideration," said Major Oakshott. "Meantime, reverend sir, I thank you most heartily for the goodness with which you have treated my untoward son, and likewise for having opened my eyes to the root of his freakishness." The Doctor understood this as dismissal, and asked for his horse, intimating, however, that he would gladly keep the boy till some arrangement had been decided upon. Then he rode home to tell his sister-in-law that he had done his best, and that he thought it a fortunate conjunction that the travelled brother had been present.	{ "id": "12449" }
6	A RELAPSE	"A tell-tale in their company They never could endure, And whoso kept not secretly Their pranks was punished sure. It was a just and Christian deed To pinch such black and blue; Oh, how the commonwealth doth need Such justices as you!" BISHOP CORBETT. Several days passed, during which there could be no doubt that Peregrine Oakshott knew how to behave himself, not merely to grown- up people, but to little Anne, who had entirely lost her dread of him, and accepted him as a playfellow. He was able to join the family meals, and sit in the pleasant garden, shaded by the walls of the old castle, as well as by its own apple-trees, and looking out on the little bay in front, at full tide as smooth and shining as a lake. There, while Anne did her task of spinning or of white seam, Mrs. Woodford would tell the children stories, or read to them from the Pilgrim's Progress, a wonderful romance to both. Peregrine, still tamed by weakness, would lie on the grass at her feet, in a tranquil bliss such as he had never known before, and his fairy romances to Anne were becoming mitigated, when one day a big coach came along the road from Fareham, with two boys riding beside it, escorting Lady Archfield and Mistress Lucy. The lady was come to study Mrs. Woodford's recipe for preserved cherries, the young people, Charles, Lucy, and their cousin Sedley, now at home for the summer holidays, to spend an afternoon with Mistress Anne. Great was Lady Archfield's surprise at finding that Major Oakshott's cross-grained slip of a boy was still at Portchester. "If you were forced to take him in for very charity when he was hurt," she said, "I should have thought you would have been rid of him as soon as he could leave his bed." "The road to Oakwood is too rough for broken ribs as yet," said Mrs. Woodford, "nor is the poor boy ready for discipline." "Ay, I fancy that Major Oakshott is a bitter Puritan in his own house; but no discipline could be too harsh for such a boy as that, according to all that I hear," said her ladyship, "nor does he look as if much were amiss with him so far as may be judged of features so strange and writhen." "He is nearly well, but not yet strong, and we are keeping him here till his father has decided on what is best for him." "You even trust him with your little maid! And alone! I wonder at you, madam." "Indeed, my lady, I have seen no harm come of it. He is gentle and kind with Anne, and I think she softens him." Still Mrs. Woodford would gladly not have been bound to her colander and preserving-pan in her still-room, where her guest's housewifely mind found great scope for inquiry and comment, lasting for nearly two hours. When at length the operations were over, and numerous little pots of jam tied up as specimens for the Archfield family to taste at home, the children were not in sight. No doubt, said Mrs. Woodford, they would be playing in the castle court, and the visitor accompanied her thither in some anxiety about broken walls and steps, but they were not in sight, nor did calls bring them. The children had gone out together, Anne feeling altogether at ease and natural with congenial playmates. Even Sedley's tortures were preferable to Peregrine's attentions, since the first were only the tyranny of a graceless boy, the other gave her an indescribable sense of strangeness from which these ordinary mundane comrades were a relief and protection. However, Charles and Sedley rushed off to see a young colt in which they were interested, and Lucy, in spite of her first shrinking, found Peregrine better company than she could have expected, when he assisted in swinging her and Anne by turns under the old ash tree. When the other two were seen approaching, the swinging girl hastily sprang out, only too well aware what Sedley's method of swinging would be. Then as the boys came up followed inquiries why Peregrine had not joined them, and jests in schoolboy taste ensued as to elf- locks in the horses' manes, and inquiries when he had last ridden to a witch's sabbath. Little Anne, in duty bound, made her protest, but this only incited Charles to add his word to the teasing, till Lucy joined in the laugh. By and by, as they loitered along, they came to the Doctor's little boat, and there was a proposal to get in and rock. Lucy refused, out of respect for her company attire, and Anne could not leave her, so the two young ladies turned away with arms round each other's waists, Lucy demonstratively rejoicing to be quit of the troublesome boys. Before they had gone far an eldritch shout of laughter was responded to by a burst of furious dismay and imprecation. The boat with the two boys was drifting out to sea, and Peregrine capering wildly on the shore, but in another instant he had vanished into the castle. Anne had presence of mind enough to rush to the nearest fisherman's cottage, and send him out to bring them back, and it was at this juncture that the two mothers arrived on the scene. There was little real danger. A rope was thrown and caught, and after about half an hour of watching they were safely landed, but the tide had ebbed so far that they had to take off their shoes and stockings and wade through the mud. They were open-mouthed against the imp who had enticed them to rock in the boat, then in one second had cut the painter, bounded out, and sent them adrift with his mocking 'Ho! ho! ho!' Sedley Archfield clenched his fists, and gazed round wildly in search of the goblin to chastise him soundly, and Charles was ready to rush all over the castle in search of him. "Two to one!" cried Anne, "and he so small; you would never be so cowardly." "As if he were like an honest fellow," said Charley. "A goblin like that has his odds against a dozen of us." "I'd teach him, if I could but catch him," cried Sedley. "I told you," said Anne, "that he would be good if you would let him alone and not plague him." "Now, Anne," said Charles, as he sat putting on his stockings, "how could I stand being cast off for that hobgoblin, that looks as if he had been cut out of a root of yew with a blunt knife, and all crooked! I that always was your sweetheart, to see you consorting with a mis-shapen squinting Whig of a Nonconformist like that." "Nonconformist! I'll Nonconform him indeed," added Sedley. "I wish I had the wringing of his neck." "Now is not that hard!" said Anne; "a poor lad who has been very sick, and that every one baits and spurns." "Serve him right," said Sedley; "he shall have more of the same sauce!" "I think he has cast his spell on Anne," added Charles, "or how can she stand up for him?" "My mamma bade me be kind to him." "Kind! I would as lief be kind to a toad!" put in Lucy. "To see you kind to him makes me sick," exclaimed Charles. "You see what comes of it." "It did not come of my kindness, but of your unkindness," reasoned Anne. "I told you so," said Charles. "You would have been best pleased if we had been carried out to sea and drowned!" Anne burst into tears and disavowed any such intention, and Charles was protesting that he would only forgive her on condition of her never showing any kindness to Peregrine again, when a sudden shower of sand and pebbles descended, one of them hitting Sedley pretty sharply on the ear. The boys sprang up with a howl of imprecation and vengeance, but no one was to be seen, only 'Ho! ho! ho!' resounded from the battlements. Off they rushed headlong, but the nearest door was in a square tower a good way off, and when they reached it the door defied their efforts of frantic rage, whilst another shower descended on them from above, accompanied by the usual shout. But while they were dashing off in quest of another entrance they were met by a servant sent to summon them to return home. Coach and horses were at the door, and Lady Archfield was in haste to get them away, declaring that she should not think their lives safe near that fiendish monster. Considering that Sedley was nearly twice as big as Peregrine, and Charles a strong well-grown lad, this was a tribute to his preternatural powers. Very unwillingly they went, and if Lady Archfield had not kept a strict watch from her coach window, they would certainly have turned back to revenge the pranks played on them. The last view of them showed Sedley turning round shaking his whip and clenching his teeth in defiance. Mrs. Woodford was greatly concerned, especially as Peregrine could not be found and did not appear at supper. "Had he run away to sea?" the usual course of refractory lads at Portchester, but for so slight a creature only half recovered it did not seem probable. It was more likely that he had gone home, and that Mrs. Woodford felt as somewhat a mortifying idea. However, on looking into his chamber, as she sought her own, she beheld him in bed, with his face turned into the pillow, whether asleep or feigning slumber there was no knowing. Later, she heard sounds that induced her to go and look at him. He was starting, moaning, and babbling in his sleep. But with morning all his old nature seemed to have returned. There was a hedgehog in Anne's bowl of milk, Mrs. Woodford's poultry were cackling hysterically at an unfortunate kitten suspended from an apple tree and let down and drawn up among them. The three- legged stool of the old waiting-woman 'toppled down headlong' as though by the hands of Puck, and even on Anne's arms certain black and blue marks of nails were discovered, and when her mother examined her on them she only cried and begged not to be made to answer. And while Dr. Woodford was dozing in his chair as usual after the noonday dinner Mrs. Woodford actually detected a hook suspended from a horsehair descending in the direction of his big horn spectacles, and quietly moving across to frustrate the attempt, she unearthed Peregrine on a chair angling from behind the window curtain. She did not speak, but fixed her calm eyes on him with a look of sad, grave disappointment as she wound up the line. In a few seconds the boy had thrown himself at her feet, rolling as if in pain, and sobbing out, "'Tis all of no use! Let me alone." Nevertheless he obeyed the hushing gesture of her hand, and held his breath, as she led him out to the garden-seat, where they had spent so many happy quiet hours. Then he flung himself down and repeated his exclamation, half piteous, half defiant. "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! It has me! It is all of no use." "What has you, my poor child?" "The evil spirit. You will have it that I'm not one of--one of them--so it must be as my father says, that I am possessed--the evil spirit. I was at peace with you--so happy--happier than ever I was before--and now--those boys. It has me again--I could not help it-- I've even hurt her--Mistress Anne. Let me alone--send me home--to be scorned, and shunned, and brow-beaten--and as bad as ever--then at least she will be safe from me." All this came out between sobs such that Mrs. Woodford could not attempt to speak, but she kept her hand on him, and at last she said, when he could hear her: "Every one of us has to fight with an evil spirit, and when we are not on our guard he is but too apt to take advantage of us." The boy rather sullenly repeated that it was of no use to fight against his. "Indeed! Nay. Were you ever so much grieved before at having let him have the mastery?" "No--but no one ever was good to me before." "Yes; all about you lived under a cruel error, and you helped them in it. But if you had not a better nature in you, my poor child, you would not be happy here and thankful for what we can do for you." "I was like some one else here," said Peregrine, picking a daisy to pieces, "but they stirred it all up. And at home I shall be just the same as ever I was." She longed to tell him that there was hope of a change in his life, but she durst not till it was more certain, so she said-- "There was One who came to conquer the evil spirit and the evil nature, and to give each one of us the power to get the victory. The harder the victory, the more glorious!" and her eyes sparkled at the thought. He caught a moment's glow, then fell back. "For those that are chosen," he said. "You are chosen--you were chosen by your baptism. You have the stirrings of good within you. You can win and beat back the evil side of you in Christ's strength, if you will ask for it, and go on in His might." The boy groaned. Mrs. Woodford knew that the great point with him would be to teach him to hope and to pray, but the very name of prayer had been rendered so distasteful to him that she scarce durst press the subject by name, and her heart sank at the thought of sending him home again, but she was glad to be interrupted, and said no more. At night, however, she heard sounds of moaning and stifled babbling that reminded her of his times of delirium, and going into his room she found him tossing and groaning so that it was manifestly a kindness to wake him; but her gentle touch occasioned a scream of terror, and he started aside with open glassy eyes, crying, "Oh take me not!" "My dear boy! It is I. Perry, do you not know me?" "Oh, madam!" in infinite relief, "it is you. I thought--I thought I was in elfland and that they were paying me for the tithe to hell;" and he still shuddered all over. "No elf--no elf, dear boy; a christened boy--God's child, and under His care;" and she began the 121st Psalm. "Oh, but I am not under His shadow! The Evil One has had me again! He will have me. Aren't those his claws? He will have me!" "Never, my child, if you will cry to God for help. Say this with me, 'Lord, be Thou my keeper.'" He did so, and grew more quiet, and she began to repeat Dr. Ken's evening hymn, which had become known in manuscript in Winchester. It soothed him, and she thought he was dropping off to sleep, but no sooner did she move than he started with "There it is again--the black wings--the claws--" then while awake, "Say it again! Oh, say it again. Fold me in your prayers--you can pray." She went back to the verse, and he became quiet, but her next attempt to leave him caused an entreaty that she would remain, nor could she quit him till the dawn, happily very early, was dispelling the terrors of the night, and then, when he had himself murmured once-- "Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me molest," he fell asleep at last, with a softer look on his pinched face. Poor boy, would that verse be his first step to prayer and deliverance from his own too real enemy?	{ "id": "12449" }
7	THE ENVOY	"I then did ask of her, her changeling child." Midsummer Night's Dream. Mrs. Woodford was too good a housewife to allow herself any extra rest on account of her vigil, and she had just put her Juneating apple-tart into the oven when Anne rushed into the kitchen with the warning that there was a grand gentleman getting off his horse at the gateway, and speaking to her uncle--she thought it must be Peregrine's uncle. Mrs. Woodford was of the same opinion, and asked where Peregrine was. "Fast asleep in the window-seat of the parlour, mother! I did not waken him, for he looked so tired." "That was right, my little maiden," said Mrs. Woodford, hastily washing her hands, taking off her cooking apron, letting down her black gown from its pocket holes, and arranging her veil-like widow's coif, after which, in full trim for company, she sallied out to the front door, to avert, if possible, the wakening of the boy, whom she wished to appear to the best advantage. She met in the garden her brother-in-law, and Sir Peregrine Oakshott, on being presented to her, made such a bow as had seldom been seen in those parts, as he politely said that he was the bearer of his brother's thanks for her care of his nephew. Mrs. Woodford explained that the boy had had so bad a night that it would be well not to break his present sleep, and invited the guest to walk in the garden or sit in the Doctor's study or in the shade of the castle wall. This last was what he preferred, and there they seated themselves, with a green slope before them down to the pale gray creek, and the hill beyond lying in the summer sunshine. "I have been long in coming hither," said the knight, "partly on account of letters on affairs of State, and partly likewise because I desired to come alone, thinking that I might better understand how it is with the lad without the presence of his father or brothers." "I am very glad you have so done, sir." "Then, madam, I entreat of you to speak freely and tell me your opinion of him without reserve. You need not fear offence by speaking of the mode in which they have treated him at home. My poor brother has meant to do his duty, but he has stood so far aloof from his sons that he has dealt with them in ignorance, and their mother, between sickliness and timidity, is a mere prey to the folly of her gossips. So speak plainly, madam, I beg of you." Mrs. Woodford did speak plainly of the boy's rooted belief in his own elfish origin, and how when arguing against it she had found the alternative even sadder and more hopeless, how well he comported himself as long as he was treated as a human and rational being, but how the taunts and jests of the young Archfields had renewed all the mischief, to the poor fellow's own remorse and despair. Sir Peregrine listened with only a word of comment, or question now and then, like a man of the world well used to hearing all before he committed himself, and the description was only just ended when the clang of the warning dinner-bell sounded and they rose; but as they were passing the window of the dining-parlour a shriek of Anne's startled them all, and as they sprang forward, Mrs. Woodford first, Peregrine's voice was heard, "No, no, Anne, don't be afraid. It is for me he is come; I knew he would." Something in a strange language was heard. A black face with round eyes and gleaming teeth might be seen bending forward. Anne gave another shriek, but was heard crying, "No, no! Get away, sir. He is our Lord Christ's! He is! You can't! you shan't have him." And Anne was seen standing over Peregrine, who had dropped shuddering and nearly fainting on the floor, while she stood valiantly up warding off the advance of him whom she took for the Prince of Darkness, and in her excitement not at first aware of those who were come to her aid at the window. In one second the negro was saying something which his master answered, and sent him off. Mrs. Woodford had called out, "Don't be afraid, dear children. 'Tis Sir Peregrine's black servant"; and the Doctor, "Foolish children! What is this nonsense?" A moment or two more and they were in the room, Anne, all trembling, flying up to her mother and hiding her face against her between fright and shame at not having thought of the black servant, and the while they lifted up Peregrine, who, as he met his kind friend's eyes, said faintly, "Is he gone? Was it the dream again?" "It was your uncle's blackamoor servant," said Mrs. Woodford. "You woke up, and no wonder you were startled. Come with me, both of you, and make you ready for dinner." Peregrine had rather collapsed than fainted, for he was able to walk with her hand on his shoulder, and Sir Peregrine understood her sign and did not attempt to accost either of the children, though as the Doctor took him to his chamber he expressed his admiration of the little maiden. "That's the right woman," he said, "losing herself when there is one to guard. Nay, sir, she needs no excuse. Such a spirit may well redeem a child's mistake." Mrs. Woodford had reassured the children, so that they were more than half ashamed, though scarce willing to reappear when she had made Peregrine wash his face and hands, smooth the hair ruffled in his nap, freshly tying his little cravat and the ribbons on his shoes and at his knees. To make his hair into anything but elf locks, or to obliterate the bristly tuft that made him like Riquet, was impossible, illness had made him additionally lean and sallow, and his keen eyes, under their black contracted brows and dark lashes, showed all the more the curious variation in their tints, and with an obliquity that varied according to the state of the nerves. There was a satirical mischievous cast in the mould of the face, though individually the features were not amiss except for their thinness, and in fact the unpleasantness of the expression had insensibly been softened during this last month, and there was nothing repellent, though much that was quaint, in the slight figure, with the indescribably one-sided air, and stature more befitting ten than fourteen years. What would the visitor think of him? The Doctor called to him, "Come, Peregrine, your uncle, Sir Peregrine Oakshott, has been good enough to come over to see you." Peregrine had been well trained enough in that bitter school of home to make a correct bow, though his feelings were betrayed by his yellow eye going almost out of sight. "My namesake--your father will not let me say my godson," said Sir Peregrine smiling. "We ought to be good friends." The boy looked up. Perhaps he had never been greeted in so human a manner before, and there was something confiding in the way those bony fingers of his rested a moment in his uncle's clasp. "And this is your little daughter, madam, Peregrine's kind playmate? You may well be proud of her valour," said the knight, while Anne made her courtesy, which he, in the custom of the day, returned with a kiss; and she, who had been mortally ashamed of her terror, marvelled at his praise. The pair of fowls were by this time on the table, and good manners required silence on the part of the children, but while Sir Peregrine explained that he had been appointed by his Majesty as Envoy to the Elector of Brandenburg, and gave various interesting particulars of foreign life, Mrs. Woodford saw that he was keeping a quiet watch over his nephew's habits at table, and she was thankful that when unmoved by any wayward spirit of mischief they were quite beyond reproach. Something of the refinement of his poor mother's tastes must have been inherited by Peregrine, for a certain daintiness of taste and habit had probably added to his discomforts in the austere, not to say rude simplicity imposed upon the children of the family. When the meal was over the children were dismissed to the garden, but bidden to keep within call, in case Sir Peregrine should wish to see his nephew again. The others repaired again to the garden seat, with wine and fruit, but the knight begged Mrs. Woodford not to leave them. "I am satisfied," he said. "The boy shows gentle blood and breeding. There was cause enough for fright without cowardice, and there is not, what I was led to fear, such uncouthness or ungainliness as should hinder me from having him with me." "Oh, sir, is that your purpose?" cried the lady, almost as eagerly as if it had been high preferment for her own child. "I had thought thereon," said the envoy. "There is reason that he should be my charge, and my brother is like to give a ready consent, since he is sorely perplexed what to do with this poor untoward slip." "He would be less untoward were he happier," said Mrs. Woodford. "Indeed, sir, I do not think you will repent it, if--" and she paused. "What would you say, madam?" "If only all your honour's household are absolutely ignorant of all these tales." "That can well be, madam. I have only one body-servant with me, this unlucky blackamoor, who speaks nothing save Dutch. I had already thought of leaving my grooms here, and returning to London by sea, and this could well be done, and would cut off all channels of gossiping. The boy is, the chaplain tells me, quick-witted, and a fair scholar for his years, and I can find good schooling for him." "When his head is able to bear it," said Mrs. Woodford. "Truly, sir," added the Doctor, "you are doing a good work, and I trust that the boy will requite you worthily." "I tell your reverence," said Sir Peregrine, "crooked stick though they term him, I had ten times rather have the dealing with him than with those comely great lubbers his brothers! The question now is, shall I tell him what is in store for him?" "I should say," returned Dr. Woodford, "that provided it is certain that the intention can be carried out, nothing would be so good for him as hope. Do you not say so, sister?" "Indeed I do," she replied. "I believe that he would be a very different boy if he were relieved from the misery he suffers at home and requites by mischievous pranks. I do not say he will or can be a good lad at once, but if your honour can have patience with him, I do believe there is that in him which can be turned to good. If he only can believe in the better nature and higher guidings, and pray, and not give himself up in despair." She had tears in her eyes. "My good madam, I can believe it all," said Sir Peregrine. "Short of being supposed an elf, I have gone through the same, and it was not my good father's fault that I did not loathe the very name of preaching or prayer. But I had a mother who knew how to deal with me, whereas this poor child's mother, I am sure, believes in her secret heart that he is none of hers, though she has enough sense not to dare to avow it. Alas! I cannot give the boy the woman's tending by which you have already wrought so much," and Mrs. Woodford remembered to have heard that his wife had died at Rotterdam, "but I can treat him like a human being, I hope indeed as a son; and, at any rate, there will be no one to remind him of these old wives' tales." "I can only say that I am heartily rejoiced," said Mrs. Woodford. So Peregrine was summoned, and shambled up, his eyes showing that he expected a trying interview, and, moreover, with a certain twinkle of mischief or perverseness in their corners. "Soh! my lad, we ought to be better acquainted," said the uncle. "D'ye know what our name means?" "Peregrinus, a vagabond," responded the boy. "Eh! The translation may be correct, but 'tis scarce the most complimentary. I wonder now if you, like me, were born on a Wednesday. 'Wednesday's child has far to go.'" "No. I was born on a Sunday, and if to see goblins and oafs--" "Nay, I read it, 'Sunday's child is full of grace.'" Peregrine's mouth twitched ironically, but his uncle continued, "Look you, my boy, what say you to fulfilling the augury of your name with me. His Majesty has ordered me off again to represent the British name to the Elector of Brandenburg, and I have a mind to carry you with me. What do you say?" If any one expected Peregrine to be overjoyed his demeanour was disappointing. He shuffled with his feet, and after two or three "Ehs?" from his uncle, he mumbled, "I don't care," and then shrank together, as one prepared for the stripe with the riding-whip which such a rude answer merited: but his uncle had, as a diplomate, learnt a good deal of patience, and he said, "Ha! don't care to leave home and brothers. Eh?" Peregrine's chin went down, and there was no answer; his hair dropped over his heavy brow. "See, boy, this is no jest," said his uncle. "You are too big to be told that 'I'll put you into my pocket and carry you off.' I am in earnest." Peregrine looked up, and with one sudden flash surveyed his uncle. His lips trembled, but he did not speak. "It is sudden," said the knight to the other two. "See, boy, I am not about to take you away with me now. In a week or ten days' time I start for London; and there we will fit you out for Konigsberg or Berlin, and I trust we shall make a man of you, and a good man. Your tutor tells me you have excellent parts, and I mean that you shall do me credit." Dr. Woodford could not help telling the lad that he ought to thank his uncle, whereat he scowled; but Sir Peregrine said, "He is not ready for that yet. Wait till he feels he has something to thank me for." So Peregrine was dismissed, and his friends exclaimed with some wonder and annoyance that the boy who had been willing to be decapitated to put an end to his wretchedness, should be so reluctant to accept such an offer, but Sir Peregrine only laughed, and said-- "The lad has pith in him! I like him better than if he came like a spaniel to my foot. But I will say no more till I fully have my brother's consent. No one knows what crooks there may be in folks' minds." He took his leave, and presently Mrs. Woodford had a fresh surprise. She found this strange boy lying flat on the grass, sobbing as if his heart would break, and when she tried to soothe and comfort him it was very hard to get a word from him; but at last, as she asked, "And does it grieve you so much to leave home?" the answer was-- "No, no! not home!" "What is it, then? What are you sorry to leave?" "Oh, _you_ don't know! you and Anne--the only ones that ever were good to me--and drove away--_it_." "Nay, my dear boy. Your uncle means to be good to you." "No, no. No one ever will be like you and Anne. Oh, let me stay with you, or they will have me at last!" He was too much shaken, in his still half-recovered state, by the events of these last days, to be reasoned with. Mrs. Woodford was afraid he would work himself into delirium, and could only soothe him into a calmer state. She found from Anne that the children had some vague hopes of his being allowed to remain at Portchester, and that this was the ground of his disappointment, since he seemed to be attaching himself to them as the first who had ever touched his heart or opened to him a gleam of better things. By the next day, however, he was in a quieter and more reasonable state, and Mrs. Woodford was able to have a long talk with him. She represented that the difference of opinions made it almost certain that his father would never consent to his remaining under her roof, and that even if this were possible, Portchester was far too much infected with the folly from which he had suffered so much; and his uncle would take care that no one he would meet should ever hear of it. "There's little good in that," said the boy moodily. "I'm a thing they'll jibe at and bait any way." "I do not see that, if you take pains with yourself. Your uncle said you showed blood and breeding, and when you are better dressed, and with him, no one will dare to mock his Excellency's nephew. Depend upon it, Peregrine, this is the fresh start that you need." "If you were there--" "My boy, you must not ask for what is impossible. You must learn to conquer in God's strength, not mine." All, however, that passed may not here be narrated, and it apparently left that wayward spirit unconvinced. Nevertheless, when on the second day Major Oakshott himself came over with his brother, and informed Peregrine that his uncle was good enough to undertake the charge of him, and to see that he was bred up in godly ways in a Protestant land, free from prelacy and superstition, the boy seemed reconciled to his fate. Major Oakshott spoke more kindly than usual to him, being free from fresh irritation at his misdemeanours; but even thus there was a contrast with the gentler, more persuasive tones of the diplomatist, and no doubt this tended to increase Peregrine's willingness to be thus handed over. The next question was whether he should go home first, but both the uncle and the friends were averse to his remaining there, amid the unavoidable gossip and chatter of the household, and it was therefore decided that he should only ride over with Dr. Woodford for an hour or two to take leave of his mother and brothers. This settled, Mrs. Woodford found him much easier to deal with. He had really, through his midnight invocation of the fairies, obtained an opening into a new world, and he was ready to believe that with no one to twit him with being a changeling or worse, he could avoid perpetual disgrace and punishment and live at peace. Nor was he unwilling to promise Mrs. Woodford to say daily, and especially when tempted, one or two brief collects and ejaculations which she selected to teach him, as being as unlike as possible to the long extempore exercises which had made him hate the very name of prayer. The Doctor gave him a Greek Testament, as being least connected with unpleasant recollections. "And," entreated Peregrine humbly, in a low voice to Mrs. Woodford on his last Sunday evening, "may I not have something of yours, to lay hold of, and remember you if--when--the evil spirit tries to lay hold of me again?" She would fain have given him a prayer-book, but she knew that would be treason to his father, and with tears in her eyes and something of a pang, she gave him a tiny miniature of herself, which had been her husband's companion at sea, and hung it round his neck with the chain of her own hair that had always held it. "It will always keep my heart warm," said Peregrine, as he hid it under his vest. There was a shade of disappointment on Anne's face when he showed it to her, for she had almost deemed it her own. "Never mind, Anne," he said; "I am coming back a knight like my uncle to marry you, and then it will be yours again." "I--I'm not going to wed you--I have another sweetheart," added Anne in haste, lest he should think she scorned him. "Oh, that lubberly Charles Archfield! No fear of him. He is promised long ago to some little babe of quality in London. You may whistle for him. So you'd better wait for me." "It is not true. You only say it to plague me." "It's as true as Gospel! I heard Sir Philip telling one of the big black gowns one day in the Close, when I was sitting up in a tree overhead, how they had fixed a marriage between his son and his old friend's daughter, who would have ever so many estates. So I'd give that"--snapping his fingers--"for your chances of being my Lady Archfield in the salt mud at Fareham." "I shall ask Lucy. It is not kind of you, Perry, when you are just going away." "Come, come, don't cry, Anne." "But I knew Charley ever so long first, and--" "Oh, yes. Maids always like straight, comely, dull fellows, I know that. But as you can't have Charles Archfield, I mean to have you, Anne--for I shall look to you as the only one as can ever make a good man of me! Ay--your mother--I'd wed her if I could, but as I can't, I mean to have you, Anne Woodford." "I don't mean to have you! I shall go to Court, and marry some noble earl or gentleman! Why do you laugh and make that face, Peregrine? you know my father was almost a knight--" "Nobody is long with you without knowing that!" retorted Peregrine; "but a miss is as good as a mile, and you will find the earls and the lords will think so, and be fain to take the crooked stick at last!" Mistress Anne tossed her head--and Peregrine returned a grimace. Nevertheless they parted with a kiss, and for some time the thought of Peregrine haunted the little girl with a strange, fateful feeling, between aversion and attraction, which wore off, as a folly of her childhood, with her growth in years.	{ "id": "12449" }
8	THE RETURN	"I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere." Merchant of Venice. It was autumn, but in the year 1687, when again Lucy Archfield and Anne Jacobina Woodford were pacing the broad gravel walk along the south side of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. Lucy, in spite of her brocade skirt and handsome gown of blue velvet tucked up over it, was still devoid of any look of distinction, but was a round- faced, blooming, cheerful maiden, of that ladylike thoroughly countrified type happily frequent in English girlhood throughout all time. Anne, or Jacobina, as she tried to be called, towered above her head, and had never lost that tincture of courtly grace that early breeding had given her, and though her skirt was of gray wool, and the upper gown of cherry tabinet, she wore both with an air that made them seem more choice and stylish than those of her companion, while the simple braids and curls of her brown hair set off an unusually handsome face, pale and clear in complexion, with regular features, fine arched eyebrows over clear brown eyes, a short chin, and a mouth of perfect outline, but capable of looking very resolute. Altogether she looked fit for a Court atmosphere, and perhaps she was not without hopes of it, for Dr. Woodford had become a royal chaplain under Charles II, and was now continued in the same office; and though this was a sinecure as regarded the present King, yet Tory and High Church views were as much in the ascendant as they could be under a Romanist king, and there were hopes of a canonry at Windsor or Westminster, or even higher preferment still, if he were not reckoned too staunch an Anglican. That Mrs. Woodford's health had been failing for many months past would, her sanguine daughter thought, be remedied by being nearer the best physicians in London, which had been quitted with regret. Meantime Lucy's first experiences of wedding festivities were to be heard. For the Archfield family had just returned from celebrating the marriage of the heir. Long ago Anne Jacobina had learnt to reckon Master Charles's pledges of affection among the sports and follies of childhood, and the strange sense of disappointment and shame with which she recollected them had perhaps added to her natural reserve, and made her feel it due to maidenly dignity to listen with zest to the account of the bride, who was to be brought to supper at Doctor Woodford's that eve. "She is a pretty little thing," said Lucy, "but my mother was much concerned to find her so mere a child, and would not, if she had seen her, have consented to the marriage for two years to come, except for the sake of having her in our own hands." "I thought she was sixteen." "Barely fifteen, my dear, and far younger than we were at that age. She cried because her woman said she must leave her old doll behind her; and when my brother declared that she should have anything she liked, she danced about, and kissed him, and made him kiss its wooden face with half the paint rubbed off." "He did?" "Oh, yes! She is like a pretty fresh plaything to him, and they go about together just like big Towzer and little Frisk at home. He is very much amused with her, and she thinks him the finest possession that ever came in her way." "Well, so he is." "That is true; but somehow it is scarcely like husband and wife; and my mother fears that she may be sickly, for she is so small and slight that it seems as if you could blow her away, and so white that you would think she had no blood, except when a little heat brings the purest rose colour to her cheek, and that, my lady says, betokens weakliness. You know, of course, that she is an orphan; her father died of a wasting consumption, and her mother not long after, when she was a yearling babe. It was her grandfather who was my father's friend in the old cavalier days, and wrote to propose the contract to my brother not long before his death, when she was but five years old. The pity was that she was not sent to us at once, for the old lord, her grand-uncle, never heeded or cared for her, but left her to servants, who petted her, but understood nothing of care of her health or her education, so that the only wonder is that she is alive or so sweet and winning as she is. She can hardly read without spelling, and I had to make copies for her of Alice Fitzhubert, to show her how to sign the book. All she knew she learnt from the old steward, and only when she liked. My father laughs and is amused, but my lady sighs, and hopes her portion is not dearly bought." "Is not she to be a great heiress?" "Not of the bulk of the lands--they go to heirs male; but there is much besides, enough to make Charles a richer man than our father. I wonder what you will think of her. My mother is longing to talk her over with Mrs Woodford." "And my mother is longing to see my lady." "I fear she is still but poorly." "We think she will be much better when we get home," said Anne. "I am sure she is stronger, for she walked round the Close yesterday, and was scarcely tired." "But tell me, Anne, is it true that poor Master Oliver Oakshott is dead of smallpox?" "Quite true. Poor young gentleman, he was to have married that cousin of his mother's, Mistress Martha Browning, living at Emsworth. She came on a visit, and they think she brought the infection, for she sickened at once, and though she had it favourably, is much disfigured. Master Oliver caught it and died in three days, and all the house were down with it. They say poor Mrs. Oakshott forgot her ailments and went to and fro among them all. My mother would have gone to help in their need if she had been as well as she used to be." "How is it with the other son? He was a personable youth enough. I saw him at the ship launch in the spring, and thought both lads would fain have staid for the dance on board but for their grim old father." "You saw Robert, but he is not the elder." "What? Is that shocking impish urchin whom we used to call Riquet with the tuft, older than he?" "Certainly he is. He writes from time to time to my mother, and seems to be doing well with his uncle." "I cannot believe he would come to good. Do you remember his sending my brother and cousin adrift in the boat?" "I think that was in great part the fault of your cousin for mocking and tormenting him." "Sedley Archfield was a bad boy! There's no denying that. I am afraid he had good reason for running away from college." "Have you heard of him since?" "Yes; he has been serving with the Life-guards in Scotland, and mayhap he will come home and see us. My father wishes to see whether he is worthy to have a troop procured by money or favour for him, and if they are recalled to the camp at November it will be an opportunity. But see--who is coming through the Slype?" "My uncle. And who is with him?" Dr. Woodford advanced, and with him a small slender figure in black. As the broad hat with sable plume was doffed with a sweep on approaching the ladies, a dark head and peculiar countenance appeared, while the Doctor said, "Here is an old acquaintance, young ladies, whom I met dismounting at the White Hart, and have brought home with me." "Mr. Peregrine Oakshott!" exclaimed Anne, feeling bound to offer in welcome a hand, which he kissed after the custom of the day, while Lucy dropped a low and formal courtesy, and being already close to the gate of the house occupied by her family, took her leave till supper-time. Even in the few steps before reaching home Anne was able to perceive that a being very unlike the imp of seven years ago had returned, though still short in stature and very slight, with long dark hair hanging straight enough to suggest elf-locks, but his figure was well proportioned, and had a finished air of high breeding and training. His riding suit was point device, from the ostrich feather in his hat, to the toes of his well made boots, and his sword knew its place, as well as did those of the gentlemen that Anne remembered at the Duke of York's when she was a little child. His thin, marked face was the reverse of handsome, but it was keen, shrewd, perhaps satirical, and the remarkable eyes were very bright under dark eyebrows and lashes, and the thin lips, devoid of hair, showed fine white teeth when parted by a smile of gladness--at the meeting--though he was concerned to hear that Mrs. Woodford had been very ill all the last spring, and had by no means regained her former health, and even in the few words that passed it might be gathered that Anne was far more hopeful than her uncle. She did indeed look greatly changed, though her countenance was sweeter than ever, as she rose from her seat by the fire and held out her arms to receive the newcomer with a motherly embrace, while the expression of joy and affection was such as could never once have seemed likely to sit on Peregrine Oakshott's features. They were left together, for Anne had the final touches to put to the supper, and Dr. Woodford was sent for to speak to one of the Cathedral staff. Peregrine explained that he was on his way home, his father having recalled him on his brother's death, but he hoped soon to rejoin his uncle, whose secretary he now was. They had been for the last few months in London, and were thence to be sent on an embassy to the young Czar of Muscovy, an expedition to which he looked forward with eager curiosity. Mrs. Woodford hoped that all danger of infection at Oakwood was at an end. "There is none for me, madam," he said, with a curious writhed smile. "Did you not know that they thought they were rid of me when I took the disease at seven years old, and lay in the loft over the hen-house with Molly Owens to tend me? and I believe it was thought to be fairy work that I came out of it no more unsightly than before." "You are seeking for compliments, Peregrine; you are greatly improved." "Crooked sticks can be pruned and trained," he responded, with a courteous bow. "You are a travelled man. Let me see, how many countries have you seen?" "A year at Berlin and Konigsberg--strange places enough, specially the last, two among the scholars and high roofs of Leyden, half a year at Versailles and Paris, another year at Turin, whence back for another half year to wait on old King Louis, then to the Hague, and the last three months at Court. Not much like buying and selling cows, or growing wheat on the slopes, or lying out on a cold winter's night to shoot a few wild fowl; and I have you to thank for it, my first and best friend!" "Nay, your uncle is surely your best." "Never would he have picked up the poor crooked stick save for you, madam. Moreover, you gave me my talisman," and he laid his hand on his breast; "it is your face that speaks to me and calls me back when the elf, or whatever it is, has got the mastery of me." Somewhat startled, Mrs. Woodford would have asked what he meant, but that intelligence was brought that Mr. Oakshott's man had brought his mail, so that he had to repair to his room. Mrs. Woodford had kept up some correspondence with him, for which his uncle's position as envoy afforded unusual facilities, and she knew that on the whole he had been a very different being from what he was at home. Once, indeed, his uncle had written to the Doctor to express his full satisfaction in the lad, on whom he seemed to look like a son, but from some subsequent letters she had an impression that he had got into trouble of some sort while at the University of Leyden, and she was afraid that she must accept the belief that the wild elfish spirit, as he called it, was by no means extinct in him, any more, she said to herself, than temptation is in any human creature. The question is, What is there to contend therewith? The guests were, however, about to assemble. The Doctor, in black velvet cap and stately silken cassock, sash, and gown, sailed down to receive them, and again greeted Peregrine, who emerged in black velvet and satin, delicate muslin cravat and cuffs, dainty silk stockings and rosetted shoes, in a style such as made the far taller and handsomer Charles Archfield, in spite of gay scarlet coat, embroidered flowery vest, rich laced cravat, and thick shining brown curls, look a mere big schoolboy, almost bumpkin-like in contrast. However, no one did look at anything but the little creature who could just reach to hang upon that resplendent bridegroom's arm. She was in glistening white brocade, too stiff and cumbrous for so tiny a figure, yet together with the diamonds glistening on her head and breast giving her the likeness of a fairy queen. The whiteness was almost startling, for the neck and arms were like pearl in tint, the hair flowing in full curls on her shoulders was like shining flax or pale silk just unwound from the cocoon, and the only relief of colour was the deep blue of the eyes, the delicate tint of the lips, and the tender rosy flush that was called up by her presentation to her hosts by stout old Sir Philip, in plum-coloured coat and full-bottomed wig, though she did not blush half as much as the husband of nineteen in his new character. Indeed, had it not been for her childish prettiness, her giggle would have been unpleasing to more than Lady Archfield, who, broad and matronly, gave a courtesy and critical glance at Peregrine before subsiding into a seat beside Mrs. Woodford. Lucy stood among a few other young people from the Close, watching for Anne, who came in, trim and bright, though still somewhat reddened in face and arms from her last attentions to the supper--an elaborate meal on such occasions, though lighter than the mid-day repast. There were standing pies of game, lobster and oyster patties, creams, jellies, and other confections, on which Sir Philip and his lady highly complimented Anne, who had been engaged on them for at least a couple of days, her mother being no longer able to assist except by advice. "See, daughter Alice, you will learn one day to build up a jelly as well as to eat it," said Sir Philip good-humouredly, whereat the small lady pouted a little and said-- "Bet lets me make shapes of the dough, but I won't stir the pans and get to look like a turkey-cock." "Ah, ha! and you have always done what you liked, my little madam?" "Of course, sir! and so I shall," she answered, drawing up her pretty little head, while Lady Archfield gave hers a boding shake. "Time, and life, and wifehood teach lessons," murmured Mrs. Woodford in consolation, and the Doctor changed the subject by asking Peregrine whether the ladies abroad were given to housewifery. "The German dames make a great ado about their Wirthschaft, as they call it," was the reply, "but as to the result! Pah! I know not how we should have fared had not Hans, my uncle's black, been an excellent cook; but it was in Paris that we were exquisitely regaled, and our maitre d'hotel would discourse on ragouts and entremets till one felt as if his were the first of the sciences." "So it is to a Frenchman," growled Sir Philip. "French and Frenchifications are all the rage nowadays, but what will your father say to your science, my young spark?" The gesture of head and shoulder that replied had certainly been caught at Paris. Mrs. Woodford rushed into the breach, asking about the Princess of Orange, whom she had often seen as a child. "A stately and sightly dame is she, madam," Peregrine answered, "towering high above her little mynheer, who outwardly excels her in naught save the length of nose, and has the manners of a boor." "The Prince of Orange is the hope of the country," said Sir Philip severely. Peregrine's face wore a queer satirical look, which provoked Sir Philip into saying, "Speak up, sir! what d'ye mean? We don't understand French grins here." "Nor does he, nor French courtesies either," said Peregrine. "So much the better!" exclaimed the baronet. Here the little clear voice broke in, "O Mr. Oakshott, if I had but known you were coming, you might have brought me a French doll in the latest fashion." "I should have been most happy, madam," returned Peregrine; "but unfortunately I am six months from Paris, and besides, his honour might object lest a French doll should contaminate the Dutch puppets." "But oh, sir, is it true that French dolls have real hair that will curl?" "Don't be foolish," muttered Charles impatiently; and she drew up her head and made an indescribably droll moue of disgust at him. Supper ended, the party broke up into old and young, the two elder gentlemen sadly discussing politics over their tall glasses of wine, the matrons talking over the wedding and Lady Archfield's stay in London at the parlour fire, and the young folk in a window, waiting for the fiddler and a few more of the young people who were to join them in the dance. The Archfield ladies had kissed the hand of the Queen, and agreed with Peregrine in admiration of her beauty and grace, though they did not go so far as he did, especially when he declared that her eyes were as soft as Mistress Anne's, and nearly of the same exquisite brown, which made the damsel blush and experience a revival of the old feeling of her childhood, as if he put her under a spell. He went on to say that he had had the good fortune to pick up and restore to Queen Mary Beatrice a gold and coral rosary which she had dropped on her way to St. James's Palace from Whitehall. She thanked him graciously, letting him kiss her hand, and asking him if he were of the true Church. "Imagine my father's feelings," he added, "when she said, 'Ah! but you will be ere long; I give it you as a pledge.'" He produced the rosary, handing it first to Anne, who admired the beautiful filigree work, but it was almost snatched from her by Mrs. Archfield, who wound it twice on her tiny wrist, tried to get it over her head, and did everything but ask for it, till her husband, turning round, said roughly, "Give it back, madam. We want no Popish toys here." Lucy put in a hasty question whether Master Oakshott had seen much sport, and this led to a spirited description of the homely earnest of wild boar hunting under the great Elector of Brandenburg, in contrast with the splendours of la chasse aux sangliers at Fontainebleau with the green and gold uniforms, the fanfares on the curled horns, the ladies in their coaches, forced to attend whether ill or well, the very boars themselves too well bred not to conform to the sport of the great idol of France. And again, he showed the diamond sleeve buttons, the trophies of a sort of bazaar held at Marly, where the stalls were kept by the Dauphin, Monsieur, the Duke of Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and the rest, where the purchases were winnings at Ombre, made not with coin but with nominal sums, and other games at cards, and all was given away that was not purchased. And again the levees, when the King's wig was handed through the curtains on a stick. Peregrine's profane mimicry of the stately march of Louis Quatorze, and the cringing obeisances of his courtiers, together with their strutting majesty towards their own inferiors, convulsed all with merriment; and the bride shrieked out, "Do it again! Oh, I shall die of laughing!" It was very girlish, with a silvery ring, but the elder ladies looked round, and the bridegroom muttered 'Mountebank.' The fiddler arrived at that moment, and the young people paired off, the young couple naturally together, and Peregrine, to the surprise and perhaps discomfiture of more than one visitor, securing Anne's hand. The young lady pupils of Madame knew their steps, and Lucy danced correctly, Anne with an easy, stately grace, Charles Archfield performed his devoir seriously, his little wife frisked with childish glee, evidently quite untaught, but Peregrine's light narrow feet sprang, pointed themselves, and bounded with trained agility, set off by the tight blackness of his suit. He was like one of the grotesque figures shaped in black paper, or as Sir Philip, looking in from the dining-parlour, observed, "like a light- heeled French fop." As a rule partners retained one another all the evening, but little Mrs. Archfield knew no etiquette, and maybe her husband had pushed and pulled her into place a little more authoritatively than she quite approved, for she shook him off, and turning round to Peregrine exclaimed-- "Now, I will dance with you! You do leap and hop so high and trippingly! Never mind her; she is only a parson's niece!" "Madam!" exclaimed Charles, in a tone of surprised displeasure; but she only nodded archly at him, and said, "I must dance with him; he can jump so high." "Let her have her way," whispered Lucy, "she is but a child, and it will be better not to make a pother." He yielded, though with visible annoyance, asking Anne if she would put up with a poor deserted swain, and as he led her off muttering, "That fellow's friskiness is like to be taken out of him at Oakwood." Meanwhile the small creature had taken possession of her chosen partner, who, so far as size went, was far better suited to her than any of the other men present. They were dancing something original and unpremeditated, with twirls and springs, sweeps and bends, bounds and footings, just as the little lady's fancy prompted, perhaps guided in some degree by her partner's experience of national dances. White and black, they figured about, she with floating sheeny hair and glistening robes, he trim and tight and jetty, like fairy and imp! It was so droll and pretty that talkers and dancers alike paused to watch them in a strange fascination, till at last, quite breathless and pink as a moss rosebud, Alice dropped upon a chair near her husband. He stood grim, stiff, and vexed, all the more because Peregrine had taken her fan and was using it so as to make it wave like butterfly's wings, while poor Charles looked, as the Doctor whispered to his father, far more inclined to lay it about her ears. Sir Philip laughed heartily, for both he and the Doctor had been so much entranced and amused as to be far more diverted at the lad's discomfiture than scandalised at the bride's escapade, which they viewed as child's play. Perhaps, however, he was somewhat comforted by her later observation, "He is as ugly as Old Nick, and looks like always laughing at you; but I wish you could dance like him, Mr. Archfield, only then you wouldn't be my dear old great big husband, or so beautiful to look at. Oh, yes, to be sure, he is nothing but a skipjack such as one makes out of a chicken bone!" And Anne meanwhile was exclaiming to her mother, "Oh, madam! how could they do such a thing? How could they make poor Charley marry that foolish ill-mannered little creature?" "Hush, daughter, you must drop that childish name," said Mrs. Woodford gravely. Anne blushed. "I forgot, madam, but I am so sorry for him." "There is no reason for uneasiness, my dear. She is a mere child, and under such hands as Lady Archfield she is sure to improve. It is far better that she should be so young, as it will be the more easy to mould her." "I hope there is any stuff in her to be moulded," sighed the maiden. "My dear child," returned her mother, "I cannot permit you to talk in this manner. Yes, I know Mr. Archfield has been as a brother to you, but even his sister ought not to allow herself to discuss or dwell on what she deems the shortcomings of his wife." The mother in her prudence had silenced the girl; but none the less did each fall asleep with a sad and foreboding heart. She knew her child to be good and well principled, but those early days of notice and petting from the young Princesses of the House of York had never faded from the childish mind, and although Anne was dutiful, cheerful, and outwardly contented, the mother often suspected that over the spinning-wheel or embroidery frame she indulged in day dreams of heroism, promotion, and grandeur, which might either fade away in a happy life of domestic duty or become temptations. Before going away next morning Peregrine entreated that Mistress Anne might have the Queen's rosary, but her mother decidedly refused. "It ought to be an heirloom in your family," said she. He threw up his hands with one of his strange gestures.	{ "id": "12449" }
9	ON HIS TRAVELS	"For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do." ISAAC WATTS. Peregrine went off in good spirits, promising a visit on his return to London, of which he seemed to have no doubt; but no more was heard of him for ten days. At the end of that time the Portsmouth carrier conveyed the following note to Winchester:-- HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR--Seven years since your arguments and intercession induced my father to consent to what I hoped had been the rescue of me, body and soul. I know not whether to ask of your goodness to make the same endeavour again. My father declares that nothing shall induce him again to let me go abroad with my uncle, and persists in declaring that the compact has been broken by our visits to Papist lands, nor will aught that I can say persuade him that the Muscovite abhors the Pope quite as much as he can. He likewise deems that having unfortunately become his heir, I must needs remain at home to thin the timber and watch the ploughmen; and when I have besought him to let me yield my place to Robert he replies that I am playing the part of Esau. I have written to my uncle, who has been a true father to me, and would be loth to part from me for his own sake as well as mine but I know not whether he will be able to prevail; and I entreat of you, reverend sir, to add your persuasions, for I well know that it would be my perdition to remain bound where I am. Commend me to Mrs. Woodford and Mistress Anne. I trust that the former is in better health. --I remain, reverend sir, Your humble servant to command, PEREGRINE OAKSHOTT. Given at Oakwood House, This 10th of October 1687. This was very bad news, but Dr. Woodford knew not how to interfere; moreover, being in course at the Cathedral, he could not absent himself long enough for an expedition to Oakwood, through wintry roads in short days. He could only write an encouraging letter to the poor lad, and likewise one to Mr. Horncastle, who under the Indulgence had a chapel of his own. The Doctor had kept up the acquaintance formed by Peregrine's accident, and had come to regard him with much esteem, and as likely to exercise a wholesome influence upon his patron. Nothing more was heard for a week, and then came another visitor to the Doctor's door, Sir Peregrine himself, on his way down, at considerable inconvenience, to endeavour to prevail with his brother to allow him to retain his nephew in his suite. "Surely," he said, "my brother had enough of camps in his youth to understand that his son will be none the worse squire for having gone a little beyond Hampshire bogs, and learnt what the world is made of." "I cannot tell," said Dr. Woodford; "I have my fears that he thinks the less known of the world the better." "That might answer with a heavy clod of a lad such as the poor youth who is gone, and such as, for his own sake and my brother's, I trust the younger one is, fruges consumere natus; but as for this boy, dulness and vacancy are precisely what would be the ruin of him. Let my brother keep Master Robert at home, and give him Oakwood; I will provide for Perry as I always promised to do." "If he is wise he will accept the offer," said Dr. Woodford; "but 'tis hard to be wise for others." "Nothing harder, sir. I would that I had gone home with Perry, but mine audience of his Majesty was fixed for the ensuing week, and my brother's summons was peremptory." "I trust your honour will prevail," said Mrs. Woodford gently. "You have effected a mighty change in the poor boy, and I can well believe that he is as a son to you." "Well, madam, yes--as sons go," said the knight in a somewhat disappointing tone. She looked at him anxiously, and ventured to murmur a hope so very like an inquiry, and so full of solicitous hope, that it actually unlocked the envoy's reserve, and he said, "Ah, madam, you have been the best mother that the poor youth has ever had! I will speak freely to you, for should I fail in overcoming my brother's prejudices, you will be able to do more for him than any one else, and I know you will be absolutely secret." Mrs. Woodford sighed, with forebodings of not long being able to aid any one in this world, but still she listened with earnest interest and sympathy. "Yes, madam, you implanted in him that which yet may conquer his strange nature. Your name is as it were a charm to conjure up his better spirit." "Of course," she said, "I never durst hope, that he could be tamed and under control all at once, but--" and she paused. "He has improved--vastly improved," said the uncle. "Indeed, when first I took him with me, while he was still weak, and moreover much overcome by sea-sickness, while all was strange to him, and he was relieved by not finding himself treated as an outcast, I verily thought him meeker than other urchins, and that the outcry against him was unmerited. But no sooner had we got to Berlin, and while I was as yet too busy to provide either masters or occupations for my young gentleman, than he did indeed make me feel that I had charge of a young imp, and that if I did not watch the better, it might be a case of war with his Spanish Majesty. For would you believe it, his envoy's gardens joined ours, and what must my young master do, but sit atop of our wall, making grimaces at the dons and donnas as they paced the walks, and pelting them from time to time with walnuts. Well, I was mindful of your counsel, and did not flog him, nor let my chaplain do so, though I know the good man's fingers itched to be at him; but I reasoned with him on the harm he was doing me, and would you believe it, the poor lad burst into tears, and implored me to give him something to do, to save him from his own spirit. I set him to write out and translate a long roll of Latin despatches sent up by that pedant Court in Hungary, and I declare to you I had no more trouble with him till next he was left idle. I gave him tutors, and he studied with fervour, and made progress at which they were amazed. He learnt the High Dutch faster than any other of my people, and could soon jabber away in it with the best of the Elector's folk, and I began to think I had a nephew who would do me no small credit. I sent him to perfect his studies at Leyden, but shall I confess it to you? it was to find that no master nor discipline could keep him out of the riotings and quarrels of the worse sort of students. Nay, I found him laid by with a rapier thrust in the side from a duel, for no better cause than biting his thumb at a Scots law student in chapel, his apology being that to sit through a Dutch sermon drove him crazy. 'Tis not that he is not trustworthy. Find employment for the restless demon that is in him, and all is well with him; moreover, he is full of wit and humour, and beguiles a long journey or tedious evening at an inn better than any comrade I ever knew, extracting mirth from all around, even the very discomforts, and searching to the quick all that is to be seen. But if left to himself, the restless demon that preys on him is sure to set him to something incalculable. At Turin it set him to scraping acquaintance with a Capuchin friar, a dirty rogue whom I would have kept on the opposite side of the street. That was his graver mood; but what more must he do, but borrow or steal, I know not how, the ghastly robes of the Confraternity of Death--the white garb and peaked cap with two holes for the eyes, wherewith men of all degrees disguise themselves while doing the pious work of bearing the dead to the grave. None suspected him, for the disguise is complete, and a duke may walk unknown beside a water-carrier, bearing the corpse of a cobbler. All would have been well, but that at the very brink of the grave the boy's fiend--'tis his own word--impelled him to break forth into his wild "Ho! ho! ho!" with an eldritch shriek, and slipping out of his cerements, dash off headlong over the wall of the cemetery. He was not followed. I believe the poor body belonged to a fellow whose salvation was more than doubtful in spite of all the priests could do, and that the bearers really took him for the foul fiend. It was not till a week or two after that the ring of his voice and laugh caused him to be recognised by one of the Duke of Savoy's gentlemen, happily a prudent man, loth to cause a tumult against one of my suite, and he told me all privately in warning. Ay, and when I spoke to Peregrine, I found him thoroughly penitent at having insulted the dead; he had been unhappy ever since, and had actually bestowed his last pocket-piece on the widow. He made handsome apologies in good Italian, which he had picked up as fast as the German, to the gentleman, who promised that it should go no farther, and kept his word. It was the solemnity, Peregrine assured me, that brought back all the intolerableness of the preachings at home, and awoke the same demon." "How long ago was this, sir?" "About eighteen months." "And has all been well since?" "Fairly well. He has had fuller and more responsible work to do for me, his turn for languages making him a most valuable secretary; and in the French Court, really the most perilous of all to a young man's virtue, he behaved himself well. It is not debauchery that he has a taste for, but he must be doing something, and if wholesome occupations do not stay his appetite, he will be doing mischief. He brought on himself a very serious rebuke from the Prince of Orange, churlishly and roughly given, I allow, but fully merited, for making grimaces at his acquaintance among the young officers at a military inspection. Heaven help the lad if he be left with his father, whose most lively notion of innocent sport is scratching the heads of his hogs!" Nothing could be said in answer save earnest wishes that the knight might persuade his brother. Mrs. Woodford wished her brother-in-law to go with him to add force to his remonstrance; but on the whole it was thought better to leave the family to themselves, Dr. Woodford only writing to Major Oakshott, as well as to the youth himself. The result was anxiously watched for, and in another week, earlier in the day than Mrs. Woodford was able to leave her room, Sir Peregrine's horses stopped at the door, and as Anne ascertained by a peep from the window, he was only accompanied by his servants. "Yes," he said to the Doctor in his vexation, "one would really think that by force of eating Southdown mutton my poor brother had acquired the brains of one of his own rams! I declare 'tis a piteous sight to see a man resolute on ruining his son and breaking his own heart all for conscience sake!" "Say you so, sir! I had hoped that the sight of what you have made of your nephew might have had some effect." "All the effect it has produced is to make him more determined to take him from me. The Hampshire mind abhors foreign breeding, and the old Cromwellian spirit thinks good manners sprung from the world, and wit from the Evil One!" "I can quite believe that Peregrine's courtly airs are not welcomed here; I could see what our good neighbour, Sir Philip Archfield, thought of them; but whereas no power on earth could make the young gentleman a steady-going clownish youth after his father's heart, methought he might prefer his present polish to impishness." "So I told him, but I might as well have talked to the horse block. It is his duty, quotha, to breed his heir up in godly simplicity!" "Simplicity is all very well to begin with, but once flown, it cannot be restored." "And that is what my brother cannot see. Well, my poor boy must be left to his fate. There is no help for it, and all I can hope is that you, sir, and the ladies, will stand his friend, and do what may lie in your power to make him patient and render his life less intolerable." "Indeed, sir, we will do what we can; I wish that I could hope that it would be of much service." "My brother has more respect for your advice than perhaps you suppose; and to you, madam, the poor lad looks with earnest gratitude. Nay, even his mother reaps the benefit of the respect with which you have inspired him. Peregrine treats her with a gentleness and attention such as she never knew before from her bear cubs. Poor soul! I think she likes it, though it somewhat perplexes her, and she thinks it all French manners. There is one more favour, your reverence, which I scarce dare lay before you. You have seen my black boy Hans?" "He was with you at Oakwood seven years ago." "Even so. I bought the poor fellow when a mere child from a Dutch skipper who had used him scurvily, and he has grown up as faithful as a very spaniel, and mightily useful too, not only as body servant, but he can cook as well as any French maitre d'hotel, froth chocolate, and make the best coffee I ever tasted; is as honest as the day, and, I believe, would lay down his life for Peregrine or me. I shall be cruelly at a loss without him, but a physician I met in London tells me it would be no better than murder to take the poor rogue to so cold a country as Muscovy. I would leave him to wait on Perry, but they will not hear of it at Oakwood. My sister- in-law wellnigh had a fit every time she looked at him when I was there before, and I found, moreover, that even when I was at hand, the servants jeered at the poor blackamoor, gave him his meals apart, and only the refuse of their own, so that he would fare but ill if I left him to their mercy. I had thought of offering him to Mr. Evelyn of Says Court, who would no doubt use him well, but it was Peregrine who suggested that if you of your goodness would receive the poor fellow, they could sometimes meet, and that would cheer his heart, and he really is far from a useless knave, but is worth two of any serving-men I ever saw." To take an additional man-servant was by no means such a great proposal as it would be in most houses at present. Men swarmed in much larger proportion than maids in all families of condition, and the Doctor was wealthy enough for one--more or less--to make little difference, but the question was asked as to what wages Hans should receive. The knight laughed. "Wages, poor lad, what should he do with them? He is but a slave, I tell you. Meat, clothes, and fire, that is all he needs, and I will so deal with him that he will serve you in all faithfulness and obedience. He can speak English enough to know what you bid him do, but not enough for chatter with the servants." So the agreement was made, and poor Hans was to be sent down by the Portsmouth coach together with Peregrine's luggage.	{ "id": "12449" }
10	THE MENAGERIE	"The head remains unchanged within, Nor altered much the face, It still retains its native grin, And all its old grimace. "Men with contempt the brute surveyed, Nor would a name bestow, But women liked the motley beast, And called the thing a beau." The Monkies, MERRICK. The Woodford family did not long remain at Winchester. Anne declared the cold to be harming her mother, and became very anxious to bring her to the milder sea breezes of Portchester, and though Mrs. Woodford had little expectation that any place would make much difference to her, she was willing to return to the quiet and repose of her home under the castle walls beside the tranquil sea. Thus they travelled back, as soon as the Doctor's Residence was ended, plodding through the heavy chalk roads as well as the big horses could drag the cumbrous coach up and down the hills, only halting for much needed rest at Sir Philip Archfield's red house, round three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth with a low wall backed by a row of poplar trees, looking out on the alternate mud and sluggish waters of Fareham creek, but with a beautiful garden behind the house. The welcome was hearty. Lady Archfield at once conducted Mrs. Woodford to her own bedroom, where she was to rest and be served apart, and Anne disrobed her of her wraps, covered her upon the bed, and at her hostess's desire was explaining what refreshment would best suit her, when there was a shrill voice at the door: "I want Mistress Anne! I want to show her my clothes and jewels." "Coming, child, she is coming when she has attended to her mother," responded the lady. "White wine, or red, did you say, Anne, and a little ginger?" "Is she never coming?" was again the call; and Lady Archfield muttering, "Was there ever such an impatient poppet?" released Anne, who was instantly pounced upon by young Mrs. Archfield. Linking her arm into that of her visitor, and thrusting Lucy into the background, the little heiress proceeded to her own wainscotted bedroom, bare according to modern views, but very luxurious according to those of the seventeenth century, and with the toilette apparatus, scanty indeed, but of solid silver, and with a lavish amount of perfumery. Her 'own woman' was in waiting to display and refold the whole wedding wardrobe, brocade, satin, taffetas, cambric, Valenciennes, and point d'Alencon. Anne had to admire each in detail, and then to give full meed to the whole casket of jewels, numerous and dazzling as befitted a constellation of heirlooms upon one small head. They were beautiful, but it was wearisome to repeat 'Vastly pretty!' 'How exquisite!' 'That becomes you very well,' almost mechanically, when Lucy was standing about all the time, longing to exchange the girlish confidences that were burning to come forth. 'Young Madam,' as every one called her in those times when Christian names were at a discount, seemed to be jealous of attention to any one else, and the instant she saw the guest attempt to converse with her sister-in-law peremptorily interrupted, almost as if affronted. Perhaps if Anne had enjoyed freedom of speech with Lucy she would not have learnt as much as did her mother, for the young are often more scrupulous as to confidences than their seniors, who view them as still children, and freely discuss their affairs among themselves. So Lady Archfield poured out her troubles: how her daughter-in-law refused employment, and disdained instruction in needlework, housewifery, or any domestic art, how she jangled the spinnet, but would not learn music, and was unoccupied, fretful, and exacting, a burthen to herself and every one else, and treating Lucy as the slave of her whims and humours. As to such discipline as mothers- in-law were wont to exercise upon young wives, the least restraint or contradiction provoked such a tempest of passion as to shake the tiny, delicate frame to a degree that alarmed the good old matron for the consequences. Her health was a continual difficulty, for her constitution was very frail, every imprudence cost her suffering, and yet any check to her impulses as to food, exertion, or encountering weather was met by a spoilt child's resentment. Moreover, her young husband, and even his father, always thought the ladies were hard upon her, and would not have her vexed; and as their presence always brightened and restrained her, they never understood the full amount of her petulance and waywardness, and when they found her out of spirits, or out of temper, they charged all on her ailments or on want of consideration from her mother and sister-in-law. Poor Lady Archfield, it was trying for her that her husband should be nearly as blind as his son. The young husband was wonderfully tender, indulgent, and patient with the little creature, but it would not be easy to say whether the affection were not a good deal like that for his dog or his horse, as something absolutely his own, with which no one else had a right to interfere. It was a relief to the family that she always wanted to be out of doors with him whenever the weather permitted, nay, often when it was far from suitable to so fragile a being; but if she came home aching and crying ever so much with chill or fatigue, even if she had to keep her bed afterwards, she was equally determined to rush out as soon as she was up again, and as angry as ever at remonstrance. Charles was gone to try a horse; and as the remains of the effects of her last imprudence had prevented her accompanying him, the arrival of the guests had been a welcome diversion to the monotony of the morning. He was, however, at home again by the time the dinner-bell summoned the younger ladies from the inspection of the trinkets and the gentlemen from the live stock, all to sit round the heavy oaken table draped with the whitest of napery, spun by Lady Archfield in her maiden days, and loaded with substantial joints, succeeded by delicacies manufactured by herself and Lucy. As to the horse, Charles was fairly satisfied, but 'that fellow, young Oakshott, had been after him, and had the refusal.' "Don't you be outbid, Mr. Archfield," exclaimed the wife. "What is the matter of a few guineas to us?" "Little fear," replied Charles. "The old Major is scarcely like to pay down twenty gold caroluses, but if he should, the bay is his." "Oh, but why not offer thirty?" she cried. Charles laughed. "That would be a scurvy trick, sweetheart, and if Peregrine be a crooked stick, we need not be crooked too." "I was about to ask," said the Doctor, "whether you had heard aught of that same young gentleman." "I have seen him where I never desire to see him again," said Sir Philip, "riding as though he would be the death of the poor hounds." "Nick Huntsman swears that he bewitches them," said Charles, "for they always lose the scent when he is in the field, but I believe 'tis the wry looks of him that throw them all out." "And I say," cried the inconsistent bride, "that 'tis all jealousy that puts the gentlemen beside themselves, because none of them can dance, nor make a bow, nor hand a cup of chocolate, nor open a gate on horseback like him." "What does a man on horseback want with opening gates?" exclaimed Charles. "That's your manners, sir," said young Madam with a laugh. "What's the poor lady to do while her cavalier flies over and leaves her in the lurch?" Her husband did not like the general laugh, and muttered, "You know what I mean well enough." "Yes, so do I! To fumble at the fastening till your poor beast can bear it no longer and swerves aside, and I sit waiting a good half hour before you bring down your pride enough to alight and open it." "All because you _would_ send Will home for your mask." "You would like to have had my poor little face one blister with the glare of sun and sea." "Blisters don't come at this time of the year." "No, nor to those who have no complexion to lose," she cried, with a triumphant look at the two maidens, who certainly had not the lilies nor the roses that she believed herself to have, though, in truth, her imprudences had left her paler and less pretty than at Winchester. If this were the style of the matrimonial conversations, Anne again grieved for her old playfellow, and she perceived that Lucy looked uncomfortable; but there was no getting a moment's private conversation with her before the coach was brought round again for the completion of the journey. All that neighbourhood had a very bad reputation as the haunt of lawless characters, prone to violence; and though among mere smugglers there was little danger of an attack on persons well known like the Woodford family, they were often joined by far more desperate men from the seaport, so that it was never desirable to be out of doors after dark. The journey proved to have been too much for Mrs. Woodford's strength, and for some days she was so ill that Anne never left the house; but she rallied again, and on coming downstairs became very anxious that her daughter should not be more confined by attendance than was wholesome, and insisted on every opportunity of change or amusement being taken. One day as Anne was in the garden she was surprised by Peregrine dashing up on horseback. "You would not take the Queen's rosary before," he said. "You must now, to save it. My father has smelt it out. He says it is teraphim! Micah--Rachel, what not, are quoted against it. He would have smashed it into fragments, but that Martha Browning said it would be a pretty bracelet. I'd sooner see it smashed than on her red fist. To think of her giving in to such vanities! But he said she might have it, only to be new strung. When he was gone she said, 'I don't really want the thing, but it was hard you should lose the Queen's keepsake. Can you bestow it safely?' I said I could, and brought it hither. Keep it, Anne, I pray." Anne hesitated, and referred it to her mother upstairs. "Tell him," she said, "that we will keep it in trust for him as a royal gift." Peregrine was disappointed, but had to be content. A Dutch vessel from the East Indies had brought home sundry strange animals, which were exhibited at the Jolly Mariner at Portsmouth, and thus announced on a bill printed on execrable paper, brought out to Portchester by some of the market people:-- "An Ellefante twice the Bignesse of an Ocks, the Trunke or Probosces whereof can pick up a Needle or roote up an Ellum Tree. Also the Royale Tyger, the same as has slaine and devoured seven yonge Gentoo babes, three men, and two women at the township at Chuttergong, nie to Bombay, in the Eastern Indies. Also the sacred Ape, worshipped by the heathen of the Indies, the Dancing Serpent which weareth Spectacles, and whose Bite is instantly mortal, with other rare Fish, Fowle, Idols and the like. All to be seene at the Charge of one Groat per head." Mrs. Woodford declared herself to be extremely desirous that her daughter should see and bring home an account of all these marvels, and though Anne had no great inclination to face the tiger with the formidable appetite, she could not refuse to accompany her uncle. The Jolly Mariner stood in one of the foulest and narrowest of the streets of the unsavoury seaport, and Dr. Woodford sighed, and fumed, and wished for a good pipe of tobacco more than once as he hesitated to try to force a way for his niece through the throng round the entrance to the stable-yard of the Jolly Mariner, apparently too rough to pay respect to gown and cassock. Anne clung to his arm, ready to give up the struggle, but a voice said, "Allow me, sir. Mistress Anne, deign to take my arm." It was Peregrine Oakshott with his brother Robert, and she could hardly tell how in a few seconds she had been squeezed through the crowd, and stood in the inn-yard, in a comparatively free space, for a groat was a prohibitory charge to the vulgar. "Peregrine! Master Oakshott!" They heard an exclamation of pleasure, at which Peregrine shrugged his shoulders and looked expressively at Anne, before turning to receive the salutations of an elderly gentleman and a tall young woman, very plainly but handsomely clad in mourning deeper than his own. She was of a tall, gaunt, angular figure, and a face that never could have been handsome, and now bore evident traces of smallpox in redness and pits. Dr. Woodford knew the guardian Mr. Browning, and his ward Mistress Martha and Mistress Anne Jacobina were presented to one another. The former gave a good-humoured smile, as if perfectly unconscious of her own want of beauty, and declared she had hoped to meet all the rest here, especially Mistress Anne Woodford, of whom she had heard so much. There was just a little patronage about the tone which repelled the proud spirit that was in Anne, and in spite of the ordinary dread and repulsion she felt for Peregrine, she was naughty enough to have the feeling of a successful beauty when Peregrine most manifestly turned away from the heiress in her silk and velvet to do the honours of the exhibition to the parson's niece. The elephant was fastened by the leg to a post, which perhaps he could have pulled up, had he thought it worth his while, but he was well contented to wave his trunk about and extend its clever finger to receive contributions of cakes and apples, and he was too well amused to resort to any strong measures. The tiger, to Anne's relief, proved to be only a stuffed specimen. Peregrine, who had seen a good many foreign animals in Holland, where the Dutch captains were in the habit of bringing curiosities home for the delectation of their families in their Lusthausen, was a very amusing companion, having much to tell about bird and beast, while Robert stood staring with open mouth. The long-legged secretary and the beautiful doves were, however, only stuffed, but Anne was much entertained at second hand with the relation of the numerous objects, which on the word of a Leyden merchant had been known to disappear in the former bird's capacious crop, and with stories of the graceful dancing of the cobra, though she was not sorry that the present specimen was only visible in a bottle of arrack, where his spectacled hood was scarcely apparent. Presently a well known shrill young voice was heard. "Yes, yes, I know I shall swoon at that terrible tiger! Oh, don't! I can't come any farther." "Why, you would come, madam," said Charles. "Yes, yes! but--oh, there's a two-tailed monster! I know it is the tiger! It is moving! I shall die if you take me any farther." "Plague upon your folly, madam! It is only the elephant," said a gruffer, rude voice. "Oh, it is dreadful! 'Tis like a mountain! I can't! Oh no, I can't!" "Come, madam, you have brought us thus far, you must come on, and not make fools of us all," said Charles's voice. "There's nothing to hurt you." Anne, understanding the distress and perplexity, here turned back to the passage into the court, and began persuasively to explain to little Mrs. Archfield that the tiger was dead, and only a skin, and that the elephant was the mildest of beasts, till she coaxed forward that small personage, who had of course never really intended to turn back, supported and guarded as she was by her husband, and likewise by a tall, glittering figure in big boots and a handsome scarlet uniform and white feather who claimed her attention as he strode into the court. "Ha! Mistress Anne and the Doctor on my life. What, don't you know me?" "Master Sedley Archfield!" said the Doctor; "welcome home, sir! 'Tis a meeting of old acquaintance. You and this gentleman are both so much altered that it is no wonder if you do not recognise one another at once." "No fear of Mr. Perry Oakshott not being recognised," said Sedley Archfield, holding out his hand, but with a certain sneer in his rough voice that brought Peregrine's eyebrows together. "Kenspeckle enough, as the fools of Whigs say in Scotland." "Are you long from Scotland, sir?" asked Dr. Woodford, by way of preventing personalities. "Oh ay, sir; these six months and more. There's not much more sport to be had since the fools of Cameronians have been pretty well got under, and 'tis no loss to be at Hounslow." "And oh, what a fright!" exclaimed Mrs. Archfield, catching sight of the heiress. "Keep her away! She makes me ill." They were glad to divert her attention to feeding the elephant, and she was coquetting a little about making up her mind to approach even the defunct tiger, while she insisted on having the number of his victims counted over to her. Anne asked for Lucy, to whom she wanted to show the pigeons, but was answered that, "my lady wanted Lucy at home over some matter of jellies and blancmanges." Charles shrugged his shoulders a little and Sedley grumbled to Anne. "The little vixen sets her heart on cates that she won't lay a finger to make, and poor Lucy is like to be no better than a cook- maid, while they won't cross her, for fear of her tantrums." At that instant piercing screams, shriek upon shriek, rang through the court, and turning hastily round, Anne beheld a little monkey perched on Mrs. Archfield's head, having apparently leapt thither from the pole to which it was chained. The keeper was not in sight, being in fact employed over a sale of some commodities within. There was a general springing to the rescue. Charles tried to take the creature off, Sedley tugged at the chain fastened to a belt round its body, but the monkey held tight by the curls on the lady's forehead with its hands, and crossed its legs round her neck, clasping the hands so that the effect of the attempts of her husband and his cousin was only to throttle her, so that she could no longer scream and was almost in a fit, when on Peregrine holding out a nut and speaking coaxingly in Dutch, the monkey unloosed its hold, and with another bound was on his arm. He stood caressing and feeding it, talking to it in the same tongue, while it made little squeaks and chatterings, evidently delighted, though its mournful old man's visage still had the same piteous expression. There was something most grotesque and almost weird in the sight of Peregrine's queer figure toying with its odd hands which seemed to be in black gloves, and the strange language he talked to it added to the uncanny effect. Even the Doctor felt it as he stood watching, and would have muttered 'Birds of a feather,' but that the words were spoken more gruffly and plainly by Sedley Archfield, who said something about the Devil and his dam, which the good Doctor did not choose to hear, and only said to Peregrine, "You know how to deal with the jackanapes." "I have seen some at Leyden, sir. This is a pretty little beast." Pretty! There was a recoil in horror, for the creature looked to the crowd demoniacal. Something the same was the sensation of Charles, who, assisted by Anne and Martha, had been rather carrying than leading his wife into the inn parlour, where she immediately had a fit of hysterics--vapours, as they called it--bringing all the women of the inn about her, while Martha and Anne soothed her as best they could, and he was reduced to helplessly leaning out at the bay window. When the sobs and cries subsided, under cold water and essences without and strong waters within, and the little lady in Martha's strong arms, between the matronly coaxing of the fat hostess and the kind soothings of the two young ladies, had been restored to something of equanimity, Mistress Martha laid her down and said with the utmost good humour and placidity to the young husband, "Now I'll go, sir. She is better now, but the sight of my face might set her off again." "Oh, do not say so, madam. We are infinitely obliged. Let her thank you." But Martha shook her hand and laughed, turning to leave the room, so that he was fain to give her his arm and escort her back to her guardian. Then ensued a scream. "Where's he going? Mr. Archfield, don't leave me." "He is only taking Mistress Browning back to her guardian," said Anne. "Eh? oh, how can he? A hideous fright!" she cried. To say the truth, she was rather pleased to have had such a dreadful adventure, and to have made such a commotion, though she protested that she must go home directly, and could never bear the sight of those dreadful monsters again, or she should die on the spot. "But," said she, when the coach was at the door, and Anne had restored her dress to its dainty gaiety, "I must thank Master Peregrine for taking off that horrible jackanapes." "Small thanks to him," said Charles crossly. "I wager it was all his doing out of mere spite." "He is too good a beau ever to spite _me_," said Mrs. Alice, her head a little on one side. "Then to show off what he could do with the beast--Satan's imp, like himself." "No, no, Mr. Archfield," pleaded Anne, "that was impossible; I saw him myself. He was with that sailor-looking man measuring the height of the secretary bird." "I believe you are always looking after him," grumbled Charles. "I can't guess what all the women see in him to be always gazing after him." "Because he is so charmingly ugly," laughed the young wife, tripping out in utter forgetfulness that she was to die if she went near the beasts again. She met Peregrine half way across the yard with outstretched hands, exclaiming-- "O Mr. Oakshott! it was so good in you to take away that nasty beast." "I am glad, madam, to have been of use," said Peregrine, bowing and smiling, a smile that might explain something of his fascination. "The poor brute was only drawn, as all of our kind are. He wanted to see so sweet a lady nearer. He is quite harmless. Will you stroke him? See, there he sits, gazing after you. Will you give him a cake and make friends?" "No, no, madam, it cannot be; it is too much," grumbled Charles; and though Alice had backed at first, perhaps for the pleasure of teasing him, or for that of being the centre of observation, actually, with all manner of pretty airs and graces, she let herself be led forward, lay a timid hand on the monkey's head, and put a cake in its black fingers, while all the time Peregrine held it fast and talked Dutch to it; and Charles Archfield hardly contained his rage, though Anne endeavoured to argue the impossibility of Peregrine's having incited the attack; and Sedley blustered that they ought to interfere and make the fellow know the reason why. However, Charles had sense enough to know that though he might exhale his vexation in grumbling, he had no valid cause for quarrelling with young Oakshott, so he contented himself with black looks and grudging thanks, as he was obliged to let Peregrine hand his wife into her carriage amid her nods and becks and wreathed smiles. They would have taken Dr. Woodford and his niece home in the coach, but Anne had an errand in the town, and preferred to return by boat. She wanted some oranges and Turkey figs to allay her mother's constant thirst, and Peregrine begged permission to accompany them, saying that he knew where to find the best and cheapest. Accordingly he took them to a tiny cellar, in an alley by the boat camber, where the Portugal oranges certainly looked riper and were cheaper than any that Anne had found before; but there seemed to be an odd sort of understanding between Peregrine and the withered old weather-beaten sailor who sold them, such as rather puzzled the Doctor. "I hope these are not contraband," he said to Peregrine, when the oranges had been packed in the basket of the servant who followed them. Peregrine shrugged his shoulders. "Living is hard, sir. Ask no questions." The Doctor looked tempted to turn back with the fruit, but such doubts were viewed as ultra scruples, and would hardly have been entertained even by a magistrate such as Sir Philip Archfield. It was not a time for questions, and Peregrine remained with them till they embarked at the point, asking to be commended to Mrs. Woodford, and hoping soon to come and see both her and poor Hans, he left them.	{ "id": "12449" }
11	PROPOSALS	"Hear me, ye venerable core, As counsel for poor mortals, That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door For glaikit Folly's portals; I for their thoughtless, careless sakes Would here propose defences, Their doucie tricks, their black mistakes, Their failings and mischances." BURNS. For seven years Anne Woodford had kept Lucy Archfield's birthday with her, and there was no refusing now, though there was more and more unwillingness to leave Mrs. Woodford, whose declining state became so increasingly apparent that even the loving daughter could no longer be blind to it. The coach was sent over to fetch Mistress Anne to Fareham, and the invalid was left, comfortably installed in her easy-chair by the parlour fire, with a little table by her side, holding a hand-bell, a divided orange, a glass of toast and water, and the Bible and Prayer-book, wherein lay her chief studies, together with a little needlework, which still amused her feeble hands. The Doctor, divided between his parish, his study, and his garden, had promised to look in from time to time. Presently, however, the door was gently tapped, and on her call "Come in," Hans, all one grin, admitted Peregrine Oakshott, bowing low in his foreign, courteous manner, and entreating her to excuse his intrusion, "For truly, madam, in your goodness is my only hope." Then he knelt on one knee and kissed the hand she held out to him, while desiring him to speak freely to her. "Nay, madam, I fear I shall startle you, when I lay before you the only chance that can aid me to overcome the demon that is in me." "My poor--" "Call me your boy, as when I was here seven years ago. Let me sit at your feet as then and listen to me." "Indeed I will, my dear boy," and she laid her hand on his dark head. "Tell me all that is in your heart." "Ah, dear lady, that is not soon done! You and Mistress Anne, as you well know, first awoke me from my firm belief that I was none other than an elf, and yet there have since been times when I have doubted whether it were not indeed the truth." "Nay, Peregrine, at years of discretion you should have outgrown old wives' tales." "Better be an elf at once--a soulless creature of the elements--than the sport of an evil spirit doomed to perdition," he bitterly exclaimed. "Hush, hush! You know not what you are saying!" "I know it too well, madam! There are times when I long and wish after goodness--nay, when Heaven seems open to me--and I resolve and strive after a perfect life; but again comes the wild, passionate dragging, as it were, into all that at other moments I most loathe and abhor, and I become no more my own master. Ah!" There was misery in his voice, and he clutched the long hair on each side of his face with his hands. "St. Paul felt the same," said Mrs. Woodford gently. " 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Ay, ay! how many times have I not groaned that forth! And so, if that Father at Turin were right, I am but as Paul was when he was Saul. Madam, is it not possible that I was never truly baptized?" he cried eagerly. "Impossible, Peregrine. Was not Mr. Horncastle chaplain when you were born? Yes; and I have heard my brother say that both he and your father held the same views as the Church upon baptism." "So I thought; but Father Geronimo says that at the best it was but heretical baptism, and belike hastily and ineffectually performed." "Put that aside, Peregrine. It is only a temptation and allurement." "It is an allurement you know not how strong," said the poor youth. "Could I only bring myself to believe all that Father Geronimo does, and fall down before his Madonnas and saints, then could I hope for a new nature, and scourge away the old"--he set his teeth as he spoke--"till naught remains of the elf or demon, be it what it will." "Ah, Peregrine, scourging will not do it, but grace will, and that grace is indeed yours, as is proved by these higher aspirations." "I tell you, madam, that if I live on as I am doing now, grace will be utterly stifled, if it ever abode in me at all. Every hour that I live, pent in by intolerable forms and immeasurable dulness, the maddening temper gains on me! Nay, I have had to rush out at night and swear a dozen round oaths before I could compose myself to sit down to the endless supper. Ah, I shock you, madam! but that's not the worst I am driven to do." "Nor the way to bring the better spirit, my poor youth. Oh, that you would pray instead of swearing!" "I cannot pray at Oakwood. My father and Mr. Horncastle drive away all the prayers that ever were in me, and I mean nothing, even though I keep my word to you." "I am glad you do that. While I know you are doing so, I shall still believe the better angel will triumph." "How can aught triumph but hatred and disgust where I am pinned down? Listen, madam, and hear if good spirits have any chance. We break our fast, ere the sun is up, on chunks of yesterday's half- dressed beef and mutton. If I am seen seeking for a morsel not half raw, I am rated for dainty French tastes; and the same with the sour smallest of beer. I know now what always made me ill-tempered as a child, and I avoid it, but at the expense of sneers on my French breeding, even though my drink be fair water; for wine, look you, is a sinful expense, save for after dinner, and frothed chocolate for a man is an invention of Satan. The meal is sauced either with blame of me, messages from the farm-folk, or Bob's exploits in the chase. Then my father goes his rounds on the farm, and would fain have me with him to stand knee-deep in mire watching the plough, or feeling each greasy and odorous old sheep in turn to see if it be ready for the knife, or gloating over the bullocks or swine, or exchanging auguries with Thomas Vokes on this or that crop. Faugh! And I am told I shall never be good for a country gentleman if I contemn such matters! I say I have no mind to be a country gentleman, whereby I am told of Esau till I am sick of his very name." "But surely you have not always to follow on this round?" "Oh no! I may go out birding with Bob, who is about as lively as an old jackass, or meet the country boobies for a hunt, and be pointed at as the Frenchman, and left to ride alone; or there's mine own chamber, when the maids do not see fit to turn me out with their pails and besoms, as they do at least twice a week--I sit there in my cloak and furs (by the way, I am chidden for an effeminate fop if ever I am seen in them). I would give myself to books, as my uncle counselled, but what think you? By ill hap Bob, coming in to ask some question, found me studying the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri, and hit upon one of the engravings representing the torments of purgatory. What must he do but report it, and immediately a hue and cry arises that I am being corrupted with Popish books. In vain do I tell them that their admirable John Milton, the only poet save Sternhold and Hopkins that my father deems not absolute pagan, knew, loved, and borrowed from Dante. All my books are turned over as ruthlessly as ever Don Quixote's by the curate and the barber, and whatever Mr. Horncastle's erudition cannot vouch for is summarily handed over to the kitchen wench to light the fires. The best of it is that they have left me my classics, as though old Terence and Lucan were lesser heathens than the great Florentine. However, I have bribed the young maid, and rescued my Dante and Boiardo with small damage, but I dare not read them save with door locked." Mrs. Woodford could scarcely shake her head at the disobedience, and she asked if there were really no other varieties. "Such as fencing with that lubber Robert, and trying to bend his stiff limbs to the noble art of l'escrime. But that is after dinner work. There is the mountain of half-raw flesh to be consumed first, and then my father, with Mr. Horncastle and Bob discuss on what they call the news--happy if a poor rogue has been caught by Tom Constable stealing faggots. 'Tis argument for a week--almost equal to the price of a fat mutton at Portsmouth. My father and the minister nod in due time over their ale-cup, and Bob and I go our ways till dark, or till the house bell rings for prayers and exposition. Well, dear good lady, I will not grieve you by telling you how often they make me wish to be again the imp devoid of every shred of self-respect, and too much inured to flogging to heed what my antics might bring on me." "I am glad you have that shred of self respect; I hope indeed it is some higher respect." "Well, I can never believe that Heaven meant to be served by mortal dullness. Seven years have only made old Horncastle blow his horn to the same note, only more drearily." "I can see indeed that it is a great trial to one used to the life of foreign Courts and to interest in great affairs like you, my poor Peregrine; but what can I say but to entreat you to be patient, try to find interest, and endeavour to win your father's confidence so that he may accord you more liberty? Did I not hear that your attention made your mother's life happier?" Peregrine laughed. "My mother! She has never seen aught but boorishness all her life, and any departure therefrom seems to her unnatural. I believe she is as much afraid of my courtesy as ever she was of my mischief, and that in her secret heart she still believes me a changeling. No, Madam Woodford, there is but one way to save me from the frenzy that comes over me." "Your father has already been entreated to let you join your uncle." "I know it--I know it; but if it were impossible before, that discovery of Dante has made it impossibilissimo, as the Italian would say, to deal with him now. There is a better way. Give me the good angel who has always counteracted the evil one. Give me Mistress Anne!" "Anne, my Anne!" exclaimed Mrs. Woodford in dismay. "O Peregrine, it cannot be!" "I knew that would be your first word," said Peregrine, "but verily, madam, I would not ask it but that I know that I should be another man with her by my side, and that she would have nothing to fear from the evil that dies at her approach." "Ah, Peregrine! you think so now; but no man can be sure of himself with any mere human care. Besides, my child is not of degree to match with you. Your father would justly be angered if we took advantage of your attachment to us to encourage you in an inclination he could never approve." "I tell you, madam--yes, I must tell you all--my madness and my ruin will be completed if I am left to my father's will. I know what is hanging over me. He is only waiting till I am of age--at Midsummer, and the year of mourning is over for poor Oliver--I am sure no one mourns for him more heartily than I--to bind me to Martha Browning. If she would only bring the plague, or something worse than smallpox, to put an end to it at once!" "But that would make any such scheme all the more impossible." "Listen, madam; do but hear me. Even as children the very sight of Martha Browning's solemn face"--Peregrine drew his countenance down into a portentous length--"her horror at the slightest word or sport, her stiff broomstick carriage, all impelled me to the most impish tricks. And now--letting alone that pock-marks have seamed her grim face till she is as ugly as Alecto--she is a Precisian of the Precisians. I declare our household is in her eyes sinfully free! If she can hammer out a text of Scripture, and write her name in characters as big and gawky as herself, 'tis as far as her education has carried her, save in pickling, preserving, stitchery, and clear starching, the only arts not sinful in her eyes. If I am to have a broomstick, I had rather ride off on one at once to the Witches' Sabbath on the Wartburg than be tied to one for life." "I should think she would scarce accept you." "There's no such hope. She has been bred up to regard one of us as her lot, and she would accept me without a murmur if I were Beelzebub himself, horns and tail and all! Why, she ogles me with her gooseberry eyes already, and treats me as a chattel of her own." "Hush, hush, Peregrine! I cannot have you talk thus. If your father had such designs, it would be unworthy of us to favour you in crossing them." "Nay, madam, he hath never expressed them as yet. Only my mother and brother both refer to his purpose, and if I could show myself contracted to a young lady of good birth and education, he cannot gainsay; it might yet save me from what I will not and cannot endure. Not that such is by any means my chief and only motive. I have loved Mistress Anne with all my heart ever since she shone upon me like a being from a better world when I lay sick here. She has the same power of hushing the wild goblin within me as you have, madam. I am another man with her, as I am with you. It is my only hope! Give me that hope, and I shall be able to endure patiently. -- Ah! what have I done? Have I said too much?" He had talked longer and more eagerly than would have been good for the invalid even if the topic had been less agitating, and the emotion caused by this unexpected complication, consternation at the difficulties she foresaw, and the present difficulty of framing a reply, were altogether too much for Mrs. Woodford. She turned deadly white, and gasped for breath, so that Peregrine, in terror, dashed off in search of the maids, exclaiming that their mistress was in a swoon. The Doctor came out of his study much distressed, and in Anne's absence the household was almost helpless in giving the succours in which she had always been the foremost. Peregrine lingered about in remorse and despair, offering to fetch her or to go for the doctor, and finally took the latter course, thereto impelled by the angry words of the old cook, an enemy of his in former days. "No better? no, sir, nor 'tis not your fault if ever she be. You've been and frought her nigh to death with your terrifying ways." Peregrine was Hampshire man enough to know that to terrify only meant to tease, but he was in no mood to justify himself to old Patience, so he galloped off to Portsmouth, and only returned with the doctor to hear that Madam Woodford was in bed, and her daughter with her. She was somewhat better, but still very ill, and it was plain that this was no moment for pressing his suit even had it not been time for him to return home. Going to fetch the doctor might be accepted as a valid reason for missing the evening exhortation and prayer, but there were mistrustful looks that galled him. Anne's return was more beneficial to Mrs. Woodford than the doctor's visit, and the girl was still too ignorant of all that her mother's attacks of spasms and subsequent weakness implied to be as much alarmed as to depress her hopes. Yet Mrs. Woodford, lying awake in the night, detected that her daughter was restless and unhappy, and asked what ailed her, and how the visit had gone off. "You do not wish me to speak of such things, madam," was the answer. "Tell me all that is in your heart, my child." It all came out with the vehemence of a reserved nature when the flood is loosed. 'Young Madam' had been more than usually peevish and exacting, jealous perhaps at Lucy's being the heroine of the day, and fretful over a cold which confined her to the house, how she worried and harassed all around her with her whims, megrims and complaints could only too well be imagined, and how the entire pleasure of the day was destroyed. Lucy was never allowed a minute's conversation with her friend without being interrupted by a whine and complaints of unkindness and neglect. Lady Archfield's ill-usage, as the young wife was pleased to call every kind of restriction, was the favourite theme next to the daughter-in law's own finery, her ailments, and her notions of the treatment befitting her. And young Mr. Archfield himself, while handing his old friend out to the carriage that had fetched her, could not help confiding to her that he was nearly beside himself. His mother meant to be kind, but expected too much from one so brought up, and his wife--what could be done for her? She made herself miserable here, and every one else likewise. Yet even if his father would consent, she was utterly unfit to be mistress of a house of her own; and poor Charles could only utter imprecations on the guardians who could have had no idea how a young woman ought to be brought up. It was worse than an ill-trained hound." Mrs. Woodford heard what she extracted from her daughter with grief and alarm, and not only for her friends. "Indeed, my dear child," she said, "you must prevent such confidences. They are very dangerous things respecting married people." "It was all in a few moments, mamma, and I could not stop him. He is so unhappy;" and Anne's voice revealed tears. "The more reason why you should avoid hearing what he will soon be very sorry you have heard. Were he not a mere lad himself, it would be as inexcusable as it is imprudent thus to speak of the troubles and annoyances that often beset the first year of wedded life. I am sorry for the poor youth, who means no harm nor disloyalty, and is only treating you as his old companion and playmate; but he has no right thus to talk of his wife, above all to a young maiden too inexperienced to counsel him, and if he should attempt to do so again, promise me, my daughter, that you will silence him--if by no other means, by telling him so." "I promise!" said Anne, choking back her tears and lifting her head. "I am sure I never want to go to Fareham again while that Lieutenant Sedley Archfield is there. If those be army manners, they are what I cannot endure. He is altogether mean and hateful, above all when he scoffs at Master Oakshott." "I am afraid a great many do so, child, and that he often gives some occasion," put in Mrs. Woodford, a little uneasy that this should be the offence. "He is better than Sedley Archfield, be he what he will, madam," said the girl. "He never pays those compliments, those insolent disgusting compliments, such as he--that Sedley, I mean--when he found me alone in the hall, and I had to keep him at bay from trying to kiss me, only Mr. Archfield--Charley--came down the stairs before he was aware, and called out, 'I will thank you to behave yourself to a lady in my father's house.' And then he, Sedley, sneered 'The Parson's niece!' with such a laugh, mother, I shall never get it out of my ears. As if I were not as well born as he!" "That is not quite the way to take it, my child. I had rather you stood on your maidenly dignity and discretion than on your birth. I trust he will soon be away." "I fear he will not, mamma, for I heard say the troop are coming down to be under the Duke of Berwick at Portsmouth." "Then, dear daughter, it is the less mishap that you should be thus closely confined by loving attendance on me. Now, goodnight. Compose yourself to sleep, and think no more of these troubles." Nevertheless mother and daughter lay long awake, side by side, that night; the daughter in all the flutter of nerves induced by offended yet flattered feeling--hating the compliment, yet feeling that it was a compliment to the features that she was beginning to value. She was substantially a good, well-principled maiden, modest and discreet, with much dignified reserve, yet it was impossible that she should not have seen heads turned to look at her in Portsmouth, and know that she was admired above her contemporaries, so that even if it brought her inconvenience it was agreeable. Besides, her heart was beating with pity for the Archfields. The elder ones might have only themselves to blame, but it was very hard for poor Charles to have been blindly coupled to a being who did not know how to value him, still harder that there should be blame for a confidence where neither meant any harm--blame that made her blush on her pillow with indignant shame. Perhaps Mrs. Woodford divined these thoughts, for she too meditated deeply on the perils of her fair young daughter, and in the morning could not leave her room. In the course of the day she heard that Master Peregrine Oakshott had been to inquire for her, and was not surprised when her brother-in-law sought an interview with her. The gulf between the hierarchy and squirearchy was sufficient for a marriage to be thought a mesalliance, and it was with a smile at the folly as well as with a certain displeased pity that Dr. Woodford mentioned the proposal so vehemently pressed upon him by Peregrine Oakshott for his niece's hand. "Poor boy!" said Mrs. Woodford, "it is a great misfortune. You forbade him of course to speak of such a thing." "I told him that I could not imagine how he could think us capable of entertaining any such proposal without his father's consent. He seems to have hoped that to pledge himself to us might extort sanction from his father, not seeing that it would be a highly improper measure, and would only incense the Major." "All the more that the Major wishes to pass on Mistress Martha Browning to him, poor fellow." "He did not tell me so." Mrs. Woodford related what he had said to her, and the Doctor could not but observe: "The poor Major! his whole treatment of that unfortunate youth is as if he were resolved to drive him to distraction. But even if the Major were ever so willing, I doubt whether Master Peregrine be the husband you would choose for our little maid." "Assuredly not, poor fellow! though if she loved him as he loves her--which happily she does not--I should scarce dare to stand in the way, lest she should be the appointed instrument for his good." "He assured me that he had never directly addressed her." "No, and I trust he never will. Not that she is ever like to love him, although she does not shrink from him quite as much as others do. Yet there is a strain of ambition in my child's nature that might make her seek the elevation. But, my good brother, for this and other reasons we must find another home for my poor child when I am gone. Nay, brother, do not look at me thus; you know as well as I do that I can scarcely look to see the spring come in, and I would fain take this opportunity of speaking to you concerning my dear daughter. No one can be a kinder father to her than you, and I would most gladly leave her to cheer and tend you, but as things stand around us she can scarce remain here without a mother's watchfulness. She is guarded now by her strict attendance on my infirmity, but when I am gone how will it be?" "She is as good and discreet a maiden as parent could wish." "Good and discreet as far as her knowledge and experience go, but that is not enough. On the one hand, there is a certain wild temper about that young Master Oakshott such as makes me never know what he might attempt if, as he says, his father should drive him to desperation, and this is a lonely place, with the sea close at hand." "Lady Archfield would gladly take charge of her." Mrs. Woodford here related what Anne had said of Sedley's insolence, but this the Doctor thought little of, not quite believing in the regiment coming into the neighbourhood, and Mrs. Woodford most unwillingly was forced to mention her further unwillingness that her daughter should be made a party to the troubles caused by the silly young wife of her old playfellow. "What more?" said the Doctor, holding up his hands. "I never thought a discreet young maid could be such a care, but I suppose that is the price we pay for her good looks. Three of them, eh? What is it that you propose?" "I should like to place her in the household of some godly and kindly lady, who would watch over her and probably provide for her marriage. That, as you know, was my own course, and I was very happy in Lady Sandwich's family, till I made the acquaintance of your dear and honoured brother, and my greater happiness began. The first day that I am able I will write to some of my earlier friends, such as Mrs. Evelyn and Mrs. Pepys, and again there is Mistress Eleanor Wall, who, I hear, is married to Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, and who might accept my daughter for my sake. She is a warm, loving, open-hearted creature of Irish blood, and would certainly be kind to her." There was no indignity in such a plan. Most ladies of rank or quality entertained one or more young women of the clerical or professional classes as companions, governesses, or ladies' maids, as the case might be. They were not classed with the servants, but had their share of the society and amusements of the house, and a fair chance of marriage in their own degree, though the comfort of their situation varied a good deal according to the amiability of their mistress, from that of a confidential friend to a white slave and souffre douleur. Dr. Woodford had no cause to object except his own loss of his niece's society and return to bachelor life, after the eight years of companionship which he had enjoyed; but such complications as were induced by the presence of an attractive young girl were, as he allowed, beyond him, and he acquiesced with a sigh in the judgment of the mother, whom he had always esteemed so highly. The letters were written, and in due time received kind replies. Mrs. Evelyn proposed that the young gentlewoman should come and stay with her till some situation should offer itself, and Lady Oglethorpe, a warm-hearted Irishwoman, deeply attached to the Queen, declared her intention of speaking to the King or the Princess Anne on the first opportunity of the daughter of the brave Captain Woodford. There might very possibly be a nursery appointment to be had either at the Cockpit or at Whitehall in the course of the year. This was much more than Mrs. Woodford had desired. She had far rather have placed her daughter immediately under some kind matronly lady in a private household; but she knew that her good friend was always eager to promise to the utmost of her possible power. She did not talk much of this to her daughter, only telling her that the kind ladies had promised to befriend her, and find a situation for her; and Anne was too much shocked to find her mother actually making such arrangements to enter upon any inquiries. The perception that her mother was looking forward to passing away so soon entirely overset her; she would not think about it, would not admit the bare idea of the loss. Only there lurked at the bottom of her heart the feeling that when the crash had come, and desolation had over taken her, it would be more dreary at Portchester than anywhere else; and there might be infinite possibilities beyond for the King's godchild, almost a knight's daughter. The next time that Mrs. Woodford heard that Major Oakshott was at the door inquiring for her health, she begged as a favour that he would come and see her. The good gentleman came upstairs treading gently in his heavy boots, as one accustomed to an invalid chamber. "I am sorry to see you thus, madam," he said, as she held out her wasted hand and thanked him. "Did you desire spiritual consolations? There are times when our needs pass far beyond prescribed forms and ordinances." "I am thankful for the prayers of good men," said Mrs. Woodford; "but for truth's sake I must tell you that this was not foremost in my mind when I begged for this favour." He was evidently disappointed, for he was producing from his pocket the little stout black-bound Bible, which, by a dent in one of the lids, bore witness of having been with him in his campaigns; and perhaps half-diplomatically, as well as with a yearning for oneness of spirit, she gratified him by requesting him to read and pray. With all his rigidity he was too truly pious a man for his ministrations to contain anything in which, Churchwoman as she was, she could not join with all her heart, and feel comforting; but ere he was about to rise from his knees she said, "One prayer for your son, sir." A few fervent words were spoken on behalf of the wandering sheep, while tears glistened in the old man's eyes, and fell fast from those of the lady, and then he said, "Ah, madam! have I not wrestled in prayer for my poor boy?" "I am sure you have, sir. I know you have a deep fatherly love for him, and therefore I sent to speak to you as a dying woman." "And I will gladly hear you, for you have always been good to him, and, as I confess, have done him more good--if good can be called the apparent improvement in one unregenerate--than any other." "Except his uncle," said Mrs. Woodford. "I fear it is vain to say that I think the best hope of his becoming a good and valuable man, a comfort and not a sorrow to yourself, would be to let him even now rejoin Sir Peregrine." "That cannot be, madam. My brother has not kept to the understanding on which I entrusted the lad to him, but has carried him into worldly and debauched company, such as has made the sober and godly habits of his home distasteful to him, and has further taken him into Popish lands, where he has become infected with their abominations to a greater extent than I can yet fathom." Mrs. Woodford sighed and felt hopeless. "I see your view of the matter, sir. Yet may I suggest that it is hard for a young man to find wholesome occupation such as may guard him from temptation on an estate where the master is active and sufficient like yourself?" "Protection from temptation must come from within, madam," replied the Major; "but I so far agree with you that in due time, when he has attained his twenty-first year, I trust he will be wedded to his cousin, a virtuous and pious young maiden, and will have the management of her property, which is larger than my own." "But if--if--sir, the marriage were distasteful to him, could it be for the happiness and welfare of either?" "The boy has been complaining to you? Nay, madam, I blame you not. You have ever been the boy's best friend according to knowledge; but he ought to know that his honour and mine are engaged. It is true that Mistress Martha is not a Court beauty, such as his eyes have unhappily learnt to admire, but I am acting verily for his true good. 'Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.'" "Most true, sir; but let me say one more word. I fear, I greatly fear, that all young spirits brook not compulsion." "That means, they will not bow their stiff necks to the yoke." "Ah, sir! but on the other hand, 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.' Forgive me, sir; I spoke but out of true affection to your son, and the fear that what may seem to him severity may not drive him to some extremity that might grieve you." "No forgiveness is needed, madam. I thank you for your interest in him, and for your plain speaking according to your lights. I can but act according to those vouchsafed unto me." "And we both agree in praying for his true good," said Mrs. Woodford. And with a mutual blessing they parted, Mrs. Woodford deeply sorry for both father and son, for whom she had done what she could. It was her last interview with any one outside the house. Another attack of spasms brought the end, during the east winds of March, so suddenly as to leave no time for farewells or last words. When she was laid to rest in the little churchyard within the castle walls, no one showed such overwhelming tokens of grief as Peregrine Oakshott, who lingered about the grave after the Doctor had taken his niece home, and was found lying upon it late in the evening, exhausted with weeping. Yet Sedley Archfield, whose regiment had, after all, been sent to Portsmouth, reported that he had spent the very next afternoon at a cock-fight, ending in a carouse with various naval and military officers at a tavern, not drinking, but contributing to the mirth by foreign songs, tricks, and jests.	{ "id": "12449" }
12	THE ONE HOPE	"There's some fearful tie Between me and that spirit world, which God Brands with His terrors on my troubled mind." KINGSLEY. The final blow had fallen upon Anne Woodford so suddenly that for the first few days she moved about as one in a dream. Lady Archfield came to her on the first day, and showed her motherly kindness, and Lucy was with her as much as was possible under the exactions of young Madam, who was just sufficiently unwell to resent attention being paid to any other living creature. She further developed a jealousy of Lucy's affection for any other friend such as led to a squabble between her and her husband, and made her mother-in-law unwillingly acquiesce in the expediency of Anne's being farther off. And indeed Anne herself felt so utterly forlorn and desolate that an impatience of the place came over her. She was indeed fond of her uncle, but he was much absorbed in his studies, his parish, and in anxious correspondence on the state of the Church, and was scarcely a companion to her, and without her mother to engross her love and attention, and cut off from the Archfields as she now was, there was little to counterbalance the restless feeling that London and the precincts of the Court were her natural element. So she wrote her letters according to her mother's desire, and waited anxiously for the replies, feeling as if anything would be preferable to her present unhappiness and solitude. The answers came in due time. Mrs. Evelyn promised to try to find a virtuous and godly lady who would be willing to receive Mistress Anne Woodford into her family, and Lady Oglethorpe wrote with vaguer promises of high preferment, which excited Anne's imagination during those lonely hours that she had to spend while her strict mourning, after the custom of the time, secluded her from all visitors. Meantime, in that anxious spring of 1688, when the Church of England was looking to her defences, the Doctor could not be much at home, and when he had time to listen to private affairs, he heard reports which did not please him of Peregrine Oakshott. That the young men in the county all abhorred his fine foreign airs was no serious evil, though it might be suspected that his sharp ironical tongue had quite as much to do with their dislike as his greater refinement of manner. His father was reported to be very seriously displeased with him, for he openly expressed contempt of the precise ways of the household, and absented himself in a manner that could scarcely be attributed to aught but the licentious indulgences of the time; and as he seldom mingled in the amusements of the young country gentlemen, it was only too probable that he found a lower grade of companions in Portsmouth. Moreover his talk, random though it might be, offended all the Whig opinions of his father. He talked with the dogmatism of the traveller of the glories of Louis XIV, and broadly avowed his views that the grandeur of the nation was best established under a king who asked no questions of people or Parliament, 'that senseless set of chattering pies,' as he was reported to have called the House of Commons. He sang the praises of the gracious and graceful Queen Mary Beatrice, and derided 'the dried-up Orange stick,' as he called the hope of the Protestants; nor did he scruple to pronounce Popery the faith of chivalrous gentlemen, far preferable to the whining of sullen Whiggery. No one could tell how far all this was genuine opinion, or simply delight in contradiction, especially of his father, who was in a constant state of irritation at the son whom he could so little manage. And in the height of the wrath of the whole of the magistracy at the expulsion of their lord-lieutenant, the Earl of Gainsborough, and the substitution of the young Duke of Berwick, what must Peregrine do but argue in high praise of that youth, whom he had several times seen and admired. And when not a gentleman in the neighbourhood chose to greet the intruder when he arrived as governor of Portsmouth, Peregrine actually rode in to see him, and dined with him. Words cannot express the Major's anger and shame at such consorting with a person, whom alike, on account of parentage, religion, and education, he regarded as a son of perdition. Yet Peregrine would only coolly reply that he knew many a Protestant who would hardly compare favourably with young Berwick. It was an anxious period that spring of 1688. The order to read the King's Declaration of Indulgence from the pulpit had come as a thunder-clap upon the clergy. The English Church had only known rest for twenty-eight years, and now, by this unconstitutional assumption of prerogative, she seemed about to be given up to be the prey of Romanists on the one hand and Nonconformists on the other; though for the present the latter were so persuaded that the Indulgence was merely a disguised advance of Rome that they were not at all grateful, expecting, as Mr. Horncastle observed, only to be the last devoured, and he was as much determined as was Dr. Woodford not to announce it from his pulpit, whatever might be the consequence; the latter thus resigning all hopes of promotion. News letters, public and private, were eagerly scanned. Though the diocesan, Bishop Mew, took no active part in the petition called a libel, being an extremely aged man, the imprisonment of Ken, so deeply endeared to Hampshire hearts when Canon of Winchester and Rector of Brighstone, and with the Bloody Assize and the execution of Alice Lisle fresh in men's memories, there could not but be extreme anxiety. In the midst arrived the tidings that a son had been born to the king--a son instantly baptized by a Roman Catholic priest, and no doubt destined by James to rivet the fetters of Rome upon the kingdom, destroying at once the hope of his elder sister's accession. Loyal Churchmen like the Archfields still hoped, recollecting how many infants had been born in the royal family only to die; but at Oakwood the Major and his chaplain shook their heads, and spoke of warming pans, to the vehement displeasure of Peregrine, who was sure to respond that the Queen was an angel, and that the Whigs credited every one with their own sly tricks. The Major groaned, and things seemed to have reached a pass very like open enmity between father and son, though Peregrine still lived at home, and reports were rife that the year of mourning for his brother being expired, he was, as soon as he came of age, to be married to Mistress Martha Browning, and have an establishment of his own at Emsworth. Under these circumstances, it was with much satisfaction that Dr. Woodford said to his niece: "Child, here is an excellent offer for you. Lady Russell, who you know has returned to live at Stratton, has heard you mentioned by Lady Mildmay. She has just married her eldest daughter, and needs a companion to the other, and has been told of you as able to speak French and Italian, and otherwise well trained. What! do you not relish the proposal?" "Why, sir, would not my entering such a house do you harm at Court, and lessen your chance of preferment?" "Think not of _that_, my child." "Besides," added Anne, "since Lady Oglethorpe has written, it would not be fitting to engage myself elsewhere before hearing from her again." "You think so, Anne. Lady Russell's would be a far safer, better home for you than the Court." Anne knew it, but the thought of that widowed home depressed her. It might, she thought, be as dull as Oakwood, and there would be infinite chances of preferment at Court. What she said, however, was: "It was by my mother's wish that I applied to Lady Oglethorpe." "That is true, child. Yet I cannot but believe that if she had known of Lady Russell's offer, she would gladly and thankfully have accepted it." So said the secret voice within the girl herself, but she did not yet yield to it. "Perhaps she would, sir," she answered, "if the other proposal were not made. 'Tis a Whig household though." "A Whig household is a safer one than a Popish one," answered the Doctor. "Lady Russell is, by all they tell me, a very saint upon earth." Shall it be owned? Anne thought of Oakwood, and was not attracted towards a saint upon earth. "How soon was the answer to be given?" she asked. "I believe she would wish you to meet her at Winchester next week, when, if you pleased her, you might return with her to Stratton." The Doctor hoped that Lady Oglethorpe's application might fail, but before the week was over she forwarded the definite appointment of Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford as one of the rockers of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, his Majesty having been graciously pleased to remember her father's services and his own sponsorship. "If your friends consider the office somewhat beneath you," wrote Lady Oglethorpe, "it is still open to you to decline it." "Oh no; I would certainly not decline it!" cried Anne. "I could not possibly do so; could I, sir?" "Lady Oglethorpe says you might," returned the Doctor; "and for my part, niece, I should prefer the office of a gouvernante to that of a rocker." "Ah, but it is to a Prince!" said Anne. "It is the way to something further." "And what may that something further be? That is the question," said her uncle. "I will not control you, my child, for the application to this Court lady was by the wish of your good mother, who knew her well, but I own that I should be far more at rest on your account if you were in a place of less temptation." "The Court is very different from what it was in the last King's time," pleaded Anne. "In some degree it may be; but on the other hand, the influence which may have purified it is of the religion that I fear may be a seduction." "Oh no, never, uncle; nothing could make me a Papist." "Do not be over confident, Anne. Those who run into temptation are apt to be left to themselves." "Indeed, sir, I cannot think that the course my mother shaped for me can be a running into temptation." "Well, Anne, as I say, I cannot withstand you, since it was your mother who requested Lady Oglethorpe's patronage for you, though I tell you sincerely that I believe that had the two courses been set before her she would have chosen the safer and more private one. "Nay but, dear sir," still pleaded the maiden, "what would become of your chances of preferment if it were known that you had placed me with Lord Russell's widow in preference to the Queen?" "Let not that weigh with you one moment, child. I believe that no staunch friend of our Protestant Church will be preferred by his Majesty; nay, while the Archbishop and my saintly friend of Bath and Wells are persecuted, I should be ashamed to think of promotion. Spurn the thought from you, child." "Nay, 'twas only love for you, dear uncle." "I know it, child. I am not displeased, only think it over, and pray over it, since the post will not go out until to-morrow." Anne did think, but not quite as her uncle intended. The remembrance of the good-natured young Princesses, the large stately rooms, the brilliant dresses, the radiance of wax lights, had floated before her eyes ever since her removal from Chelsea to the quieter regions of Winchester, and she had longed to get back to them. She really loved her uncle, and whatever he might say, she longed to push his advancement, and thought his unselfish abnegation the greater reason for working for him; and in spite of knowing well that it was only a dull back-stair appointment, she could look to the notice of Princess Anne, when once within her reach, and further, with the confidence of youth, believed that she had that within her which would make her way upwards, and enable her to confer promotion, honour, and dignity, on all her friends. Her uncle should be a Bishop, Charles a Peer (fancy his wife being under obligations to the parson's niece!) , Lucy should have a perfect husband, and an appointment should be found for poor Peregrine which his father could not gainsay. It was her bounden duty not to throw away such advantages; besides loyalty to her Royal godfather could not permit his offer to be rejected, and her mother, when writing to Lady Oglethorpe, must surely have had some such expectation. Nor should she be entirely cut off from her uncle, who was a Royal chaplain; and this was some consolation to the good Doctor when he found her purpose fixed, and made arrangements for her to travel up to town in company with Lady Worsley of Gatcombe, whom she was to meet at Southampton on the 1st of July. Meantime the Doctor did his best to arm his niece against the allurements to Romanism that he feared would be held out. Lady Oglethorpe and other friends had assured him of the matronly care of Lady Powys and Lady Strickland to guard their department from all evil; but he did fear these religious influences and Anne, resolute to resist all, perhaps not afraid of the conflict, was willing to arm herself for defence, and listened readily. She was no less anxious to provide for her uncle's comfort in his absence, and many small matters of housewifery that had stood over for some time were now to be purchased, as well as a few needments for her own outfit, although much was left for the counsel of her patroness in the matter of garments. Accordingly her uncle rode in with her to Portsmouth on a shopping expedition, and as the streets of the seaport were scarcely safe for a young woman without an escort, he carried a little book in his pocket wherewith he beguiled the time that she spent in the selection of his frying-pans, fire-irons, and the like, and her own gloves and kerchiefs. They dined at the 'ordinary' at the inn, and there Dr. Woodford met his great friends Mr. Stanbury of Botley, and Mr. Worsley of Gatcombe, in the Isle of Wight, who both, like him, were opposed to the reading of the Declaration of Indulgence, as unconstitutional, and deeply anxious as to the fate of the greatly beloved Bishop of Bath and Wells. It was inevitable that they should fall into deep and earnest council together, and when dinner was over they agreed to adjourn to the house of a friend learned in ecclesiastical law to hunt up the rights of the case, leaving Anne to await them in a private room at the Spotted Dog, shown to her by the landlady. Anne well knew what such a meeting betided, and with a certain prevision, had armed herself with some knotting, wherewith she sat down in a bay window overlooking the street, whence she could see market-women going home with empty baskets, pigs being reluctantly driven down to provision ships in the harbour, barrels of biscuit, salt meat, or beer, being rolled down for the same purpose, sailors in loose knee-breeches, and soldiers in tall peaked caps and cross- belts, and officers of each service moving in different directions. She sat there day-dreaming, feeling secure in her loneliness, and presently saw a slight figure, daintily clad in gray and black, who catching her eye made an eager gesture, doffing his plumed hat and bowing low to her. She returned his salute, and thought he passed on, but in another minute she was startled to find him at her side, exclaiming: "This is the occasion I have longed and sought for, Mistress Anne; I bless and thank the fates." "I am glad to see you once more before I depart," said Anne, holding out her hand as frankly as she could to the old playfellow whom she always thought ill-treated, but whom she could never meet without a certain shudder. "Then it is true?" he exclaimed. "Yes; I am to go up with Lady Worsley from Southampton next week." "Ah!" he cried, "but must that be?" and she felt his strange power, so that she drew into herself and said haughtily-- "My dear mother wished me to be with her friends, nor can the King's appointment be neglected, though of course I am extremely grieved to go." "And you are dazzled with all these gewgaws of Court life, no doubt?" "I shall not be much in the way of gewgaws just yet," said Anne drily. "It will be dull enough in some back room of Whitehall or St. James's." "Say you so. You will wish yourself back--you, the lady of my heart--mine own good angel! Hear me. Say but the word, and your home will be mine, to say nothing of your own most devoted servant." "Hush, hush, sir! I cannot hear this," said Anne, anxiously glancing down the street in hopes of seeing her uncle approaching. "Nay, but listen! This is my only hope--my only chance--I must speak--you doom me to you know not what if you will not hear me!" "Indeed, sir, I neither will nor ought!" "Ought! Ought! Ought you not to save a fellow-creature from distraction and destruction? One who has loved and looked to you ever since you and that saint your mother lifted me out of the misery of my childhood." Then as she looked softened he went on: "You, you are my one hope. No one else can lift me out of the reach of the demon that has beset me even since I was born." "That is profane," she said, the more severe for the growing attraction of repulsion. "What do I care? It is true! What was I till you and your mother took pity on the wild imp? My old nurse said a change would come to me every seven years. That blessed change came just seven years ago. Give me what will make a more blessed--a more saving change-- or there will be one as much for the worse." "But--I could not. No! you must see for yourself that I could not-- even if I would," she faltered, really pitying now, and unwilling to give more pain than she could help. "Could not? It should be possible. I know how to bring it about. Give me but your promise, and I will make you mine--ay, and I will make myself as worthy of you as man can be of saint-like maid." "No--no! This is very wrong--you are pledged already--" "No such thing--believe no such tale. My promise has never been given to that grim hag of my father's choice--no, nor should be forced from me by the rack. Look you here. Let me take this hand, call in the woman of the house, give me your word, and my father will own his power to bind me to Martha is at an end." "Oh, no! It would be a sin--never. Besides--" said Anne, holding her hands tightly clasped behind her in alarm, lest against her will she should let them be seized, and trying to find words to tell him how little she felt disposed to trust her heart and herself to one whom she might indeed pity, but with a sort of shrinking as from something not quite human. Perhaps he dreaded her 'besides'--for he cut her short. "It would save ten thousand greater sins. See, here are two ways before us. Either give me your word, your precious word, go silent to London, leave me to struggle it out with my father and your uncle and follow you. Hope and trust will be enough to bear me through the battle without, and within deafen the demon of my nature, and render me patient of my intolerable life till I have conquered and can bring you home." Her tongue faltered as she tried to say such a secret unsanctioned engagement would be treachery, but he cut off the words. "You have not heard me out. There is another way. I know those who will aid me. We can meet in early dawn, be wedded in one of these churches in all secrecy and haste, and I would carry you at once to my uncle, who, as you well know, would welcome you as a daughter. Or, better still, we would to those fair lands I have scarce seen, but where I could make my way with sword or pen with you to inspire me. I have the means. My uncle left this with me. Speak! It is death or life to me." This last proposal was thoroughly alarming, and Anne retreated, drawing herself to her full height, and speaking with the dignity that concealed considerable terror. "No, indeed, sir. You ought to know better than to utter such proposals. One who can make such schemes can certainly obtain no respect nor regard from the lady he addresses. Let me pass"--for she was penned up in the bay window--"I shall seek the landlady till my uncle returns." "Nay, Mistress Anne, do not fear me. Do not drive me to utter despair. Oh, pardon me! Nothing but utter desperation could drive me to have thus spoken; but how can I help using every effort to win her whose very look and presence is bliss! Nothing else soothes and calms me; nothing else so silences the demon and wakens the better part of my nature. Have you no pity upon a miserable wretch, who will be dragged down to his doom without your helping hand?" He flung himself on his knee before her, and tried to grasp her hand. "Indeed, I am sorry for you, Master Oakshott," said Anne, compassionate, but still retreating as far as the window would let her; "but you are mistaken. If this power be in me, which I cannot quite believe--yes, I see what you want to say, but if I did what I know to be wrong, I should lose it at once; God's grace can save you without me." "I will not ask you to do what you call wrong; no, nor to transgress any of the ties you respect, you, whose home is so unlike mine; only tell me that I may have hope, that if I deserve you, I may win you; that you could grant me--wretched me--a share of your affection." This was hardest of all; mingled pity and repugnance, truth and compassion strove within the maiden as well as the strange influence of those extraordinary eyes. She was almost as much afraid of herself as of her suitor. At last she managed to say, "I am very sorry for you; I grieve from my heart for your troubles; I should be very glad to hear of your welfare and anything good of you, but--" "But, but--I see--it is mere frenzy in me to think the blighted elf can aspire to be aught but loathsome to any lady--only, at least, tell me you love no one else." "No, certainly not," she said, as if his eyes drew it forcibly from her. "Then you cannot hinder me from making you my guiding star--hoping that if yet I can--" "There's my uncle!" exclaimed Anne, in a tone of infinite relief. "Stand up, Mr. Oakshott, compose yourself. Of course I cannot hinder your thinking about me, if it will do you any good, but there are better things to think about which would conquer evil and make you happy more effectually." He snatched her hand and kissed it, nor did she withhold it, since she really pitied him, and knew that her uncle was near, and all would soon be over. Peregrine dashed away by another door as Dr. Woodford's foot was on the stairs. "I have ordered the horses," he began. "They told me young Oakshott was here." "He was, but he is gone;" and she could not quite conceal her agitation. "Crimson cheeks, my young mistress? Ah, the foolish fellow! You do not care for him, I trust?" "No, indeed, poor fellow. What, did you know, sir?" "Know. Yes, truly--and your mother likewise, Anne. It was one cause of her wishing to send you to safer keeping than mine seems to be. My young spark made his proposals to us both, though we would not disturb your mind therewith, not knowing how he would have dealt with his father, nor viewing him, for all he is heir to Oakwood, as a desirable match in himself. I am glad to see you have sense and discretion to be of the same mind, my maid." "I cannot but grieve for his sad condition, sir," replied Anne, "but as for anything more--it would make me shudder to think of it--he is still too like Robin Goodfellow." "That's my good girl," said her uncle. "And do you know, child, there are the best hopes for the Bishops. There's a gentleman come down but now from London, who says 'twas like a triumph as the Bishops sat in their barge on the way to the Tower; crowds swarming along the banks, begging for their blessing, and they waving it with tears in their eyes. The King will be a mere madman if he dares to touch a hair of their heads. Well, when I was a lad, Bishops were sent to the Tower by the people; I little thought to live to see them sent thither by the King." All the way home Dr. Woodford talked of the trial, beginning perhaps to regret that his niece must go to the very focus of Roman influence in England, where there seemed to be little scruple as to the mode of conversion. Would it be possible to alter her destination? was his thought, when he rose the next day, but loyalty stood in the way, and that very afternoon another event happened which made it evident that the poor girl must leave Portchester as soon as possible. She had gone out with him to take leave of some old cottagers in the village, and he finding himself detained to minister to a case of unexpected illness, allowed her to go home alone for about a quarter of a mile along the white sunny road at the foot of Portsdown, with the castle full in view at one end, and the cottage where he was at the other. Many a time previously had she trodden it alone, but she had not reckoned on two officers coming swaggering from a cross road down the hill, one of them Sedley Archfield, who immediately called out, "Ha, ha! my pretty maid, no wench goes by without paying toll;" and they spread their arms across the road so as to arrest her. "Sir," said Anne, drawing herself up with dignity, "you mistake--" "Not a whit, my dear; no exemption here;" and there was a horse laugh, and an endeavour to seize her, as she stepped back, feeling that in quietness lay her best chance of repelling them, adding-- "My uncle is close by." "The more cause for haste;" and they began to close upon her. But at that moment Peregrine Oakshott, leaping from his horse, was among them, with the cry-- "Dastards! insulting a lady." "Lady, forsooth! the parson's niece." In a few seconds--very long seconds to her--her flying feet had brought her back to the cottage, where she burst in with--"Pardon, pardon, sir; come quick; there are swords drawn; there will be bloodshed if you do not come." He obeyed the summons without further query, for when all men wore swords the neighbourhood of a garrison were only too liable to such encounters outside. There was no need for her to gasp out more; from the very cottage door he could see the need of haste, for the swords were actually flashing, and the two young men in position to fight. Anne shook her head, unable to do more than sign her thanks to the good woman of the cottage, who offered her a seat. She leant against the door, and watched as her uncle, sending his voice before him, called on them to desist. There was a start, then each drew back and held down his weapon, but with a menacing gesture on one side, a shrug of the shoulders on the other, which impelled the Doctor to use double speed in the fear that the parting might be with a challenge reserved. He was in time to stand warning, and arguing that if he pardoned the slighting words and condoned the insult to his niece, no one had a right to exact vengeance; and in truth, whatever were his arguments, he so dealt with the two young men as to force them into shaking hands before they separated, though with a contemptuous look on either side--a scowl from Sedley, a sneer from Peregrine, boding ill for the future, and making him sigh. "Ah! sister, sister, you judged aright. Would that I could have sent the maid sooner away rather than that all this ill blood should have been bred. Yet I may only be sending her to greater temptation and danger. But she is a good maiden; God bless her and keep her here and there, now and for evermore, as I trust He keepeth our good Dr. Ken in this sore strait. The trial may even now be over. Ah, my child, here you are! Frightened were you by that rude fellow? Nay, I believe you were almost equally terrified by him who came to the rescue. You will soon be out of their reach, my dear." "Yes, that is one great comfort in going," sighed Anne. One comfort--yes--though she would not have stayed had the choice been given her now. And shall the thought be told that flashed over her and coloured her cheeks with a sort of shame yet of pleasure, "I surely must have power over men! I know mother would say it is a terrible danger one way, and a great gift another. I will not misuse it; but what will it bring me? Or am I only a rustic beauty after all, who will be nobody elsewhere?" Still heartily she wished that her rescuer had been any one else in the wide world. It was almost uncanny that he should have sprung out of the earth at such a moment.	{ "id": "12449" }
13	THE BONFIRE	"From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, From Lynn to Milford Bay, That time of slumber was as Bright and busy as the day; For swift to east and swift to west The fiery herald sped, High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: It shone on Beachy Head." MACAULAY. Doctor Woodford and his niece had not long reached their own door when the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard, and Charles Archfield was seen, waving his hat and shouting 'Hurrah!' before he came near enough to speak, "Good news, I see!" said the Doctor. "Good news indeed! Not guilty! Express rode from Westminster Hall with the news at ten o'clock this morning. All acquitted. Expresses could hardly get away for the hurrahing of the people. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried the young man, throwing up his hat, while Doctor Woodford, taking off his own, gave graver, deeper thanks that justice was yet in England, that these noble and honoured confessors were safe, and that the King had been saved from further injustice and violence to the Church. "We are to have a bonfire on Portsdown hill," added Charles. "They will be all round the country, in the Island, and everywhere. My father is rid one way to spread the tidings, and give orders. I'm going on into Portsmouth, to see after tar barrels. You'll be there, sir, and you, Anne?" There was a moment's hesitation after the day's encounters, but he added, "My mother is going, and my little Madam, and Lucy. They will call for you in the coach if you will be at Ryder's cottage at nine o'clock. It will not be dark enough to light up till ten, so there will be time to get a noble pile ready. Come, Anne, 'tis Lucy's last chance of seeing you--so strange as you have made yourself of late." This plea decided Anne, who had been on the point of declaring that she should have an excellent view from the top of the keep. However, not only did she long to see Lucy again, but the enthusiasm was contagious, and there was an attraction in the centre of popular rejoicing that drew both her and her uncle, nor could there be a doubt of her being sufficiently protected when among the Archfield ladies. So the arrangement was accepted, and then there was the cry-- "Hark! the Havant bells! Ay! and the Cosham! Portsmouth is pealing out. That's Alverstoke. They know it there. A salute! Another." "Scarce loyal from the King's ships," said the Doctor, smiling. "Nay, 'tis only loyalty to rejoice that the King can't make a fool of himself. So my father says," rejoined Charles. And that seemed to be the mood of all England. When Anne and her uncle set forth in the summer sunset light the great hill above them was dark with the multitudes thronging around the huge pyre rising in the midst. They rested for some minutes at the cottage indicated before the arrival of Sir Philip, who rode up accompanying the coach in which his three ladies were seated, and which was quite large enough to receive Dr. Woodford and Mistress Anne. Charles was in the throng, in the midst of most of the younger gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and a good many of the naval and military officers, directing the arrangement of the pile. What a scene it was, as seen even from the windows of the coach where the ladies remained, for the multitude of sailors, soldiers, town and village people, though all unanimous, were far too tumultuous for them to venture beyond their open door, especially as little Mrs. Archfield was very far from well, and nothing but her eagerness for amusement could have brought her hither, and of course she could not be left. Probably she knew as little of the real bearings of the case or the cause of rejoicing as did the boys who pervaded everything with their squibs, and were only restrained from firing them in the faces of the horses by wholesome fear of the big whips of the coachman and outriders who stood at the horses' heads. It was hardly yet dark when the match was put to the shavings, and to the sound of the loud 'Hurrahs!' and cries of 'Long live the Bishops!' 'Down with the Pope!' the flame kindled, crackled, and leapt up, while a responsive fire was seen on St. Catherine's Down in the Isle of Wight, and northward, eastward, westward, on every available point, each new light greeted by fresh acclamations, as it shone out against the summer night sky, while the ships in the harbour showed their lights, reflected in the sea, as the sky grew darker. Then came a procession of sailors and other rough folk, bearing between poles a chair with a stuffed figure with a kind of tiara, followed by others with scarlet hats and capes, and with reiterated shouts of 'Down with the Pope!' these were hurled into the fire with deafening hurrahs, their more gorgeous trappings being cleverly twitched off at the last moment, as part of the properties for the 5th of November. Little Mrs. Archfield clapped her hands and screamed with delight as each fresh blaze shot up, and chattered with all her might, sometimes about some lace and perfumes which she wanted Anne to procure for her in London at the sign of the Flower Pot, sometimes grumbling at her husband having gone off to the midst of the party closest to the fire, "Just like Mr. Archfield, always leaving her to herself," but generally very well amused, especially when a group of gentlemen, officers, and county neighbours gathered round the open door talking to the ladies within. Peregrine was there with his hands in his pockets, and a queer ironical smile writhing his features. He was asked if his father and brother were present. "Not my father," he replied. "He has a logical mind. Martha is up here with her guardian, and I am keeping out of her way, and my brother is full in the thick of the fray. A bonfire is a bonfire to most folks, were it to roast their grandsire!" "Oh, fie, Mr. Oakshott, how you do talk!" laughed Mrs. Archfield. "Nay, but you rejoice in the escape of the good Bishops," put in Lucy. "For what?" asked Peregrine. "For refusing to say live and let live?" "Not against letting _live_, but against saying so unconstitutionally, my young friend," said Dr. Woodford, "or tyrannising over our consciences." Generally Peregrine was more respectful to Dr. Woodford than to any one else; but there seemed to be a reckless bitterness about him on that night, and he said, "I marvel with what face those same Eight Reverend Seigniors will preach against the French King." "Sir," thrust in Sedley Archfield, "I am not to hear opprobrious epithets applied to the Bishops." "What was the opprobrium?" lazily demanded Peregrine, and in spite of his unpopularity, the laugh was with him. Sedley grew more angry. "You likened them to the French King--" "The most splendid monarch in Europe," said Peregrine coolly. "A Frenchman!" quoth one of the young squires with withering contempt. "He has that ill fortune, sir," said Peregrine. "Mayhap he would be sensible of the disadvantage, if he evened himself with some of my reasonable countrymen." "Do you mean that for an insult, sir?" exclaimed Sedley Archfield, striding forward. "As you please," said Peregrine. "To me it had the sound of compliment." "Oh la! they'll fight," cried Mrs. Archfield. "Don't let them! Where's the Doctor? Where's Sir Philip?" "Hush, my dear," said Lady Archfield; "these gentlemen would not fall out close to us." Dr. Woodford was out of sight, having been drawn into controversy with a fellow-clergyman on the limits of toleration. Anne looked anxiously for him, but with provoking coolness Peregrine presently said, "There's no crowd near, and if you will step out, the fires on the farther hills are to be seen well from the knoll hard by." He spoke chiefly to Anne, but even if she had not a kind of shrinking from trusting herself with him in this strange wild scene, she would have been prevented by Mrs. Archfield's eager cry-- "Oh, I'll come, let me come! I'm so weary of sitting here. Thank you, Master Oakshott." Lady Archfield's remonstrance was lost as Peregrine helped the little lady out, and there was nothing for it but to follow her, as close as might be, as she hung on her cavalier's arm chattering, and now and then giving little screams of delight or alarm. Lady Archfield and her daughter each was instantly squired, but Mistress Woodford, a nobody, was left to keep as near them as she could, and gaze at the sparks of light of the beacons in the distance, thinking how changed the morrow would be to her. Presently a figure approached, and Charles Archfield's voice said, "Is that you, Anne? Did I hear my wife's voice?" "Yes, she is there." "And with that imp of evil! I would his own folk had him!" muttered Charles, dashing forward with "How now, madam? you were not to leave the coach!" She laughed exultingly. "Ha, sir! see what comes of leaving me to better cavaliers, while you run after your fire! I should have seen nothing but for Master Oakshott." "Come with me now," said Charles; "you ought not to be standing here in the dew." "Ha, ha! what a jealous master," she said; but she put her arm into his, saying with a courtesy, "Thank you, Master Oakshott, lords must be obeyed. I should have been still buried in the old coach but for you." Peregrine fell back to Anne. "That blaze is at St. Helen's," he began. "That--what! will you not wait a moment?" "No, no! They will want to be going home." "And have you forgotten that it is only just over Midsummer? This is the week of my third seventh--the moment for change. O Anne! make it a change for the better. Say the word, and the die will be cast. All is ready! Come!" He tried to take her hand, but the vehemence of his words, spoken under his breath, terrified her, and with a hasty "No, no! you know not what you talk of," she hastened after her friends, and was glad to find herself in the safe haven of the interior of the coach. Ere long they drove down the hill, and at the place of parting were set down, the last words in Anne's ears being Mrs. Archfield's injunctions not to forget the orange flower-water at the sign of the Flower Pot, drowning Lucy's tearful farewells. As they walked away in the moonlight a figure was seen in the distance. "Is that Peregrine Oakshott?" asked the Doctor. "That young man is in a desperate mood, ready to put a quarrel on any one. I hope no harm will come of it."	{ "id": "12449" }
14	GATHERING MOUSE-EAR	"I heard the groans, I marked the tears, I saw the wound his bosom bore." SCOTT. After such an evening it was not easy to fall asleep, and Anne tossed about, heated, restless, and uneasy, feeling that to remain at home was impossible, yet less satisfied about her future prospects, and doubtful whether she had not done herself harm by attending last night's rejoicings, and hoping that nothing would happen to reveal her presence there. She was glad that the night was not longer, and resolved to take advantage of the early morning to fulfil a commission of Lady Oglethorpe, whose elder children, Lewis and Theophilus, had the whooping-cough. Mouse-ear, namely, the little sulphur-coloured hawk-weed, was, and still is, accounted a specific, and Anne had been requested to bring a supply--a thing easily done, since it grew plentifully in the court of the castle. She dressed herself in haste, made some of her preparations for the journey, and let herself out of the house, going first for one last look at her mother's green grave in the dewy churchyard, and gathering from it a daisy, which she put into her bosom, then in the fair morning freshness, and exhilaration of the rising sun, crossing the wide tilt-yard, among haycocks waiting to be tossed, and arriving at the court within, filling her basket between the churchyard and the gateway tower and keep, when standing up for a moment she was extremely startled to see Peregrine Oakshott's unmistakable figure entering at the postern of the court. With vague fears of his intentions, and instinctive terror of meeting him alone, heightened by that dread of his power, she flew in at the great bailey tower door, hoping that he had not seen her, but tolerably secure that even if he had, and should pursue her, she was sufficiently superior in knowledge of the stairs and passages to baffle him, and make her way along the battlements to the tower at the corner of the court nearest the parsonage, where there was a turret stair by which she could escape. Up the broken stairs she went, shutting behind her every available door in the chambers and passages, but not as quickly as she wished, since attention to her feet was needful in the ruinous state of steps and walls. Through those massive walls she could hear nothing distinctly, but she fancied voices and a cry, making her seek more intricate windings, nor did she dare to look out till she had gained a thick screen of bushy ivy at the corner of the turret, where a little door opened on the broad summit of the battlemented wall. Then, what horror was it that she beheld? Or was it a dream? She even passed her hands over her face and looked again. Peregrine and Charles, yes, it was Charles Archfield, were fighting with swords in the court beneath. She gave a shriek, in a wild hope of parting them, but at that instant she saw Peregrine fall, and with the impulse of rushing to aid she hurried down, impeded however by stumbles, and by the doors, she herself had shut, and when she emerged, she saw only Charles, standing like one dazed and white as death. "O Mr Archfield! where is he? What have you done?" The young man pointed to the opening of the vault. Then, speaking with an effort, "He was quite dead; my sword went through him. He forced it on me-- he was pursuing you. I withstood him--and--" He gasped heavily as the words came one by one. She trembled exceedingly, and would have looked into the vault, with, "Are you quite sure?" but he grasped her hand and withheld her. "Only too sure! Yes, I have done it! It could not be helped. I would give myself up at once, but, Anne, there is my wife. They tell me any shock would kill her as she is now. I should be double murderer. Will you keep the secret, Anne, always my friend? And 'twas for you." "Indeed, indeed, I will not betray you. I go away in two hours," said Anne; and he caught her hand. "But oh!" and she pointed to the blood on the grass, then with sudden thought, "Heap the hay over it," running to fill her arms with the lately-cut grass. He mechanically did the same, and then they stood for a moment, awe- stricken. "God forgive me!" said the poor young man. "How to hide it I hardly know, but for _her_ sake, ah--'twas that brought me here. She could not rest last night till I had promised to be here early enough in the morning to give you a piece of sarcenet to be matched in London. Where is it? Ah! I forget. It seems to be ages ago that she was insisting that I should ride over so as to be in time." "Lucy must write," said Anne, "O Charley! wipe that dreadful sword, look like yourself. I am going in a couple of hours. There is no fear of me! but oh! that you should have done such a thing! and through me!" "Hush! hush! don't talk. I must be gone ere folks are about. My horse is outside." He wrung her hand and kissed it, forgetting to give her the pattern, and Anne, still stunned, walked back to the parsonage, her one thought how to control herself so as to guard Charles's secret. It must be remembered that in the generation succeeding that which had fought a long civil war, and when duels were common assertions of honour and self-respect among young gentlemen, homicide was not so exceptional and heinous an offence in ordinary eyes as when a higher value has come to be set on life, and acts of violence are far less frequent. Charles had drawn his sword in fair fight, and in her own defence, and thus it was natural that Anne Woodford should think of his deed, certainly with a shudder, but with more of pity than of horror, and with gratitude that made her feel bound to do her utmost to guard him from the consequences; also there was a sense of relief, and perhaps a feeling as if the victim were scarcely a human creature like others. It never occurred to her till some time after to recollect it would have had an unpleasant sound that she had been the occasion of such an 'unseemly brawl' between two young men, one of them a married man. When the thought occurred to her it made the blood rash hotly to her cheeks. It was well for her that the pain of leaving home and the bustle of preparation concealed that she had suffered a great shock, and accounted for her not being able to taste any breakfast beyond a draught of milk. Her ears were intent all the time to perceive any token whether the haymakers had come into the court and had discovered any trace of the ghastly thing in the vault, and she hardly heard the kind words of her uncle or the coaxings of his old housekeeper. She dreaded especially the sight of Hans, so fondly attached to his master's nephew, and it was with a sense of infinite relief--instead of the tender grief otherwise natural--that she was seated in the boat for Portsmouth, and her uncle believing her to be crying, left her undisturbed till she had composed herself to wear the front that she knew was needful, however her heart might throb beneath it, and as their boat threaded its way through the ships, even then numerous, she looked wistfully up at the tall tower of the castle, with earnest prayers for the living, and a longing she durst not utter, to ask her uncle whether it were right to pray for the poor strange, struggling soul, always so cruelly misunderstood, and now so summarily dismissed from the world of trial. Yet presently there was a revulsion of feeling as she was roused from her meditations by the coxswain's answer to her uncle, who had asked what was a smart, swift little smack, which after receiving something from a boat, began stretching her wings and making all sail for the Isle of Wight. The men looked significant and hesitated. "Smugglers, eh? Traders in French brandy?" asked the Doctor. "Well, your reverence, so they says. They be a rough lot out there by at the back of the Island." "There would be small harm in letting a poor man get a drink of spirits cheap to warm his heart," said one of the other men; "but they say as how 'tis a very nest of 'em out there, and that's how no one can ever pitch on the highwaymen, such as robbed Farmer Vine t'other day a coming home from market." "They do say," added the other, "that there's them as ought to know better that is thick with them. There's that young master up at Oakwood--that crooked slip as they used to say was a changeling-- gets out o' window o' nights and sails with them." "He has nought to do with the robberies, they say," added the coxswain; "but I could tell of many a young spark who has gone out with the fair traders for the sport's sake, and because gentle folk don't know what to do with their time." "And they do say the young chap is kept uncommon tight at home." Here the sight of a vessel of war coming in changed the topic, but it had given Anne something more to think of. Peregrine had spoken of means arranged for making her his own. Could that smuggling yacht have anything to do with them? He could hardly have reckoned on meeting her alone in the morning, but he might have attempted to find her thus--or failing that, he might have run down the boat. If so, she had a great deliverance to be thankful for, and Charles's timely appearance had been a great blessing. But Peregrine! poor Peregrine! it became doubly terrible that he should have perished on the eve of such a deed. It was cruel to entertain such thoughts of the dead, yet it was equally impossible not to feel comfort in being rid for ever of one who had certainly justified the vague alarm which he had always excited in her. She could not grieve for him now that the first shock was over, but she must suppress all tokens of her extreme anxiety on account of Charles Archfield. Thus she was landed at Portsmouth, and walked up the street to the Spotted Dog, where Lady Worsley was taking an early noonchine before starting for London, having crossed from the little fishing village of Ryde. Here Anne parted with her uncle, who promised an early letter, though she could hardly restrain a shudder at the thought of the tidings that it might contain.	{ "id": "12449" }
15	NEWS FROM FAREHAM	"My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery. Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history." JEAN INGELOW. Lady Worsley was a handsome, commanding old dame, who soon made her charge feel the social gulf between a county magnate and a clergyman's niece. She decidedly thought that Mistress Anne Jacobina held her head too high for her position, and was, moreover, conceited of an unfortunate amount of good looks. Therefore the good lady did her best to repress these dangerous tendencies by making the girl sit on the back seat with two maids, and uttering long lectures on humility, modesty, and discretion which made the blood of the sea-captain's daughter boil with indignation. Yet she always carried with her the dread of being pursued and called upon to accuse Charles Archfield of Peregrine's death. It was a perpetual cloud, dispersed, indeed, for a time by the events of the day, but returning at night, when not only was the combat acted over again, but when she fell asleep it was only to be pursued by Peregrine through endless vaulted dens of darkness, or, what was far worse, to be trying to hide a stream of blood that could never be stanched. It was no wonder that she looked pale in the morning, and felt so tired and dejected as to make her sensible that she was cast loose from home and friends when no one troubled her with remarks or inquiries such as she could hardly have answered. However, when, on the evening of the second day's journey, Anne was set down at Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe's house at Westminster, she met with a very different reception. Lady Oglethorpe, a handsome, warm-hearted Irish woman, met her at once in the hall with outstretched hands, and a kiss on each cheek. "Come in, my dear, my poor orphan, the daughter of one who was very dear to me! Ah, how you have grown! I could never have thought this was the little Anne I recollect. You shall come up to your chamber at once, and rest you, and make ready for supper, by the time Sir Theophilus comes in from attending the King." Anne found herself installed in a fresh-smelling wainscotted room, where a glass of wine and some cake was ready for her, and where she made herself ready, feeling exhilarated in spirits as she performed her toilette, putting on her black evening dress, and refreshing the curls of her brown hair. It was a simple dress of deep mourning, but it became her well, and the two or three gentlemen who had come in to supper with Sir Theophilus evidently admired her greatly, and complimented her on having a situation at Court, which was all that Lady Oglethorpe mentioned. "Child," she said afterwards, when they were in private, "if I had known what you looked like I would have sought a different position for you. But, there, to get one's foot--were it but the toe of one's shoe--in at Court is the great point after all, the rest must come after. I warrant me you are well educated too. Can you speak French?" "Oh yes, madam, and Italian, and dance and play on the spinnet. I was with two French ladies at Winchester every winter who taught such things." "Well, well, mayhap we may get you promoted to a sub-governess's place--though your religion is against you. You are not a Catholic-- eh?" "No, your ladyship." "That's the only road to favour nowadays, though for the name of the thing they may have a Protestant or two. You are the King's godchild too, so he will expect it the more from you. However, we may find a better path. You have not left your heart in the country, eh?" Anne blushed and denied it. "You will be mewed up close enough in the nursery," ran on Lady Oglethorpe. "Lady Powys keeps close discipline there, and I expect she will be disconcerted to see how fine a fish I have brought to her net; but we will see--we will see how matters go. But, my dear, have you no coloured clothes? There is no appearing in the Royal household in private mourning. It might daunt the Prince's spirits in his cradle!" and she laughed, though Anne felt much annoyed at thus disregarding her mother, as well as at the heavy expense. However, there was no help for it; the gowns and laces hidden in the bottom of her mails were disinterred, and the former were for the most part condemned, so that she had to submit to a fresh outfit, in which Lady Oglethorpe heartily interested herself, but which drained the purse that the Canon had amply supplied. These arrangements were not complete when the first letter from home arrived, and was opened with a beating heart, and furtive glances as of one who feared to see the contents, but they were by no means what she expected. I hope you have arrived safely in London, and that you are not displeased with your first taste of life in a Court. Neither town nor country is exempt from sorrow and death. I was summoned only on the second day after your departure to share in the sorrows at Archfield, where the poor young wife died early on Friday morning, leaving a living infant, a son, who, I hope, may prove a blessing to them, if he is spared, which can scarcely be expected. The poor young man, and indeed all the family, are in the utmost distress, and truly there were circumstances that render the event more than usually deplorable, and for which he blames himself exceedingly, even to despair. It appears that the poor young gentlewoman wished to add some trifle to the numerous commissions with which she was entrusting you on the night of the bonfire, and that she could not be pacified except by her husband undertaking to ride over to give the patterns and the orders to you before your setting forth. You said nothing of having seen him--nor do I see how it was possible that you could have done so, seeing that you only left your chamber just before the breakfast that you never tasted, my poor child. He never returned till long after noon, and what with fretting after him, and disappointment, that happened which Lady Archfield had always apprehended, and the poor fragile young creature worked herself into a state which ended before midnight in the birth of a puny babe, and her own death shortly after. She wanted two months of completing her sixteenth year, and was of so frail a constitution that Dr. Brown had never much hope of her surviving the birth of her child. It was a cruel thing to marry her thus early, ungrown in body or mind, but she had no one to care for her before she was brought hither. The blame, as I tell Sir Philip, and would fain persuade poor Charles, is really with those who bred her up so uncontrolled as to be the victim of her humours; but the unhappy youth will listen to no consolation. He calls himself a murderer, shuts himself up, and for the most part will see and speak to no one, but if forced by his father's command to unlock his chamber door, returns at once to sit with his head hidden in his arms crossed upon the table, and if father, mother, or sister strive to rouse him and obtain answer from him, he will only murmur forth, "I should only make it worse if I did." It is piteous to see a youth so utterly overcome, and truly I think his condition is a greater distress to our good friends than the loss of the poor young wife. They asked him what name he would have given to his child, but all the answer they could get was, "As you will, only not mine;" and in the enforced absence of my brother of Fareham I baptized him Philip. The funeral will take place to-morrow, and Sir Philip proposes immediately after to take his son to Oxford, and there endeavour to find a tutor of mature age and of prudence, with whom he may either study at New College or be sent on the grand tour. It is the only notion that the poor lad has seemed willing to entertain, as if to get away from his misery, and I cannot but think it well for him. He is not yet twenty, and may, as it were, begin life again the wiser and the better man for his present extreme sorrow. Lady Archfield is greatly wrapped up in the care of the babe, who, I fear, is in danger of being killed by overcare, if by nothing else, though truly all is in the hands of God. I have scarce quitted the afflicted family since I was summoned to them on Friday, since Sir Philip has no one else on whom to depend for comfort or counsel; and if I can obtain the services of Mr. Ellis from Portsmouth for a few Sundays, I shall ride with him to Oxford to assist in the choice of a tutor to go abroad with Mr. Archfield. One interruption however I had, namely, from Major Oakshott, who came in great perturbation to ask what was the last I had seen of his son Peregrine. It appears that the unfortunate young man never returned home after the bonfire on Portsdown Hill, where his brother Robert lost sight of him, and after waiting as long as he durst, returned home alone. It has become known that after parting with us high words passed between him and Lieutenant Sedley Archfield, insomuch that after the unhappy fashion of these times, blood was demanded, and early in the morning Sedley sent the friend who was to act as second to bear the challenge to young Oakshott. You can conceive the reception that he was likely to receive at Oakwood; but it was then discovered that Peregrine had not been in his bed all night, nor had any one seen or heard of him. Sedley boasts loudly that the youngster has fled the country for fear of him, and truly things have that appearance, although to my mind Peregrine was far from wanting in spirit or courage. But, as he had not received the cartel, he might not have deemed his honour engaged to await it, and I incline to the belief that he is on his way to his uncle in Muscovy, driven thereto by his dread of the marriage with the gentlewoman whom he holds in so much aversion. I have striven to console his father by the assurance that such tidings of him will surely arrive in due time, but the Major is bitterly grieved, and is galled by the accusation of cowardice. "He could not even be true to his own maxims of worldly honour," says the poor gentleman. "So true it is that only by grace we stand fast." The which is true enough, but the poor gentleman unwittingly did his best to make grace unacceptable in his son's eyes. I trust soon to hear again of you, my dear child. I rejoice that Lady Oglethorpe is so good to you, and I hope that in the palace you will guard first your faith and then your discretion. And so praying always for your welfare, alike spiritual and temporal. -- Your loving uncle, JNO. WOODFORD. Truly it was well that Anne had secluded herself to read this letter. So the actual cause for which poor Charles Archfield had entreated silence was at an end. The very evil he had apprehended had come to pass, and she could well understand how, on his return in a horror- stricken, distracted state of mind, the childish petulance of his wife had worried him into loss of temper, so that he hardly knew what he said. And what must not his agony of remorse be? She could scarcely imagine how he had avoided confessing all as a mere relief to his mind, but then she reflected that when he called himself a murderer the words were taken in another sense, and no questions asked, nor would he be willing to add such grief and shame to his parents' present burthen, especially as no suspicion existed. That Peregrine's fate had not been discovered greatly relieved her. She believed the vault to go down to a considerable depth after a first platform of stone near the opening, and it was generally avoided as the haunt of hobgoblins, fairies, or evil beings, so that no one was likely to be in its immediate neighbourhood after the hay was carried, so that there might have been nothing to attract any one to the near neighbourhood and thus lead to the discovery. If not made by this time, Charles would be far away, and there was nothing to connect him with the deed. No one save herself had even known of his having been near the castle that morning. How strange that the only persons aware of that terrible secret should be so far separated from one another that they could exchange no confidences; and each was compelled to absolute silence. For as long as no one else was suspected, Anne felt her part must be not to betray Charles, though the bare possibility of the accusation of another was agony to her. She wrote her condolences in due form to Fareham, and in due time was answered by Lucy Archfield. The letter was full of details about the infant, who seemed to absorb her and her mother, and to be as likely to live as any child of those days ever was--and it was in his favour that his grandmother and her old nurse had better notions of management than most of her contemporaries. In spite of all that Lucy said of her brother's overwhelming grief, and the melancholy of thus parting with him, there was a strain of cheerfulness throughout the letter, betraying that the poor young wife of less than a year was no very great loss to the peace and comfort of the family. The letter ended with-- There is a report that Sir Peregrine Oakshott is dead in Muscovy. Nothing has been heard of that unfortunate young man at Oakwood. If he be gone in quest of his uncle, I wonder what will become of him? However, nurse will have it that this being the third seventh year of his life, the fairies have carried off their changeling--you remember how she told us the story of his being changed as an infant, when we were children at Winchester; she believes it as much as ever, and never let little Philip out of her sight before he was baptized. I ask her, if the changeling be gone, where is the true Peregrine? but she only wags her head in answer. A day or two later Anne heard from her uncle from Oxford. He was extremely grieved at the condition of his beloved alma mater, with a Roman Catholic Master reigning at University College, a doctor from the Sorbonne and Fellows to match, inflicted by military force on Magdalen, whose lawful children had been ejected with a violence beyond anything that the colleges had suffered even in the time of the Rebellion. If things went on as they were, he pronounced Oxford would be no better than a Popish seminary: and he had the more readily induced his old friend to consent to Charles's desire not to remain there as a student, but to go abroad with Mr. Fellowes, one of the expelled fellows of Magdalen, a clergyman of mature age, but a man of the world, who had already acted as a travelling tutor. Considering that the young widower was not yet twenty, and that all his wife's wealth would be in his hands, also that his cousin Sedley formed a dangerous link with the questionable diversions of the garrison at Portsmouth, both father and friend felt that it was well that he should be out of reach, and have other occupations for the present. Change of scene had, Dr. Woodford said, brightened the poor youth, and he was showing more interest in passing events, but probably he would never again be the light-hearted boy they used to know. Anne could well believe it.	{ "id": "12449" }
16	A ROYAL NURSERY	"The duty that I owe unto your Majesty I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe." King Richard III. It was not till the Queen had moved from St. James's, where her son had been born, to take up her abode at Whitehall, that Lady Oglethorpe was considered to be disinfected from her children's whooping-cough, and could conduct Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford to her new situation. Anne remembered the place from times past, as she followed the lady up the broad stairs to the state rooms, where the child was daily carried for inspection by the nation to whom, it was assumed, he was so welcome, but who, on the contrary, regarded him with the utmost dislike and suspicion. Whitehall was, in those days, free to all the world, and though sentries in the Life-guards' uniform with huge grenadier caps were posted here and there, every one walked up and down. Members of Parliament and fine gentlemen in embroidered coats and flowing wigs came to exchange news; country cousins came to stare and wonder, some to admire, some to whisper their disbelief in the Prince's identity; clergy in gown, cassock, and bands came to win what they could in a losing cause; and one or two other clergy, who were looked at askance, whose dress had a foreign air, and whose tonsure could be detected as they threaded their way with quick, gliding steps to the King's closet. Lady Oglethorpe, as one to the manner born, made her way through the midst of this throng in the magnificent gallery, and Anne followed her closely, conscious of words of admiration and inquiries who she was. Into the Prince's presence chamber, in fact his day-nursery, they came, and a sweet and gentle-looking lady met them, and embraced Lady Oglethorpe, who made known Mistress Woodford to Lady Strickland, of Sizergh, the second governess, as the fourth rocker who had been appointed. "You are welcome, Miss Woodford," said the lady, looking at Anne's high, handsome head and well-bred action in courtesying, with a shade of surprise. "You are young, but I trust you are discreet. There is much need thereof." Following to a kind of alcove, raised by a step or two, Anne found herself before a half-circle of ladies and gentlemen round a chair of state, in front of which stood a nurse, with an infant in her arms, holding him to be caressed and inspected by the lady on the throne. Her beautiful soft dark eyes and hair, and an ivory complexion, with her dignified and graceful bearing, her long, slender throat and exquisite figure, were not so much concealed as enhanced by the simple mob cap and 'night-gown,' as it was then the fashion to call a morning wrapper, which she wore, and Anne's first impression was that no wonder Peregrine raved about her. Poor Peregrine! that very thought came like a stab, as, after courtesying low, she stood at the end of the long room--silent, and observing. A few gentlemen waited by the opposite door, but not coming far into the apartment, and Lady Oglethorpe was announced by one of them. The space was so great that Anne could not hear the words, and she only saw the gracious smile and greeting as Lady Oglethorpe knelt and kissed the Queen's hand. After a long conversation between the mothers, during which Lady Oglethorpe was accommodated with a cushion, Anne was beckoned forward, and was named to the Queen, who honoured her with an inclination of the head and a few low murmured words. Then there was an announcement of 'His Majesty,' and Anne, following the general example of standing back with low obeisances, beheld the tall active figure and dark heavy countenance of her Royal godfather, under his great black, heavily-curled wig. He returned Lady Oglethorpe's greeting, and his face lighted up with a pleasant smile that greatly changed the expression as he took his child into his arms for a few moments; but the little one began to cry, whereupon he was carried off, and the King began to consult Lady Oglethorpe upon the water-gruel on which the poor little Prince was being reared, and of which she emphatically disapproved. Before he left the room, however, Lady Oglethorpe took care to present to him his god-daughter, Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and very low was the girl's obeisance before him, but with far more fright and shyness than before the sweet-faced Queen. "Oh ay!" he said, "I remember honest Will Woodford. He did good service at Southwold. I wish he had left a son like him. Have you a brother, young mistress?" "No, please your Majesty, I am an only child." "More's the pity," he said kindly, and with a smile brightening his heavy features. " 'Tis too good a breed to die out. You are Catholic?" "I am bred in the English Church, so please your Majesty." His Majesty was evidently less pleased than before, but he only said, "Ha! and my godchild! We must amend that," and waved her aside. The royal interview over, the newcomer was presented to the State Governess, the Countess of Powys, a fair and gracious matron, who was, however, almost as far removed from her as the Queen. Then she was called on to take a solemn oath before the Master of the Household, of dutiful loyalty to the Prince. Mrs. Labadie was head nurse as well as being wife to the King's French valet. She was a kindly, portly Englishwoman, who seemed wrapped up in her charge, and she greeted her new subordinate in a friendly way, which, however, seemed strange in one who at home would have been of an inferior degree, expressed hopes of her steadiness and discretion, and called to Miss Dunord to show Miss Woodford her chamber. The abbreviation Miss sounded familiar and unsuitable, but it had just come into use for younger spinsters, though officially they were still termed Mistress. Mistress or Miss Dunord was sallow and gray-eyed, somewhat older than Anne, and looking thoroughly French, though her English was perfect. She was entirely dressed in blue and white, and had a rosary and cross at her girdle. "This way," she said, tripping up a steep wooden stair. "We sleep above. 'Tis a huge, awkward place. Her Majesty calls it the biggest and most uncomfortable palace she ever was in." Opening a heavy door, she showed a room of considerable size, hung with faded frayed tapestry, and containing two huge bedsteads, with four heavy posts, and canopies of wood, as near boxes as could well be. Privacy was a luxury not ordinarily coveted, and the arrangement did not surprise Anne, though she could have wished that on that summer day curtains and tapestry had been less fusty. Two young women were busy over a dress spread on one of the beds, and with French ease and grace the guide said, "Here is our new colleague, Miss Jacobina Woodford. Let me present Miss Hester Bridgeman and Miss Jane Humphreys." "Miss Woodford is welcome," said Miss Bridgeman, a keen, brown, lively, somewhat anxious-looking person, courtesying and holding out her hand, and her example was followed by Jane Humphreys, a stout, rosy, commonplace girl. "Oh! I am glad," this last cried. "Now I shall have a bedfellow." This Anne was the less sorry for, as she saw that the bed of the other two was furnished with a holy water stoup and a little shrine with a waxen Madonna. There was only one looking-glass among the four, and not much apparatus either for washing or the toilet, but Miss Bridgeman believed that they would soon go to Richmond, where things would be more comfortable. Then she turned to consult Miss Dunord on her endeavour to improve the trimmings of a dress of Miss Humphreys. "Yes, I know you are always in Our Lady's colours, Pauline, but you have a pretty taste, and can convince Jane that rose colour and scarlet cannot go together." "My father chose the ribbons," said Jane, as if that were unanswerable. "City taste," said Miss Bridgeman. "They are pretty, very pretty with anything else," observed Pauline, with more tact. "See, now, with your white embroidered petticoat and the gray train they are ravishing--and the scarlet coat will enliven the black." There was further a little murmur about what a Mr. Hopkins admired, but it was lost in the arrival of Miss Woodford's mails. They clustered round, as eager as a set of schoolgirls, over Anne's dresses. Happily even the extreme of fashion had not then become ungraceful. "Her Majesty will not have the loose drapery that folks used to wear," said Hester Bridgeman. "No," said Pauline; "it was all very well for those who could dispose it with an artless negligence, but for some I could name, it was as though they had tumbled it on with a hay-fork and had their hair tousled by being tickled in the hay." "Now we have the tight bodice with plenty of muslin and lace, the gown open below to show the petticoat," said Hester; "and to my mind it is more decorous." "Decorum was not the vogue then," laughed Pauline, "perhaps it will be now. Oh, what lovely lace! real Flanders, on my word! Where did you get it, Miss Woodford?" "It was my mother's." "And this? Why, 'tis old French point, you should hang it to your sleeves." "My Lady Archfield gave it to me in case I should need it." "Ah! I see you have good friends and are a person of some condition," put in Hester Bridgeman. "I shall be happy to consort with you. Let us--" Anne courtesied, and at the moment a bell was heard, Pauline at once crossed herself and fell on her knees before the small shrine with a figure of the Blessed Virgin, and Hester, breaking off her words, followed her example; but Jane Humphreys stood twisting the corner of her apron. In a very short time, almost before Anne had recovered from her bewilderment, the other two were up and chattering again. "You are not a Catholic?" demanded Miss Bridgeman. "I was bred in the Church," said Anne. "And you the King's godchild!" exclaimed Pauline. "But we shall soon amend that and make a convert of you like Miss Bridgeman there." Anne shook her head, but was glad to ask, "And what means the bell that is ringing now?" "That is the supper bell. It rings just after the Angelus," said Hester. "No, it is not ours. The great folks, Lady Powys, Lady Strickland, and the rest sup first. We have the dishes after them, with Nurses Labadie and Royer and the rest--no bad ones either. They are allowed five dishes and two bottles of wine apiece, and they always leave plenty for us, and it is served hot too." The preparations for going down to the second table now absorbed the party. As Hester said, the fare at this second table was not to be despised. It was a formal meal shared with the two nurses and the two pages of the backstairs. Not the lads usually associated with the term, but men of mature age, and of gentle, though not noble, birth and breeding; and there were likewise the attendants of the King and Queen of the same grade, such as Mr. Labadie, the King's valet, some English, but besides these, Dusian, the Queen's French page, and Signer and Signora Turini, who had come with her from Modena, Pere Giverlai, her confessor, and another priest. Pere Giverlai said grace, and the conversation went on briskly between the elders, the younger ones being supposed to hold their peace. Their dishes went in reversion to the inferior class of servants, laundress, sempstress, chambermaids, and the like, who had much more liberty than their betters, and not such a lack of occupation as Anne soon perceived that she should suffer from. There was, however, a great muster of all the Prince's establishment, who stood round, as many as could, with little garments in their hands, while he was solemnly undressed and laid in his richly inlaid and carved cradle--over which Pere Giverlai pronounced a Latin benediction. The nursery establishment was then released, except one of the nurses, who was to sleep or wake on a couch by his side, and one of the rockers. These damsels had, two at a time, to divide the night between them, one being always at hand to keep the food warm, touch the rocker at need with her foot, or call up the nurse on duty if the child awoke, but not presume herself to handle his little Royal Highness. It was the night when Mistresses Dunord and Bridgeman were due, and Anne followed Jane Humphreys to her room, asking a little about the duties of the morrow. "We must be dressed before seven," said the girl. "One of us will be left on duty while the others go to Mass. I am glad you are a Protestant, Miss Woodford, for the Catholics put everything on me that they can." "We must do our best to help and strengthen each other," said Anne. "It is very hard," said Jane; "and the priests are always at me! I would change as Hester Bridgeman has done, but that I know it would break my grand-dame's heart. My father might not care so much, if I got advancement, but I believe it would kill my grandmother." "Advancement! oh, but faith comes first," exclaimed Anne, recalling the warning. "Hester says one religion is as good as another to get to Heaven by," murmured Jane. "Not if we deny our own for the world's sake," said Anne. "Is the chapel here a Popish one?" "No; the Queen has an Oratory, but the Popish chapel is at St. James's--across the Park. The Protestant one is here at Whitehall, and there are daily prayers at nine o'clock, and on Sunday music with three fiddlers, and my grandmother says it might almost as well be Popish at once." "Did your grandmother bring you up?" "Yes. My mother died when I was seven years old, and my grandmother bred us all up. You should hear her talk of the good old times before the Kings came back and there were no Bishops and no book prayers--but my father says we must swim with the stream, or he would not have got any custom at his coffee-house." "Is that his calling?" "Ay! No one has a better set of guests than in the Golden Lamb. The place is full. The great Dr. Hammond sees his patients there, and it is all one buzz of the wits. It was because of that that my Lord Sunderland made interest, and got me here. How did you come?" Anne briefly explained, and Jane broke out-- "Then you will be my friend, and we will tell each other all our secrets. You are a Protestant too. You will be mine, and not Bridgeman's or Dunord's--I hate them." In point of fact Anne did not feel much attracted by the proffer of friendship, and she certainly did not intend to tell Jane Humphreys all her secrets, nor to vow enmity to the other colleagues, but she gravely answered that she trusted they would be friends and help to maintain one another's faith. She was relieved that Miss Bridgeman here came in to take her first turn of rest till she was to be called up at one o'clock. As Jane Humphreys had predicted, Mrs. Royer and Anne alone were left in charge of the nursling while every one went to morning Mass. Then followed breakfast and the levee of his Royal Highness, lasting as on the previous day till dinner-time; and the afternoon was as before, except that the day was fine enough for the child to be carried out with all his attendants behind him to take the air in the private gardens. If this was to be the whole course of life at the palace, Anne began to feel that she had made a great mistake. She was by no means attracted by her companions, though Miss Bridgeman decided that she must know persons of condition, and made overtures of friendship, to be sealed by calling one another Oriana and Portia. She did not approve of such common names as Princess Anne and Lady Churchill used--Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman! They must have something better than what was used by the Cockpit folks, and she was sure that her dear Portia would soon be of the only true faith.	{ "id": "12449" }
17	MACHINATIONS	"Baby born to woe." F. T. PALGRAVE. When Anne Woodford began to wake from the constant thought of the grief and horror she had left at Portchester, and to feel more alive to her surroundings and less as if they were a kind of dream, in which she only mechanically took her part, one thing impressed itself on her gradually, and that was disappointment. If the previous shock had not blunted all her hopes and aspirations, perhaps she would have felt it sooner and more keenly; but she could not help realising that she had put herself into an inferior position whence there did not seem to be the promotion she had once anticipated. Her companion rockers were of an inferior grade to herself. Jane Humphreys was a harmless but silly girl, not much wiser, though less spoilt, than poor little Madam, and full of Cockney vulgarities. Education was unfashionable just then, and though Hester Bridgeman was bettor born and bred, being the daughter of an attorney in the city, she was not much better instructed, and had no pursuits except that of her own advantage. Pauline Dunord was by far the best of the three, but she seemed to live a life apart, taking very little interest in her companions or anything around her except her devotions and the bringing them over to her Church. The nursery was quite a separate establishment; there was no mingling with the guests of royalty, who were only seen in excited peeps from the window, or when solemnly introduced to the presence chamber to pay their respects to the Prince. As to books, the only secular one that Anne saw while at Whitehall was an odd volume of Parthenissa. The late King's summary of the Roman controversy was to be had in plenty, and nothing was more evident than that the only road to favour or promotion was in being thereby convinced. "Don't throw it down as if it were a hot chestnut," said her Oriana. "That's what they all do at first, but they come to it at last." Anne made no answer, but a pang smote her as she thought of her uncle's warnings. Yet surely she might hope for other modes of prospering, she who was certainly by far the best looking and best educated of all the four, not that this served her much in her present company, and those of higher rank did not notice her at all. Princess Anne would surely recollect her, and then she might be safe in a Protestant household, where her uncle would be happy about her. The Princess had been at Bath when first she arrived, but at the end of a week preparations were made at the Cockpit, a sort of appendage to Whitehall, where the Prince and Princess of Denmark lived, and in due time there was a visit to the nursery. Standing in full ceremony behind Lady Powys, Anne saw the plump face and form she recollected in the florid bloom of a young matron, not without a certain royal dignity in the pose of the head, though in grace and beauty far surpassed by the tall, elegant figure and face of Lady Churchill, whose bright blue eyes seemed to be taking in everything everywhere. Anne's heart began to beat high at the sight of a once familiar face, and with hopes of a really kind word from one who as an elder girl had made much of the pretty little plaything. The Princess Anne's countenance was, however, less good-natured than usual; her mouth was made up to a sullen expression, and when her brother was shown to her she did not hold out her arms to him nor vouchsafe a kiss. The Queen looked at her wistfully, asking-- "Is he not like the King?" "Humph!" returned Princess Anne, "I see no likeness to any living soul of our family." "Nay, but see his little nails," said the Queen, spreading the tiny hand over her finger. "See how like your father's they are framed! My treasure, you can clasp me!" "My brother, Edgar! He was the beauty," said the Princess. " _He_ was exactly like my father; but there's no judging of anything so puny as this!" "He was very suffering last week, the poor little angel," said the mother sadly; "but they say this water-gruel is very nourishing, and not so heavy as milk." "It does not look as if it agreed with him," said the Princess. "Poor little mammet! Did I hear that you had the little Woodford here? Is that you, girl?" Anne courtesied herself forward. "Ay, I remember you. I never forget a face, and you have grown up fair enough. Where's your mother?" "I lost her last February, so please your Royal Highness." "Oh! She was a good woman. Why did she not send you to me? Well, well! Come to my toilette to-morrow." So Princess Anne swept away in her rich blue brocade. Her behest was obeyed, of course, though it was evidently displeasing to the nursery authorities, and Lady Strickland gave a warning to be discreet and to avoid gossip with the Cockpit folks. Anne could not but be excited. Perhaps the Princess would ask for her, and take her into the number of her own attendants, where she would no longer be in a Romish household, and would certainly be in a higher position. Why, she remembered that very Lady Churchill as Sarah Jennings in no better a position than she could justly aspire to. Her coming to Court would thus be truly justified. The Princess sat in a silken wrapper, called a night-gown, in her chamber, which had a richly-curtained bed in the alcove, and a toilet-table with a splendid Venetian mirror, and a good deal of silver sparkling on it, while a strange mixture of perfumes came from the various boxes and bottles. Ladies and tirewomen stood in attendance; a little black boy in a turban and gold-embroidered dress held a salver with her chocolate cup; a cockatoo soliloquised in low whispers in the window; a monkey was chained to a pole at a safe distance from him; a French friseur was manipulating the Princess's profuse brown hair with his tongs; and a needy-looking, pale thin man, in a semi-clerical suit, was half-reading, half- declaiming a poem, in which 'Fair Anna' seemed mixed up with Juno, Ceres, and other classical folk, but to which she was evidently paying very little attention. "Ah! there you are, little one. Thank you, Master--what's name; that is enough. 'Tis a fine poem, but I never can remember which is which of all your gods and goddesses. Oh yes, I accept the dedication. Give him a couple of guineas, Ellis; it will serve him for board and lodging for a fortnight, poor wretch!" Then, after giving a smooth, well-shaped white hand to be kissed, and inviting her visitor to a cushion at her feet, she began a long series of questions, kindly ones at first, though of the minute gossiping kind, and extending to the Archfields, for poor young Madam had been of the rank about which royalty knew everything in those days. The inquiries were extremely minute, and the comments what from any one else, Anne would have thought vulgar, especially in the presence of the hairdresser, but her namesake observed her blush and hesitation, and said, "Oh, never mind a creature like that. He is French, besides, and does not understand a word we say." Anne, looking over the Princess's head, feared that she saw a twinkle in the man's eye, and could only look down and try to ignore him through the catechism that ensued, on when she came to Whitehall, on the Prince of Wales's health, the management of him, and all the circumstances connected with his birth. Very glad was Anne that she knew nothing, and had not picked up any information as to what had happened before she came to the palace. As to the present, Lady Strickland's warning and her own sense of honour kept her reticent to a degree that evidently vexed the Princess, for she dropped her caressing manner, and sent her away with a not very kind, "You may go now; you will be turning Papist next, and what would your poor mother say?" And as Anne departed in backward fashion she heard Lady Churchill say, "You will make nothing of her. She is sharper than she affects, and a proud minx! I see it in her carriage." The visit had only dashed a few hopes and done her harm with her immediate surroundings, who always disliked and distrusted intercourse with the other establishment. However, in another day the nursery was moved to Richmond. This was a welcome move to Anne, who had spent her early childhood near enough to be sometimes taken thither, and to know the Park well, so that there was a home feeling in the sight of the outline of the trees and the scenery of the neighbourhood. The Queen intended going to Bath, so that the establishment was only that of the Prince, and the life was much quieter on the whole; but there was no gratifying any yearning for country walks, for it was not safe nor perhaps decorous for one young woman to be out alone in a park open to the public and haunted by soldiers from Hounslow--nor could either of her fellow-rockers understand her preference for a secluded path through the woods. Miss Dunord never went out at all, except on duty, when the Prince was carried along the walks in the garden, and the other two infinitely preferred the open spaces, where tables were set under the horse-chestnut trees for parties who boated down from London to eat curds and whey, sometimes bringing a fiddler so as to dance under the trees. Jane Humphreys especially was always looking out for acquaintances, and once, with a cry of joy, a stout, homely-looking young woman started up, exclaiming, "Sister Jane!" and flew into her arms. Upon which Miss Woodford was introduced to 'My sister Coles' and her husband, and had to sit down under a tree and share the festivities, while there was an overflow of inquiries and intelligence, domestic and otherwise. Certainly these were persons whom she would not have treated as equals at home. Besides, it was all very well to hear of the good old grandmother's rheumatics, and of little Tommy's teething, and even to see Jane hang her head and be teased about remembering Mr. Hopkins; nor was it wonderful to hear lamentations over the extreme dulness of the life where one never saw a creature to speak to who was not as old as the hills; but when it came to inquiries as minute as the Princess's about the Prince of Wales, Anne thought the full details lavishly poured out scarcely consistent with loyalty to their oaths of service and Lady Strickland's warning, and she told Jane so. She was answered, "Oh la! what harm can it do? You are such a proud peat! Grand-dame and sister like to know all about His Royal Highness." This was true; but Anne was far more uncomfortable two or three days later. The Prince was ailing, so much so that Lady Powys had sent an express for the Queen, who had not yet started for Bath, when Anne and Jane, being relieved from duty by the other pair, went out for a stroll. "Oh la!" presently exclaimed Jane, "if that is not Colonel Sands, the Princess's equerry. I do declare he is coming to speak to us, though he is one of the Cockpit folks." He was a very fine gentleman indeed, all scarlet and gold, and no wonder Jane was flattered and startled, so that she jerked her fan violently up and down as he accosted her with a wave of his cocked hat, saying that he was rejoiced to meet these two fair ladies, having been sent by the Princess of Denmark to inquire for the health of the Prince. She was very anxious to know more than could be learnt by formal inquiry, he said, and he was happy to have met the young gentlewomen who could gratify him. The term 'gentlewoman' highly flattered Miss Humphreys, who blushed and bridled, and exclaimed, "Oh la, sir!" but Anne thought it needful to say gravely-- "We are in trust, sir, and have no right to speak of what passes within the royal household." "Madam, I admire your discretion, but to the--(a-hem)--sister of the--(a-hem)--Prince of Wales it is surely uncalled for." "Miss Woodford is so precise," said Jane Humphreys, with a giggle; "I do not know what harm can come of saying that His Royal Highness peaks and pines just as he did before." "He is none the better for country air then?" "Oh no? except that he cries louder. Such a time as we had last night! Mrs. Royer never slept a wink all the time I was there, but walked about with him all night. You had the best of it, Miss Woodford." "He slept while I was there," said Anne briefly, not thinking it needful to state that the tired nurse had handed the child over to her, and that he had fallen asleep in her arms. She tried to put an end to the conversation by going indoors, but she was vexed to find that, instead of following her closely, Miss Humphreys was still lingering with the equerry. Anne found the household in commotion. Pauline met her, weeping bitterly, and saying the Prince had had a fit, and all hope was over, and in the rockers' room, she found Hester Bridgeman exclaiming that her occupation was gone. Water-gruel, she had no doubt, had been the death of the Prince. The Queen was come, and wellnigh distracted. She had sent out in quest of a wet-nurse, but it was too late; he was going the way of all Her Majesty's children. Going down again together the two girls presently had to stand aside as the poor Queen, seeing and hearing nothing, came towards her own room with her handkerchief over her face. They pressed each other's hands awe-stricken, and went on to the nursery. There Mrs. Labadie was kneeling over the cradle, her hood hanging over her face, crying bitterly over the poor little child, who had a blue look about his face, and seemed at the last gasp, his features contorted by a convulsion. At that moment Jane Humphreys was seen gently opening the door and letting in Colonel Sands, who moved as quietly as possible, to give a furtive look at the dying child. His researches were cut short, however. Lady Strickland, usually the gentlest of women, darted out and demanded what he was doing in her nursery. He attempted to stammer some excuse about Princess Anne, but Lady Strickland only answered by standing pointing to the door and he was forced to retreat in a very undignified fashion. "Who brought him?" she demanded, when the door was shut. "Those Cockpit folk are not to come prying here, hap what may!" Miss Humphreys had sped away for fear of questions being asked, and attention was diverted by Mrs. Royer arriving with a stout, healthy- looking young woman in a thick home-spun cloth petticoat, no stockings, and old shoes, but with a clean white cap on her head--a tilemaker's wife who had been captured in the village. No sooner was the suffering, half-starved child delivered over to her than he became serene and contented. The water-gruel regime was over, and he began to thrive from that time. Even when later in the afternoon the King himself brought in Colonel Sands, whom in the joy of his heart he had asked to dine with him, the babe lay tranquilly on the cradle, waving his little hands and looking happy. The intrusion seemed to have been forgotten, but that afternoon Anne, who had been sent on a message to one of the Queen's ladies, more than suspected that she saw Jane in a deep recess of a window in confabulation with the Colonel. And when they were alone at bed- time the girl said-- "Is it not droll? The Colonel cannot believe that 'tis the same child. He has been joking and teasing me to declare that we have a dead Prince hidden somewhere, and that the King showed him the brick-bat woman's child." "How can you prattle in that mischievous way--after what Lady Strickland said, too? You do not know what harm you may do!" "Oh lack, it was all a jest!" "I am not so sure that it was." "But you will not tell of me, dear friend, you will not. I never saw Lady Strickland like that; I did not know she could be in such a rage." "No wonder, when a fellow like that came peeping and prying like a raven to see whether the poor babe was still breathing," cried Anne indignantly. "How could you bring him in?" "Fellow indeed! Why he is a colonel in the Life-guards, and the Princess's equerry; and who has a right to know about the child if not his own sister--or half-sister?" "She is not a very loving sister," replied Anne. "You know well, Jane, how many would not be sorry to make out that it is as that man would fain have you say." "Well, I told him it was no such thing, and laughed the very notion to scorn." "It were better not to talk with him at all." "But you will not speak of it. If I were turned away my father would beat me. Nay, I know not what he might not do to me. You will not tell, dear darling Portia, and I will love you for ever." "I have no call to tell," said Anne coldly, but she was disgusted and weary, and moreover not at all sure that she, as the other Protestant rocker, and having been in the Park on that same day, was not credited with some of the mischievous gossip that had passed. "There, Portia, that is what you get by walking with that stupid Humphreys," said Oriana. "She knows no better than to blab to any one who will be at the trouble to seem sweet upon her, though she may get nothing by it." "Would it be better if she did?" asked Anne. "Oh well, we must all look out for ourselves, and I am sure there is no knowing what may come next. But I hear we are to move to Windsor as soon as the child is strong enough, so as to be farther out of reach of the Cockpit tongues." This proved to be true, but the Prince and his suite were not lodged in the Castle itself, a house in the cloisters being thought more suitable, and here the Queen visited her child daily, for since that last alarm she could not bear to be long absent from him. Such emissaries as Colonel Sands did not again appear, but after that precedent Lady Strickland had become much more unwilling to allow any of those under her authority to go out into any public place, and the rockers seldom got any exercise except as swelling the Prince's train when he was carried out to take the air. Anne looked with longing eyes at the Park, but a ramble there was a forbidden pleasure. She could not always even obtain leave to attend St. George's Chapel; the wish was treated as a sort of weakness, or folly, and she was always the person selected to stay at home when any religious ceremony called away the rest of the establishment. As the King's god-daughter it was impressed on her that she ought to conform to his Church, and one of the many priests about the Court was appointed to instruct her. In the dearth of all intellectual intercourse, and the absolute deficiency of books, she could not but become deeply interested in the arguments. Her uncle had forearmed her with instruction, and she wrote to him on any difficulty which arose, and this became the chief occupation of her mind, distracting her thoughts from the one great cloud that hung over her memory. Indeed one of the foremost bulwarks her feelings erected to fortify her conscience against the temptations around, was the knowledge that she would have, though of course under seal of confession, to relate that terrible story to a priest. Hester Bridgeman could not imagine how her Portia could endure to hear the old English Prayer-book droned out. For her part, she liked one thing or the other, either a rousing Nonconformist sermon in a meeting-house or a splendid Mass. "But, after all," as Anne overheard her observing to Miss Dunord, "it may be all the better for us. What with her breeding and her foreign tongues, she would be sure to be set over our heads as under-governess, or the like, if she were not such an obstinate heretic, and keeping that stupid Humphreys so. We could have converted her long ago, if it were not for that Woodford and for her City grand-dame! Portia is the King's godchild, too, so it is just as well that she does not see what is for her own advantage." "I do not care for promotion. I only want to save my own soul and hers," said Pauline. "I wish she would come over to the true Church, for I could love her." And certainly Pauline Dunord's gentle devotional example, and her perfect rest and peace in the practice of her religion, were strong influences with Anne. She was waiting till circumstances should make it possible to her to enter a convent, and in the meantime she lived a strictly devout life, abstracted as far as duty and kindness permitted from the little cabals and gossipry around. Anne could not help feeling that the girl was as nearly a saint as any one she had ever seen--far beyond herself in goodness. Moreover, the Queen inspired strong affection. Mary Beatrice was not only a very beautiful person, full of the grace and dignity of the House of Este, but she was deeply religious, good and gentle, kindly and gracious to all who approached her, and devoted to her husband and child. A word or look from her was always a delight, and Anne, by her knowledge of Italian, was able sometimes to obtain a smiling word or remark. The little Prince, after those first miserable weeks of his life, had begun to thrive, and by and by manifested a decided preference not only for his beautiful mother, but for the fresh face, bright smile, and shining brown eyes of Miss Woodford. She could almost always, with nods and becks, avert a passion of roaring, which sometimes went beyond the powers of even his foster-mother, the tiler's wife. The Queen watched with delight when he laughed and flourished his arms in response, and the King was summoned to see the performance, which he requited by taking out a fat gold watch set with pearls, and presenting it to Anne, as his grave gloomy face lighted up with a smile. "Are you yet one of us?" he asked, as she received his gift on her knee. "No, sir, I cannot--" "That must be amended. You have read his late Majesty's paper?" "I have, sir." "And seen Father Giverlai?" "Yes, please your Majesty." "And still you are not convinced. That must not be. I would gladly consider and promote you, but I can only have true Catholics around my son. I shall desire Father Crump to see you."	{ "id": "12449" }
18	HALLOWMAS EVE	"This more strange Than such a murder is." Macbeth. "Bambino mio, bambino mio," wailed Mary Beatrice, as she pressed her child to her bosom, and murmured to him in her native tongue. "And did they say he was not his mother's son, his poor mother, whose dearest treasure he is! Oime, crudeli, crudelissimi! Even his sisters hate him and will not own him, the little jewel of his mother's heart!" Anne, waiting in the window, was grieved to have overheard the words which the poor Queen had poured out, evidently thinking no one near could understand her. That evening there were orders to prepare for a journey to Whitehall the next morning. "And," said Hester Bridgeman, "I can tell you why, in all confidence, but I have it from a sure hand. The Prince of Orange is collecting a fleet and army to come and inquire into certain matters, especially into the birth of a certain young gentleman we wot of." "How can he have the insolence?" cried Anne. " 'Tis no great wonder, considering the vipers in the Cockpit," said Hester. "But what will they do to us?" asked Jane Humphreys in terror. "Nothing to you, my dear, nor to Portia; you are good Protestants," said Hester with a sneer. "Mrs. Royer told me it was for the christening," said Jane, "and then we shall all have new suits. I am glad we are going back to town. It cannot be so mortal dull as 'tis here, with all the leaves falling--enough to give one the vapours." There were auguries on either hand in the palace that if the Prince came it would be only another Monmouth affair, and this made Anne shrink, for she had partaken of the grief and indignation of Winchester at the cruel execution of Lady Lisle, and had heard rumours enough of the progress of the Assize to make her start in horror when called to watch the red-faced Lord Chancellor Jeffreys getting out of his coach. It really seemed for the time as if the royal household were confident in this impression, though as soon as they were again settled in Whitehall there was a very close examination of the witnesses of the Prince's birth, and a report printed of their evidence, enough it might be thought to satisfy any one; but Jane Humphreys, who went to spend a day at the Golden Lamb, her father's warehouse, reported that people only laughed at it. Anne's spirit burned at the injustice, and warmed the more towards the Queen and little Prince, whose pretty responses to her caresses could not but win her love. Moreover, Pauline's example continued to attract her, and Father Crump was a better controversialist, or perhaps a better judge of character, than Pere Giverlai, and took her on sides where she was more vulnerable, so as to make her begin to feel unsettled, and wonder whether she were not making a vain sacrifice, and holding out after all against the better way. The sense of the possible gain, and disgust at the shallow conversions of some around her, helped to keep her back. She could not help observing that while Pauline persuaded, Hester had ceased to persuade, and seemed rather willing to hinder her. Just before the State christening or rather admission into the Church, Lady Powys, in the name of the King and Queen, offered her the post of sub-governess, which really would mean for the present chief playfellow to the little Prince, and would place her on an entirely different platform of society from the comparatively menial one she occupied, but of course on the condition of conformity to Rome. To be above the familiarity of Jane and Hester was no small temptation, but still she hesitated. "Madam, I thank you, I thank their Majesties," she said, "but I cannot do it thus." "I see what you mean, Miss Woodford," said Lady Powys, who was a truly noble woman. "Your motives must be above suspicion even to yourself. I respect you, and would not have made you the offer except by express command, but I still trust that when your disinterestedness is above suspicion you will still join us." It was sore mortification when Hester Bridgeman was preferred to the office, for which she was far less fitted, being no favourite with the babe, and being essentially vulgar in tastes and habits, and knowing no language save her own, and that ungrammatically and with an accent which no one could wish the Prince to acquire. Yet there she was, promoted to the higher grade of the establishment and at the christening, standing in the front ranks, while Miss Woodford was left far in the rear among the servants. A report of the Dutch fleet having been destroyed by a storm had restored the spirits of the Court; and in the nursery very little was known of the feelings of the kingdom at large. Dr. Woodford did not venture on writing freely to his niece, lest he should compromise her, and she only vaguely detected that he was uneasy. So came All Saints' Day Eve, when there was to be a special service late in the evening at the Romanised Chapel Royal at St. James's, with a sermon by a distinguished Dominican, to which all the elder and graver members of the household were eager to go. And there was another very different attraction at the Cockpit, where good-natured Princess Anne had given permission for a supper, to be followed by burning of nuts and all the divinations proper to Hallowmas Eve, to which were invited all the subordinates of the Whitehall establishment who could be spared. Pauline Dunord was as eager for the sermon as Jane Humphreys was for the supper, and Hester Bridgeman was in an odd mood of uncertainty, evidently longing after the sports, but not daring to show that she did so, and trying to show great desire to hear the holy man preach, together with a polite profession of self-denial in giving up her place in case there should not be room for all. However, as it appeared that even the two chief nurses meant to combine sermon and the latter end of the supper, she was at ease. The foster-mother and one of the Protestant rockers were supposed to be enough to watch over the Prince, but the former, who had been much petted and spoilt since she had been at the palace, and was a young creature, untrained and wilful, cried so much at the idea of missing the merrymaking, that as it was reckoned important to keep her in good humour and good spirits, Mrs. Labadie decided on winking at her absence from the nursery, since Miss Woodford was quite competent to the charge for the short time that both the church-goers and the supper-goers would all be absent together. "But are you not afraid to stay alone?" asked Mrs. Labadie, with a little compunction. "What is there to be afraid of?" asked Anne. "There are the sentinels at the foot of the stairs, and what should reach us here?" "I would not be alone here," said more than one voice. "Nor I!" -- "Nor I!" "And on this night of all others!" said Hester. "But why?" "They say he walks!" whispered Jane in a voice of awe. "Who walks?" "The old King?" asked Hester. "No; the last King," said Jane. "No, no: it was Oliver Cromwell--old Noll himself!" put in another voice. "I tell you, no such thing," said Jane. "It was the last King. I heard it from them that saw it, at least the lady's cousin. 'Twas in the long gallery, in a suit of plain black velvet, with white muslin ruffles and cravat quilled very neat. Why do you laugh, Miss Woodford?" This was too much for Anne, who managed to say, "Who was his laundress?" "I tell you I heard it from them that told no lies. The gentleman could swear to it. He took a candle to him, and there was nought but the wainscot behind. Think of that." "And that we should be living here!" said another voice. "I never venture about the big draughty place alone at night," said the laundress. "No! nor I would not for twenty princes," added the sempstress. "Nay, I have heard steps," said Mrs. Royer, "and wailing--wailing. No wonder after all that has happened here. Oh yes, steps as of the guard being turned out!" "That is like our Squire's manor-house, where--" Every one contributed a story, and only the announcement of Her Majesty's approach put an end to these reminiscences. Anne held to her purpose. She had looked forward to this time of solitude, for she wanted leisure to consider the situation, and fairly to revolve the pleas by which Father Crump had shaken her, more in feeling than in her reason, and made her question whether her allegiance to her mother and uncle, and her disgust at interested conversions, were not making her turn aside from what might be the only true Church, the Mother of Saints, and therewith perversely give up earthly advancement. But, oh! how to write to her uncle. The very intention made her imagination and memory too powerful for the consideration of controversy. She went back first to a merry Hallowmas Eve long ago, among the Archfield party and other Winchester friends, and how the nuts had bounced in a manner which made the young ones shout in ecstasy of glee, but seemed to displease some of the elders, and had afterwards been the occasion of her being told that it was all folly, and therewith informed of Charles Archfield's contract to poor little Alice Fitzhubert. Then came other scenes. All the various ghostly tales she had heard, and as she sat with her knitting in the shaded room with no sound but the soft breathing of her little charge in his cradle, no light save from a shaded lamp and the fire on the hearth, strange thoughts and dreams floated over her; she started at mysterious cracks in the wainscotting from time to time, and beheld in the dark corners of the great room forms that seemed grotesque and phantom-like till she went up to them and resolved them into familiar bits of furniture or gowns and caps of Mrs. Labadie. She repeated half aloud numerous Psalms and bits of poetry, but in the midst would come some disturbing noise, a step or a shout from the street, though the chamber being at the back of the house looking into the Park few of such sounds penetrated thither. She began to think of King Charles's last walk from St. James's to Whitehall, and of the fatal window of the Banqueting-hall which had been pointed out to her, and then her thoughts flew back again to that vault in the castle yard, and she saw only too vividly in memory that open vault, veiled partly by nettles and mulleins, which was the unblest, unknown grave of the old playfellow who had so loved her mother and herself. Perhaps she had hitherto more dwelt on and pitied the living than the dead, as one whom fears and prayers still concerned, but now as she thought of the lively sprite-like being who had professed such affection for her, and for whom her mother had felt so much, and recollected him so soon and suddenly cut down and consigned to that dreary darkness, the strange yearning spirit dismissed to the unknown world, instead of her old terror and repulsion, a great tenderness and compunction came over her, and she longed to join those who would in two days more be keeping All Souls' Day in intercessions for their departed, so as to atone for her past dislike; and there was that sort of feeling about her which can only be described by the word 'eerie.' To relieve it Anne walked to the window and undid a small wicket in the shutter, so as to look out into the quiet moonlight park where the trees cast their long shadows on the silvery grass, and there was a great calm that seemed to reach her heart and spirits. Suddenly, across the sward towards the palace there came the slight, impish, almost one-sided figure, with the peculiar walk, swift though suggestive of a limp, the elfish set of the plume, the foreign adjustment of short cloak. Anne gazed with wide-stretched eyes and beating heart, trying to rally her senses and believe it fancy, when the figure crossed into a broad streak of light cast by the lamp over the door, the face was upturned for a moment. It was deadly pale, and the features were beyond all doubt Peregrine Oakshott's. She sprang back from the window, dropped on her knees, with her face hidden in her hands, and was hardly conscious till sounds of the others returning made her rally her powers so as to prevent all inquiries or surmises. It was Mrs. Labadie and Pauline Dunord, the former to see that all was well with the Prince before repairing to the Cockpit. "How pale you are!" she exclaimed. "Have you seen anything?" "I--It may be nothing. He is dead!" stammered Anne. "Oh then, 'tis naught but a maid's fancies," said the nurse good- humouredly. "Miss Dunord is in no mind for the sports, so she will stay with His Highness, and you had best come with me and drive the cobwebs out of your brain." "Indeed, I thank you, ma'am, but I could not," said Anne. "You had best, I tell you, shake these megrims out of your brain," said Mrs. Labadie; but she was in too great haste not to lose her share of the amusements to argue the point, and the two young women were left together. Pauline was in a somewhat exalted state, full of the sermon on the connection of the Church with the invisible world. "You have seen one of your poor dead," she said. "Oh, may it not be that he came to implore you to have pity, and join the Church, where you could intercede and offer the Holy Sacrifice for him?" Anne started. This seemed to chime in with proclivities of poor Peregrine's own, and when she thought of his corpse in that unhallowed vault, it seemed to her as if he must be calling on her to take measures for his rest, both of body and of spirit. Yet something seemed to seal her tongue. She could not open her lips on what she had seen, and while Pauline talked on, repeating the sermon which had so deeply touched her feelings, Anne heard without listening to aught besides her own perturbations, mentally debating whether she could endure to reveal the story to Father Crump, if she confessed to him, or whether she should write to her uncle; and she even began to compose the letter in her own mind, with the terrible revelation that must commence it, but every moment the idea became more formidable. How transfer her own heavy burthen to her uncle, who might feel bound to take steps that would cut young Archfield off from parents, sister, child, and home. Or supposing Dr. Woodford disbelieved the apparition of to-night, the whole would be discredited in his eyes, and he might suppose the summer morning's duel as much a delusion of her fancy as the autumn evening's phantom, and what evidence had she to adduce save Charles's despair, Peregrine's absence, and what there might be in the vault? Yet if all that Father Crump and Pauline said was true, that dear uncle might be under a fatal delusion, and it might be the best hope for herself--nay, even for that poor restless spirit--to separate herself from them. Here was Pauline talking of the blessedness of being able to offer prayers on 'All Souls' Day' for all those of whose ultimate salvation there were fears, or who might be in a state of suffering. It even startled her as she thought of her mother, whom she always gave thanks for as one departed in faith and fear. Would Father Crump speak of her as one in a state of inevitable ignorance to be expiated in the invisible world? It shocked the daughter as almost profane. Yet if it were true, and prayers and masses could aid her? Altogether Anne was in a mood on which the voices broke strangely returning from the supper full of news. Jane Humphreys was voluble on her various experiments. The nuts had burnt quietly together, and that was propitious to the Life-guardsman, Mr. Shaw, who had shared hers; but on the other hand, the apple-paring thrown over her shoulder had formed a P, and he whom she had seen in the vista of looking-glasses had a gold chain but neither a uniform nor a P in his name, and Mrs. Buss declared that it meant that she should be three times married, and the last would be an Alderman, if not Lord Mayor; and Mrs. Royer was joking Miss Bridgeman on the I of her apple-paring, which could stand for nothing but a certain Incle among 'the Cockpit folk,' who was her special detestation. Princess Anne and her husband had come down to see the nuts flying, and had laughed enough to split their sides, till Lord Cornbury came in and whispered something to Prince George, who said, "Est il possible?" and spoke to the Princess, and they all went away together. Yes, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who had been laughing before looked very grave, and went with them. "Oh!" exclaimed Anne, "is the Bishop of Bath and Wells here?" "Yes, in spite of his disgrace. I hear he is to preach in your Protestant chapel to-morrow." Anne had brought a letter of introduction from her uncle in case she should have any opportunity of seeing his old fellow canon, who had often been kind to her when she was a little girl at Winchester. She was in many minds of hope and fear as to the meeting him or speaking to him, under the consciousness of the possible defection from his Church, and the doubt and dread whether to confide her secret and consult him. However, the extreme improbability of her being able to do so made the yearning for the sight of a Winchester face predominate, and her vigil of the night past made the nursery authorities concede that she had fairly earned her turn to go to church in the forenoon, since she was obstinate enough to want to run after an old heretic so-called Bishop who had so pragmatically withstood His Majesty. Jane Humphreys went too, for though she was not fond of week-day services, any escape from the nursery was welcome, and there was a chance of seeing Lady Churchill's new mantle. In this she was disappointed, for none of the grandees were present, indeed it was whispered as the two girls made their way to the chapel, that there was great excitement over the Declaration of the Prince of Orange, which had arrived last night, that he had been invited by the lords spiritual and temporal to take up the cause of the liberties of England, and inquire into the evidence of the birth of the Prince of Wales. People shrugged their shoulders, but looked volumes, though it was no time nor place for saying more; and when in the chapel, that countenance of Bishop Ken, so beautiful in outward form, so expressive of strength, sweetness, and devotion, brought back such a flood of old associations to Anne, that it was enough to change the whole current of her thoughts and make her her own mother's child again, even before he opened his mouth. She caught his sweet voice in the Psalms, and closing her eyes seemed to be in the Cathedral once more among those mighty columns and arches; and when he began his sermon, on the text, 'Let the Saints be joyful with glory, let them rejoice in their beds,' she found the Communion of Saints in Paradise and on earth knit together in one fellowship as truly and preciously brought home to her as ever it had been to Pauline, and moreover when she thought of her mother, 'the lurid mist' was dispelled which had so haunted her the night before. The longing to speak to him awoke; and as he was quitting the chapel in full procession his kindly eye lit upon her with a look of recognition; and before she had moved from her place, one of the attendant clergy came back by his desire to conduct her to him. He held out his hand as she courtesied low. "Mistress Woodford," he said, "my old friend's niece! He wrote to me of you, but I have had no opportunity of seeing you before." "Oh, my Lord! I was so much longing to see and speak with you." "I am lodging at Lambeth," said the Bishop, "and it is too far to take you with me thither, but perhaps my good brother here," turning to the chaplain, "can help us to a room where we can be private." This was done; the chaplain's parlour at the Cockpit was placed at their disposal, and there a few kind words from Bishop Ken led to the unburthening of her heavy heart. Of Ken's replies to the controversial difficulties there is no need to tell. Indeed, ambition was far more her temptation than any real difficulties as to doctrine. Her dissatisfaction at being unable to answer the questions raised by Father Crump was exaggerated as the excuse and cover to herself of her craving for escape from her present subordinate post; and this the Bishop soon saw, and tenderly but firmly drew her to own both this and to confess the ambitious spirit which had led her into this scene of temptation. "It was true indeed," he said, "that trial by our own error is hardest to encounter, but you have repented, and by God's grace, my child, I trust you will be enabled to steer your course aright through the trials of loyalty to our God and to our King that are coming upon us all. Ever remember God and the plain duty first, His anointed next. Is there more that you would like to tell me? for you still bear a troubled look, and I have full time." Then Anne told him all the strange adventure of Portchester Castle, and even of the apparition of the night before. That gentleness and sympathy seemed to draw out all that was in her heart, and to her surprise, he did not treat the story of that figure as necessarily a delusion. He had known and heard too much of spiritual manifestations to the outward senses to declare that such things could not be. What she had seen might be explained by one of four hypotheses. It was either a phantom of her brain, and her being fully awake, although recently dwelling on the recollection, rendered that idea less probable, or the young man had not been killed and she had seen him in propria persona. She had Charles Archfield's word that the death was certain. He had never been heard of again, and if alive, the walk before Whitehall was the last place where he would be. As to mistaking any one else for him, the Bishop remembered enough of the queer changeling elf to agree with her that it was not a very probable contingency. And if it were indeed a spirit, why should it visit her? There had been one good effect certainly in the revival of home thoughts and turning her mind from the allurements of favour, but that did not seem to account for the spirit seeking her out. Was it, Anne faltered, a sign that she ought to confess all, for the sake of procuring Christian burial for him. Yet how should she, when she had promised silence to young Archfield? True, it was for his wife's sake, and she was dead; but there were the rest of his family and himself to be considered. What should she do? The Bishop thought a little while, then said that he did not believe that she ought to speak without Mr. Archfield's consent, unless she saw any one else brought into danger by her silence. If it ever became possible, he thought, that she should ascertain whether the body were in the vault, and if so, it might be possible to procure burial for it, perhaps without identification, or at any rate without making known what could only cause hostility and distress between the two families, unless the young man himself on his return should make the confession. This the Bishop evidently considered the sounder, though the harder course, but he held that Anne had no right to take the initiative. She could only wait, and bear her load alone; but the extreme kindness and compassion with which he talked to her soothed and comforted her so much that she felt infinitely relieved and strengthened when he dismissed her with his blessing, and far happier and more at peace than she had been since that terrible summer morning, though greatly humbled, and taught to repent of her aspirations after earthly greatness, and to accept her present condition as a just retribution, and a trial of constancy.	{ "id": "12449" }
19	THE DAUGHTER'S SECRET	"Thy sister's naught: O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, _here_: I can scarce speak to thee." King Lear. "Am I--oh! am I going home?" thought Anne. "My uncle will be at Winchester. I am glad of it. I could not yet bear to see Portchester again. That Shape would be there. Yet how shall I deal with what seems laid on me? But oh! the joy of escaping from this weary, weary court! Oh, the folly that took me hither! Now that the Prince is gone, Lady Strickland will surely speak to the Queen for my dismissal." There had been seventeen days of alarms, reports, and counter- reports, and now the King, with the Prince of Denmark, had gone to join the army on Salisbury Plain, and at the same time the little Prince of Wales had been sent off to his half-brother, the Duke of Berwick, at Portsmouth, under charge of Lady Powys, there to be embarked for France. Anne had been somewhat disappointed at not going with them, hoping that when at Portsmouth or in passing Winchester she might see her uncle and obtain her release, for she had no desire to be taken abroad; but it was decreed otherwise. Miss Dunord went, rejoicing and thankful to be returning to France, and the other three rockers remained. There had already been more than one day of alarms and tumults. The Body-guards within were always on duty; the Life-guards without were constantly patrolling; and on the 5th of November, when the Prince of Orange was known to be near at hand, and was in fact actually landing at Torbay, the mob had with difficulty been restrained from burning in effigy, not only Guy Fawkes, but Pope, cardinals, and mitred bishops, in front of the palace, and actually paraded them all, with a figure of poor Sir Edmondbury Godfrey bearing his head in his hand, tied on horseback behind a Jesuit, full before the windows, with yells of "The Pope, the Pope, Up the ladder and down the rope," and clattering of warming-pans. Jane Humphreys was dreadfully frightened. Anne found her crouching close to her bed, with the curtains wrapped round her. "Have they got in?" she cried. "O Miss Woodford, how shall we make them believe we are good Protestants?" And when this terror had subsided, and it was well known that the Dutch were at Exeter, there was another panic, for one of the Life- guardsmen had told her to beware, since if the Royal troops at Hounslow were beaten, the Papists would surely take their revenge. "I am to scream from the windows to Mr. Shaw," she said; but what good will that do if the priests and the Frenchmen have strangled me? And perhaps he won't be on guard." "He was only trying to frighten you," suggested Anne. "Dear me, Miss Woodford, aren't you afraid? You have the stomach of a lion." "Why, what would be the good of hurting us?" However, Anne was not at all surprised, when on the very evening of the Prince's departure, old Mrs. Humphreys, a venerable-looking dame in handsome but Puritanically-fashioned garments, came in a hackney coach to request in her son's name that her granddaughter might return with her, as her occupation was at an end. Jane was transported with joy. "Ay, ay," said the grandmother, "look at you now, and think how crazy you were to go to the palace, though 'twas always against my judgment." "Ah, I little knew how mortal dull it would be!" said Jane. "Ye've found it no better than the husks that the swine did eat, eh? So much the better and safer for your soul, child." Nobody wanted to retain Jane, and while she was hastily putting her things together, the grandmother turned to Anne: "And you, Mistress Woodford, from what I hear, you have been very good in keeping my silly child stanch to her religion and true to her duty. If ever on a pinch you needed a friend in London, my son and I would be proud to serve you--Master Joshua Humphreys, at the Golden Lamb, Gracechurch Street, mind you. No one knows what may hap in these strange and troublesome times, and you might be glad of a house to go to till you can send to your own friends--that is, if we are not all murdered by the Papists first." Though Anne did not expect such a catastrophe as this, she was really grateful for the offer, and thought it possible that she might avail herself of it, as she had not been able to communicate with any of her mother's old friends, and Bishop Ken was not to her knowledge still in London. She watched anxiously for the opportunity of asking Lady Strickland whether she might apply for her dismissal, and write to her uncle to fetch her home. "Child," said the lady, "I think you love the Queen." "Indeed I do, madam." "It is well that at this juncture all Protestants should not leave her. You are a gentlewoman in manner, and can speak her native tongue, friends are falling from her, scarcely ladies are left enough to make a fit appearance around her; if you are faithful to her, remain, I entreat of you." There was no resisting such an appeal, and Anne remained in the rooms now left bare and empty, until a message was brought to her to come to the Queen. Mary Beatrice sat in a chair by her fire, looking sad and listless, her eyes red with weeping, but she gave her sweet smile as the girl entered, and held out her hand, saying in her sweet Italian, "You are faithful, Signorina Anna! you remain! That is well; but now my son is gone, Anna, you must be mine. I make you my reader instead of his rocker." As Anne knelt on one knee to kiss hands with tears in her eyes, the Queen impulsively threw her arms round her neck and kissed her. "Ah, you loved him, and he loved you, il mio tesorino?" Promotion _had_ come--how strangely. She had to enter on her duties at once, and to read some chapters of an Italian version of the Imitation. A reader was of a higher grade of importance than a rocker, and for the ensuing days, when not in attendance on the Queen, Anne was the companion of Lady Strickland and Lady Oglethorpe. In the absence of the King and Prince, the Queen received Princess Anne at her own table, and Lady Churchill and Lady Fitzhardinge joined that of her ladies-in-waiting. Lady Churchill, with her long neck, splendid hair and complexion, short chin, and sparkling blue eyes, was beautiful to look at, but not at all disposed to be agreeable to the Queen's ladies, whom she treated with a sort of blunt scorn, not at all disguised by the forms of courtesy. However, she had, to their relief, a good deal of leave of absence just then to visit her children, as indeed the ladies agreed that she did pretty much as she chose, and that the faithful Mrs. Morley was somewhat afraid of the dear Mrs. Freeman. One evening in coming up some steps Princess Anne entangled her foot in her pink taffetas petticoat, nearly fell, and tore a large rent, besides breaking the thread of the festoons of seed pearls which bordered it, and scattering them on the floor. "Lack-a-day! Lack-a-day!" sighed she, as after a little screaming she gathered herself up again. "That new coat! How shall I ever face Danvers again such a figure? She's an excellent tirewoman, but she will be neither to have nor to hold when she sees that gown-- that she set such store by! Nay, I can hardly step for it." "I think I could repair it, with Her Majesty's and your Royal Highness's permission," said Anne, who was creeping about on her knees picking up the pearls." "Oh! do! do! There's a good child, and then Danvers and Dawson need know nothing about it," cried the Princess in great glee. "You remember Dawson, don't you, little Woodie, as we used to call you, and how she used to rate us when we were children if we soiled our frocks?" So, in the withdrawing-room, Anne sat on the floor with needle and silk, by the light of the wax candles, deftly repairing the rent, and then threading the scattered pearls, and arranging the festoon so as to hide the darn. The Princess was delighted, and while the poor wife lay back in her chair, thankful that behind her fan she could give way to her terrible anxieties about her little son, who might be crossing to France, and her husband, suffering from fearful nose-bleeding, and wellnigh alone among traitors and deserters, the step-daughter, on the other side of the great hearth, chattered away complacently to 'little Woodford.' "Do you recollect old Dawson, and how she used to grumble when I went to sup with the Duchess--my own mother--you know, because she used to give me chocolate, and she said it made me scream at night, and be over fat by day? Ah! that was before you used to come among us. It was after I went to France to my poor aunt of Orleans. I remember she never would let us kiss her for fear of spoiling her complexion, and Mademoiselle and I did so hate living maigre on the fast days. I was glad enough to get home at last, and then my sister was jealous because I talked French better than she did." So the Princess prattled on without needing much reply, until her namesake had finished her work, with which she was well pleased, and promised to remember her. To Anne it was an absolute marvel how she could thus talk when she knew that her husband had deserted her father in his need, and that things were in a most critical position. The Queen could not refrain from a sigh of relief when her step- daughter had retired to the Cockpit; and after seeking her sleepless bed, she begged Anne, "if it did not too much incommode her, to read to her from the Gospel." The next day was Sunday, and Anne felt almost as if deserting her cause, when going to the English service in Whitehall Chapel Royal, now almost emptied except of the Princess's suite, and some of these had the bad taste and profanity to cough and chatter all through the special prayer drawn up by the Archbishop for the King's safety. People were not very reverent, and as all stood up at the end of the Advent Sunday service to let the Princess sweep by in her glittering green satin petticoat, peach-coloured velvet train, and feather- crowned head, she laid a hand on Anne's arm, and whispered, "Follow me to my closet, little Woodford." There was no choice but to obey, as the Queen would not require her reader till after dinner, and Anne followed after the various attendants, who did not seem very willing to forward a private interview with a possible rival, though, as Anne supposed, the object must be to convey some message to the Queen. By the time she arrived and had been admitted to the inner chamber or dressing-room, the Princess had thrown off her more cumbrous finery, and sat at ease in an arm-chair. She nodded her be-curled head, and said, "You can keep a secret, little Woodie?" "I can, madam, but I do not love one," said Anne, thinking of her most burthensome one. "Well, no need to keep this long. You are a good young maiden, and my own poor mother's godchild, and you are handy and notable. You deserve better preferment than ever you will get in that Popish household, where your religion is in danger. Now, I am not going to be in jeopardy here any longer, nor let myself be kept hostage for his Highness. Come to my rooms at bedtime. Slip in when I wish the Queen good-night, and I'll find an excuse. Then you shall come with me to--no, I'll not say where, and I'll make your fortune, only mum's the word." "But--Your Royal Highness is very good, but I am sworn to the Prince and Queen. I could not leave them without permission." "Prince! Prince! Pretty sort of a Prince. Prince of brickbats, as Churchill says. Nay, girl, don't turn away in that fashion. Consider. Your religion is in danger." "Nay, madam, my religion would not be served by breaking my oath." "Pooh! What's your oath to a mere pretender? Besides, consider your fortune. Rocker to a puling babe--even if he was what they say he is. And don't build on the Queen's favour--even if she remains what she is now, she is too much beset with Papists and foreigners to do anything for you." "I do not," Anne began to say, but the Princess gave her no time. "Besides, pride will have a fall, and if you are a good maid, and hold your tongue, and serve me well in this strait, I'll make you my maid of honour, and marry you so that you shall put Lady before your name. Ay, and get good preferment for your uncle, who has had only a poor stall from the King here." Anne repressed an inclination to say this was not the way in which her uncle would wish to get promotion, and only replied, "Your Royal Highness is very good, but--" Whereat the Princess, in a huff, exclaimed, "Oh, very well, if you choose to be torn to pieces by the mob, and slaughtered by the priests, like poor Godfrey, and burnt by the Papists at last, unless you go to Mass, you may stay for aught I care, and joy go with you. I thought I was doing you a kindness for my poor mother's sake, but it seems you know best. If you like to cast in your lot with the Pope, I wash my hands of you." Accordingly Anne courtesied herself off, not seriously alarmed as to the various catastrophes foretold by the Princess, though a little shaken in nerves. Here then was another chance of promotion, certainly without treason to her profession of faith, but so offered that honour could not but revolt against it, though in truth poor Princess Anne was neither so foolish nor so heartless a woman as she appeared in the excitement to which an uneasy conscience, the expectation of a great enterprise, and a certain amount of terror had worked her up; but she had high words again in the evening, as was supposed, with the Queen. Certainly Anne found her own Royal Mistress weeping and agitated, though she only owned to being very anxious about the health of the King, who had had a second violent attack of bleeding at the nose, and she did not seem consoled by the assurances of her elder attendants that the relief had probably saved him from a far more dangerous attack. Again Anne read to her till a late hour, but next morning was strangely disturbed. The Royal household had not been long dressed, and breakfast had just been served to the ladies, when loud screams were heard, most startling in the unsettled and anxious state of affairs. The Queen, pale and trembling, came out of her chamber with her hair on her shoulders. "Tell me at once, for pity's sake. Is it my husband or my son?" she asked with clasped hands, as two or three of the Princess's servants rushed forward. "The Princess, the Princess!" was the cry, "the priests have murdered her." "What have you done with her, madam?" rudely demanded Mrs. Buss, one of the lost lady's nurses. Mary Beatrice drew herself up with grave dignity, saying, "I suppose your mistress is where she likes to be. I know nothing of her, but I have no doubt that you will soon hear of her." There was something in the Queen's manner that hushed the outcry in her presence, but the women, with Lady Clarendon foremost of them, continued to seek up and down the two palaces as if they thought the substantial person of the Princess Anne could be hidden in a cupboard. Anne, in the first impulse, exclaimed, "She is gone!" In a moment Mrs. Royer turned, "Gone, did you say? Do you know it?" "You knew it and kept it secret!" cried Lady Strickland. "A traitor too!" said Lady Oglethorpe, in her vehement Irish tone. "I would not have thought it of Nanny Moore's daughter!" and she turned her eyes in sad reproach on Anne. "If you know, tell me where she is gone," cried Mrs. Buss, and the cry was re-echoed by the other women, while Anne's startled "I cannot tell! I do not know!" was unheeded. Only the Queen raising her hand gravely said, "Silence! What is this?" "Miss Woodford knew." "And never told!" cried the babble of voices. "Come hither, Mistress Woodford," said the Queen. "Tell me, do you know where Her Highness is?" "No, please your Majesty," said Anne, trembling from head to foot. "I do not know where she is." "Did you know of her purpose?" "Your Majesty pardon me. She called me to her closet yesterday and pledged me to secrecy before I knew what she would say." "Only youthful inexperience will permit that pledge to be implied in matters of State," said the Queen. "Continue, Mistress Woodford; what did she tell you?" "She said she feared to be made a hostage for the Prince of Denmark, and meant to escape, and she bade me come to her chamber at night to go with her." "And wherefore did you not? You are of her religion," said the Queen bitterly. "Madam, how could I break mine oath to your Majesty and His Royal Highness?" "And you thought concealing the matter according to that oath? Nay, nay, child, I blame you not. It was a hard strait between your honour to her and your duty to the King and to me, and I cannot but be thankful to any one who does regard her word. But this desertion will be a sore grief to His Majesty." Mary Beatrice was fairer-minded than the women, who looked askance at the girl, Princess Anne's people resenting that one of the other household should have been chosen as confidante, and the Queen's being displeased that the secret had been kept. But at that moment frightful yells and shouts arose, and a hasty glance from the windows showed a mass of men, women, and children howling for their Princess. They would tear down Whitehall if she were not delivered up to them. However, a line of helmeted Life-guards on their heavy horses was drawn up between, with sabres held upright, and there seemed no disposition to rush upon these. Lord Clarendon, uncle to the Princess, had satisfied himself that she had really escaped, and he now came out and assured the mob, in a stentorian voice, that he was perfectly satisfied of his niece's safety, waving the letter she had left on her toilet-table. The mob shouted, "Bless the Princess! Hurrah for the Protestant faith! No warming-pans!" but in a good-tempered mood; and the poor little garrison breathed more freely; but Anne did not feel herself forgiven. She was in a manner sent to Coventry, and treated as if she were on the enemy's side. Never had her proud nature suffered so much, and she shed bitter tears as she said to herself, "It is very unjust! What could I have done? How could I stop Her Highness from speaking? Could they expect me to run in and accuse her? Oh, that I were at home again! Mother, mother, you little know! Of what use am I now?" It was the very question asked by Hester Bridgeman, whom she found packing her clothes in her room. "Take care that this is sent after me," she said, "when a messenger I shall send calls for it." "What, you have your dismissal?" "No, I should no more get it than you have done. They cannot afford to let any one go, you see, or they will have to dress up the chambermaids to stand behind the Queen's chair. I have settled it with my cousin, Harry Bridgeman, I shall mix with the throng that come to ask for news, and be off with him before the crowd breaks in, as they will some of these days, for the guards are but half- hearted. My Portia, why did not you take a good offer, and go with the Princess?" "I thought it would be base." "And much you gained by it! You are only suspected and accused." "I can't be a rat leaving a sinking ship." "That is courteous, but I forgive it, Portia, as I know you will repent of your folly. But you never did know which side to look for the butter." Perhaps seeing how ugly desertion and defection looked in others made constancy easier to Anne, much as she longed for the Close at Winchester, and she even thought with a hope of the Golden Lamb, Gracechurch, as an immediate haven sure to give her a welcome. Her occupation of reading to the Queen was ended by the King's return, so physically exhausted by violent nose-bleeding, so despondent at the universal desertion, and so broken-hearted at his daughter's defection, that his wife was absorbed in attending upon him. Anne began to watch for an opportunity to demand a dismissal, which she thought would exempt her from all blame, but she was surprised and a little dismayed by being summoned to the King in the Queen's chamber. He was lying on a couch clad in a loose dressing-gown instead of his laced coat, and a red night-cap replacing his heavy peruke, and his face was as white and sallow as if he were recovering from a long illness. "Little godchild," he said, holding out his hand as Anne made her obeisance, "the Queen tells me you can read well. I have a fancy to hear." Immensely relieved at the kindness of his tone, Anne courtesied, and murmured out her willingness. "Read this," he said; "I would fain hear this; my father loved it. Here." Anne felt her task a hard one when the King pointed to the third Act of Shakespeare's Richard II. She steeled herself and strengthened her voice as best she could, and struggled on till she came to-- "I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gay apparel for an almsman's gown, My figured goblets for a dish of wood, My sceptre for a palmer's walking-staff, My subjects for a pair of carved saints, And my large kingdom for a little grave, A little, little grave." There she fairly broke down, and sobbed. "Little one, little one," said James, you are sorry for poor Richard, eh?" "Oh, sir!" was all she could say. "And you are in disgrace, they tell me, because my daughter chose to try to entice you away," said James, "and you felt bound not to betray her. Never mind; it was an awkward case of conscience, and there's not too much faithfulness to spare in these days. We shall know whom to trust to another time. Can you continue now? I would take a lesson how, 'with mine own hands to give away my crown.'" It was well for Anne that fresh tidings were brought in at that moment, and she had to retire, with the sore feeling turned into an enthusiastic pity and loyalty, which needed the relief of sobs and mental vows of fidelity. She felt herself no longer in disgrace with her Royal master and mistress, but she was not in favour with her few companions left--all who could not get over her secrecy, and thought her at least a half traitor as well as a heretic. Whitehall was almost in a state of siege, the turbulent mob continually coming to shout, 'No Popery!' and the like, though they proceeded no farther. The ministers and other gentlemen came and went, but the priests and the ladies durst not venture out for fear of being recognised and insulted, if not injured. Bad news came in from day to day, and no tidings of the Prince of Wales being in safety in France. Once Anne received a letter from her uncle, which cheered her much. DEAR CHILD--So far as I can gather, your employment is at an end, if it be true as reported that the Prince of Wales is at Portsmouth, with the intent that he should be carried to France; but the gentlemen of the navy seem strongly disposed to prevent such a transportation of the heir of the realm to a foreign country. I fear me that you are in a state of doubt and anxiety, but I need not exhort your good mother's child to be true and loyal to her trust and to the Anointed of the Lord in all things lawful at all costs. If you are left in any distress or perplexity, go either to Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe's house, or to that of my good old friend, the Dean of Westminster; and as soon as I hear from you I will endeavour to ride to town and bring you home to my house, which is greatly at a loss without its young mistress. The letter greatly refreshed Anne's spirits, and gave her something to look forward to, giving her energy to stitch at a set of lawn cuffs and bands for her uncle, and think with the more pleasure of a return that his time of residence at Winchester lay between her and that vault in the castle. There were no more attempts made at her conversion. Every one was too anxious and occupied, and one or more of the chiefly obnoxious priests were sent privately away from day to day. While summer friends departed, Anne often thought of Bishop Ken's counsel as to loyalty to Heaven and man.	{ "id": "12449" }
20	THE FLIGHT	"Storms may rush in, and crimes and woes Deform that peaceful bower; They may not mar the deep repose Of that immortal flower. Though only broken hearts be found To watch his cradle by, No blight is on his slumbers sound, No touch of harmful eye." KEBLE. The news was even worse and worse in that palace of despondency and terror. Notice had arrived that Lord Dartmouth was withheld from despatching the young Prince to France by his own scruples and those of the navy; and orders were sent for the child's return. Then came a terrible alarm. The escort sent to meet him were reported to have been attacked by the rabble on entering London and dispersed, so that each man had to shift for himself. There was a quarter of an hour which seemed many hours of fearful suspense, while King and Queen both knelt at their altar, praying in agony for the child whom they pictured to themselves in the hands of the infuriated mob, too much persuaded of his being an imposture to pity his unconscious innocence. No one who saw the blanched cheeks and agonised face of Mary Beatrice, or James's stern, mute misery, could have believed for a moment in the cruel delusion that he was no child of theirs. The Roman Catholic women were with them. To enter the oratory would in those circumstances have been a surrender of principle, but none the less did Anne pray with fervent passion in her chamber for pity for the child, and comfort for his parents. At last there was a stir, and hurrying out to the great stair, Anne saw a man in plain clothes replying in an Irish accent to the King, who was supporting the Queen with his arm. Happily the escort had missed the Prince of Wales. They had been obliged to turn back to London without meeting him, and from that danger he had been saved. A burst of tears and a cry of fervent thanksgiving relieved the Queen's heart, and James gave eager thanks instead of the reprimand the colonel had expected for his blundering. A little later, another messenger brought word that Lord and Lady Powys had halted at Guildford with their charge. A French gentleman, Monsieur de St. Victor, was understood to have undertaken to bring him to London--understood--for everything was whispered rather than told among the panic-stricken women. No one who knew the expectation could go to bed that night except that the King and Queen had--in order to disarm suspicion--to go through the accustomed ceremonies of the coucher. The ladies sat or lay on their beds intently listening, as hour after hour chimed from the clocks. At last, at about three in the morning, the challenge of the sentinels was heard from point to point. Every one started up, and hurried almost pell-mell towards the postern door. The King and Queen were both descending a stair leading from the King's dressing- room, and as the door was cautiously opened, it admitted a figure in a fur cloak, which he unfolded, and displayed the sleeping face of the infant well wrapped from the December cold. With rapture the Queen gathered him into her arms, and the father kissed him with a vehemence that made him awake and cry. St. Victor had thought it safer that his other attendants should come in by degrees in the morning, and thus Miss Woodford was the only actually effective nursery attendant at hand. His food was waiting by the fire in his own sleeping chamber, and thither he was carried. There the Queen held him on her lap, while Anne fed him, and he smiled at her and held out his arms. The King came, and making a sign to Anne not to move, stood watching. Presently he said, "She has kept one secret, we may trust her with another." "Oh, not yet, not yet," implored the Queen. "Now I have both my treasures again, let me rest in peace upon them for a little while." The King turned away with eyes full of tears while Anne was lulling the child to sleep. She wondered, but durst not ask the Queen, where was the tiler's wife; but later she learnt from Miss Dunord, that the woman had been so terrified by the cries of the multitude against the 'pretender,' and still more at the sight of the sea, that she had gone into transports of fright, implored to go home, and perhaps half wilfully, become useless, so that the weaning already commenced had to be expedited, and the fretfulness of the poor child had been one of the troubles for some days. However, he seemed on his return to have forgotten his troubles, and Anne had him in her arms nearly all the next day. It was not till late in the evening that Anne knew what the King had meant. Then, while she was walking up and down the room, amusing the little Prince with showing by turns the window and his face in a large mirror, the Queen came in, evidently fresh from weeping, and holding out her arms for him, said, after looking to see that there was no other audience-- "Child, the King would repose a trust in you. He wills that you should accompany me to-night on a voyage to France to put this little angel in safety." "As your Majesty will," returned Anne; "I will do my best." "So the King said. He knew his brave sailor's daughter was worthy of his trust, and you can speak French. It is well, for we go under the escort of Messieurs de Lauzun and St. Victor. Be ready at midnight. Lady Strickland or the good Labadie will explain more to you, but do not speak of this to anyone else. You have leave now," she added, as she herself carried the child towards his father's rooms. The maiden's heart swelled at the trust reposed in her, and the King's kind words, and she kept back the sense of anxiety and doubt as to so vague a future. She found Mrs. Labadie lying on her bed awake, but trying to rest between two busy nights, and she was then told that there was to be a flight from the palace of the Queen and Prince at midnight, Mrs. Labadie and Anne alone going with them, though Lord and Lady Powys and Lady Strickland, with the Queen's Italian ladies, would meet them on board the yacht which was waiting at Gravesend. The nurse advised Anne to put a few necessary equipments into a knapsack bound under a cloak, and to leave other garments with her own in charge of Mr. Labadie, who would despatch them with those of the suite, and would follow in another day with the King. Doubt or refusal there could of course be none in such circumstances, and a high-spirited girl like Anne could not but feel a thrill of heart at selection for such confidential and signal service at her age, scarcely seventeen. Her one wish was to write to her uncle what had become of her. Mrs. Labadie hardly thought it safe, but said her husband would take charge of a note, and if possible, post it when they were safe gone, but nothing of the King's plans must be mentioned. The hours passed away anxiously, and yet only too fast. So many had quitted the palace that there was nothing remarkable in packing, but as Anne collected her properties, she could not help wondering whether she should ever see them again. Sometimes her spirit rose at the thought of serving her lovely Queen, saving the little Prince, and fulfilling the King's trust; at others, she was full of vague depression at the thought of being cut off from all she knew and loved, with seas between, and with so little notice to her uncle, who might never learn where she was; but she knew she had his approval in venturing all, and making any sacrifice for the King whom all deserted; and she really loved her Queen and little Prince. The night came, and she and Mrs. Labadie, fully equipped in cloaks and hoods, waited together, Anne moving about restlessly, the elder woman advising her to rest while she could. The little Prince, all unconscious of the dangers of the night, or of his loss of a throne, lay among his wraps in his cradle fast asleep. By and by the door opened, and treading softly in came the King in his dressing-gown and night-cap, the Queen closely muffled, Lady Strickland also dressed for a journey, and two gentlemen, the one tall and striking-looking, the other slim and dark, in their cloaks, namely, Lauzun and St. Victor. It was one of those supreme moments almost beyond speech or manifestation of feeling. The King took his child in his arms, kissed him, and solemnly said to Lauzun, "I confide my wife and son to you." Both Frenchmen threw themselves on their knees kissing his hand with a vow of fidelity. Then giving the infant to Mrs. Labadie, James folded his wife in his arms in a long mute embrace; Anne carried the basket containing food for the child; and first with a lantern went St. Victor, then Lauzun, handing the Queen; Mrs. Labadie with the child, and Anne following, they sped down the stairs, along the great gallery, with steps as noiseless as they could make them, down another stair to a door which St. Victor opened. A sentry challenged, sending a thrill of dismay through the anxious hearts, but St. Victor had the word, and on they went into the privy gardens, where often Anne had paced behind Mrs. Labadie as the Prince took his airing. Startling lights from the windows fell on them, illuminating the drops of rain that plashed round them on that grim December night, and their steps sounded on the gravel, while still the babe, sheltered under the cloak, slept safely. Another door was reached, more sentries challenged and passed; here was a street whose stones and silent houses shone for a little space as St. Victor raised his lantern and exchanged a word with a man on the box of a carriage. One by one they were handed in, the Queen, the child, the nurse, Anne, and Lauzun, St. Victor taking his place outside. As if in a dream they rattled on through the dark street, no one speaking except that Lauzun asked the Queen if she were wet. It was not far before they stopped at the top of the steps called the Horseferry. A few lights twinkled here and there, and were reflected trembling in the river, otherwise a black awful gulf, from which, on St. Victor's cautious hail, a whistle ascended, and a cloaked figure with a lantern came up the steps glistening in the rain. One by one again, in deep silence, they were assisted down, and into the little boat that rocked ominously as they entered it. There the women crouched together over the child unable to see one another, Anne returning the clasp of a hand on hers, believing it Mrs. Labadie's, till on Lauzun's exclaiming, "Est ce que j'incommode sa Majeste?" the reply showed her that it was the Queen's hand that she held, and she began a startled "Pardon, your Majesty," but the sweet reply in Italian was, "Ah, we are as sisters in this stress." The eager French voice of Lauzun went on, in undertones certainly, but as if he had not the faculty of silence, and amid the plash of the oars, the rush of the river, and the roar of the rain, it was not easy to tell what he said, his voice was only another of the noises, though the Queen made little courteous murmurs in reply. It was a hard pull against wind and tide towards a little speck of green light which was shown to guide the rowers; and when at last they reached it, St. Victor's hail was answered by Dusions, one of the servants, and they drew to the steps where he held a lantern. "To the coach at once, your Majesty." "It is at the inn--ready--but I feared to let it stand." Lauzun uttered a French imprecation under his breath, and danced on the step with impatience, only restrained so far as to hand out the Queen and her two attendants. He was hotly ordering off Dusions and St. Victor to bring the coach, when the former suggested that they must find a place for the Queen to wait in where they could find her. "What is that dark building above?" "Lambeth Church," Dusions answered. "Ah, your Protestant churches are not open; there is no shelter for us there," sighed the Queen. "There is shelter in the angle of the buttress; I have been there, your Majesty," said Dusions. Thither then they turned. "What can that be?" exclaimed the Queen, starting and shuddering as a fierce light flashed in the windows and played on the wall. "It is not within, madame," Lauzun encouraged; "it is reflected light from a fire somewhere on the other side of the river." "A bonfire for our expulsion. Ah! why should they hate us so?" sighed the poor Queen. " 'Tis worse than that, only there's no need to tell Her Majesty so," whispered Mrs. Labadie, who, in the difficulties of the ascent, had been fain to hand the still-sleeping child to Anne. " 'Tis the Catholic chapel of St. Roque. The heretic miscreants!" "Pray Heaven no life be lost," sighed Anne. Sinister as the light was, it aided the poor fugitives at that dead hour of night to find an angle between the church wall and a buttress where the eaves afforded a little shelter from the rain, which slackened a little, when they were a little concealed from the road, so that the light need not betray them in case any passenger was abroad at such an hour, as two chimed from the clock overhead. The women kept together close against the wall to avoid the drip of the eaves. Lauzun walked up and down like a sentinel, his arms folded, and talking all the while, though, as before, his utterances were only an accompaniment to the falling rain and howling wind; Mary Beatrice was murmuring prayers over the sleeping child, which she now held in the innermost corner; Anne, with wide-stretched eyes, was gazing into the light cast beyond the buttress by the fire on the opposite side, when again there passed across it that form she had seen on All Saints' Eve--the unmistakable phantom of Peregrine. It was gone into the darkness in another second; but a violent start on her part had given a note of alarm, and brought back the Count, whose walk had been in the opposite direction. "What was it? Any spy?" "Oh no--no--nothing! It was the face of one who is dead," gasped Anne. "The poor child's nerve is failing her," said the Queen gently, as Lauzun drawing his sword burst out-- "If it be a spy it _shall_ be the face of one who is dead;" and he darted into the road, but returned in a few moments, saying no one had passed except one of the rowers returning after running up to the inn to hasten the coach; how could he have been seen from the church wall? The wheels were heard drawing up at that moment, so that the only thought was to enter it as quickly as might be in the same order as before, after which the start was made, along the road that led through the marshes of Lambeth; and then came the inquiry-- an anxious one--whom or what mademoiselle, as Lauzun called her, had seen. "O monsieur!" exclaimed the poor girl in her confusion, her best French failing, "it was nothing--no living man." "Can mademoiselle assure me of that? The dead I fear not, the living I would defy." "He lives not," said she in an undertone, with a shudder. "But who is he that mademoiselle can be so certain?" asked the Frenchman. "Oh! I know him well enough," said Anne, unable to control her voice. "Mademoiselle must explain herself," said M. de Lauzun. "If he be spirit--or phantom--there is no more to say, but if he be in the flesh, and a spy--then--" There was a little rattle of his sword. "Speak, I command," interposed the Queen; "you must satisfy M. le Comte." Thus adjured, Anne said in a low voice of horror: "It was a gentleman of our neighbourhood; he was killed in a duel last summer!" "Ah! You are certain?" "I had the misfortune to see the fight," sighed Anne. "That accounts for it," said the Queen kindly. "If mademoiselle's nerves were shaken by such a remembrance, it is not wonderful that it should recur to her at so strange a watch as we have been keeping." "It might account for her seeing this revenant cavalier in any passenger," said Lauzun, not satisfied yet. "No one ever was like him," said Anne. "I could not mistake him." "May I ask mademoiselle to describe him?" continued the count. Feeling all the time as if this first mention were a sort of betrayal, Anne faltered the words: "Small, slight, almost misshapen--with a strange one-sided look--odd, unusual features." Lauzun's laugh jarred on her. "Eh! it is not a flattering portrait. Mademoiselle is not haunted by a hero of romance, it appears, so much as by a demon." "And none of those monsieur has employed in our escape answer to that description?" asked the Queen. "Assuredly not, your Majesty. Crooked person and crooked mind go together, and St. Victor would only have trusted to your big honest rowers of the Tamise. I think we may be satisfied that the demoiselle's imagination was excited so as to evoke a phantom impressed on her mind by a previous scene of terror. Such things have happened in my native Gascony." Anne was fain to accept the theory in silence, though it seemed to her strange that at a moment when she was for once not thinking of Peregrine, her imagination should conjure him up, and there was a strong feeling within her that it was something external that had flitted across the shadow, not a mere figment of her brain, though the notion was evidently accepted, and she could hear a muttering of Mrs. Labadie that this was the consequence of employing young wenches with their whims and megrims. The Count de Lauzun did his best to entertain the Queen with stories of revenants in Gascony and elsewhere, and with reminiscences of his eleven years' captivity at Pignerol, and his intercourse with Fouquet; but whenever in aftertimes Anne Woodford tried to recall her nocturnal drive with this strange personage, the chosen and very unkind husband of the poor old Grande Mademoiselle, she never could recollect anything but the fierce glare of his eyes in the light of the lamps as he put her to that terrible interrogation. The talk was chiefly monologue. Mrs. Labadie certainly slept, perhaps the Queen did so too, and Anne became conscious that she must have slumbered likewise, for she found every one gazing at her in the pale morning dawn and asking why she cried, "O Charles, hold!" As she hastily entreated pardon, Lauzun was heard to murmur, "Je parie que le revenant se nomme Charles," and she collected her senses just in time to check her contradiction, recollecting that happily such a name as Charles revealed nothing. The little Prince, who had slumbered so opportunely all night, awoke and received infinite praise, and what he better appreciated, the food that had been provided for him. They were near their journey's end, and it was well, for people were awakening and going to their work as they passed one of the villages, and once the remark was heard, "There goes a coach full of Papists." However, no attempt was made to stop the party, and as it would be daylight when they reached Gravesend, the Queen arranged her disguise to resemble, as she hoped, a washerwoman--taking off her gloves, and hiding her hair, while the Prince, happily again asleep, was laid in a basket of linen. Anne could not help thinking that she thus looked more remarkable than if she had simply embarked as a lady; but she meant to represent the attendant of her Italian friend Countess Almonde, whom she was to meet on board. Leaving the coach outside a little block of houses, the party reached a projecting point of land, where three Irish officers received them, and conducted them to a boat. Then, wrapped closely in cloaks from the chill morning air, they were rowed to the yacht, on the deck of which stood Lord and Lady Powys, Lady Strickland, Pauline Dunord, and a few more faithful followers, who had come more rapidly. There was no open greeting nor recognition, for the captain and crew were unaware whom they were carrying, and, on the discovery, either for fear of danger or hope of reward, might have captured such a prize. Therefore all the others, with whispered apologies, were hoisted up before her, and Countess Almonde had to devise a special entreaty that the chair might be lowered again for her poor laundress as well as for the other two women. The yacht, which had been hired by St. Victor, at once spread her sails; Mrs. Labadie conversed with the captain while the countess took the Queen below into the stifling crowded little cabin. It was altogether a wretched voyage; the wind was high, and the pitching and tossing more or less disabled everybody in the suite. The Queen was exceedingly ill, so were the countess and Mrs. Labadie. Nobody could be the least effective but Signora Turini, who waited on her Majesty, and Anne, who was so far seasoned by excursions at Portsmouth that she was capable of taking sole care of the little Prince, as the little vessel dashed along on her way with her cargo of alarm and suffering through the Dutch fleet of fifty vessels, none of which seemed to notice her--perhaps by express desire not to be too curious as to English fugitives. Between the care of the little one, who needed in the tossing of the ship to be constantly in arms though he never cried and when awake was always merry, and the giving as much succour as possible to her suffering companions, Anne could not either rest or think, but seemed to live in one heavy dazed dream of weariness and endurance, hardly knowing whether it were day or night, till the welcome sound was heard that Calais was in sight. Then, as well as they could, the poor travellers crawled from the corners, and put themselves in such array as they could contrive, though the heaving of the waves, as the little yacht lay to, did not conduce to their recovery. The Count de Lauzun went ashore as soon as a boat could be lowered to apprise M. Charot, the Governor of Calais, of the guest he was to receive, and after an interval of considerable discomfort, in full view of the massive fortifications, boats came off to bring the Queen and her attendants on shore, this time as a Queen, though she refused to receive any honours. Lady Strickland, recovering as soon as she was on dry land, resumed her Prince, who was fondled with enthusiastic praises for his excellent conduct on the voyage. Anne could not help feebly thinking some of the credit might be due to her, since she had held him by land and water nearly ever since leaving Whitehall, but she was too much worn out by her nights of unrest, and too much battered and beaten by the tossings of her voyage, to feel anything except in a languid half-conscious way, under a racking headache; and when the curious old house where they were to rest was reached, and all the rest were eating with ravenous appetites, she could taste nothing, and being conducted by a compassionate Frenchwoman in a snow-white towering cap to a straw mattress spread on the ground, she slept the twenty-four hours round without moving.	{ "id": "12449" }
21	EXILE	"'Oh, who are ye, young man?' she said. 'What country come ye frae?' 'I flew across the sea,' he said; ''Twas but this very day.'" Old Ballad. Five months had passed away since the midnight flight from England, when Anne Woodford was sitting on a stone bench flanked with statues in the stately gardens of the Palace of St. Germain, working away at some delicate point lace, destined to cover some of the deficiencies of her dress, for her difficulties were great, and these months had been far from happy ones. The King was in Ireland, the Queen spent most of the time of his absence in convents, either at Poissy or Chaillot, carrying her son with her to be the darling of the nuns, who had for the most part never even seen a baby, and to whom a bright lively child of a year old was a perfect treasure of delight. Not wishing to encumber the good Sisters with more attendants than were needful, the Queen only took with her one lady governess, one nurse, and one rocker, and this last naturally was Pauline Dunord, both a Frenchwoman and a Roman Catholic. This was in itself no loss to Anne. Her experience of the nunnery at Boulogne, where had been spent three days in expectation of the King, had not been pleasant. The nuns had shrunk from her as a heretic, and kept their novices and pensionnaires from the taint of communication with her; and all the honour she might have deserved for the Queen's escape seemed to have been forfeited by that moment of fear, which in the telling had become greatly exaggerated. It was true that the Queen had never alluded to it; but probably through Mrs. Labadie, it had become current that Miss Woodford had been so much alarmed under the churchyard wall that her fancy had conjured up a phantom and she had given a loud scream, which but for the mercy of the Saints would have betrayed them all. Anne was persuaded that she had done nothing worse than give an involuntary start, but it was not of the least use to say so, and she began to think that perhaps others knew better than she did. Miss Dunord, who had never been more than distantly polite to her in England, was of course more thrown with her at St. Germain, and examined her closely. Who was it? What was it? Had she seen it before? It was of no use to deny. Pauline knew she had seen something on that All Saints' Eve. Was it true that it was a lover of hers, and that she had seen him killed in a duel on her account? Who would have imagined it in cette demoiselle si sage! Would she not say who it was! But though truth forced more than one affirmative to be pumped out of Anne, she clung to that last shred of concealment, and kept her own counsel as to the time, place, and persons of the duel, and thus she so far offended Pauline as to prevent that damsel from having any scruples in regarding her as an obnoxious and perilous rival, with a dark secret in her life. Certainly Miss Dunord did earnestly assure her that to adopt her Church, invoke the Saints, and have Masses for the dead was the only way to lay such ghosts; but Anne remained obdurate, and thus was isolated, for there were very few Protestants in the fugitive Court, and those were of too high a degree to consort with her. Perhaps that undefined doubt of her discretion was against her; perhaps too her education and knowledge of languages became less useful to the Queen when surrounded by French, for she was no longer called upon to act as reader; and the little Prince, during his residence in the convent, had time to forget her and lose his preference for her. She was not discharged, but except for taking her turn as a nursery-maid when the Prince was at St. Germain, she was a mere supernumerary, nor was there any salary forthcoming. The small amount of money she had with her had dwindled away, and when she applied to Lady Strickland, who was kinder to her than any one else, she was told that the Queen was far too much distressed for money wherewith to aid the King to be able to pay any one, and that they must all wait till the King had his own again. Her clothes were wearing out, and scarcely in condition for attendance on the Prince when he was shown in state to the King of France. Worse than all, she seemed entirely cut off from home. She had written several times to her uncle when opportunity seemed to offer, but had never heard from him, and she did not know whether her letters could reach him, or if he were even aware of what had become of her. People came with passports from England to join the exiled Court, but no one returned thither, or she would even have offered herself as a waiting-maid to have a chance of going back. Lady Strickland would have forwarded her, but no means or opportunity offered, and there was nothing for it but to look to the time that everybody declared to be approaching when the King was to be reinstated, and they would all go home in triumph. Meanwhile Anne Woodford felt herself a supernumerary, treated with civility, and no more, as she ate her meals with a very feminine Court, for almost all the gentlemen were in Ireland with the King. She had a room in the entresol to herself, in Pauline's absence, and here she could in turn sit and dream, or mend and furbish up her clothes--a serious matter now--or read the least scrap of printed matter in her way, for books were scarcer than even at Whitehall; and though her 'mail' had safely been forwarded by Mr. Labadie, some jealous censor had abstracted her Bible and Prayer-book. Probably there was no English service anywhere in France at that time, unless among the merchants at Bordeaux--certainly neither English nor Reformed was within her reach--and she had to spend her Sundays in recalling all she could, and going over it, feeling thankful to the mother who had made her store Psalms, Gospels, and Collects in her memory week by week. She was so far forgotten that active attempts to convert her had been dropped, except by Pauline. Perhaps it was thought that isolation would be effectual, but in fact the sight of popular Romanism not kept in check by Protestant surroundings shocked her, and made her far more averse to change than when she saw it at its best at Whitehall. In fine, the end of her ambition had been neglect and poverty, and the real service that she had rendered was unacknowledged, and marred by that momentary alarm. No wonder she felt sore. She had never once been to Paris, and seldom beyond the gardens, which happily were free in the absence of the Queen, and always had secluded corners apart from the noble terraces, safe from the intrusion of idle gallants. Anne had found a sort of bower of her own, shaded by honeysuckles and wild roses, where she could sit looking over the slopes and the windings of the Seine and indulge her musings and longings. The lonely life brought before her all the anxieties that had been stifled for the time by the agitations of the escape. Again and again she lived over the scene in the ruins. Again and again she recalled those two strange appearances, and shivering at the thought of the anniversary that was approaching in another month, still felt sometimes that, alive or dead, Peregrine's would be a home face, and framed to herself imaginary scenes in which she addressed him, and demanded whether he could not rest in his unhallowed grave. What would Bishop Ken say? Sometimes even she recollected the strange theory which had made him crave execution from the late King, seven years, yes, a little more than seven years ago, and marvel whether at that critical epoch he had indeed between life and death been snatched away to his native land of faery. Imagination might well run riot in the solitary, unoccupied condition to which she was reduced; and she also brooded much over the fragments of doubtful news which reached her. Something was said of all loyal clergy being expelled and persecuted, and this of course suggested those sufferings of the clergy during the Commonwealth, of which she had often heard, making her very anxious about her uncle, and earnestly long for wings to fly to him. The Archfields too! Had Charles returned, and did that secret press upon him as it did upon her? Did Lucy think herself utterly forgotten and cast aside, receiving no word or message from her friend? "Perhaps," thought Anne, "they fancy me sailing about at Court in silks and satins, jewels and curls, and forgetting them all, as I remember Lucy said I should when she first heard that I was going to Whitehall. Nay, and I even took pleasure in the picture of myself so decked out, though I never, never meant to forget her. Foolish, worse than foolish, that I was! And to think that I might now be safe and happy with good Lady Russell, near my uncle and all of them. I could almost laugh to think how my fine notions of making my fortune have ended in sitting here, neglected, forgotten, banished, almost in rags! I suppose it was all self- seeking, and that I must take it meekly as no more than I deserve. But oh, how different! how different is this captivity! 'Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away, and be at rest.' Swallow, swallow! you are sweeping through the air. Would that my spirit could fly like you! if only for one glimpse to tell me what they are doing. Ah! there's some one coming down this unfrequented walk, where I thought myself safe. A young gentleman! I must rise and go as quietly as I can before he sees me. Nay," as the action following the impulse, she was gathering up her work, "'tis an old abbe with him! no fear! Abbe? Nay, 'tis liker to an English clergyman! Can a banished one have strayed hither? The younger man is in mourning. Could it be? No graver, older, more manly--Oh!" "Anne! Anne! We have found you!" "Mr. Archfield! You!" And as Charles Archfield, in true English fashion, kissed her cheek, Anne fairly choked with tears of joy, and she ever after remembered that moment as the most joyful of her life, though the joy was almost agony. "This is Mistress Anne Woodford, sir," said Charles, the next moment. "Allow me, madam, to present Mr. Fellowes, of Magdalen College." Anne held out her hand, and courtesied in response to the bow and wave of the shovel hat. "How did you know that I was here?" she said. "Doctor Woodford thought it likely, and begged us to come and see whether we could do anything for you," said Charles; "and you may believe that we were only too happy to do so. A lady to whom we had letters, who is half English, the Vicomtesse de Bellaise, was so good as to go to the convent at Poissy and discover for us from some of the suite where you were." "My uncle--my dear uncle--is he well?" "Quite well, when last we heard," said Charles. "That was at Florence, nearly a month ago." "And all at Fareham, are they well?" "All just as usual," said Charles, "at the last hearing, which was at the same time. I hoped to have met letters at Paris, but no doubt the war prevents the mails from running." "Ah! I have never had a single letter," said Anne. "Did my uncle know anything of me? Has he never had one of mine?" "Up to the time when he wrote, last March, that is to say, he had received nothing. He had gone to London to make inquiries--" "Ah! my dear good uncle!" "And had ascertained that you had been chosen to accompany the Queen and Prince in their escape from Whitehall. You have played the heroine, Miss Anne." "Oh! if you knew--" "And," said Mr. Fellowes, "both he and Sir Philip Archfield requested us, if we could make our way home through Paris, to come and offer our services to Mistress Woodford, in case she should wish to send intelligence to England, or if she should wish to make use of our escort to return home." "Oh sir! oh sir! how can I thank you enough! You cannot guess the happiness you have brought me," cried Anne with clasped hands, tears welling up again. "You _will_ come with us then," cried Charles. "I am sure you ought. They have not used you well, Anne; how pale and thin you have grown." "That is only pining! I am quite well, only home-sick," she said with a smile. "I am sure the Queen will let me go. I am nothing but a burthen now. She has plenty of her own people, and they do not like a Protestant about the Prince." "There is Madame de Bellaise," said Mr. Fellowes, "advancing along the walk with Lady Powys. Let me present you to her." "You have succeeded, I see," a kind voice said, as Anne found herself making her courtesy to a tall and stately old lady, with a mass of hair of the peculiar silvered tint of flaxen mixed with white. "I am sincerely glad," said Lady Powys, "that Miss Woodford has met her friends." "Also," said Madame de Bellaise, "Lady Powys is good enough to say that if mademoiselle will honour me with a visit, she gives permission for her to return with me to Paris." This was still greater joy, except for that one recollection, formidable in the midst of her joy, of her dress. Did Madame de Bellaise divine something? for she said, "These times remind me of my youth, when we poor cavalier families well knew what sore straits were. If mademoiselle will bring what is most needful, the rest can be sent afterwards." Making her excuses for the moment, Anne with light and gladsome foot sped along the stately alley, up the stairs to her chamber, round which she looked much as if it had been a prison cell, fell on her knees in a gush of intense thankfulness, and made her rapid preparations, her hands trembling with joy, and a fear that she might wake to find all again a dream. She felt as if this deliverance were a token of forgiveness for her past wilfulness, and as if hope were opened to her once more. Lady Powys met her as she came down, and spoke very kindly, thanking her for her services, and hoping that she would enjoy the visit she was about to make. "Does your ladyship think Her Majesty will require me any longer?" asked Anne timidly. "If you wish to return to the country held by the Prince of Orange," said the Countess coldly, "you must apply for dismissal to Her Majesty herself." Anne perceived from the looks of her friends that it was no time for discussing her loyalty, and all taking leave, she was soon seated beside Madame de Bellaise, while the coach and four rolled down the magnificent avenue, and scene after scene disappeared, beautiful and stately indeed, but which she was as glad to leave behind her as if they had been the fetters and bars of a dungeon, and she almost wondered at the words of admiration of her companions. Madame de Bellaise sat back, and begged the others to speak English, saying that it was her mother tongue, and she loved the sound of it, but really trying to efface herself, while the eager conversation between the two young people went on about their homes. Charles had not been there more recently than Anne, and his letters were at least two months old, but the intelligence in them was as water to her thirsty soul. All was well, she heard, including the little heir of Archfield, though the young father coloured a little, and shuffled over the answers to the inquiries with a rather sad smile. Charles was, however, greatly improved. He had left behind him the loutish, unformed boy, and had become a handsome, courteous, well-mannered gentleman. The very sight of him handing Madame de Bellaise in and out of her coach was a wonder in itself when Anne recollected how he had been wont to hide himself in the shrubbery to prevent being called upon for such services, and how uncouthly in the last extremity he would perform them. Madame de Bellaise was inhabiting her son's great Hotel de Nidemerle. He was absent in garrison, and she was presiding over the family of grandchildren, their mother being in bad health. So much Anne heard before she was conducted to a pleasant little bedroom, far more home-like and comfortable than in any of the palaces she had inhabited. It opened into another, whence merry young voices were heard. "That is the apartment of my sister's youngest daughter," said Madame de Bellaise, "Noemi Darpent. I borrowed her for a little while to teach her French and dancing, but now that we are gone to war, they want to have her back again, and it will be well that she should avail herself of the same escort as yourself. All will then be selon les convenances, which had been a difficulty to me," she added with a laugh. Then opening the door of communication she said; "Here, Noemi, we have found your countrywoman, and I put her under your care. Ah! you two chattering little pies, I knew the voices were yours. This is my granddaughter, Marguerite de Nidemerle, and my niece--a la mode de Bretagne--Cecile d'Aubepine, all bestowing their chatter on their cousin." Noemi Darpent was a tall, fair, grave-faced maiden, some years over twenty, and so thoroughly English that it warmed Anne's heart to look at her, and the other two were bright little Frenchwomen-- Marguerite a pretty blonde, Cecile pale, dark, and sallow, but full of life. Both were at the age at which girls were usually in convents, but as Anne learnt, Madame de Bellaise was too English at heart to give up the training of her grandchildren, and she had an English governess for them, daughter to a Romanist cavalier ruined by sequestration. She was evidently the absolute head of the family. Her daughter-in- law was a delicate little creature, who scarcely seemed able to bear the noise of the family at the long supper-table, when all talked with shrill French voices, from the two youths and their abbe tutor down to the little four-year-old Lolotte in her high chair. But to Anne, after the tedious formality of the second table at the palace, stiff without refinement, this free family life was perfectly delightful and refreshing, though as yet she was too much cramped, as it were, by long stiffness, silence, and treatment as an inferior to join, except by the intelligent dancing of her brown eyes, and replies when directly addressed. After Mrs. Labadie's homeliness, Pauline's exclusive narrowness, Jane's petty frivolity, Hester's vulgar worldliness, and the general want of cultivation in all who treated her on an equality, it was like returning to rational society; and she could not but observe that Mr. Archfield altogether held his own in conversation with the rest, whether in French or English. Little more than a year ago he would hardly have opened his mouth, and would have worn the true bumpkin look of contemptuous sheepishness. Now he laughed and made others laugh as readily and politely as--Ah! With whom was she comparing him? Did the thought of poor Peregrine dwell on his mind as it did upon hers? But perhaps things were not so terrible to a man as to a woman, and he had not seen those apparitions! Indeed, when not animated, she detected a certain thoughtful melancholy on his brow which certainly had not belonged to former times. Mr. Fellowes early made known to Anne that her uncle had asked him to be her banker, and the first care of her kind hostess was to assist her in supplying the deficiencies of her wardrobe, so that she was able to go abroad without shrinking at her own shabby appearance. The next thing was to take her to Poissy to request her dismissal from the Queen, without which it would be hardly decorous to depart, though in point of fact, in the present state of affairs, as Noemi said, there was nothing to prevent it. "No," said Mr. Fellowes; "but for that reason Miss Woodford would feel bound to show double courtesy to the discrowned Queen." "And she has often been very kind to me--I love her much," said Anne. "Noemi is a little Whig," said Madame de Bellaise. "I shall not take her with us, because I know her father would not like it, but to me it is only like the days of my youth to visit an exiled queen. Will these gentlemen think fit to be of the party?" "Thank you, madam, not I," said the Magdalen man. "I am very sorry for the poor lady, but my college has suffered too much at her husband's hands for me to be very anxious to pay her my respects; and if my young friend will take my advice, neither will he. It might be bringing his father into trouble." To this Charles agreed, so M. L'Abbe undertook to show them the pictures at the Louvre, and Anne and Madame de Bellaise were the only occupants of the carriage that conveyed them to the great old convent of Poissy, the girl enjoying by the way the comfort of the kindness of a motherly woman, though even to her there could be no confiding of the terrible secret that underlay all her thoughts. Madame de Bellaise, however, said how glad she was to secure this companionship for her niece. Noemi had been more attached than her family realised to Claude Merrycourt, a neighbour who had had the folly, contrary to her prudent father's advice, to rush into Monmouth's rebellion, and it had only been by the poor girl's agony when he suffered under the summary barbarities of Kirke that her mother had known how much her heart was with him. The depression of spirits and loss of health that ensued had been so alarming that when Madame de Bellaise, after some months, paid a long visit to her sister in England, Mrs. Darpent had consented to send the girl to make acquaintance with her French relations, and try the effect of change of scene. She had gone, indifferent, passive, and broken- hearted, but her aunt had watched over her tenderly, and she had gradually revived, not indeed into a joyous girl, but into a calm and fairly cheerful woman. When she had left home, France and England were only too closely connected, but now they were at daggers drawn, and probably would be so for many years, and the Revolution had come so suddenly that Madame de Bellaise had not been able to make arrangements for her niece's return home, and Noemi was anxiously waiting for an opportunity of rejoining her parents. The present plan was this. Madame de Bellaise's son, the Marquis de Nidemerle, was Governor of Douai, where his son, the young Baron de Ribaumont, with his cousin, the Chevalier d'Aubepine, were to join him with their tutor, the Abbe Leblanc. The war on the Flemish frontier was not just then in an active state, and there were often friendly relations between the commandants of neighbouring garrisons, so that it might be possible to pass a party on to the Spanish territory with a flag of truce, and then the way would be easy. This passing, however, would be impossible for Noemi alone, since etiquette would not permit of her thus travelling with the two young gentlemen, nor could she have proceeded after reaching Douai, so that the arrival of the two Englishmen and the company of Miss Woodford was a great boon. Madame de Bellaise had already despatched a courier to ask her son whether he could undertake the transit across the frontier, and hoped to apply for passports as soon as his answer was received. She told Anne her niece's history to prevent painful allusions on the journey. "Ah, madame!" said Anne, "we too have a sad day connected with that unfortunate insurrection. We grieved over Lady Lisle, and burnt with indignation." "M. Barillon tells me that her judge, the Lord Chancellor, was actually forced to commit himself to the Tower to escape being torn to pieces by the populace, and it is since reported that he has there died of grief and shame. I should think his prison cell must have been haunted by hundreds of ghosts." "I pray you, madame! do you believe that there are apparitions?" "I have heard of none that were not explained by some accident, or else were the produce of an excited brain;" and Anne said no more on that head, though it was a comfort to tell of her own foolish preference for the chances of Court preferment above the security of Lady Russell's household, and Madame de Bellaise smiled, and said her experience of Courts had not been too agreeable. And thus they reached Poissy, where Queen Mary Beatrice had separate rooms set apart for visitors, and thus did not see them from behind the grating, but face to face. "You wish to leave me, signorina," she said, using the appellation of their more intimate days, as Anne knelt to kiss her hand. "I cannot wonder. A poor exile has nothing wherewith to reward the faithful." "Ah! your Majesty, that is not the cause; if I were of any use to you or to His Royal Highness." "True, signorina; you have been faithful and aided me to the best of your power in my extremity, but while you will not embrace the true faith I cannot keep you about the person of my son as he becomes more intelligent. Therefore it may be well that you should leave us, until such time as we shall be recalled to our kingdom, when I hope to reward you more suitably. You loved my son, and he loved you--perhaps you would like to bid him farewell." For this Anne was very grateful, and the Prince was sent for by the mother, who was too proud of him to miss any opportunity of exhibiting him to an experienced mother and grandmother like the vicomtesse. He was a year old, and had become a very beautiful child, with large dark eyes like his mother's, and when Mrs. Labadie carried him in, he held out his arms to Anne with a cry of glad recognition that made her feel that if she could have been allowed the charge of him she could hardly have borne to part with him. And when the final leave-taking came, the Queen made his little hand present her with a little gold locket, containing his soft hair, with a J in seed pearls outside, in memory, said Mary Beatrice, of that night beneath the church wall. "Ah, yes, you had your moment of fear, but we were all in terror, and you hushed him well." Thus with another kiss to the white hand, returned on her own forehead, ended Anne Jacobina's Court life. Never would she be Jacobina again--always Anne or sweet Nancy! It was refreshing to be so called, when Charles Archfield let the name slip out, then blushed and apologised, while she begged him to resume it, which he was now far too correct to do in public. Noemi quite readily adopted it. "I am tired of fine French names," she said: "an English voice is quite refreshing; and do you call me Naomi, not Noemi. I did not mind it so much at first, because my father sometimes called me so, after his good old mother, who was bred a Huguenot, but it is like the first step towards home to hear Naomi--Little Omy, as my brothers used to shout over the stairs." That was a happy fortnight. Madame de Bellaise said it would be a shame to let Anne have spent a half year in France and have seen nothing, so she took the party to the theatre, where they saw the Cid with extreme delight. She regretted that the season was so far advanced that the winter representations of Esther, at St. Cyr by the young ladies, were over, but she invited M. Racine for an evening, when Mr. Fellowes took extreme pleasure in his conversation, and he was prevailed on to read some of the scenes. She also used her entree at Court to enable them to see the fountains at Versailles, which Winchester was to have surpassed but for King Charles's death. "Just as well otherwise," remarked Charles to Anne. "These fine feathers and flowers of spray are beautiful enough in themselves, but give me the clear old Itchen not tortured into playing tricks, with all the trout killed; and the open down instead of all these terraces and marble steps where one feels as cramped as if it were a perpetual minuet. And look at the cost! Ah! you will know what I mean when we travel through the country." Another sight was from a gallery, whence they beheld the King eat his dinner alone at a silver-loaded table, and a lengthy ceremony it was. Four plates of soup to begin with, a whole capon with ham, followed by a melon, mutton, salad, garlic, pate de foie gras, fruit, and confitures. Charles really grew so indignant, that, in spite of his newly-acquired politeness, Anne, who knew his countenance, was quite glad when she saw him safe out of hearing. "The old glutton!" he said; "I should like to put him on a diet of buckwheat and sawdust like his poor peasants for a week, and then see whether he would go on gormandising, with his wars and his buildings, starving his poor. It is almost enough to make a Whig of a man to see what we might have come to. How can you bear it, madame?" "Alas! we are powerless," said the Vicomtesse. "A seigneur can do little for his people, but in Anjou we have some privileges, and our peasants are better off than those you have seen, though indeed I grieved much for them when first I came among them from England." She was perhaps the less sorry that Paris was nearly emptied of fashionable society since her guest had the less chance of uttering dangerous sentiments before those who might have repeated them, and much as she liked him, she was relieved when letters came from her son undertaking to expedite them on their way provided they made haste to forestall any outbreak of the war in that quarter. Meantime Naomi and Anne had been drawn much nearer together by a common interest. The door between their rooms having some imperfection in the latch swung open as they were preparing for bed, and Anne was aware of a sound of sobbing, and saw one of the white- capped, short-petticoated femmes de chambre kneeling at Naomi's feet, ejaculating, "Oh, take me! take me, mademoiselle! Madame is an angel of goodness, but I cannot go on living a lie. I shall do something dreadful." "Poor Suzanne! poor Suzanne!" Naomi was answering: "I will do what I can, I will see if it is possible--" They started at the sound of the step, Suzanne rising to her feet in terror, but Naomi, signing to Anne and saying, "It is only Mademoiselle Woodford, a good Protestant, Suzanne. Go now; I will see what can be done; I know my aunt would like to send a maid with us." Then as Suzanne went out with her apron to her eyes, and Anne would have apologised, she said, "Never mind; I must have told you, and asked your help. Poor Suzanne, she is one of the Rotrous, an old race of Huguenot peasants whom my aunt always protected; she would protect any one, but these people had a special claim because they sheltered our great-grandmother, Lady Walwyn, when she fled after the S. Barthelemi. When the Edict of Nantes was revoked, the two brothers fled. I believe she helped them, and they got on board ship, and brought a token to my father; but the old mother was feeble and imbecile, and could not move, and the monks and the dragoons frightened and harassed this poor wench into what they called conforming. When the mother died, my aunt took Suzanne and taught her, and thought she was converted; and indeed if all Papists were like my aunt it would not be so hard to become one." "Oh yes! I know others like that." "But this poor Suzanne, knowing that she only was converted out of terror, has always had an uneasy conscience, and the sight of me has stirred up everything. She says, though I do not know if it be true, that she was fast drifting into bad habits, when finding my Bible, though it was English and she could not read it, seems to have revived everything, and recalled the teaching of her good old father and pastor, and now she is wild to go to England with us." "You will take her?" exclaimed Anne. "Of course I will. Perhaps that is what I was sent here for. I will ask her of my aunt, and I think she will let me have her. You will keep her secret, Anne." "Indeed I will." Madame de Bellaise granted Suzanne to her niece without difficulty, evidently guessing the truth, but knowing the peril of the situation too well to make any inquiry. Perhaps she was disappointed that her endeavours to win the girl to her Church had been ineffectual, but to have any connection with one 'relapsed' was so exceedingly perilous that she preferred to ignore the whole subject, and merely let it be known that Suzanne was to accompany Mademoiselle Darpent, and this was only disclosed to the household on the very last morning, after the passports had been procured and the mails packed, and she hushed any remark of the two English girls in such a decided manner as quite startled them by the manifest need of caution. "We should have come to that if King James were still allowed to have his own way," said Naomi. "Oh no! we are too English," said Anne. "Our generation might not see it," said Naomi; "but who can be safe when a Popish king can override law? Oh, I shall breathe more freely when I am on the other side of the Channel. My aunt is much too good for this place, and they don't approve of her, and keep her down."	{ "id": "12449" }
22	REVENANTS	"But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again! I'll cross it, though it blast me." Hamlet. Floods of tears were shed at the departure of the two young officers of sixteen and seventeen. The sobs of the household made the English party feel very glad when it was over and the cavalcade was in motion. A cavalcade it was, for each gentleman rode and so did his body-servant, and each horse had a mounted groom. The two young officers had besides each two chargers, requiring a groom and horse boy, and each conducted half a dozen fresh troopers to join the army. A coach was the regulation mode of travelling for ladies, but both the English girls had remonstrated so strongly that Madame de Bellaise had consented to their riding, though she took them and Suzanne the first day's journey well beyond the ken of the Parisians in her own carriage, as far as Senlis, where there was a fresh parting with the two lads, fewer tears, and more counsel and encouragement, with many fond messages to her son, many to her sister in England, and with affectionate words to her niece a whisper to her to remember that she would not be in a Protestant country till she reached Holland or England. The last sight they had of the tall dignified figure of the old lady was under the arch of the cathedral, where she was going to pray for their safety. Suzanne was to ride on a pillion behind the Swiss valet of Mr. Fellowes, whom Naomi had taken into her confidence, and the two young ladies each mounted a stout pony. Mr. Fellowes had made friends with the Abbe Leblanc, who was of the old Gallican type, by no means virulently set against Anglicanism, and also a highly cultivated man, so that they had many subjects in common, besides the question of English Catholicity. The two young cousins, Ribaumont and D'Aubepine, were chiefly engaged in looking out for sport, setting their horses to race with one another, and the like, in which Charles Archfield sometimes took a share, but he usually rode with the two young ladies, and talked to them very pleasantly of his travels in Italy, the pictures and antiquities which had made into an interesting reality the studies that he had hated when a boy, also the condition of the country he had seen with a mind which seemed to have opened and enlarged with a sudden start beyond the interests of the next fox-hunt or game at bowls. All were, as he had predicted, greatly shocked at the aspect of the country through which they passed: the meagre crops ripening for harvest, the hay- carts, sometimes drawn by an equally lean cow and woman, the haggard women bearing heavy burthens, and the ragged, barefooted children leading a wretched cow or goat to browse by the wayside, the gaunt men toiling at road-mending with their poor starved horses, or at their seigneur's work, alike unpaid, even when drawn off from their own harvests. And in the villages the only sound buildings were the church and presbytere by its side, the dwellings being miserable hovels, almost sunk into the earth, an old crone or two, marvels of skinniness, spinning at the door, or younger women making lace, and nearly naked children rushing out to beg. Sometimes the pepper-box turrets of a chateau could be seen among distant woods, or the walls of a cloister, with a taper spire in the midst, among greener fields; and the towns were approached through long handsome avenues, and their narrow streets had a greater look of prosperity, while their inns, being on the way to the place of warfare, were almost luxurious, with a choice of dainty meats and good wines. Everywhere else was misery, and Naomi said it was the vain endeavour to reform the source of these grievances that had forced her father to become an exile from his native country, and that he had much apprehended that the same blight might gradually be brought over his adopted land, on which Charles stood up for the constitution, and for the resolute character of Englishmen, and Anne, as in duty bound, for the good intentions of her godfather. Thus they argued, and Anne not only felt herself restored to the company of rational beings, but greatly admired Charles's sentiments and the ability with which he put them forward, and now and then the thought struck her, and with a little twinge of pain of which she was ashamed, would Naomi Darpent be the healer of the wound nearly a year old, and find in him consolation for the hero of her girlhood? Somehow there would be a sense of disappointment in them both if so it were. At length the spires and towers of Douai came in sight, fenced in by stern lines of fortification according to the science of Vauban-- smooth slopes of glacis, with the terrible muzzles of cannon peeping out on the summits of the ramparts, and the line of salient angle and ravelin with the moat around, beautiful though formidable. The Marquis de Nidemerle had sent a young officer and sergeant's party to meet the travellers several miles off, and bring them unquestioned through the outposts of the frontier town, so closely watched in this time of war, and at about half a mile from the gates he himself, with a few attendants, rode out all glittering and clanking in their splendid uniforms and accoutrements. He doffed his hat with the heavy white plume, and bowed his greeting to the ladies and clergymen, but both the young Frenchmen, after a military salute, hastily dismounted and knelt on one knee, while he sprang from his horse, and then, making the sign of the Cross over his son, raised him, and folding him in his arms pressed him to his breast and kissed him on each cheek, not without tears, then repeated the same greeting with young D'Aubepine. He then kissed the hand of his belle cousine, whom, of course, he knew already, and bowed almost to the ground on being presented to Mademoiselle Woodford, a little less low to Monsieur Archfield, who was glad the embracing was not to be repeated, politely received Mr. Fellowes, and honoured the domestic abbe with a kindly word and nod. The gradation was amusing, and he was a magnificent figure, with his noble horse and grand military dress, while his fine straight features, sunburnt though naturally fair, and his tall, powerful frame, well became his surroundings--'a true white Ribaumont,' as Naomi said, as she looked at the long fair hair drawn back and tied with ribbon. "He is just like the portrait of our great-grandfather who was almost killed on the S. Barthelemi!" However, Naomi had no more time to talk _of_ him, for he rode by her side inquiring for his mother, wife, and children, but carefully doing the honours to the stranger lady and gentleman. Moat and drawbridge there were at Portsmouth, and a sentry at the entrance, but here there seemed endless guards, moats, bridges, and gates, and there was a continual presenting of arms and acknowledging of salutes as the commandant rode in with the travellers. It was altogether a very new experience in life. They were lodged in the governor's quarters in the fortress, where the accommodation for ladies was of the slenderest, and M. de Nidemerle made many apologies, though he had evidently given up his own sleeping chamber to the two ladies, who would have to squeeze into his narrow camp-bed, with Suzanne on the floor, and the last was to remain there entirely, there being no woman with whom she could have her meals. The ladies were invited to sup with the staff, and would, as M. de Nidemerle assured them, be welcomed with the greatest delight. So Naomi declared that they must make their toilette do as much justice as possible to their country; and though full dress was not attainable, they did their best with ribbons and laces, and the arrangement of her fair locks and Anne's brown ones, when Suzanne proved herself an adept; the ladies meantime finding no small amusement in the varieties of swords, pistols, spurs, and other accoutrements, for which the marquis had apologised, though Naomi told him that they were the fittest ornaments possible. "And my cousin Gaspard is a really good man," she said, indicating to her friend the little shrine with holy-water stoup, ivory crucifix, print of the Madonna, two or three devotional books, and the miniatures of mother, wife, and children hung not far off; also of two young cavaliers, one of whom Naomi explained to be the young father whom Gaspard could not recollect, the other, that of the uncle Eustace, last Baron Walwyn and Ribaumont, of whom her own mother talked with such passionate affection, and whose example had always been a guiding star to the young marquis. He came to their door to conduct them down to supper, giving his arm to Miss Woodford as the greatest stranger, while Miss Darpent was conducted by a resplendent ducal colonel. The supper-room was in festal guise, hung round with flags, and the table adorned with flowers; a band was playing, and never had either Anne or Naomi been made so much of. All were eagerly talking, Charles especially so, and Anne thought, with a thrill, "Did he recollect that this was the very anniversary of that terrible 1st of July?" It was a beautiful summer evening, and the supper taking place at five o'clock there was a considerable time to spare afterwards, so that M. de Nidemerle proposed to show the strangers the place, and the view from the ramparts. "In my company you can see all well," he said, "but otherwise there might be doubts and jealousies." He took them through the narrow Flemish streets of tall houses with projecting upper stories, and showed them that seminary which was popularly supposed in England to be the hotbed of truculent plots, but where they only saw a quiet academic cloister and an exquisite garden, green turf, roses and white lilies in full perfection, and students flitting about in cassocks and square caps, more like an Oxford scene, as Mr. Fellowes said, than anything he had yet seen. He was joined by an English priest from his own original neighbourhood. The Abbe Leblanc found another acquaintance, and these two accompanied their friends to the ramparts. The marquis had a great deal to hear from his cousin about his home, and thus it happened that Charles Archfield and Anne found themselves more practically alone together than they had yet been. As they looked at the view over the country, he told her of a conversation that he had had with an officer now in the French army, but who had served in the Imperial army against the Turks, and that he had obtained much useful information. "Useful?" asked Anne. "Yes. I have been watching for the moment to tell you, Anne; I have resolved what to do. I intend to make a few campaigns there against the enemy of Christendom." "O Mr. Archfield!" was all she could say. "See here, I have perceived plainly that to sink down into my lady's eldest son is no wholesome life for a man with all his powers about him. I understand now what a set of oafs we were to despise the poor fellow you wot of, because he was not such a lubber as ourselves. I have no mind to go through the like." "You are so different; it could not be the same." "Not quite; but remember there is nothing for me to do. My father is still an active man, and I am not old enough to take my part in public affairs, even if I loved greatly either the Prince of Orange or King James. I could not honestly draw my sword for either. I have no estate to manage, my child's inheritance is all in money, and it would drive me mad, or worse, to go home to be idle. No; I will fight against the common enemy till I have made me a name, and won reputation and standing; or if I should not come back, there's the babe at home to carry on the line." "Oh, sir! your father and mother--Lucy--all that love you. What will they say?" "It would only put them to needless pain to ask them. I shall not. I shall write explaining all my motives--all except one, and that you alone know, Anne." She shuddered a little, and felt him press her arm tightly. They had fallen a good deal behind the marquis and his cousin, and were descending as twilight fell into a narrow, dark, lonely street, with all the houses shut up. "No one has guessed, have they?" she faltered. "Not that I know of. But I cannot--no! I can_not_ go home, to have that castle near me, and that household at Oakwood. I see enough in my dreams without that." "See! Ah, yes!" "Then, Anne, you have suffered then too--guiltless as you are in keeping my terrible secret! I have often thought and marvelled whether it were so with you." She was about to tell him what she had seen, when he began, "There is one thing in this world that would sweeten and renew my life--and that?" Her heart was beating violently at what was so suddenly coming on her, when at that instant Charles broke off short with "Good Heavens! What's that?" On the opposite side of the street, where one of the many churches stood some way back, making an opening, there was a figure, essentially the same that Anne had seen at Lambeth, but bare-headed, clad apparently in something long and white, and with a pale bluish light on the ghastly but unmistakable features. She uttered a faint gasping cry scarcely audible, Charles's impulse was to exclaim, "Man or spirit, stand!" and drawing his sword to rush across the street; but in that second all had vanished, and he only struck against closed doors, which he shook, but could not open. "Mr. Archfield! Oh, come back! I have seen it before," entreated Anne; and he strode back, with a gesture of offering her support, and trembling, she clung to his arm. "It does not hurt," she said. "It comes and goes--" "You have seen it before!" "Twice." No more could be said, for through the gloom the white plume and gold-laced uniform of the marquis were seen. He had missed them, and come back to look for them, beginning to apologise. "I am confounded at having left Mademoiselle behind. --Comment!" --as the sound betrayed that Charles was sheathing his sword. "I trust that Monsieur has met with no unpleasant adventure from my people." "Oh, no, Monsieur," was the answer, as he added-- "One can never be sure as to these fiery spirits towards an Englishman in the present state of feeling, and I blame myself extremely for having permitted myself to lose sight of Monsieur and Mademoiselle." "Indeed, sir, we have met with no cause of complaint," said Charles, adding as if casually, "What is that church?" " 'Tis the Jesuits' Church," replied the governor. "There is the best preaching in the town, they say, and Jansenists as we are, I was struck with the Lenten course." Anne went at once to her room on returning to the house. Naomi, who was there already, exclaimed at her paleness, and insisted on administering a glass of wine from what the English called the rere supper, the French an encas, the substantial materials for which had been left in the chamber. Then Anne felt how well it had been for her that her fellows at the palace had been so uncongenial, for she could hardly help disclosing to Naomi the sight she had seen, and the half-finished words she had heard. It was chiefly the feeling that she could not bear Naomi to know of the blood on Charles's hand which withheld her in her tumult of feeling, and made her only entreat, "Do not ask me, I cannot tell you." And Naomi, who was some years older, and had had her own sad experience, guessed perhaps at one cause for her agitation, and spared her inquiries, though as Anne, tired out by the long day, and forced by their close quarters to keep herself still, dropped asleep, strange mutterings fell from her lips about "The vault--the blood--come back. There he is. The secret has risen to forbid. O, poor Peregrine!" Between the July heat, the narrow bed, and the two chamber fellows, Anne had little time to collect her thoughts, except for the general impression that if Charles finished what he had begun to say, the living and the dead alike must force her to refuse, though something within foreboded that this would cost her more than she yet durst perceive, and her heart was ready to spring forth and enclose him as it were in an embrace of infinite tenderness, above all when she thought of his purpose of going to those fearful Hungarian wars. But after the hot night, it was a great relief to prepare for an early start. M. de Nidemerle had decided on sending the travellers to Tournay, the nearest Spanish town, on the Scheldt, since he had some acquaintance with the governor, and when no campaign was actually on foot the courtesies of generous enemies passed between them. He had already sent an intimation of his intention of forwarding an English kinswoman of his own with her companions, and bespoken the good offices of his neighbour, and they were now to set off in very early morning under the escort of a flag of truce, a trumpeter, and a party of troopers, commanded by an experienced old officer with white moustaches and the peaked beard of the last generation, contrasting with a face the colour of walnut wood. The marquis himself and his son, however, rode with the travellers for their first five miles, through a country where the rich green of the natural growth showed good soil, all enamelled with flowers and corn crops run wild; but the villages looked deserted, the remains of burnt barns and houses were frequent, and all along that frontier, it seemed as if no peaceful inhabitants ventured to settle, and only brigands often rendered such by misery might prowl about. The English party felt as if they had never understood what war could be. However, in a melancholy orchard run wild, under the shade of an apple-tree laden with young fruit, backed by a blackened gable half concealed by a luxuriant untrimmed vine, the avant couriers of the commandant had cleared a space in the rank grass, and spread a morning meal, of cold pate, fowl and light wines, in which the French officers drank to the good journey of their friends, and then when the horses had likewise had their refreshment the parting took place with much affection between the cousins. The young Ribaumont augured that they should meet again when he had to protect Noemi in a grand descent on Dorsetshire in behalf of James, and she merrily shook her fist at him and defied him, and his father allowed that they were a long way from that. M. de Nidemerle hinted to Mr. Archfield that nobody could tell him more about the war with the Turks than M. le Capitaine Delaune, who was, it appeared, a veteran Swiss who had served in almost every army in Europe, and thus could give information by no means to be neglected. So that, to Anne's surprise and somewhat to her mortification, since she had no knowledge of the cause, she saw Charles riding apart with this wooden old veteran, who sat as upright as a ramrod on his wiry-looking black horse, leaving her to the company of Naomi and Mr. Fellowes. Did he really wish not to pursue the topic which had brought Peregrine from his grave? It would of course be all the better, but it cost her some terrible pangs to think so. There were far more formalities and delays before the travellers could cross the Tournay bridge across the Scheldt. They were brought to a standstill a furlong off, and had to wait while the trumpeter rode forward with the white flag, and the message was referred to the officer on guard, while a sentry seemed to be watching over them. Then the officer came to the gateway of the bridge, and Captain Delaune rode forward to him, but there was still a long weary waiting in the sun before he came back, after having shown their credentials to the governor, and then he was accompanied by a Flemish officer, who, with much courtesy, took them under his charge, and conducted them through all the defences, over the bridge, and to the gate where their baggage had to be closely examined. Naomi had her Bible in her bosom, or it would not have escaped; Anne heartily wished she had used the same precaution on her flight from England, but she had not, like her friend, been warned beforehand. When within the city there was more freedom, and the Fleming conducted the party to an inn, where, unlike English inns, they could not have a parlour to themselves, but had to take their meals in common with other guests at a sort of table d'hote, and the ladies had no refuge but their bedroom, where the number of beds did not promise privacy. An orderly soon arrived with an invitation to Don Carlos Arcafila to sup with the Spanish governor, and of course the invitation could not be neglected. The ladies walked about a little in the town with Mr. Fellowes, looking without appreciation at the splendid five-towered cathedral, but recollecting with due English pride that the place had been conquered by Henry VIII. Thence they were to make for Ostend, where they were certain of finding a vessel bound for England. It was a much smaller party that set forth from Tournay than from Paris, and soon they fell into pairs, Mr. Fellowes and Naomi riding together, sufficiently out of earshot of the others for Charles to begin-- "I have not been able to speak to you, Anne, since that strange interruption--if indeed it were not a dream." "Oh, sir, it was no dream! How could it be?" "How could it, indeed, when we both saw it, and both of us awake and afoot, and yet I cannot believe my senses." "Oh, I can believe it only too truly! I have seen him twice before. I thought you said you had." "Merely in dreams, and that is bad enough." "Are you sure? for I was up and awake." "Are _you_ sure? I might ask again. I was asleep in bed, and glad enough to shake myself awake. Where were you?" "Once on Hallowmas Eve, looking from the window at Whitehall; once when waiting with the Queen under the wall of Lambeth Church, on the night of our flight." "Did others see him then?" "I was alone the first time. The next time when he flitted across the light, no one else saw him; but they cried out at my start. Why should he appear except to us?" "That is true," muttered Charles. "And oh, sir, those two times he looked as he did in life--not ghastly as now. There can be no doubt now that--" "What, sweet Anne?" "Sir, I must tell you! I could bear it no longer, and I _did_ consult the Bishop of Bath and Wells." "Any more?" he asked in a somewhat displeased voice. "No one, not a soul, and he is as safe as any of the priests here; he regards a confession in the same way. Mr. Archfield, forgive me. He seemed divinely sent to me on that All Saints' day! Oh, forgive me!" and tears were in her eyes. "He is Dr. Ken--eh? I remember him. I suppose he is as safe as any man, and a woman must have some relief. You have borne enough indeed," said Charles, greatly touched by her tears. "What did he say?" "He asked, was I certain of the--death," said she, bringing out the word with difficulty; "but then I had only seen _it_ at Whitehall; and these other appearances, in such places too, take away all hope that it is otherwise!" "Assuredly," said Charles; "I had not the least doubt at the moment. I know I ran my sword through his body, and felt a jar that I believe was his backbone," he said with a shudder, "and he fell prone and breathless; but since I have seen more of fencing, and heard more of wounds, the dread has crossed me that I acted as an inexperienced lad, and that I ought to have tried whether the life was in him, or if he could be recovered. If so, I slew him twice, by launching him into that pit. God forgive me!" "Is it so deep?" asked Anne, shuddering. "I know there is a sort of step at the top; but I always shunned the place, and never looked in." "There are two or three steps at the top, but all is broken away below. Sedley and I once threw a ball down, and I am sure it dropped to a depth down which no man could fall and _live_. I believe there once were underground passages leading to the harbour on one hand, and out to Portsdown Hill on the other, but that the communication was broken away and the openings destroyed when Lord Goring was governor of Portsmouth, to secure the castle. Be that as it may, he could not have been living after he reached that floor. I heard the thud, and the jingle of his sword, and it will haunt me to my dying day." "And yet you never intended it. You did it in defence of me. You did not mean to strike thus hard. It was an accident." "Would that I could so feel it!" he sighed. "Nay, of course I had no evil design when my poor little wife drove me out to give you her rag of ribbon, or whatever it was; but I hated as well as despised the fellow. He had angered me with his scorn--well deserved, as now I see--of our lubberly ways. She had vexed me with her teasing commendations--out of harmless mischief, poor child. I hated him more every time you looked at him, and when I had occasion to strike him I was glad of it. There was murder in my heart, and I felt as if I were putting a rat or a weasel out of the way when I threw him down that pit. God forgive me! Then, in my madness, I so acted that in a manner I was the death of that poor young thing." "No, no, sir. Your mother had never thought she would live." "So they say; but her face comes before me in reproach. There are times when I feel myself a double murderer. I have been on the point of telling all to Mr. Fellowes, or going home to accuse myself. Only the thought of my father and mother, and of leaving such a blight on that poor baby, has withheld me; but I cannot go home to face the sight of the castle." "No," said Anne, choked with tears. "Nor is there any suspicion of the poor fellow's fate," he added. "Not that I ever heard." "His family think him fled, as was like enough, considering the way in which they treated him," said Charles. "Nor do I see what good it would do them to know the truth." "It would only be a grief and bitterness to all." "I hope I have repented, and that God accepts my forgiveness," said Charles sadly. "I am banishing myself from all I love, and there is a weight on me for life; but, unless suspicion falls on others, I do not feel bound to make it worse for all by giving myself up. Yet those appearances--to you, to me, to us both! At such a moment, too, last night!" "Can it be because of his unhallowed grave?" said Anne, in a low voice of awe. "If it were!" said Charles, drawing up his horse for a moment in thought. "Anne, if there be one more appearance, the place shall be searched, whether it incriminate me or not. It would be adding to all my wrongs towards the poor fellow, if that were the case." "Even if he were found," said Anne, "suspicion would not light on you. And at home it will be known if he haunts the place. I will-- " "Nay, but, Anne, he will not interrupt me now. I have much more to say. I want you to remember that we were sweethearts ere ever I, as a child of twelve, knew that I was contracted to that poor babe, and bidden to think only of her. Poor child! I honestly did my best to love her, so far as I knew how, and mayhap we could have rubbed on through life passably well as things go. But--but--It skills not talking of things gone by, except to show that it is a whole heart-- not the reversion of one that is yours for ever, mine only love." "Oh, but--but--I am no match for you." "I've had enough of grand matches." "Your father would never endure it." "My father would soon rejoice. Besides, if we are wedded here--say at Ostend--and you make me a home at Buda, or Vienna, or some place at our winter quarters, as my brave wench will, my father will be glad enough to see us both at home again." "No; it cannot be. It would be plain treachery to your parents; Mr. Fellowes would say so. I am sure he would not marry us." "There are English chaplains. Is that all that holds you back?" "No, sir. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were here himself, it could not make it other than a sin, and an act of mean ingratitude, for me, the Prince's rocker, to take advantage of their goodness in permitting you to come and bring me home--to do what would be pain, grief, and shame to them." "Never shame." "What is wrong is shame! Cannot you see how unworthy it would be in me, and how it would grieve my uncle that I should have done such a thing?" "Love would override scruples." "Not _true_ love." "True! Then you own to some love for me, Anne." "I do--not--know. I have guarded--I mean--cast away--I mean--never entertained any such thought ever since I was old enough to know how wicked it would be." "Anne! Anne!" (in an undertone very like rapture), "you have confessed all! It is no sin _now_. Even you cannot say so." She hung her head and did not answer, but silence was enough for him. "It is enough!" he said; "you will wait. I shall know you are waiting till I return in such sort that nothing can be denied me. Let me at least have that promise." "You need not fear," murmured Anne. "How could I need? The secret would withhold me, were there nothing else." "And there is something else? Eh, sweetheart? Is that all I am to be satisfied with?" "Oh sir! --Mr. Archfield, I mean--O Charles!" she stammered. Mr. Fellowes turned round to consult his pupil as to whether the halt should be made at the village whose peaked roofs were seen over the fruit trees. But when Anne was lifted down from the steed it was with no grasp of common courtesy, and her hand was not relinquished till it had been fervently kissed. Charles did not again torment her with entreaties to share his exile. Mayhap he recognised, though unwillingly, that her judgment had been right, but there was no small devotion in his whole demeanour, as they dined, rode, and rested on that summer's day amid fields of giant haycocks, and hostels wreathed with vines, with long vistas of sleek cows and plump dappled horses in the sheds behind. The ravages of war had lessened as they rode farther from the frontier, and the rich smiling landscape lay rejoicing in the summer sunshine; the sturdy peasants looked as if they had never heard of marauders, as they herded their handsome cattle and responded civilly when a draught of milk was asked for the ladies. There was that strange sense of Eden felicity that sometimes comes with the knowledge that the time is short for mutual enjoyment in full peace. Charles and Anne would part, their future was undefined; but for the present they reposed in the knowledge of each other's hearts, and in being together. It was as in their childhood, when by tacit consent he had been Anne's champion from the time she came as a little Londoner to be alarmed at rough country ways, and to be easily scared by Sedley. It had been then that Charles had first awakened to the chivalry of the better part of boyhood's nature, instead of following his cousin's lead, and treating girls as creatures meant to be bullied. Many a happy reminiscence was shared between the two as they rode together, and it was not till the pale breadth of sea filled their horizon, broken by the tall spires and peaked gables and many-windowed steep roofs of Ostend, that the future was permitted to come forward and trouble them. Then Anne's heart began to feel that persistence in her absolute refusal was a much harder thing than at the first, when the idea was new and strange to her. And there were strange yearnings that Charles should renew the proposal, mixed with dread of herself and of her own resolution in case of his doing so. As her affections embraced him more and more she pictured him sick, wounded, dying, out of reach of all, among Germans, Hungarians, Turks,--no one at hand to comfort him or even to know his fate. There was even disappointment in his acquiescence, though her better mind told her that it was in accordance with her prayer against temptation. Moreover, he was of a reserved nature, not apt to discuss what was once fixed, and perhaps it showed that he respected her judgment not to try to shake her decision. Though for once love had carried him away, he might perhaps be grateful to her for sparing him the perplexities of dragging her about with him and of giving additional offence to his parents. The affection born of lifelong knowledge is not apt to be of the vehement character that disregards all obstacles or possible miseries to the object thereof. Yet enough feeling was betrayed to make Naomi whisper at night, "Sweet Nan, are you not some one else's sweet?" And Anne, now with another secret on her heart, only replied with embraces, and, "Do not talk of it! I cannot tell how it is to be. I cannot tell you all." Naomi was discreet enough only to caress. With strict formalities at outworks, moat, drawbridge, and gates, and the customary inquisitorial search of the luggage, the travellers were allowed to repair to a lofty inn, with the Lion of Flanders for its sign, and a wide courtyard, the successive outside galleries covered with luxuriant vines. Here, as usual, though the party of females obtained one bedroom together, the gentlemen had to share one vast sleeping chamber with a variety of merchants, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, and a few English. Meals were at a great table d'hote in the public room, opening into the court, and were shared by sundry Spanish, Belgic, and Swiss officers of the garrison, who made this their mess-room. Two young English gentlemen, like Charles Archfield, making the grand tour, whom he had met in Italy, were delighted to encounter him again, and still more so at the company of English ladies. "No wonder the forlorn widower has recovered his spirits!" Anne heard one say with a laugh that made her blush and turn away; and there was an outcry that after a monopoly of the fair ones all the way from Paris, the seats next to them must be yielded. Anne was disappointed, and could not bring herself to be agreeable to the obtrusive cavalier with the rich lace cravat and perfumed hair, both assumed in her honour. The discussion was respecting the vessels where a passage might be obtained. The cavaliers were to sail in a couple of days for London, but another ship would go out of harbour with the tide on the following day for Southampton, and this was decided on by acclamation by the Hampshire party, though no good accommodation was promised them. There was little opportunity for a tete-a-tetes, for the young men insisted on escorting the ladies to the picture galleries, palaces, and gardens, and Charles did not wish to reawaken the observations that, according to the habits of the time, might not be of the choicest description. Anne watched him under her eyelashes, and wondered with beating heart whether after all he intended to return home, and there plead his cause, for he gave no token of intending to separate from the rest. The Hampshire Hog was to sail at daybreak, so the passengers went on board over night, after supper, when the summer twilight was sinking down and the far-off west still had a soft golden tint. Anne felt Charles's arm round her in the boat and grasping her hand, then pulling off her glove and putting a ring on her finger--all in silence. She still felt that arm on the deck in the confusion of men, ropes, and bales of goods, and the shouts and hails on all sides that nearly deafened her. There was imminent danger of being hurled down, if not overboard, among the far from sober sailors, and Mr. Fellowes urged the ladies to go below at once, conducting Miss Darpent himself as soon as he could ascertain where to go. Anne felt herself almost lifted down. Then followed a strong embrace, a kiss on brow, lips, and either cheek, and a low hoarse whisper--"So best! Mine own! God bless you,"--and as Suzanne came tumbling aft into the narrow cabin, Anne found herself left alone with her two female companions, and knew that these blissful days were over.	{ "id": "12449" }
23	FRENCH LEAVE	"When ye gang awa, Jamie, Far across the sea, laddie, When ye gang to Germanie What will ye send to me, laddie?" Huntingtower. Fides was the posy on the ring. That was all Anne could discover, and indeed only this much with the morning light of the July sun that penetrated the remotest corners. For the cabin was dark and stifling, and there was no leaving it, for both Miss Darpent and her attendant were so ill as to engross her entirely. She could hardly leave them when there was a summons to a meal in the captain's cabin, and there she found herself the only passenger able to appear, and the rest of the company, though intending civility, were so rough that she was glad to retreat again, and wretched as the cabin was, she thought it preferable to the deck. Mr. Fellowes, she heard, was specially prostrated, and jokes were passing round that it was the less harm, since it might be the worse for him if the crew found out that there was a parson on board. Thus Anne had to forego the first sight of her native land, and only by the shouts above and the decreased motion of the vessel knew when she was within lee of the Isle of Wight, and on entering the Solent could encourage her companions that their miseries were nearly over, and help them to arrange themselves for going upon deck. When at length they emerged, as the ship lay-to in sight of the red roofs and white steeples of Southampton, and of the green mazes of the New Forest, Mr. Fellowes was found looking everywhere for the pupil whom he had been too miserable to miss during the voyage. Neither Charles Archfield nor his servant was visible, but Mr. Fellowes's own man coming forward, delivered to the bewildered tutor a packet which he said that his comrade had put in his charge for the purpose. In the boat, on the way to land, Mr. Fellowes read to himself the letter, which of course filled him with extreme distress. It contained much of what Charles had already explained to Anne of his conviction that in the present state of affairs it was better for so young a man as himself, without sufficient occupation at home, to seek honourable service abroad, and that he thought it would spare much pain and perplexity to depart without revisiting home. He added full and well-expressed thanks for all that Mr. Fellowes had done for him, and for kindness for which he hoped to be the better all his life. He enclosed a long letter to his father, which he said would, he hoped, entirely exonerate his kind and much-respected tutor from any remissness or any participation in the scheme which he had thought it better on all accounts to conceal till the last. "And indeed," said poor Mr. Fellowes, "if I had had any inkling of it, I should have applied to the English Consul to restrain him as a ward under trust. But no one would have thought it of him. He had always been reasonable and docile beyond his years, and I trusted him entirely. I should as soon have thought of our President giving me the slip in this way. Surely he came on board with us." "He handed me into the boat," said Miss Darpent. "Who saw him last? Did you, Miss Woodford?" Anne was forced to own that she had seen him on board, and her cheeks were in spite of herself such tell-tales that Mr. Fellowes could not help saying, "It is not my part to rebuke you, madam, but if you were aware of this evasion, you will have a heavy reckoning to pay to the young man's parents." "Sir," said Anne, "I knew indeed that he meant to join the Imperial army, but I knew not how nor when." "Ah, well! I ask no questions. You need not justify yourself to me, young lady; but Sir Philip and Lady Archfield little knew what they did when they asked us to come by way of Paris. Not that I regret it on all accounts," he added, with a courteous bow to Naomi which set her blushing in her turn. He avoided again addressing Miss Woodford, and she thought with consternation of the prejudice he might excite against her. It had been arranged between the two maidens that Naomi should be a guest at Portchester Rectory till she could communicate with Walwyn, and her father or brother could come and fetch her. They landed at the little wharf, among the colliers, and made their way up the street to an inn, where, after ordering a meal to satisfy the ravenous sea-appetite, Mr. Fellowes, after a few words with Naomi, left the ladies to their land toilet, while he went to hire horses for the journey. Then Naomi could not help saying, "O Anne! I did not think you would have done this. I am grieved!" "You do not know all," said Anne sadly, "or you would not think so hardly." "I saw you had an understanding with him. I see you have a new ring on your finger; but how could I suppose you would encourage an only son thus to leave his parents?" "Hush, hush, Naomi!" cried Anne, as the uncontrollable tears broke out. "Don't you believe that it is quite as hard for me as for them that he should have gone off to fight those dreadful blood-thirsty Turks? Indeed I would have hindered him, but that--but that--I know it is best for him. No! I can't tell you why, but I _know_ it is; and even to the very last, when he helped me down the companion- ladder, I hoped he might be coming home first." "But you are troth-plight to him, and secretly?" "I am not troth-plight; I know I am not his equal, I told him so, but he thrust this ring on me in the boat, in the dark, and how could I give it back!" Naomi shook her head, but was more than half-disarmed by her friend's bitter weeping. Whether she gave any hint to Mr. Fellowes Anne did not know, but his manner remained drily courteous, and as Anne had to ride on a pillion behind a servant she was left in a state of isolation as to companionship, which made her feel herself in disgrace, and almost spoilt the joy of dear familiar recognition of hill, field, and tree, after her long year's absence, the longest year in her life, and substituted the sinking of heart lest she should be returning to hear of misfortune and disaster, sickness or death. Her original plan had been to go on with Naomi to Portchester at once, if by inquiry at Fareham she found that her uncle was at home, but she perceived that Mr. Fellowes decidedly wished that Miss Darpent should go first to the Archfields, and something within her determined first to turn thither in spite of all there was to encounter, so that she might still her misgivings by learning whether her uncle was well. So she bade the man turn his horse's head towards the well-known poplars in front of Archfield House. The sound of the trampling horses brought more than one well-known old 'blue-coated serving-man' into the court, and among them a woman with a child in her arms. There was the exclamation, "Mistress Anne! Sure Master Charles be not far behind," and the old groom ran to help her down. "Oh! Ralph, thanks. All well? My uncle?" "He is here, with his Honour," and in scarcely a moment more Lucy, swift of foot, had flown out, and had Anne in her embrace, and crying out-- "Ah, Charles! my brother! I don't see him." Anne was glad to have no time to answer before she was in her uncle's arms. "My child, at last! God bless thee! Safe in soul and body!" Sir Philip was there too, greeting Mr. Fellowes, and looking for his son, and with the cursory assurance that Mr. Archfield was well, and that they would explain, a hasty introduction of Miss Darpent was made, and all moved in to where Lady Archfield, more feeble and slow of movement, had come into the hall, and the nurse stood by with the little heir to be shown to his father, and Sedley Archfield stood in the background. It was a cruel moment for all, when the words came from Mr. Fellowes, "Sir, I have to tell you, Mr. Archfield is not here. This letter, he tells me, is to explain." There was an outburst of exclamation, during which Sir Philip withdrew into a window with his spectacles to read the letter, while all to which the tutor or Anne ventured to commit themselves was that Mr. Archfield had only quitted them without notice on board the Hampshire Hog. The first tones of the father had a certain sound of relief, "Gone to the Imperialist army to fight the Turks in Hungary!" Poor Lady Archfield actually shrieked, and Lucy turned quite pale, while Anne caught a sort of lurid flush of joy on Sedley Archfield's features, and he was the first to exclaim, "Undutiful young dog!" "Tut! tut!" returned Sir Philip, "he might as well have come home first, and yet I do not know but that it is the best thing he could do. There might have been difficulties in the way of getting out again, you see, my lady, as things stand now. Ay! ay! you are in the right of it, my boy. It is just as well to let things settle themselves down here before committing himself to one side or the other. 'Tis easy enough for an old fellow like me who has to let nothing go but his Commission of the Peace, but not the same for a stirring young lad; and he is altogether right as to not coming back to idle here as a rich man. It would be the ruin of him. I am glad he has the sense to see it. I was casting about to obtain an estate for him to give him occupation." "But the wars," moaned the mother; "if he had only come home we could have persuaded him." "The wars, my lady! Why, they will be a feather in his cap; and may be if he had come home, the Dutchman would have claimed him for his, and let King James be as misguided as he may, I cannot stomach fighting against his father's son for myself or mine. No, no; it was the best thing there was for the lad to do. You shall hear his letter, it does him honour, and you, too, Mr. Fellowes. He could not have written such a letter when he left home barely a year ago." Sir Philip proceeded to read the letter aloud. There was a full explanation of the motives, political and private, only leaving out one, and that the most powerful of all of those which led Charles Archfield to absent himself for the present. He entreated pardon for having made the decision without obtaining permission from his father on returning home; but he had done so in view of possible obstacles to his leaving England again, and to the belief that a brief sojourn at home would cause more grief and perplexity than his absence. He further explained, as before, his reasons for secrecy towards his travelling companion, and entreated his father not to suppose for a moment that Mr. Fellowes had been in any way culpable for what he could never have suspected; warmly affectionate messages to mother and sister followed, and an assurance of feeling that 'the little one' needed for no care or affection while with them. Lady Archfield was greatly disappointed, and cried a great deal, making sure that the poor dear lad's heart was still too sore to brook returning after the loss of his wife, who had now become the sweetest creature in the world; but Sir Philip's decision that the measure was wise, and the secrecy under the circumstances so expedient as to be pardonable, prevented all public blame; Mr. Fellowes, however, was drawn apart, and asked whether he suspected any other motive than was here declared, and which might make his pupil unwilling to face the parental brow, and he had declared that nothing could have been more exemplary than the whole demeanour of the youth, who had at first gone about as one crushed, and though slowly reviving into cheerfulness, had always been subdued, until quite recently, when the meeting with his old companion had certainly much enlivened his spirits. Poor Mr. Fellowes had been rejoicing in the excellent character he should have to give, when this evasion had so utterly disconcerted him, and it was an infinite relief to him to find that all was thought comprehensible and pardonable. Anne might be thankful that none of the authorities thought of asking her the question about hidden motives; and Naomi, looking about with her bright eyes, thought she had perhaps judged too hardly when she saw the father's approval, and that the mother and sister only mourned at the disappointment at not seeing the beloved one. The Archfields would not hear of letting any of the party go on to Portchester that evening. Dr. Woodford, who had ridden over for consultation with Sir Philip, must remain, he would have plenty of time for his niece by and by, and she and Miss Darpent must tell them all about the journey, and about Charles; and Anne must tell them hundreds of things about herself that they scarcely knew, for not one letter from St. Germain had ever reached her uncle. How natural it all looked! the parlour just as when she saw it last, and the hall, with the long table being laid for supper, and the hot sun streaming in through the heavy casements. She could have fancied it yesterday that she had left it, save for the plump rosy little yearling with flaxen curls peeping out under his round white cap, who had let her hold him in her arms and fondle him all through that reading of his father's letter. Charles's child! He was her prince indeed now. He was taken from her and delivered over to Lady Archfield to be caressed and pitied because his father would not come home 'to see his grand-dame's own beauty,' while Lucy took the guests upstairs to prepare for supper, Naomi and her maid being bestowed in the best guest-chamber, and Lucy taking her friend to her own, the scene of many a confabulation of old. "Oh, how I love it!" cried Anne, as the door opened on the well- known little wainscotted abode. "The very same beau-pot. One would think they were the same clove gillyflowers as when I went away." "O Anne, dear, and you are just the same after all your kings and queens, and all you have gone through;" and the two friends were locked in another embrace. "Kings and queens indeed! None of them all are worth my Lucy." "And now, tell me all; tell me all, Nancy, and first of all about my brother. How does he look, and is he well?" "He looks! O Lucy, he is grown such a noble cavalier; most like the picture of that uncle of yours who was killed, and that Sir Philip always grieves for." "My father always hoped Charley would be like him," said Lucy. "You must tell him that. But I fear he may be grave and sad." "Graver, but not sad now." "And you have seen him and talked to him, Anne? Did you know he was going on this terrible enterprise?" "He spoke of it, but never told me when." "Ah! I was sure you knew more about it than the old tutor man. You always were his little sweetheart before poor little Madam came in the way, and he would tell you anything near his heart. Could you not have stopped him?" "I think not, Lucy; he gave his reasons like a man of weight and thought, and you see his Honour thinks them sound ones." "Oh yes; but somehow I cannot fancy our Charley doing anything for grand, sound, musty reasons, such as look well marshalled out in a letter." "You don't know how much older he is grown," said Anne, again, with the tell-tale colour in her cheeks. "Besides, he cannot bear to come home." "Don't tell me that, Nan. My mother does not see it; but though he was fond of poor little Madam in a way, and tried to think himself more so, as in duty bound, she really was fretting and wearing the very life--no, perhaps not the life, but the temper--out of him. What I believe it to be the cause is, that my father must have been writing to him about that young gentlewoman in the island that he is so set upon, because she would bring a landed estate which would give Charles something to do. They say that Peregrine Oakshott ran away to escape wedding his cousin; Charley will banish himself for the like cause." "He said nothing of it," said Anne. "O Anne, I wish you had a landed estate! You would make him happier than any other, and would love his poor little Phil! Anne! is it so? I have guessed!" and Lucy kissed her on each cheek. "Indeed, indeed I have not promised. I know it can never, never be-- and that I am not fit for him. Do not speak of it, Lucy? He spoke of it once as we rode together--" "And you could not be so false as to tell him you did not love him? No, you could not?" and Lucy kissed her again. "No," faltered Anne; "but I would not do as he wished. I have given him no troth-plight. I told him it would never be permitted. And he said no more, but he put this ring on my finger in the boat without a word. I ought not to wear it; I shall not." "Oh yes, you shall. Indeed you shall. No one need understand it but myself, and it makes us sisters. Yes, Anne, Charley was right. My father will not consent now, but he will in due time, if he does not hear of it till he wearies to see Charles again. Trust it to me, my sweet sister that is to be." "It is a great comfort that you know," said Anne, almost moved to tell her the greater and more perilous secret that lay in the background, but withheld by receiving Lucy's own confidence that she herself was at present tormented by her cousin Sedley's courtship. He was still, more's the pity, she said, in garrison at Portsmouth, but there were hopes of his regiment being ere long sent to the Low Countries, since it was believed to be more than half inclined to King James. In the meantime he certainly had designs on Lucy's portion, and as her father never believed half the stories of his debaucheries that were rife, and had a kindness for his only brother's orphan, she did not feel secure against his yielding so as to provide for Sedley without continuance in the Dutch service. "I could almost follow the example of running away!" said Lucy. "I suppose," Anne ventured to say, faltering, "that nothing has been heard of poor Mr. Oakshott." "Nothing at all. His uncle's people, who have come home from Muscovy, know nothing of him, and it is thought he may have gone off to the plantations. The talk is that Mistress Martha is to be handed on to the third brother, but that she is not willing." It was clear that there could have been no spectres here, and Lucy went on, "But you have told me nothing yet of yourself and your doings, my Anne. How well you look, and more than ever the Court lady, even in your old travelling habit. Is that the watch the King gave you?" In private and in public there was quite enough to tell on that evening for intimate friends who had not met for a year, and one of whom had gone through so many vicissitudes. Nor were the other two guests by any means left out of the welcome, and the evening was a very happy one. Mr. Fellowes intimated his intention of going himself to Walwyn with the news of Miss Darpent's arrival, and Naomi accepted the invitation to remain at Portchester till she could be sent for from home. It was not till the next morning that Anne Woodford could be alone with her uncle. As she came downstairs in the morning she saw him waiting for her; he held out his hands, and drew her out with him into the walled garden that lay behind the house. "Child! dear child!" said he, "you are welcome to my old eyes. May God bless you, as He has aided you to be faithful alike to Him and to your King through much trial." "Ah, sir! I have sorely repented the folly and ambition that would not heed your counsel." "No doubt, my maid; but the spirit of humility and repentance hath worked well in you. I fear me, however, that you are come back to further trials, since probably Portchester may be no longer our home." "Nor Winchester?" "Nor Winchester." "Then is this new King going to persecute as in the old times you talk of? He who was brought over to save the Church!" "He accepts the English Church, my maid, so far as it accepts him. All beneficed clergy are required to take the oath of allegiance to him before the first of August, now approaching, under pain of losing their preferments. Many of my brethren, even our own Bishop and Dean, think this merely submission to the powers that be, and that it may be lawfully done; but as I hear neither the Archbishop himself, nor my good old friends Doctors Ken and Frampton can reconcile it to their conscience, any more than my brother Stanbury, of Botley, nor I, to take this fresh oath, while the King to whom we have sworn is living. Some hold that he has virtually renounced our allegiance by his flight. I cannot see it, while he is fighting for his crown in Ireland. What say you, Anne, who have seen him; did he treat his case as that of an abdicated prince?" "No, sir, certainly not. All the talk was of his enjoying his own again." "How can I then, consistently with my duty and loyalty, swear to this William and Mary as my lawful sovereigns? I say not 'tis incumbent on me to refuse to live under them a peaceful life, but make oath to them as my King and Queen I cannot, so long as King James shall live. True, he has not been a friend to the Church, and has wofully trampled on the rights of Englishmen, but I cannot hold that this absolves me from my duty to him, any more than David was freed from duty to Saul. So, Anne, back must we go to the poverty in which I was reared with your own good father." Anne might grieve, but she felt the gratification of being talked to by her uncle as a woman who could understand, as he had talked to her mother. "The first of August!" she repeated, as if it were a note of doom. "Yes; I hear whispers of a further time of grace, but I know not what difference that should make. A Christian man's oath may not be broken sooner or later. Well, poverty is the state blessed by our Lord, and it may be that I have lived too much at mine ease; but I could wish, dear child, that you were safely bestowed in a house of your own." "So do not I," said Anne, "for now I can work for you." He smiled faintly, and here Mr. Fellowes joined them; a good man likewise, but intent on demonstrating the other side of the question, and believing that the Popish, persecuting King had forfeited his rights, so that there need be no scruple as to renouncing what he had thrown up by his flight. It was an endless argument, in which each man could only act according to his own conscience, and endeavour that this conscience should be as little biassed as possible by worldly motives or animosity. Mr. Fellowes started at once with his servant for Walwyn, and Naomi accompanied the two Woodfords to Portchester. In spite of the cavalier sentiments of her family, Naomi had too much of the spire of her Frondeur father to understand any feeling for duty towards the King, who had so decidedly broken his covenant with his people, and moreover had so abominably treated the Fellows of Magdalen College; and her pity for Anne as a sufferer for her uncle's whim quite angered her friend into hot defence of him and his cause. The dear old parsonage garden under the gray walls, the honeysuckle and monthly roses trailing over the porch, the lake-like creek between it and green Portsdown Hill, the huge massive keep and towers, and the masts in the harbour, the Island hills sleeping in blue summer haze--Anne's heart clave to them more than ever for the knowledge that the time was short and that the fair spot must be given up for the right's sake. Certainly there was some trepidation at the thought of the vault, and she had made many vague schemes for ascertaining that which her very flesh trembled at the thought of any one suspecting; but these were all frustrated, for since the war with France had begun, the bailey had been put under repair and garrisoned by a detachment of soldiers, the vault had been covered in, there was a sentry at the gateway of the castle, and the postern door towards the vicarage was fastened up, so that though the parish still repaired to church through the wide court solitary wanderings there were no longer possible, nor indeed safe for a young woman, considering what the soldiery of that period were. The thought came over her with a shudder as she gazed from her window at the creek where she remembered Peregrine sending Charles and Sedley adrift in the boat. The tide was out, the mud glistened in the moonlight, but nothing was to be seen more than Anne had beheld on many a summer night before, no phantom was evoked before her eyes, no elfin-like form revealed his presence, nor did any spirit take shape to upbraid her with his unhallowed grave, so close at hand. No, but Naomi Darpent, yearning for sympathy, came to her side, caressed her on that summer night, and told her that Mr. Fellowes had gone to ask her of her father, and though she could never love again as she had once loved, she thought if her parents wished it, she could be happy with so good a man.	{ "id": "12449" }
24	IN THE MOONLIGHT	I have had a dream this evening, While the white and gold were fleeting, But I need not, need not tell it. Where would be the good? Requiescat in Pace. --JEAN INGELOW. Anne Woodford sat, on a sultry summer night, by the open window in Archfield House at Fareham, busily engaged over the tail of a kite, while asleep in a cradle in the corner of the room lay a little boy, his apple-blossom cheeks and long flaxen curls lying prone upon his pillow as he had tossed when falling asleep in the heat. The six years since her return had been eventful. Dr. Woodford had adhered to his view that his oath of allegiance could not be forfeited by James's flight; and he therefore had submitted to be ousted from his preferments, resigning his pleasant prebendal house, and his sea-side home, and embracing poverty for his personal oath's sake, although he was willing to acquiesce in the government of William and Mary, and perhaps to rejoice that others had effected what he would not have thought it right to do. Things had been softened to him as regarded his flock by the appointment of Mr. Fellowes to Portchester, which was a Crown living, though there had been great demur at thus slipping into a friend's shoes, so that Dr. Woodford had been obliged to asseverate that nothing so much comforted him as leaving the parish in such hands, and that he blamed no man for seeing the question of Divine right as he did in common with the Non-jurors. The appointment opened the way to the marriage with Naomi Darpent, and the pair were happily settled at Portchester. Dr. Woodford and his niece found a tiny house at Winchester, near the wharf, with the clear Itchen flowing in front and the green hills rising beyond, while in the rear were the ruins of Wolvesey, and the buildings of the Cathedral and College. They retained no servant except black Hans, poor Peregrine's legacy, who was an excellent cook, and capable of all that Anne could not accomplish in her hours of freedom. It was a fall indeed from her ancient aspirations, though there was still that bud of hope within her heart. The united means of uncle and niece were so scanty that she was fain to offer her services daily at Mesdames Reynaud's still flourishing school, where the freshness of her continental experiences made her very welcome. Dr. Woodford occasionally assisted some student preparing for the university, but this was not regular occupation, and it was poorly paid, so that it was well that fifty pounds a year went at least three times as far as it would do in the present day. Though his gown and cassock lost their richness and lustre, he was as much respected as ever. Bishop Mews often asked him to Wolvesey, and allowed him to assist the parochial clergy when it was not necessary to utter the royal name, the vergers marshalled him to his own stall at daily prayers, and he had free access to Bishop Morley's Cathedral library. The Archfield family still took a house in the Close for the winter months, and there a very sober-minded and conventional courtship of Lucy took place by Sir Edmund Nutley, a worthy and well-to-do gentleman settled on the borders of Parkhurst Forest, in the Isle of Wight. Anne, with the thought of her Charles burning within her heart, was a little scandalised at the course of affairs. Sir Edmund was a highly worthy man, but not in his first youth, and ponderous--a Whig, moreover, and an intimate friend of the masterful governor of the island, Lord Cutts, called the "Salamander." He had seen Miss Archfield before at the winter and spring Quarter Sessions, and though her father was no longer in the Commission of the Peace, the residence at Winchester gave him opportunities, and the chief obstacle seemed to be the party question. He was more in love than was the lady, but she was submissive, and believed that he would be a kind husband. She saw, too, that her parents would be much disappointed and displeased if she made any resistance to so prosperous a settlement, and she was positively glad to be out of reach of Sedley's addresses. Such an entirely unenthusiastic acceptance was the proper thing, and it only remained to provide for Lady Archfield's comfort in the loss of her daughter. For this the elders turned at once to Anne Woodford. Sir Philip made it his urgent entreaty that the Doctor and his niece would take up their abode with him, and that Anne would share with the grandmother the care of the young Philip, a spirited little fellow who would soon be running wild with the grooms, without the attention that his aunt had bestowed on him. Dr. Woodford himself was much inclined to accept the office of chaplain to his old friend, who he knew would be far happier for his company; and Anne's heart bounded at the thought of bringing up Charles's child, but that very start of joy made her blush and hesitate, and finally surprise the two old gentlemen by saying, with crimson cheeks-- "Sir, your Honour ought to know what might make you change your mind. There have been passages between Mr. Archfield and me." Sir Philip laughed. "Ah, the rogue! You were always little sweethearts as children. Why, Anne, you should know better than to heed what a young soldier says." "No doubt you have other views for your son," said Dr. Woodford, "and I trust that my niece has too much discretion and sense of propriety to think that they can be interfered with on her account." "Passages!" repeated Sir Philip thoughtfully. "Mistress Anne, how much do you mean by that? Surely there is no promise between you?" "No, sir," said Anne; "I would not give any; but when we parted in Flanders he asked me to--to wait for him, and I feel that you ought to know it." "Oh, I understand!" said the baronet. "It was only natural to an old friend in a foreign land, and you have too much sense to dwell on a young man's folly, though it was an honourable scruple that made you tell me, my dear maid. But he is not come or coming yet, more's the pity, so there is no need to think about it at present." Anne's cheeks did not look as if she had attained that wisdom; but her conscience was clear, since she had told the fact, and the father did not choose to take it seriously. To say how she herself loved Charles would have been undignified and nothing to the purpose, since her feelings were not what would be regarded, and there was no need to mention her full and entire purpose to wed no one else. Time enough for that if the proposal were made. So the uncle and niece entered on their new life, with some loss of independence, and to the Doctor a greater loss in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral and its library; for after the first year or two, as Lady Archfield grew rheumatic, and Sir Philip had his old friend to play backgammon and read the Weekly Gazette, they became unwilling to make the move to Winchester, and generally stayed at home all the winter. Before this, however, Princess Anne had been at the King's House at Winchester for a short time; and Lady Archfield paid due respects to her, with Anne in attendance. With the royal faculty of remembering everybody, the Princess recognised her namesake, gave her hand to be kissed, and was extremely gracious. She was at the moment in the height of a quarrel with her sister, and far from delighted with the present regime. She sent for Miss Woodford, and, to Anne's surprise, laughed over her own escape from the Cockpit, adding, "You would not come, child. You were in the right on't. There's no gratitude among them! Had I known how I should be served I would never have stirred a foot! So 'twas you that carried off the child! Tell me what he is like." And she extracted by questions all that Anne could tell her of the life at St. Germain, and the appearance of her little half-brother. It was impossible to tell whether she asked from affectionate remorse or gossiping interest, but she ended by inquiring whether her father's god-daughter were content with her position, or desired one--if there were a vacancy--in her own household, where she might get a good husband. Anne declined courteously and respectfully, and was forced to hint at an engagement which she could not divulge. She had heard Charles's expressions of delight at the arrangement which gave his boy to her tender care, warming her heart. Lady Archfield had fits of talking of finding a good husband for Anne Woodford among the Cathedral clergy, but the maiden was so necessary to her, and so entirely a mother to little Philip, that she soon let the idea drop. Perhaps it was periodically revived, when, about three times a year, there arrived a letter from Charles. He wrote in good spirits, evidently enjoying his campaigns, and with no lack of pleasant companions, English, Scotch, and Irish Jacobites, with whom he lived in warm friendship and wholesome emulation. He won promotion, and the county Member actually came out of his way to tell Sir Philip what he had heard from the Imperial ambassador of young Archfield's distinguished services at the battle of Salankamen, only regretting that he was not fighting under King William's colours. Little Philip pranced about cutting off Turks' heads in the form of poppies, 'like papa,' for whose safety Anne taught him to pray night and morning. Pride in his son's exploits was a compensation to the father, who declared them to be better than vegetating over the sheepfolds, like Robert Oakshott, or than idling at Portsmouth, like Sedley Archfield. That young man's regiment had been ordered to Ireland during the campaign that followed the battle of Boyne Water. He had suddenly returned from thence, cashiered: by his own story, the victim of the enmity of the Dutch General Ginkel; according to another version, on account of brutal excesses towards the natives and insolence to his commanding officer. Courts-martial had only just been introduced, and Sir Philip could believe in a Whig invention doing injustice to a member of a loyal family, so that his doors were open to his nephew, and Sedley haunted them whenever he had no other resource; but he spent most of his time between Newmarket and other sporting centres, and contrived to get a sort of maintenance by bets at races, cock-fights, and bull-baitings, and by extensive gambling. Evil reports of him came from time to time, but Sir Philip was loth to think ill of the son of his brother, or to forbode that as his grandson grew older, such influence might be dangerous. In his uncle's presence Sedley was on his good behaviour; but if he caught Miss Woodford without that protection, he attempted rude compliments, and when repelled by her dignified look and manner, sneered at the airs of my lady's waiting-woman, and demanded how long she meant to mope after Charley, who would never look so low. "She need not be so ungracious to a poor soldier. She might have to put up with worse." Moreover, he deliberately incited Philip to mischief, putting foul words into the little mouth, and likewise giving forbidden food and drink, lauding evil sports, and mocking at obedience to any authority, especially Miss Woodford's. Philip was very fond of his Nana, and in general good and obedient; but what high-spirited boy is proof against the allurements of the only example before him of young manhood, assuring him that it was manly not to mind what the women said, nor to be tied to the apron-strings of his grand-dame's abigail? The child had this summer thus been actually taken to the outskirts of a bull-fight, whence he had been brought home in great disgrace by Ralph, the old servant who had been charged to look after his out-door amusements, and to ride with him. The grandfather was indeed more shocked at the danger and the vulgarity of the sport than its cruelty, but Philip had received his first flogging, and his cousin had been so sharply rebuked that--to the great relief of Anne and of Lady Archfield--he had not since appeared at Fareham House. The morrow would be Philip's seventh birthday, a stage which would take him farther out of Anne's power. He was no longer to sleep in her chamber, but in one of his own with Ralph for his protector, and he was to begin Latin with Dr. Woodford. So great was his delight that he had gone to bed all the sooner in order to bring the great day more quickly, and Anne was glad of the opportunity of finishing the kite, which was to be her present, for Ralph to help him fly upon Portsdown Hill. That great anniversary, so delightful to him, with pony and whip prepared for him--what a day of confusion, distress, and wretchedness did it not recall to his elders? Anne could not choose but recall the time, as she sat alone in the window, looking out over the garden, the moon beginning to rise, and the sunset light still colouring the sky in the north-west, just as it had done when she returned home after the bonfire. The events of that sad morning had faded out of the foreground. The Oakshott family seemed to have resigned themselves to the mystery of Peregrine's fate. Only his mother had declined from the time of his disappearance. When it was ascertained that his uncle had died in Russia, and that nothing had been heard of him there, it seemed to bring on a fresh stage of her illness, and she had expired at last in Martha Browning's arms, her last words being a blessing not only to Robert, but to Peregrine, and a broken entreaty to her husband to forgive the boy, for he might have been better if they had used him well. Martha was then found to hold out against the idea of his being dead. Little affection and scant civility as she had received from him, her dutiful heart had attached itself to her destined lord, and no doubt her imagination had been excited by his curious abilities, and her compassion by the persecution he suffered at home. At any rate, when, after a proper interval, the Major tried to transfer her to his remaining son, she held out against it for a long interval, until at last, after full three years, the desolation and disorganisation of Oakwood without a mistress, a severe illness of the Major, and the distress of his son, so worked upon her feelings that she consented to the marriage with Robert, and had ever since been the ruling spirit at Oakwood, and a very different one from what had been expected--sensible, kindly, and beneficent, and allowing the young husband more liberty and indulgence than he had ever known before. The remembrance of Peregrine seemed to have entirely passed away, and Anne had been troubled with no more apparitions, so that though she thought over the strange scene of that terrible morning, the rapid combat, the hasty concealment, the distracted face of the unhappy youth, it was with the thought that time had been a healer, and that Charles might surely now return home. And what then? She raised her eyes to the open window, and what did she behold in the moonlight streaming full upon the great tree rose below? It was the same face and figure that had three times startled her before, the figure dark and the face very white in the moonlight, but like nothing else, and with that odd, one-sided feather as of old. It had flitted ere she could point its place--gone in a single flash-- but she was greatly startled! Had it come to protest against the scheme she had begun to indulge in on that very night of all nights, or had it merely been her imagination? For nothing was visible, though she leant from the window, no sound was to be heard, though when she tried to complete her work, her hands trembled and the paper rustled, so that Philip showed symptoms of wakening, and she had to defer her task till early morning. She said nothing of her strange sight, and Phil had a happy successful birthday, flying the kite with a propitious wind, and riding into Portsmouth on his new pony with grandpapa. But there was one strange event. The servants had a holiday, and some of them went into Portsmouth, black Hans, who never returned, being one. The others had lost sight of him, but had not been uneasy, knowing him to be perfectly well able to find his way home; but as he never appeared, the conclusion was that he must have been kidnapped by some ship's crew to serve as a cook. He had not been very happy among the servants at Fareham, who laughed at his black face and Dutch English, and he would probably have gone willingly with Dutchmen; but Anne and her uncle were grieved, and felt as if they had failed in the trust that poor Sir Peregrine had left them.	{ "id": "12449" }
25	TIDINGS FROM THE IRON GATES	"He has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?" Coriolanus. It was a wet autumn day, when the yellow leaves of the poplars in front of the house were floating down amid the misty rain; Dr. Woodford had gone two days before to consult a book in the Cathedral library, and was probably detained at Winchester by the weather; Lady Archfield was confined to her bed by a sharp attack of rheumatism. Sir Philip was taking his after-dinner doze in his arm- chair; and little Philip was standing by Anne, who was doing her best to keep him from awakening his grandfather, as she partly read, partly romanced, over the high-crowned hatted fishermen in the illustrations to Izaak Walton's Complete Angler. He had just, caught by the musical sound, made her read to him a second time Marlowe's verses, 'Come live with me and be my love,' and informed her that his Nana was his love, and that she was to watch him fish in the summer rivers, when the servant who had been sent to meet His Majesty's mail and extract the Weekly Gazette came in, bringing not only that, but a thick, sealed packet, the aspect of which made the boy dance and exclaim, "A packet from my papa! Oh! will he have written an answer to my own letter to him?" But Sir Philip, who had started up at the opening of the door, had no sooner glanced at the packet than he cried out, "'Tis not his hand!" and when he tried to break the heavy seals and loosen the string, his hands shook so much that he pushed it over to Anne, saying, "You open it; tell me if my boy is dead." Anne's alarm took the course of speed. She tore off the wrapper, and after one glance said, "No, no, it cannot be the worst; here is something from himself at the end. Here, sir." "I cannot! I cannot," said the poor old man, as the tears dimmed his spectacles, and he could not adjust them. "Read it, my dear wench, and let me know what I am to tell his poor mother." And he sank into a chair, holding between his knees his little grandson, who stood gazing with widely-opened blue eyes. "He sends love, duty, blessing. Oh, he talks of coming home, so do not fear, sir!" cried Anne, a vivid colour on her cheeks. "But what is it?" asked the father. "Tell me first--the rest after." "It is in the side--the left side," said Anne, gathering up in her agitation the sense of the crabbed writing as best she could. "They have not extracted the bullet, but when they have, he will do well." "God grant it! Who writes?" "Norman Graham of Glendhu--captain in his K. K. Regiment of Volunteer Dragoons. That's his great friend! Oh, sir, he has behaved so gallantly! He got his wound in saving the colours from the Turks, and kept his hands clutched over them as his men carried him out of the battle." Philip gave another little spring, and his grandfather bade Anne read the letter to him in detail. It told how the Imperial forces had met a far superior number of Turks at Lippa, and had sustained a terrible defeat, with the loss of their General Veterani, how Captain Archfield had received a scimitar wound in the cheek while trying to save his commander, but had afterwards dashed forward among the enemy, recovered the colours of the regiment, and by a desperate charge of his fellow-soldiers, who were devotedly attached to him, had been borne off the field with a severe wound on the left side. Retreat had been immediately necessary, and he had been taken on an ammunition waggon along rough roads to the fortress called the Iron Gates of Transylvania, whence this letter was written, and sent by the messenger who was to summon the Elector of Saxony to the aid of the remnant of the army. It had not yet been possible to probe the wound, but Charles gave a personal message, begging his parents not to despond but to believe him recovering, so long as they did not see his servant return without him, and he added sundry tender and dutiful messages to his parents, and a blessing to his son, with thanks for the pretty letter he had not been able to answer (but which, his friend said, was lying spread on his pillow, not unstained with blood), and he also told his boy always to love and look up to her who had ever been as a mother to him. Anne could hardly read this, and the scrap in feeble irregular lines she handed to Sir Philip. It was-- With all my heart I entreat pardon for all the errors that have grieved you. I leave you my child to comfort you, and mine own true love, whom yon will cherish. She will cherish you as a daughter, as she will be, with your consent, if God spares me to come home. The love of all my soul to her, my mother, sister, and you." There was a scrawl for conclusion and signature, and Captain Graham added-- Writing and dictating have greatly exhausted him. He would have said more, but he says the lady can explain much, and he repeats his urgent entreaties that you will take her to your heart as a daughter, and that his son will love and honour her. There was a final postscript-- The surgeon thinks him better for having disburthened his mind. "My child," said Sir Philip, with a long sigh, looking up at Anne, who had gathered the boy into her arms, and was hiding her face against his little awe-struck head, "my child, have you read?" "No," faltered Anne. "Read then." And as she would have taken it, he suddenly drew her into his embrace and kissed her as the eyes of both overflowed. "My poor girl!" he said, "this is as hard to you as to us! Oh, my brave boy!" and he let her lay her head on his shoulder and held her hand as they wept together, while little Phil stared for a moment or two at so strange a sight and then burst out with a great cry-- "You shall not cry! you shall not! my papa is not dead!" and he stamped his little foot. "No, he isn't. He will get well; the letter said so, and I will go and tell grandmamma." The need of stopping this roused them both; Sir Philip, heavily groaning, went away to break the tidings to his wife, and Anne went down on her knees on the hearth to caress the boy, and help him to understand his father's state and realise the valorous deeds that would always be a crown to him, and which already made the little fellow's eye flash and his fair head go higher. By and by she was sent for to Lady Archfield's room, and there she had again to share the grief and the fears and try to dwell on the glory and the hopes. When in a calmer moment the parents interrogated her on what had passed with Charles, it was not in the spirit of doubt and censure, but rather as dwelling on all that was to be told of one whom alike they loved, and finally Sir Philip said, "I see, dear child, I would not believe how far it had gone before, though you tried to tell me. Whatever betide, you have won a daughter's place." It was true that naturally a far more distinguished match would have been sought for the heir, and he could hardly have carried out his purpose without more opposition than under their present feelings, his parents supposed themselves likely to make, but they really loved Anne enough to have yielded at last; and Lady Nutley, coming home with a fuller knowledge of her brother's heart, prevented any reaction, and Anne was allowed full sympathies as a betrothed maiden, in the wearing anxiety that continued in the absence of all intelligence. On the principle of doing everything to please him, she was even encouraged to write to Charles in the packet in which he was almost implored to recover, though all felt doubts whether he were alive even while the letters were in hand, and this doubt lasted long and long. It was all very well to say that as long as the servant did not return his master must be safe--perhaps himself on the way home; but the journey from Transylvania was so long, and there were so many difficulties in the way of an Englishman, that there was little security in this assurance. And so the winter set in while the suspense lasted; and still Dr. Woodford spoke Charles's name in the intercessions in the panelled household chapel, and his mother and Anne prayed together and separately, and his little son morning and evening entreated God to "Bless papa, and make him well, and bring him home." Thus passed more than six weeks, during which Sir Philip's attention was somewhat diverted from domestic anxieties by an uninvited visit to Portchester from Mr. Charnock, who had once been a college mate of Mr. Fellowes, and came professing anxiety, after all these years, to renew the friendship which had been broken when they took different sides on the election of Dr. Hough to the Presidency of Magdalen College. From his quarters at the Rectory Mr. Charnock had gone over to Fareham, and sounded Sir Philip on the practicability of a Jacobite rising, and whether he and his people would join it. The old gentleman was much distressed, his age would not permit him to exert himself in either cause, and he had been too much disturbed by James's proceedings to feel desirous of his restoration, though his loyal heart would not permit of his opposing it, and he had never overtly acknowledged William of Orange as his sovereign. He could only reply that in the present state of his family he neither could nor would undertake anything, and he urgently pleaded against any insurrection that could occasion a civil war. There was reason to think that Sedley had no hesitation in promising to use all his influence over his uncle's tenants, and considerably magnifying their extremely small regard to him--nay, probably, dwelling on his own expectations. At any rate, even when Charnock was gone, Sedley continued to talk big of the coming changes and his own distinguished part in them. Indeed one very trying effect of the continued alarm about Charles was that he took to haunting the place, and report declared that he had talked loudly and coarsely of his cousin's death and his uncle's dotage, and of his soon being called in to manage the property for the little heir--insomuch that Sir Edmund Nutley thought it expedient to let him know that Charles, on going on active service soon after he had come of age, had sent home a will, making his son, who was a young gentleman of very considerable property on his mother's side, ward to his grandfather first, and then to Sir Edmund Nutley himself and to Dr. Woodford.	{ "id": "12449" }
26	THE LEGEND OF PENNY GRIM	"O dearest Marjorie, stay at hame, For dark's the gate ye have to go, For there's a maike down yonder glen Hath frightened me and many me." HOGG. "Nana," said little Philip in a meditative voice, as he looked into the glowing embers of the hall fire, "when do fairies leave off stealing little boys?" "I do not believe they ever steal them, Phil." "Oh, yes they do;" and he came and stood by her with his great limpid blue eyes wide open. "Goody Dearlove says they stole a little boy, and his name was Penny Grim." "Goody Dearlove is a silly old body to tell my boy such stories," said Anne, disguising how much she was startled. "Oh, but Ralph Huntsman says 'tis true, and he knew him." "How could he know him when he was stolen?" "They put another instead," said the boy, a little puzzled, but too young to make his story consistent. "And he was an elf--a cross spiteful elf, that was always vexing folk. And they stole him again every seven years. Yes--that was it--they stole him every seven years." "Whom, Phil; I don't understand--the boy or the elf?" she said, half-diverted, even while shocked at the old story coming up in such a form. "The elf, I think," he said, bending his brows; "he comes back, and then they steal him again. Yes; and at last they stole him quite-- quite away--but it is seven years, and Goody Dearlove says he is to be seen again!" "No!" exclaimed Anne, with an irrepressible start of dismay. "Has any one seen him, or fancied so?" she added, though feeling that her chance of maintaining her rational incredulity was gone. "Goody Dearlove's Jenny did," was the answer. "She saw him stand out on the beach at night by moonlight, and when she screamed out, he was gone like the snuff of a candle." "Saw him? What was he like?" said Anne, struggling for the dispassionate tone of the governess, and recollecting that Jenny Dearlove was a maid at Portchester Rectory. "A little bit of a man, all twisty on one side, and a feather sticking out. Ralph said they always were like that;" and Phil's imitation, with his lithe, graceful little figure, of Ralph's clumsy mimicry was sufficient to show that there was some foundation for this story, and she did not answer at once, so that he added, "I am seven, Nana; do you think they will get me?" "Oh no, no, Phil, there's no fear at all of that. I don't believe fairies steal anybody, but even old women like Goody Dearlove only say they steal little tiny babies if they are left alone before they are christened." The boy drew a long breath, but still asked, "Was Penny Grim a little baby?" "So they said," returned Anne, by no means interfering with the name, and with a quailing heart as she thought of the child's ever knowing what concern his father had in that disappearance. She was by no means sorry to have the conversation broken off by Sir Philip's appearance, booted and buskined, prepared for an expedition to visit a flock of sheep and their lambs under the shelter of Portsdown Hill, and in a moment his little namesake was frisking round eager to go with grandpapa. "Well, 'tis a brisk frost. Is it too far for him, think you, Mistress Anne?" "Oh no, sir; he is a strong little man and a walk will only be good for him, if he does not stand still too long and get chilled. Run, Phil, and ask nurse for your thick coat and stout shoes and leggings." "His grandmother only half trusts me with him," said Sir Philip, laughing. "I tell her she was not nearly so careful of his father. I remember him coming in crusted all over with ice, so that he could hardly get his clothes off, but she fancies the boy may have some of his poor mother's weakliness about him." "I see no tokens of it, sir." "Grand-dames will be anxious, specially over one chick. Heigho! Winter travelling must be hard in Germany, and posts do not come. How now, my man! Are you rolled up like a very Russian bear? The poor ewes will think you are come to eat up their lambs." "I'll growl at them," said Master Philip, uttering a sound sufficient to disturb the nerves of any sheep if he were permitted to make it, and off went grandfather and grandson together, Sir Philip only pausing at the door to say-- "My lady wants you, Anne; she is fretting over the delay. I fear, though I tell her it bodes well." Anne watched for a moment the hale old gentleman briskly walking on, the merry child frolicking hither and thither round him, and the sturdy body-servant Ralph, without whom he never stirred, plodding after, while Keeper, the only dog allowed to follow to the sheepfolds, marched decorously along, proud of the distinction. Then she went up to Lady Archfield, who could not be perfectly easy as to the precious grandchild being left to his own devices in the cold, while Sir Philip was sure to run into a discussion with the shepherd over the turnips, which were too much of a novelty to be approved by the Hampshire mind. It was quite true that she could not watch that little adventurous spirit with the same absence of anxiety as she had felt for her own son in her younger days, and Anne had to devote herself to soothing and diverting her mind, till Dr. Woodford knocked at the door to read and converse with her. The one o'clock dinner waited for the grandfather and grandson, and when they came at last, little Philip looked somewhat blue with cold and more subdued than usual, and his grandfather observed severely that he had been a naughty boy, running into dangerous places, sliding where he ought not, and then muttered under his breath that Sedley ought to have known better than to have let him go there. Discipline did not permit even a darling like little Phil to speak at dinner-time; but he fidgeted, and the tears came into his eyes, and Anne hearing a little grunt behind Sir Philip's chair, looked up, and was aware that old Ralph was mumbling what to her ears sounded like: 'Knew too well.' But his master, being slightly deaf, did not hear, and went on to talk of his lambs and of how Sedley had joined them on the road, but had not come back to dinner. Phil was certainly quieter than usual that afternoon, and sat at Anne's feet by the fire, filling little sacks with bran to be loaded on his toy cart to go to the mill, but not chattering as usual. She thought him tired, and hearing a sort of sigh took him on her knee, when he rested his fair little head on her shoulder, and presently said in a low voice-- "I've seen him." "Who? Not your father? Oh, my child!" cried Anne, in a sudden horror. "Oh no--the Penny Grim thing." "What? Tell me, Phil dear, how or where?" "By the end of the great big pond; and he threw up his arms, and made a horrid grin." The boy trembled and hid his face against her. "But go on, Phil. He can't hurt you, you know. Do tell me. Where were you?" "I was sliding on the ice. Grandpapa was ever so long talking to Bill Shepherd, and looking at the men cutting turnips, and I got cold and tired, and ran about with Cousin Sedley till we got to the big pond, and we began to slide, and the ice was so nice and hard-- you can't think. He showed me how to take a good long slide, and said I might go out to the other end of the pond by the copse, by the great old tree. And I set off, but before I got there, out it jumped, out of the copse, and waved its arms, and made _that_ face." He cowered into her bosom again and almost cried. Anne knew the place, and was ready to start with dismay in her turn. It was such a pool as is frequent in chalk districts--shallow at one end, but deep and dangerous with springs at the other. "But, Phil dear," she said, "it was well you were stopped; the ice most likely would have broken at that end, and then where would Nana's little man have been?" "Cousin Sedley never told me not," said the boy in self-defence; "he was whistling to me to go on. But when I tumbled down Ralph and grandpapa and all _did_ scold me so--and Cousin Sedley was gone. Why did they scold me, Nana? I thought it was brave not to mind danger--like papa." "It is brave when one can do any good by it, but not to slide on bad ice, when one must be drowned," said Anne. "Oh, my dear, dear little fellow, it was a blessed thing you saw _that_, whatever it was! But why do you call it Pere--Penny Grim?" "It was, Nana! It was a little man--rather. And one-sided looking, with a bit of hair sticking out, just like the picture of Riquet- with-a-tuft in your French fairy-book." This last was convincing to Anne that the child must have seen the phantom of seven years ago, since he was not repeating the popular description he had given her in the morning, but one quite as individual. She asked if grandpapa had seen it. "Oh no; he was in the shed, and only came out when he heard Ralph scolding me. Was it a wicked urchin come to steal me, Nana?" "No, I think not," she answered. "Whatever it was, I think it came because God was taking care of His child, and warning him from sliding into the deep pool. We will thank him, Phil. 'He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.'" And to that verse she soothed the tired child till he fell asleep, and she could lay him on the settle, and cover him with a cloak, musing the while on the strange story, until presently she started up and repaired to the buttery in search of the old servant. "Ralph, what is this Master Philip tells me?" she asked. "What has he seen?" "Well, Mistress Anne, that is what I can't tell--no, not I; but I knows this, that the child has had a narrow escape of his precious life, and I'd never trust him again with that there Sedley--no, not for hundreds of pounds." "You _really_ think, Ralph--?" "What can I think, ma'am? When I finds he's been a-setting that there child to slide up to where he'd be drownded as sure as he's alive, and you see, if we gets ill news of Master Archfield (which God forbid), there's naught but the boy atween him and this here place--and he over head and ears in debt. Be it what it might that the child saw, it saved the life of him." "Did you see it?" "No, Mistress Anne; I can't say as I did. I only heard the little master cry out as he fell. I was in the shed, you see, taking a pipe to keep me warm. And when I took him up, he cried out like one dazed. 'Twas Penny Grim, Ralph! Keep me. He is come to steal me." But Sir Philip wouldn't hear nothing of it, only blamed Master Phil for being foolhardy, and for crying for the fall, and me for letting him out of sight." "And Mr. Sedley--did he see it?" "Well, mayhap he did, for I saw him as white as a sheet and his eyes staring out of his head; but that might have been his evil conscience." "What became of him?" "To say the truth, ma'am, I believe he be at the Brocas Arms, a- drowning of his fright--if fright it were, with Master Harling's strong waters." "But this apparition, this shape--or whatever it is? What put it into Master Philip's head? What has been heard of it?" Ralph looked unwilling. "Bless you, Mistress Anne, there's been some idle talk among the women folk, as how that there crooked slip of Major Oakshott's, as they called Master Perry or Penny, and said was a changeling, has been seen once and again. Some says as the fairies have got him, and 'tis the seven year for him to come back again. And some says that he met with foul play, and 'tis the ghost of him, but I holds it all mere tales, and I be sure 'twere nothing bad as stopped little master on that there pond. So I be." Anne could not but be of the same mind, but her confusion, alarm, and perplexity were great. It seemed strange, granting that this were either spirit or elf connected with Peregrine Oakshott, that it should interfere on behalf of Charles Archfield's child, and on the sweet hypothesis that a guardian angel had come to save the child, it was in a most unaccountable form. And more pressing than any such mysterious idea was the tangible horror of Ralph's suggestion, too well borne out by the boy's own unconscious account of the adventure. It was too dreadful, too real a peril to be kept to herself, and she carried the story to her uncle on his return, but without speaking of the spectral warning. Not only did she know that he would not attend to it, but the hint, heard for the first time, that Peregrine was supposed to have met with foul play, sealed her lips, just when she still was hoping against hope that Charles might be on the way home. But that Ralph believed, and little Philip's own account confirmed, that his cousin had incited the little heir to the slide that would have been fatal save for his fall, she told with detail, and entreated that the grandfather might be warned, and some means be found of ensuring the safety of her darling, the motherless child! To her disappointment Dr. Woodford was not willing to take alarm. He did not think so ill of Sedley as to believe him capable of such a secret act of murder, and he had no great faith in Ralph's sagacity, besides that he thought his niece's nerves too much strained by the long suspense to be able to judge fairly. He thought it would be cruel to the grandparents, and unjust to Sedley, to make such a frightful suggestion without further grounds during their present state of anxiety, and as to the boy's safety, which Anne pleaded with an uncontrollable passion of tears, he believed that it was provided for by watchfulness on the part of his two constant guardians, as well as himself, since, even supposing the shocking accusation to be true, Sedley would not involve himself in danger of suspicion, and it was already understood that he was not a fit companion for his little cousin to be trusted with. Philip had already brought home words and asked questions that distressed his grandmother, and nobody was willing to leave him alone with the ex- lieutenant. So again the poor maiden had to hold her peace under an added burthen of anxiety and many a prayer. When the country was ringing with the tidings of Sir George Barclay's conspiracy for the assassination of William III, it was impossible not to hope that Sedley's boastful tongue might have brought him sufficiently under suspicion to be kept for a while under lock and key; but though he did not appear at Fareham, there was reason to suppose that he was as usual haunting the taverns and cockpits of Portsmouth. No one went much abroad that winter. Sir Philip, perhaps from anxiety and fretting, had a fit of the gout, and Anne kept herself and her charge within the garden or the street of the town. In fact there was a good deal of danger on the roads. The neighbourhood of the seaport was always lawless, and had become more so since Sir Philip had ceased to act as Justice of the Peace, and there were reports of highway robberies of an audacious kind, said to be perpetrated by a band calling themselves the Black Gang, under a leader known as Piers Pigwiggin, who were alleged to be half smuggler, half Jacobite, and to have their headquarters somewhere in the back of the Isle of Wight, in spite of the Governor, the terrible Salamander, Lord Cutts, who was, indeed, generally absent with the army.	{ "id": "12449" }
27	THE VAULT	"Heaven awards the vengeance due." COWPER. The weary days had begun to lengthen before the door of the hall was flung open, and little Phil, forgetting his bow at the door, rushed in, "Here's a big packet from foreign parts! Harry had to pay ever so much for it." "I have wellnigh left off hoping," sighed the poor mother. "Tell me the worst at once." "No fear, my lady," said her husband. "Thank God! 'Tis our son's hand." There was the silence for a moment of intense relief, and then the little boy was called to cut the silk and break the seals. Joy ineffable! There were three letters--for Master Philip Archfield, for Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and for Sir Philip himself. The old gentleman glanced over it, caught the words 'better,' and 'coming home,' then failed to read through tears of joy as before through tears of sorrow, and was fain to hand the sheet to his old friend to be read aloud, while little Philip, handling as a treasure the first letter he had ever received, though as yet he was unable to decipher it, stood between his grandfather's knees listening as Dr. Woodford read-- DEAR AND HONOURED SIR--I must ask your pardon for leaving you without tidings so long, but while my recovery still hung in doubt I thought it would only distress you to hear of the fluctuations that I went through, and the pain to which the surgeons put me for a long time in vain. Indeed frequently I had no power either to think or speak, until at last with much difficulty, and little knowledge or volition of my own, my inestimable friend Graham brought me to Vienna, where I have at length been relieved from my troublesome companion, and am enjoying the utmost care and kindness from my friend's mother, a near kinswoman, as indeed he is himself, of the brave and lamented Viscount Dundee. My wound is healing finally, as I hope, and though I have not yet left my bed, my friends assure me that I am on the way to full and complete recovery, for which I am more thankful to the Almighty than I could have been before I knew what suffering and illness meant. As soon as I can ride again, which they tell me will be in a fortnight or three weeks, I mean to set forth on my way home. I cannot describe to you how I am longing after the sight of you all, nor how home-sick I have become. I never had time for it before, but I have lain for hours bringing all your faces before me, my father's, and mother's, my sister's, and that of her whom I hope to call my own; and figuring to myself that of the little one. I have thought much over my past life, and become sensible of much that was amiss, and while earnestly entreating your forgiveness, especially for having absented myself all these years, I hope to return so as to be more of a comfort than I was in the days of my rash and inconsiderate youth. I am of course at present invalided, but I want to consult you, honoured sir, before deciding whether it be expedient for me to resign my commission. How I thank and bless you for the permission you have given me, and the love you bear to my own heart's joy, no words can tell. It shall be the study of my life to be worthy of her and of you. -- And so no more from your loving and dutiful son, CHARLES ARCHFIELD. Having drunk in these words with her ears, Anne left Phil to have his note interpreted by his grandparents, and fled away to enjoy her own in her chamber, yet it was as short as could be and as sweet. Mine own, mine own sweet Anne, sweetheart of good old days, your letter gave me strength to go through with it. The doctors could not guess why I was so much better and smiled through all their torments. These are our first, I hope our last letters, for I shall soon follow them home, and mine own darling will be mine. -- Thine own, C. A. She had but short time to dwell on it and kiss it, for little Philip was upon her, waving his letter, which he already knew by heart; and galloping all over the house to proclaim the good news to the old servants, who came crowding into the hall, trembling with joy, to ask if there were indeed tidings of Mr. Archfield's return, whereupon the glad father caused his grandson to carry each a full glass of wine to drink to the health of the young master. Anne had at first felt only the surpassing rapture of the restoration of Charles, but there ensued another delight in the security his recovery gave to the life of his son. Sedley Archfield would not be likely to renew his attempt, and if only on that account the good news should be spread as widely as possible. She was the first to suggest the relief it would be to Mr. Fellowes, who had never divested himself of the feeling that he ought to have divined his pupil's intention. Dr. Woodford offered to ride to Portchester with the news, and Sir Philip, in the gladness of his heart, proposed that Anne should go with him and see her friend. Shall it be told how on the way Anne's mind was assailed by feminine misgivings whether three and twenty could be as fair in her soldier's eyes as seventeen had been? Old maidenhood came earlier then than in these days, and Anne knew that she was looked upon as an old waiting-gentlewoman or governess by the belles of Winchester. Her glass might tell her that her eyes were as softly brown, her hair as abundant, her cheek as clear and delicately moulded as ever, but there was no one to assure her that the early bloom had not passed away, and that she had not rather gained than lost in dignity of bearing and the stately poise of the head, which the jealous damsels called Court airs. "And should he be disappointed, I shall see it in his eyes," she said to herself, "and then his promise shall not bind him, though it will break my heart, and oh! how hard to resign my Phil to a strange stepmother." Still her heart was lighter than for many a long year, as she cantered along in the brisk March air, while the drops left by the departing frost glistened in the sunshine, and the sea lay stretched in a delicate gray haze. The old castle rose before her in its familiar home-like massiveness as they turned towards the Rectory, where in that sheltered spot the well-known clusters of crocuses were opening their golden hearts to the sunshine, and recalling the days when Anne was as sunny-hearted as they, and she felt as if she could be as bright again. In Mrs. Fellowes's parlour they found an unexpected guest, no other than Mrs. Oakshott. 'Gadding about' not being the fashion of the Archfield household, Anne had not seen the lady for several years, and was agreeably surprised by her appearance. Perhaps the marks of smallpox had faded, perhaps motherhood had given expression, and what had been gaunt ungainliness in the maiden had rounded into a certain importance in the matron, nor had her dress, though quiet, any of the Puritan rigid ugliness that had been complained of, and though certainly not beautiful, she was a person to inspire respect. It was explained that she was waiting for her husband, who was gone with Mr. Fellowes to speak to the officer in command of the soldiers at the castle. "For," said she, "I am quite convinced that there is something that ought to be brought to light, and it may be in that vault." Anne's heart gave such a throb as almost choked her. Dr. Woodford asked what the lady meant. "Well, sir, when spirits and things 'tis not well to talk of are starting up and about here, there, and everywhere, 'tis plain there must be cause for it." "I do not quite take your meaning, madam." "Ah, well! you gentlemen, reverend ones especially, are the last to hear such things. There's the poor old Major, he won't believe a word of it, but you know, Mistress Woodford. I see it in your face. Have you seen anything?" "Not here, not now," faltered Anne. "You have, Mrs. Fellowes?" "I have heard of some foolish fright of the maids," said Naomi, "partly their own fancy, or perhaps caught from the sentry. There is no keeping those giddy girls from running after the soldiers." Perhaps Naomi hoped by throwing out this hint to conduct her visitors off into the safer topic of domestic delinquencies, but Mrs. Oakshott was far too earnest to be thus diverted, and she exclaimed, "Ah, they saw him, I'll warrant!" "Him?" the Doctor asked innocently. "Him or his likeness," said Mrs. Oakshott, "my poor brother-in-law, Peregrine Oakshott; you remember him, sir? He always said, poor lad, that you and Mrs. Woodford were kinder to him than his own flesh and blood, except his uncle, Sir Peregrine. For my part, I never did give in to all the nonsense folk talked about his being a changeling or at best a limb of Satan. He had more spirit and sense than the rest of them, and they led him the life of a dog, though they knew no better. If I had had him at Emsworth, I would have shown them what he was;" and she sighed heavily. "Well, I did not so much wonder when he disappeared, I made sure that he could bear it no longer and had run away. I waited as long as there was any reason, till there should be tidings of him, and only took his brother at last because I found they could not do without me at home." Remarkable frankness! but it struck both the Doctor and Anne that if Peregrine could have submitted, his life might have been freer and less unhappy than he had expected, though Mrs. Martha spoke the broadest Hampshire. Naomi asked, "Then you no longer think that he ran away?" "No, madam; I am certain there was worse than that. You remember the night of the bonfire for the Bishops' acquittal, Miss Woodford?" "Indeed I do." "Well, he was never seen again after that, as you know. The place was full of wild folk. There was brawling right and left." "Were you there?" asked Anne surprised. "Yes; in my coach with my uncle and aunt that lived with me, though, except Robin, none of the young sparks would come near me, except some that I knew were after my pockets," said Martha, with a good- humoured laugh. "Properly frightened we were too by the brawling sailors ere we got home! Now, what could be more likely than that some of them got hold of poor Perry? You know he always would go about with the rapier he brought from Germany, with amber set in the hilt, and the mosaic snuff-box he got in Italy, and what could be looked for but that the poor dear lad should be put out of the way for the sake of these gewgaws?" This supposition was gratifying to Anne, but her uncle must needs ask why Mrs. Oakshott thought so more than before. "Because," she said impressively, "there is no doubt but that he has been seen, and not in the flesh, once and again, and always about these ruins." "By whom, madam, may I ask?" "Mrs. Fellowes's maids, as she knows, saw him once on the beach at night, just there. The sentry, who is Tom Hart, from our parish, saw a shape at the opening of the old vault before the keep and challenged him, when he vanished out of sight ere there was time to present a musket. There was once more, when one moonlight night our sexton, looking out of his cottage window, saw what he declares was none other than Master Perry standing among the graves of our family, as if, poor youth, he were asking why he was not among them. When I heard that, I said to my husband, 'Depend upon it,' says I, 'he met with his death that night, and was thrown into some hole, and that's the reason he cannot rest. If I pay a hundred pounds for it, I'll not give up till his poor corpse is found to have Christian burial, and I'll begin with the old vault at Portchester!' My good father, the Major, would not hear of it at first, nor my husband either, but 'tis my money, and I know how to tackle Robin." It was with strangely mingled feelings that Anne listened. That search in the vault, inaugurated by faithful Martha, was what she had always felt ought to be made, and she had even promised to attempt it if the apparitions recurred. The notion of the deed being attributed to lawless sailors and smugglers or highwaymen, who were known to swarm in the neighbourhood, seemed to remove all danger of suspicion. Yet she could not divest herself of a vague sense of alarm at this stirring up of what had slept for seven years. Neither she nor her uncle deemed it needful to mention the appearance seen by little Philip, but to her surprise Naomi slowly and hesitatingly said it was very remarkable, that her husband having occasion to be at the church at dusk one evening just after Midsummer, had certainly seen a figure close to Mrs. Woodford's grave, and lost sight of it before he could speak of it. He thought nothing more of it till these reports began to be spread, but he had then recollected that it answered the descriptions given of the phantom. Here the ladies were interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Fellowes and Robert Oakshott, now grown into a somewhat heavy but by no means foolish-looking young man. "Well, madam," said he, in Hampshire as broad as his wife's, "you will have your will. Not that Captain Henslowe believes a word of your ghosts--not he; but he took fire when he heard of queer sights about the castle. He sent for the chap who stood sentry, and was downright sharp on him for not reporting what he had seen, and he is ordering out a sergeant's party to open the vault, so you may come and see, if you have any stomach for it." "I could not but come!" said Madam Oakshott, who certainly did not look squeamish, but who was far more in earnest than her husband, and perhaps doubted whether without her presence the quest would be thorough. Anne was full of dread, and almost sick at the thought of what she might see, but she was far too anxious to stay away. Mrs. Fellowes made some excuse about the children for not accompanying them. It always thrilled Anne to enter that old castle court, the familiar and beloved play-place of her childhood, full of memories of Charles and of Lucy, and containing in its wide precincts the churchyard where her mother lay. She moved along in a kind of dream, glad to be let alone, since Mr. Fellowes naturally attended Mrs. Oakshott, and Robert was fully occupied in explaining to the Doctor that he only gave in to this affair for the sake of pacifying madam, since women folk would have their little megrims. Assuredly that tall, solid, resolute figure stalking on in front, looked as little subject to megrims as any of her sex. Her determination had brought her husband thither, and her determination further carried the day, when the captain, after staring at the solid-looking turf, stamping on the one stone that was visible, and trampling down the bunch of nettles beside it, declared that the entrance had been so thoroughly stopped that it was of no use to dig farther. It was Madam Martha who demanded permission to offer the four soldiers a crown apiece if they opened the vault, a guinea each if they found anything. The captain could not choose but grant it, though with something of a sneer, and the work was begun. He walked up and down with Robert, joining in hopes that the lady would be satisfied before dinner- time. The two clergymen likewise walked together, arguing, as was their wont, on the credibility of apparitions. The two ladies stood in almost breathless watch, as the bricks that had covered in the opening were removed, and the dark hole brought to light. Contrary to expectation, when the opening had been enlarged, it was found that there were several steps of stone, and where they were broken away, there was a rude ladder. A lantern was fetched from the guard-room in the bailey, and after much shaking and trying of the ladder, one of the soldiers descended, finding the place less deep than was commonly supposed, and soon calling out that he was at the bottom. Another followed him, and presently there was a shout. Something was found! "A rusty old chain, no doubt," grumbled Robert; but his wife shrieked. It was a sword in its sheath, the belt rotted, the clasp tarnished, but of silver. Mrs. Oakshott seized it at once, rubbed away the dust from the handle, and brought to light a glistening yellow piece of amber, which she mutely held up, and another touch of her handkerchief disclosed on a silver plate in the scabbard an oak- tree, the family crest, and the twisted cypher P. O. Her eyes were full of tears, and she did not speak. Anne, white and trembling, was forced to sink down on the stone, unnoticed by all, while Robert Oakshott, convinced indeed, hastily went down himself. The sword had been hidden in a sort of hollow under the remains of the broken stair. Thence likewise came to light the mouldy remnant of a broad hat and the quill of its plume, and what had once been a coat, even in its present state showing that it had been soaked through and through with blood, the same stains visible on the watch and the mosaic snuff-box. That was all; there was no purse, and no other garments, though, considering the condition of the coat, they might have been entirely destroyed by the rats and mice. There was indeed a fragment of a handkerchief, with the cypher worked on it, which Mrs. Oakshott showed to Anne with the tears in her eyes: "There! I worked that, though he never knew it. No! I know he did not like me! But I would have made him do so at last. I would have been so good to him. Poor fellow, that he should have been lying there all this time!" Lying there; but where, then, was he? No signs of any corpse were to be found, though one after another all the gentlemen descended to look, and Mrs. Oakshott was only withheld by her husband's urgent representations, and promise to superintend a diligent digging in the ground, so as to ascertain whether there had been a hasty burial there. Altogether, Anne was so much astonished and appalled that she could hardly restrain herself, and her mind reverted to Bishop Ken's theory that Peregrine still lived; but this was contradicted by the appearance at Douai, which did not rest on the evidence of her single perceptions. Mrs. Fellowes sent out an entreaty that they would come to dinner, and the gentlemen were actually base enough to wish to comply, so that the two ladies had no choice save to come with them, especially as the soldiers were unwilling to work on without their meal. Neither Mrs. Oakshott nor Anne felt as if they could swallow, and the polite pressure to eat was only preferable in Anne's eyes to the conversation on the discoveries that had been made, especially the conclusion arrived at by all, that though the purse and rings had not been found, the presence of the watch and snuff-box precluded the idea of robbery. "These would be found on the body," said Mr. Oakshott. "I could swear to the purse. You remember, madam, your uncle bantering him about French ladies and their finery, asking whose token it was, and how black my father looked? Poor Perry, if my father could have had a little patience with him, he would not have gone roaming about and getting into brawls, and we need not be looking for him in yonder black pit." "You'll never find him there, Master Robert," spoke out the old Oakwood servant, behind Mrs. Oakshott's chair, free and easy after the manner of the time. "And wherefore not, Jonadab?" demanded his mistress, by no means surprised at the liberty. "Why, ma'am, 'twas the seven years, you sees, and in course when them you wot of had power to carry him off, they could not take his sword, nor his hat, not they couldn't." "How about his purse, then?" put in Dr. Woodford. "I'll be bound you will find it yet, sir," responded Jonadab, by no means disconcerted, "leastways unless some two-legged fairies have got it." At this some of the party found it impossible not to laugh, and this so upset poor Martha's composure that she was obliged to leave the table, and Anne was not sorry for the excuse of attending her, although there were stings of pain in all her rambling lamentations and conjectures. Very tardily, according to the feelings of the anxious women, was the dinner finished, and their companions ready to take them out again. Indeed, Madam Oakshott at last repaired to the dining- parlour, and roused her husband from his glass of Spanish wine to renew the search. She would not listen to Mrs. Fellowes's advice not to go out again, and Anne could not abstain either from watching for what could not be other than grievous and mournful to behold. The soldiers were called out again by their captain, and reinforced by the Rectory servant and Jonadab. There was an interval of anxious prowling round the opening. Mr. Oakshott and the captain had gone down again, and found, what the military man was anxious about, that if there were passages to the outer air, they had been well blocked up and not re-opened. Meantime the digging proceeded. It was just at twilight that a voice below uttered an exclamation. Then came a pause. The old sergeant's voice ordered care and a pause, somewhere below the opening with, "Sir, the spades have hit upon a skull." There was a shuddering pause. All the gentlemen except Dr. Woodford, who feared the chill, descended again. Mrs. Oakshott and Anne held each other's hands and trembled. By and by Mr. Fellowes came up first. "We have found," he said, looking pale and grave, "a skeleton. Yes, a perfect skeleton, but no more--no remains except a fine dust." And Robert Oakshott following, awe-struck and sorrowful, added, "Yes, there he is, poor Perry--all that is left of him--only his bones. No, madam, we must leave him there for the present; we cannot bring it up without preparation." "You need not fear meddling curiosity, madam," said the captain. "I will post a sentry here to bar all entrance." "Thanks, sir," said Robert. "That will be well till I can bury the poor fellow with all due respect by my mother and Oliver." "And then I trust his spirit will have rest," said Martha Oakshott fervently. "And now home to your father. How will he bear it, sir?" "I verily believe he will sleep the quieter for knowing for a certainty what has become of poor Peregrine," said her husband. And Anne felt as if half her burthen of secrecy was gone when they all parted, starting early because the Black Gang rendered all the roads unsafe after dark.	{ "id": "12449" }
28	THE DISCLOSURE	"He looked about as one betrayed, What hath he done, what promise made? Oh! weak, weak moment, to what end Can such a vain oblation tend?" WORDSWORTH. For the most part Anne was able to hold her peace and keep out of sight while Dr. Woodford related the strange revelations of the vault with all the circumstantiality that was desired by two old people living a secluded life and concerned about a neighbour of many years, whom they had come to esteem by force of a certain sympathy in honest opposition. The mystery occupied them entirely, for though the murder was naturally ascribed to some of the lawless coast population, the valuables remaining with the clothes made a strange feature in the case. It was known that there was to be an inquest held on the remains before their removal, and Dr. Woodford, both from his own interest in the question, and as family intelligencer, rode to the castle. Sir Philip longed to go, but it was a cold wet day, and he had threatenings of gout, so that he was persuaded to remain by the fireside. Inquests were then always held where the body lay, and the court of Portchester Castle was no place for him on such a day. Dr. Woodford came home just before twilight, looking grave and troubled, and, much to Anne's alarm, desired to speak to Sir Philip privately in the gun-room. Lady Archfield took alarm, and much distressed her by continually asking what could be the meaning of the interview, and making all sorts of guesses. When at last they came together into the parlour the poor lady looked so anxious and frightened that her husband went up to her and said, "Do not be alarmed, sweetheart. We shall clear him; but those foolish fellows have let suspicion fall on poor Sedley." Nobody looked at Anne, or her deadly paleness must have been remarked, and the trembling which she could hardly control by clasping her hands tightly together, keeping her feet hard on the floor, and setting her teeth. Lady Archfield was perhaps less fond of the scapegrace nephew than was her husband, and she felt the matter chiefly as it affected him, so that she heard with more equanimity than he had done; and as they sat round the fire in the half-light, for which Anne was thankful, the Doctor gave his narration in order. "I found a large company assembled in the castle court, waiting for the coroner from Portsmouth, though the sentry on guard would allow no one to go down, in spite of some, even ladies, I am ashamed to say, who offered him bribes for the permission. Everything, I heard, had been replaced as we found it. The poor Major himself was there, looking sadly broken, and much needing the help of his son's arm. 'To think that I was blaming my poor son as a mere reprobate, and praying for his conversion,' says he, 'when he was lying here, cut off without a moment for repentance.' There was your nephew, suspecting nothing, Squire Brocas, Mr. Eyre, of Botley Grange, Mr. Biden, Mr. Larcom, and Mr. Bargus, and a good many more, besides Dr. James Yonge, the naval doctor, and the Mayor of Portsmouth, and more than I can tell you. When the coroner came, and the jury had been sworn in, they went down and viewed the spot, and all that was there. The soldiers had put candles round, and a huge place it is, all built up with large stones. Then, as it was raining hard, they adjourned to the great room in the keep and took the evidence. Robert Oakshott identified the clothes and the watch clearly enough, and said he had no doubt that the other remains were Peregrine's; but as to swearing to a brother's bones, no one could do that; and Dr. Yonge said in my ear that if the deceased were so small a man as folks said, the skeleton could scarce be his, for he thought it had belonged to a large-framed person. That struck no one else, for naturally it is only a chirurgeon who is used to reckon the proportion that the bones bear to the body, and I also asked him whether in seven years the other parts would be so entirely consumed, to which he answered that so much would depend on the nature of the soil that there was no telling. However, jury and coroner seemed to feel no doubt, and that old seafaring man, Tom Block, declared that poor Master Peregrine had been hand and glove with a lot of wild chaps, and that the vault had been well known to them before the gentlemen had had it blocked up. Then it was asked who had seen him last, and Robert Oakshott spoke of having parted with him at the bonfire, and never seen him again. There, I fancy, it would have ended in a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown, but Robert Oakshott must needs say, "I would give a hundred pounds to know who the villain was." And then who should get up but George Rackstone, with "Please your Honour, I could tell summat." The coroner bade swear him, and he deposed to having seen Master Peregrine going down towards the castle somewhere about four o'clock that morning after the bonfire when he was getting up to go to his mowing. But that was not all. You remember, Anne, that his father's cottage stands on the road towards Portsmouth. Well, he brought up the story of your running in there, frightened, the day before the bonfire, when I was praying with his sick mother, calling on me to stop a fray between Peregrine and young Sedley, and I had to get up and tell of Sedley's rudeness to you, child." "What was that?" hastily asked Lady Archfield. "The old story, my lady. The young officer's swaggering attempt to kiss the girl he meets on the road. I doubt even if he knew at the moment that it was my niece. Peregrine was coming by at the moment, and interfered to protect her, and swords were drawn. I could not deny it, nor that there was ill blood between the lads; and then young Brocas, who was later on Portsdown than we were, remembered high words, and had thought to himself that there would be a challenge. And next old Goody Spore recollects seeing Master Sedley and another soldier officer out on the Portsmouth road early that morning. The hay was making in the court then, and Jenny Light remembered that when the haymakers came she raked up something that looked like a bloody spot, and showed it to one of the others, but they told her that most likely a rabbit or a hare had been killed there, and she had best take no heed. Probably there was dread of getting into trouble about a smugglers' fray. Well, every one was looking askance at Master Sedley by this time, and the coroner asked him if he had anything to say. He spoke out boldly enough. He owned to the dispute with Peregrine Oakshott, and to having parted with him that night on terms which would only admit of a challenge. He wrote a cartel that night, and sent it by his friend Lieutenant Ainslie, but doubting whether Major Oakshott might not prevent its delivery, he charged him to try to find Peregrine outside the house, and arrange with him a meeting on the hill, where you know the duellists of the garrison are wont to transact such encounters. Sedley himself walked out part of the way with his friend, but neither of them saw Peregrine, nor heard anything of him. So he avers, but when asked for his witness to corroborate the story, he says that Ainslie, I fear the only person who could have proved an alibi--if so it were--was killed at Landen; but, he added, certainly with too much of his rough way, it was a mere absurdity to charge it upon him. What should a gentleman have to do with private murders and robberies? Nor did he believe the bones to be Perry Oakshott's at all. It was all a bit of Whiggish spite! He worked himself into a passion, which only added to the impression against him; and I own I cannot wonder that the verdict has sent him to Winchester to take his trial. Why, Anne, child, how now?" " 'Tis a terrible story. Take my essences, child," said Lady Archfield, tottering across, and Anne, just saving herself from fainting by a long gasp at them, let herself be led from the room. The maids buzzed about her, and for some time she was sensible of nothing but a longing to get rid of them, and to be left alone to face the grievous state of things which she did not yet understand. At last, with kind good-nights from Lady Archfield, such as she could hardly return, she was left by herself in the darkness to recover from the stunned helpless feeling of the first moment. Sedley accused! Charles to be sacrificed to save his worthless cousin, the would-be murderer of his innocent child, who morally thus deserved to suffer! Never, never! She could not do so. It would be treason to her benefactors, nay, absolute injustice, for Charles had struck in generous defence of herself; but Sedley had tried to allure the boy to his death merely for his own advantage. Should she not be justified in simply keeping silence? Yet there was like an arrow in her heart, the sense of guilt in so doing, guilt towards God and truth, guilt towards man and justice. She should die under the load, and it would be for Charles. Might it only be before he came home, then he would know that she had perished under his secret to save him. Nay, but would he be thankful at being saved at the expense of his cousin's life? If he came, how should she meet him? The sense of the certain indignation of a good and noble human spirit often awakes the full perception of what an action would be in the sight of Heaven, and Anne began to realise the sin more than at first, and to feel the compulsion of truth. If only Charles were not coming home she could write to him and warn him, but the thought that he might be already on the way had turned from joy to agony. "And to think," she said to herself, "that I was fretting as to whether he would think me pretty!" She tossed about in misery, every now and then rising on her knees to pray--at first for Charles's safety--for she shrank from asking for Divine protection, knowing only too well what that would be. Gradually, however, a shudder came over her at the thought that if she would not commit her way unto the Lord, she might indeed be the undoing of her lover, and then once more the higher sense of duty rose on her. She prayed for forgiveness for the thought, and that it might not be visited upon him; she prayed for strength to do what must be her duty, for safety for him, and comfort to his parents, and so, in passing gusts of misery and apprehension, of failing heart and recovered resolution, of anguish and of prayer, the long night at length passed, and with the first dawn she arose, shaken and weak, but resolved to act on her terrible resolution before it again failed her. Sir Philip was always an early riser, and she heard his foot on the stairs before seven o'clock. She came out on the staircase, which met the flight which he was descending, and tried to speak, but her lips seemed too dry to part. "Child! child! you are ill," said the old gentleman, as he saw her blanched cheek; "you should be in bed this chilly morning. Go back to your chamber." "No, no, sir, I cannot. Pray, your Honour, come here, I have something to say;" and she drew him to the open door of his justice- room, called the gun-room. "Bless me," he muttered, "the wench does not mean that she has got smitten with that poor rogue my nephew!" "Oh! no, no," said Anne, almost ready for a hysterical laugh, yet letting the old man seat himself, and then dropping on her knees before him, for she could hardly stand, "it is worse than that, sir; I know who it was who did that thing." "Well, who?" he said hastily; "why have you kept it back so long and let an innocent man get into trouble?" "O Sir Philip! I could not help it. Forgive me;" and with clasped hands, she brought out the words, "It was your son, Mr. Archfield;" and then she almost collapsed again. "Child! child! you are ill; you do not know what you are saying. We must have you to bed again. I will call your uncle." "Ah! sir, it is only too true;" but she let him fetch her uncle, who was sure to be at his devotions in a kind of oratory on the farther side of the hall. She had not gone to him first, from the old desire to keep him clear of the knowledge, but she longed for such support as he might give her, or at least to know whether he were very angry with her. The two old men quickly came back together, and Dr. Woodford began, "How now, niece, are you telling us dreams?" but he broke off as he saw the sad earnest of her face. "Sir, it is too true. He charged me to speak out if any one else were brought into danger." "Come," said Sir Philip, testily; "don't crouch grovelling on the floor there. Get up and let us know the meaning of this. Good heavens! the lad may be here any day." Anne had much rather have knelt where she was, but her uncle raised her, and placed her in a chair, saying, "Try to compose yourself, and tell us what you mean, and why it has been kept back so long." "Indeed he did not intend it," pleaded Anne; "it was almost an accident--to protect me--Peregrine was--pursuing me." "Upon my word, young mistress," burst out the father, "you seem to have been setting all the young fellows together by the ears." "I doubt if she could help it," said the Doctor. "She tried to be discreet, but it was the reason her mother--" "Well, go on," interrupted poor Sir Philip, too unhappy to remember manners or listen to the defence; "what was it? when was it?" Anne was allowed then to proceed. "It was the morning I went to London. I went out to gather some mouse-ear." "Mouse-ear! mouse-ear!" growled he. "Some one else's ear." "It was for Lady Oglethorpe." "It was," said her uncle, "a specific, it seems, for whooping-cough. I saw the letter, and knew--" "Umph! let us hear," said Sir Philip, evidently with the idea of a tryst in his mind. "No wonder mischief comes of maidens running about at such hours. What next?" The poor girl struggled on: "I saw Peregrine coming, and hoping he would not see me, I ran into the keep, meaning to get home by the battlements out of his sight, but when I looked down he and Mr. Archfield were fighting. I screamed, but I don't think they heard me, and I ran down; but I had fastened all the doors, and I was a long time getting out, and by that time Mr. Archfield had dragged him to the vault and thrown him in. He was like one distracted, and said it must be hidden, or it would be the death of his wife and his mother, and what could I do?" "Is that all the truth?" said Sir Philip sternly. "What brought them there--either of them?" "Mr. Archfield came to bring me a pattern of sarcenet to match for poor young Madam in London." No doubt Sir Philip recollected the petulant anger that this had been forgotten, but he was hardly appeased. "And the other fellow? Why, he was brawling with my nephew Sedley about you the day before!" "I do not think she was to blame there," said Dr. Woodford. "The unhappy youth was set against marrying Mistress Browning, and had talked wildly to my sister and me about wedding my niece." "But why should she run away as if he had the plague, and set the foolish lads to fight?" "Sir, I must tell you," Anne owned, "he had beset me, and talked so desperately that I was afraid of what he might do in that lonely place and at such an hour in the morning. I hoped he had not seen me." "Umph!" said Sir Philip, much as if he thought a silly girl's imagination had caused all the mischief. "When did he thus speak to you, Anne?" asked her uncle, not unkindly. "At the inn at Portsmouth, sir," said Anne. "He came while you were with Mr. Stanbury and the rest, and wanted me to marry him and flee to France, or I know not where, or at any rate marry him secretly so as to save him from poor Mistress Browning. I could not choose but fear and avoid him, but oh! I would have faced him ten times over rather than have brought this on--us all. And now what shall I do? He, Mr. Archfield, when I saw him in France, said as long as no one was suspected, it would only give more pain to say what I knew, but that if suspicion fell on any one--" and her voice died away. "He could not say otherwise," returned Sir Philip, with a groan. "And now what shall I do? what shall I do?" sighed the poor girl. "I must speak truth." "I never bade you perjure yourself," said Sir Philip sharply, but hiding his face in his hands, and groaning out, "Oh, my son! my son!" Seeing that his distress so overcame poor Anne that she could scarcely contain herself, Dr. Woodford thought it best to take her from the room, promising to come again to her. She could do nothing but lie on her bed and weep in a quiet heart-broken way. Sir Philip's anger seemed to fill up the measure, by throwing the guilt back upon her and rousing a bitter sense of injustice, and then she wept again at her cruel selfishness in blaming the broken-hearted old man. She could hardly have come down to breakfast, so heavy were her limbs and so sick and faint did every movement render her, and she further bethought herself that the poor old father might not brook the sight of her under the circumstances. It was a pang to hear little Philip prancing about the house, and when he had come to her to say his prayers, she sent him down with a message that she was not well enough to come downstairs, and that she wanted nothing, only to be quiet. The little fellow was very pitiful, and made her cry again by wanting to know whether she had gout like grandpapa or rheumatics like grandmamma, and then stroking her face, calling her his dear Nana, and telling her of the salad in his garden that his papa was to eat the very first day he came home. By and by Dr. Woodford knocked at her door. He had had a long conversation with poor old Sir Philip, who was calmer now than under the first blow, and somewhat less inclined to anger with the girl, who might indeed be the cause, but surely the innocent cause, of all. The Doctor had done his best to show that her going out had no connection with any of the youths, and he thought Sir Philip would believe it on quieter reflection. He had remembered too, signs of self-reproach mixed with his son's grief for his wife, and his extreme relief at the plan for going abroad, recollecting likewise that Charles had strongly disliked poor Peregrine, and had much resented the liking which young Madam had shown for one whose attentions might have been partly intended to tease the young husband. "Of course," said Dr. Woodford, "the unhappy deed was no more than an unfortunate accident, and if all had been known at first, probably it would so have been treated. The concealment was an error, but it is impossible to blame either of you for it." "Oh never mind that, dear uncle! Only tell me! Must he--must Charles suffer to save that man? You know what he is, real murderer in heart! Oh I know. The right must be done! But it is dreadful!" "The right must be done and the truth spoken at all costs. No one knows that better than our good old patron," said the Doctor; "but, my dear child, you are not called on to denounce this young man as you seem to imagine, unless there should be no other means of saving his cousin, or unless you are so questioned that you cannot help replying for truth's sake. Knowing nothing of all this, it struck others besides myself at the inquest that the evidence against Sedley was utterly insufficient for a conviction, and if he should be acquitted, matters will only be as they were before." "Then you think I am not bound to speak--The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth," she murmured in exceeding grief, yet firmly. "You certainly may, nay, _must_ keep your former silence till the trial, at the Lent Assizes. I trust you may not be called on as a witness to the fray with Sedley, but that I may be sufficient testimony to that. I could testify to nothing else. Remember, if you are called, you have only to answer what you are asked, nor is it likely, unless Sedley have any suspicion of the truth, that you will be asked any question that will implicate Mr. Archfield. If so, God give you strength my poor child, to be true to Him. But the point of the trial is to prove Sedley guilty or not guilty; and if the latter, there is no more to be said. God grant it." "But he--Mr. Archfield?" "His father is already taking measures to send to all the ports to stop him on his way till the trial is over. Thus there will be no actual danger, though it is a sore disappointment, and these wicked attempts of Charnock and Barclay put us in bad odour, so that it may be less easy to procure a pardon than it once would have been. So, my dear child, I do not think you need be in terror for his life, even if you are obliged to speak out plainly." And then the good old man knelt with Anne to pray for pardon, direction, and firmness, and protection for Charles. She made an entreaty after they rose that her uncle would take her away--her presence must be so painful to their kind hosts. He agreed with her, and made the proposition, but Sir Philip would not hear of it. Perhaps he was afraid of any change bringing suspicion of the facts, and he might have his fears of Anne being questioned into dangerous admissions, besides which, he hoped to keep his poor old wife in ignorance to the last. So Anne was to remain at Fareham, and after that one day's seclusion she gathered strength to be with the family as usual. Poor old Sir Philip treated her with a studied but icy courtesy which cut her to the heart; but Lady Archfield's hopes of seeing her son were almost worse, together with her regrets at her husband's dejection at the situation of his nephew and the family disgrace. As to little Philip, his curious inquiries about Cousin Sedley being in jail for murdering Penny Grim had to be summarily hushed by the assurance that such things were not to be spoken about. But why did Nana cry when he talked of papa's coming home? All the neighbourhood was invited to the funeral in Havant Churchyard, the burial-place of the Oakshotts. Major Oakshott himself wrote to Dr. Woodford, as having been one of the kindest friends of his poor son, adding that he could not ask Sir Philip Archfield, although he knew him to be no partner in the guilt of his unhappy nephew, who so fully exemplified that Divine justice may be slow, but is sure. Dr. Woodford decided on accepting the invitation, not only for Peregrine's sake, but to see how the land lay. Scarcely anything remarkable, however, occurred, except that it was painful to perceive the lightness of the coffin. A funeral sermon was previously preached by a young Nonconformist minister in his own chapel, on the text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and then the burial took place, watched by a huge crowd of people. But just as the procession was starting from the chapel for the churchyard, over the wall there came a strange peal of wild laughter. "Oh, would not the unquiet spirit be at rest till it was avenged?" thought Anne when she was told of it.	{ "id": "12449" }
29	THE ASSIZE COURT	"O terror! what hath she perceived? O joy, What doth she look on? whom hath she perceived?" WORDSWORTH. Time wore away, and the Lent Assizes at Winchester had come. Sir Philip had procured the best legal assistance for his nephew, but in criminal cases, though the prisoner was allowed the advice of counsel, the onus of defence rested upon himself. To poor Anne's dismay, a subpoena was sent to her, as well as to her uncle, to attend as a witness at the trial. Sir Philip was too anxious to endure to remain at a distance from Winchester, and they travelled in his coach, Sir Edmund Nutley escorting them on horseback, while Lucy was left with her mother, both still in blissful ignorance. They took rooms at the George Inn. That night was a strange and grievous one to Anne, trying hard to sleep so as to be physically capable of composure and presence of mind, yet continually wakened by ghastly dreams, and then recollecting that the sense of something terrible was by no means all a dream. Very white, very silent, but very composed, she came to the sitting- room, and was constrained by her uncle and Sir Philip to eat, much as it went against her. On this morning Sir Philip had dropped his sternness towards her, and finding a moment when his son-in-law was absent, he said, "Child, I know that this is wellnigh, nay, quite as hard for you as for me. I can only say, Let no earthly regards hold you back from whatever is your duty to God and man. Speak the truth whatever betide, and leave the rest to the God of truth. God bless you, however it may be;" and he kissed her brow. The intelligence that the trial was coming on was brought by Sedley's counsel, Mr. Simon Harcourt. They set forth for the County Hall up the sharply-rising street, thronged with people, who growled and murmured at the murderer savagely, Sir Philip, under the care of his son-in-law, and Anne with her uncle. Mr. Harcourt was very hopeful; he said the case for the prosecution had not a leg to stand on, and that the prisoner himself was so intelligent, and had so readily understood the line of defence to take, that he ought to have been a lawyer. There would be no fear except that it might be made a party case, and no stone was likely to be left unturned against a gentleman of good loyal family. Moreover Mr. William Cowper, whom Robert Oakshott, or rather his wife, had engaged at great expense for the prosecution, was one of the most rising of barristers, noted for his persuasive eloquence, and unfortunately Mr. Harcourt had not the right of reply. The melancholy party were conducted into court, Sir Philip and Sir Edmund to the seats disposed of by the sheriff, beside the judge, strangely enough only divided by him from Major Oakshott. The judge was Mr. Baron Hatsel, a somewhat weak-looking man, in spite of his red robes and flowing wig, as he sat under his canopy beneath King Arthur's Round Table. Sedley, perhaps a little thinner since his imprisonment, but with the purple red on his face, and his prominent eyes so hard and bold that it was galling to know that this was really the confidence of innocence. Mr. Cowper was with great ability putting the case. Here were two families in immediate neighbourhood, divided from the first by political opinions of the strongest complexion; and he put the Oakshott views upon liberty, civil and religious, in the most popular light. The unfortunate deceased he described as having been a highly promising member of the suite of the distinguished Envoy, Sir Peregrine Oakshott, whose name he bore. On the death of the eldest brother he had been recalled, and his accomplishments and foreign air had, it appeared, excited the spleen of the young gentlemen of the county belonging to the Tory party, then in the ascendant, above all of the prisoner. There was then little or no etiquette as to irrelevant matter, so that Mr. Cowper could dwell at length on Sedley's antecedents, as abusing the bounty of his uncle, a known bully expelled for misconduct from Winchester College, then acting as a suitable instrument in those violences in Scotland which had driven the nation finally to extremity, noted for his debaucheries when in garrison, and finally broken for insubordination in Ireland. After this unflattering portrait, which Sedley's looks certainly did not belie, the counsel went back to 1688, proceeded to mention several disputes which had taken place when Peregrine had met Lieutenant Archfield at Portsmouth; but, he added with a smile, that no dart of malice was ever thoroughly winged till Cupid had added his feather; and he went on to describe in strong colours the insult to a young gentlewoman, and the interference of the other young man in her behalf, so that swords were drawn before the appearance of the reverend gentleman her uncle. Still, he said, there was further venom to be added to the bolt, and he showed that the two had parted after the rejoicings on Portsdown Hill with a challenge all but uttered between them, the Whig upholding religious liberty, the Tory hotly defending such honour as the King possessed, and both parting in anger. Young Mr. Oakshott was never again seen alive, though his family long hoped against hope. There was no need to dwell on the strange appearances that had incited them to the search. Certain it was, that after seven years' silence, the grave had yielded up its secrets. Then came the description of the discovery of the bones, and of the garments and sword, followed by the mention of the evidence as to the blood on the grass, and the prisoner having been seen in the neighbourhood of the castle at that strange hour. He was observed to have an amount of money unusual with him soon after, and, what was still more suspicious, after having gambled this away, he had sold to a goldsmith at Southampton a ruby ring, which both Mr. and Mrs. Oakshott could swear to have belonged to the deceased. In fact, when Mr. Cowper marshalled the facts, and even described the passionate encounter taking place hastily and without witnesses, and the subsequent concealment of guilt in the vault, the purse taken, and whatever could again be identified hidden, while providentially the blocking up of the vault preserved the evidence of the crime so long undetected and unavenged, it was hardly possible to believe the prisoner innocent. When the examination of the witnesses began, however, Sedley showed himself equal to his own defence. He made no sign when Robert Oakshott identified the clothes, sword, and other things, and their condition was described; but he demanded of him sharply how he knew the human remains to be those of his brother. "Of course they were," said Robert. "Were there any remains of clothes with them?" "No." "Can you swear to them? Did you ever before see your brother's bones?" At which, and at the witness's hesitating, "No, but--" the court began to laugh. "What was the height of the deceased?" "He reached about up to my ear," said the witness with some hesitation. "What was the length of the skeleton?" "Quite small. It looked like a child's." "My lord," said Sedley, "I have a witness here, a surgeon, whom I request may be called to certify the proportion of a skeleton to the size of a living man." Though this was done, the whole matter of size was so vague that there was nothing proved, either as to the inches of Peregrine or those of the skeleton, but still Sedley made his point that the identity of the body was unproved at least in some minds. Still, there remained the other articles, about which there was no doubt. Mr. Cowper proceeded with his examination as to the disputes at Portsmouth, but again the prisoner scored a point by proving that Peregrine had staked the ring against him at a cock-fight at Southampton, and had lost it. Dr. Woodford was called, and his evidence could not choose but to be most damaging as to the conflict on the road at Portsmouth; but as he had not seen the beginning, 'Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford' was called for. There she stood, tall and stately, almost majestic in the stiffness of intense self-restraint, in her simple gray dress, her black silk hood somewhat back, her brown curls round her face, a red spot in each cheek, her earnest brown eyes fixed on the clerk as he gabbled out the words so awful to her, "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;" and her soul re-echoed the words, "So help you God." Mr. Cowper was courteous; he was a gentleman, and he saw she was no light-minded girl. He asked her the few questions needful as to the attack made on her, and the defence; but something moved him to go on and ask whether she had been on Portsdown Hill, and to obtain from her the account of the high words between the young men. She answered each question in a clear low voice, which still was audible to all. Was it over, or would Sedley begin to torture her, when so much was in his favour? No! Mr. Cowper--oh! why would he? was asking in an affirmative tone, as if to clench the former evidence, "And did you ever see the deceased again?" "Yes." The answer was at first almost choked, then cleared into sharpness, and every eye turned in surprise on the face that had become as white as her collar. "Indeed! And when?" "The next morning," in a voice as if pronouncing her own doom, and with hands clinging tight to the front of the witness-box as though in anguish. "Where?" said the counsel, like inexorable fate. "I will save the gentlewoman from replying to that question, sir;" and a gentleman with long brown hair, in a rich white and gold uniform, rose from among the spectators. "Perhaps I may be allowed to answer for her, when I say that it was at Portchester Castle, at five in the morning, that she saw Peregrine Oakshott slain by my hand, and thrown into the vault." There was a moment of breathless amazement in the court, and the judge was the first to speak. "Very extraordinary, sir! What is your name?" "Charles Archfield," said the clear resolute voice. Then came a general movement and sensation, and Anne, still holding fast to the support, saw the newcomer start forward with a cry, "My father!" and with two or three bounds reach the side of Sir Philip, who had sunk back in his seat for a moment, but recovered himself as he felt his son's arm round him. There was a general buzz, and a cry of order, and in the silence thus produced the judge addressed the witness:-- "Is what this gentleman says the truth?" And on Anne's reply, "Yes, my Lord," spoken with the clear ring of anguish, the judge added-- "Was the prisoner present?" "No, my Lord; he had nothing to do with it." "Then, brother Cowper, do you wish to proceed with the case?" Mr. Cowper replied in the negative, and the judge then made a brief summing-up, and the jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of 'Not guilty.' In the meantime Anne had been led like one blinded from the witness- box, and almost dropped into her uncle's arms. "Cheer up, cheer up, my child," he said. "You have done your part bravely, and after so upright a confession no one can deal hardly with the young man. God will surely protect him." The acquittal had been followed by a few words from Baron Hatsel, congratulating the late prisoner on his deliverance through this gentleman's generous confession. Then there was a moment's hesitation, ended by the sheriff asking Charles, who stood up by his old father, one arm supporting the trembling form, and the other hand clasped in the two aged ones, "Then, sir, do you surrender to take your trial?" "Certainly, sir," said Charles. "I ought to have done so long ago, but in the first shock--" Mr. Harcourt here cautioned him not to say anything that could be used against him, adding in a low tone, much to Sir Philip's relief, "It may be brought in manslaughter, sir." "He should be committed," another authority said. "Is there a Hampshire magistrate here to sign a warrant?" Of these there were plenty; and as the clerk asked for his description, all eyes turned on the tall and robust form in the prime of manhood, with the noble resolute expression on his fine features and steadfast eyes, except when, as he looked at his father, they were full of infinite pity. The brown hair hung over the rich gold-laced white coat, faced with black, and with a broad gold-coloured sash fringed with black over his shoulder, and there was a look of distinction about him that made his answer only natural. "Charles Archfield, of Archfield House, Fareham, Lieutenant-Colonel of his Imperial Majesty's Light Dragoons, Knight of the Holy Roman Empire. Must I give up my sword like a prisoner of war?" he asked, with a smile. Sir Philip rose to his feet with an earnest trembling entreaty that bail might be taken for him, and many voices of gentlemen and men of substance made offers of it. There was a little consultation, and it was ruled that bail might be accepted under the circumstances, and Charles bowed his thanks to the distant and gave his hand to the nearer, while Mr. Eyre of Botley Grange, and Mr. Brocas of Roche Court, were accepted as sureties. The gentle old face of Mr. Cromwell of Hursley, was raised to poor old Sir Philip's with the words, spoken with a remnant of the authority of the Protector: "Your son has spoken like a brave man, sir; God bless you, and bring you well through it." Charles was then asked whether he wished for time to collect witnesses. "No, my lord," he said. "I thank you heartily, but I have no one to call, and the sooner this is over the better for all." After a little consultation it was found that the Grand Jury had not been dismissed, and could find a true bill against him; and it was decided that the trial should take place after the rest of the criminal cases were disposed of. This settled, the sorrowful party with the strangely welcomed son were free to return to their quarters at the George. Mr. Cromwell pressed forward to beg that they would make use of his coach. It was a kind thought, for Sir Philip hung feebly on his son's arm, and to pass through the curious throng would have been distressing. After helping him in, Charles turned and demanded-- "Where is she, the young gentlewoman, Miss Woodford?" She was just within, her uncle waiting to take her out till the crowd's attention should be called off. Charles lifted her in, and Sir Edmund and Dr. Woodford followed him, for there was plenty of room in the capacious vehicle. Nobody spoke in the very short interval the four horses took in getting themselves out of the space in front of the County Hall and down the hill to the George. Only Charles had leant forward, taken Anne's hand, drawn it to his lips, and then kept fast hold of it. They were all in the room at the inn at last, they hardly knew how; indeed, as Charles was about to shut the door there was a smack on his back, and there stood Sedley holding out his hand. "So, Charley, old fellow, you were the sad dog after all. You got me out of it, and I owe you my thanks, but you need not have put your neck into the noose. I should have come off with flying colours, and made them all make fools of themselves, if you had only waited." "Do you think I could sit still and see _her_ put to the torture?" said Charles. "Torture? You are thinking of your barbarous countries. No fear of the boot here, nor even in Scotland nowadays." "That's all the torture you understand," muttered Sir Edmund Nutley. "Not but what I am much beholden to you all the same," went on Sedley. "And look here, sir," turning to his uncle, "if you wish to get him let off cheap you had better send up another special retainer to Harcourt, without loss of time, as he may be off." Sir Edmund Nutley concurred in the advice, and they hurried off together in search of the family attorney, through whom the great man had to be approached. The four left together could breathe more freely. Indeed Dr. Woodford would have taken his niece away, but that Charles already had her in his arms in a most fervent embrace, as he said, "My brave, my true maid!" She could not speak, but she lifted up her eyes, with infinite relief in all her sorrow, as for a moment she rested against him; but they had to move apart, for a servant came up with some wine, and Charles, putting her into a chair, began to wait on her and on his father. "I have not quite forgotten my manners," he said lightly, as if to relieve the tension of feeling, "though in Germany the ladies serve the gentlemen." It was very hard not to burst into tears at these words, but Anne knew that would be the way to distress her companions and to have to leave the room and lose these precious moments. Sir Philip, after swallowing the wine, succeeded in saying, "Have you been at home?" Charles explained that he had landed at Gravesend, and had ridden thence, sleeping at Basingstoke, and taking the road through Winchester in case his parents should be wintering there, and on arriving a couple of hours previously and inquiring for them, he had heard the tidings that Sir Philip Archfield was indeed there, for his nephew was being tried for his life for the wilful murder of Major Oakshott's son seven years ago. "And you had none of my warnings? I wrote to all the ports," said his father, "to warn you to wait till all this was over." No; he had crossed from Sluys, and had met no letter. "I suppose," he said, "that I must not ride home to-morrow. It might make my sureties uneasy; but I would fain see them all." "It would kill your mother to be here," said Sir Philip. "She knows nothing of what Anne told me on Sedley's arrest. She is grown very feeble;" and he groaned. "But we might send for your sister, if she can leave her, and the boy." "I should like my boy to be fetched," said Charles. "I should wish him to remember his father--not as a felon convicted!" Then putting a knee to the ground before Sir Philip, he said, "Sir, I ask your blessing and forgiveness. I never before thoroughly understood my errors towards you, especially in hiding this miserable matter, and leaving all this to come on you, while my poor Anne there was left to bear all the load. It was a cowardly and selfish act, and I ask your pardon." The old man sobbed with his hand on his son's head. "My dear boy! my poor boy! you were distraught." "I was then. I did it, as I thought, for my poor Alice's sake at first, and as it proved, it was all in vain; but at the year's end, when I was older, it was folly and wrong. I ought to have laid all before you, and allowed you to judge, and I sincerely repent the not having so done. And Anne, my sweetest Anne, has borne the burthen all this time," he added, going back to her. "Let no one say a woman cannot keep secrets, though I ought never to have laid this on her." "Ah! it might have gone better for you then," sighed Sir Philip. "No one would have visited a young lad's mischance hardly on a loyal house in those days. What is to be done, my son?" "That we will discuss when the lawyer fellow comes. Is it old Lee? Meantime let us enjoy our meeting. So that is Lucy's husband. Sober and staid, eh? And my mother is feeble, you say. Has she been ill?" Charles was comporting himself with the cheerfulness that had become habitual to him as a soldier, always in possible danger, but it was very hard to the others to chime in with his tone, and when a message was brought to ask whether his Honour would be served in private, the cheery greeting and shake of the hand broke down the composure of the old servant who brought it, and he cried, "Oh, sir, to see you thus, and such a fine young gentleman!" Charles, the only person who could speak, gave the orders, but they did not eat alone, for Sir Edmund Nutley and Sedley arrived with the legal advisers, and it was needful, perhaps even better, to have their company. The chief of the conversation was upon Hungarian and Transylvanian politics and the Turkish war. Mr. Harcourt seeming greatly to appreciate the information that Colonel Archfield was able to give him, and the anecdotes of the war, and descriptions of scenes therein actually brightened Sir Philip into interest, and into forgetting for a moment his son's situation in pride in his conduct, and at the distinction he had gained. "We must save him," said Mr. Harcourt to Sir Edmund. "He is far too fine a fellow to be lost for a youthful mischance." The meal was a short one, and a consultation was to follow, while Sedley departed. Anne was about to withdraw, when Mr. Lee the attorney said, "We shall need Mistress Woodford's evidence, sir, for the defence." "I do not see what defence there can be," returned Charles. "I can only plead guilty, and throw myself on the King's mercy, if he chooses to extend it to one of a Tory family." "Not so fast, sir," said Mr. Harcourt; "as far as I have gathered the facts, there is every reason to hope you may obtain a verdict of manslaughter, and a nominal penalty, although that rests with the judge." On this the discussion began in earnest. Charles, who had never heard the circumstances which led to the trial, was greatly astonished to hear what remains had been discovered. He said that he could only declare himself to have thrown in the body, full dressed, just as it was, and how it could have been stripped and buried he could not imagine. "What made folks think of looking into the vault?" he asked. "It was Mrs. Oakshott," said Lee, "the young man's wife, she who was to have married the deceased. She took up some strange notion about stories of phantoms current among the vulgar, and insisted on having the vault searched, though it had been walled up for many years past." Charles and Anne looked at each other, and the former said, "Again?" "Oh yes!" said Anne; "indeed there have been enough to make me remember what you bade me do, in case they recurred, only it was impossible." "Phantoms!" said Mr. Harcourt; "what does this mean?" "Mere vulgar superstitions, sir," said the attorney. "But very visible," said Charles; "I have seen one myself, of which I am quite sure, besides many that may be laid to the account of the fever of my wound." "I must beg to hear," said the barrister. "Do I understand that these were apparitions of the deceased?" "Yes," said Charles. "Miss Woodford saw the first, I think." "May I beg you to describe it?" said Mr. Harcourt, taking a fresh piece of paper to make notes on. Anne narrated the two appearances in London, and Charles added the story of the figure seen in the street at Douai, seen by both together, asking what more she knew of. "Once at night last summer, at the very anniversary, I saw his face in the trees in the garden," said Anne; "it was gone in a moment. That has been all I have seen; but little Philip came to me full of stories of people having seen Penny Grim, as he calls it, and very strangely, once it rose before him at the great pond, and his fright saved him from sliding to the dangerous part. What led Mrs. Oakshott to the examination was that it was seen once on the beach, once by the sentry at the vault itself, once by the sexton at Havant Churchyard, and once by my mother's grave." "Seven?" said the counsel, reviewing the notes he jotted down. "Colonel Archfield, I should recommend you pleading not guilty, and basing your defence, like your cousin, on the strong probability that this same youth is a living man." "Indeed!" said Charles, starting, "I could have hoped it from these recent apparitions, but what I myself saw forbids the idea. If any sight were ever that of a spirit, it was what we saw at Douai; besides, how should he come thither, a born and bred Whig and Puritan?" "There is no need to mention that; you can call witnesses to his having been seen within these few months. It would rest with the prosecution to disprove his existence in the body, especially as the bones in the vault cannot be identified." "Sir," said Charles, "the defence that would have served my innocent cousin cannot serve me, who know what I did to Oakshott. I am _now_ aware that it is quite possible that the sword might not have killed him, but when I threw him into that vault I sealed his fate." "How deep is the vault?" Mr. Lee and Dr. Woodford both averred that it was not above twenty or twenty-four feet deep, greatly to Charles's surprise, for as a lad he had thought it almost unfathomable; but then he owned his ideas of Winchester High Street had been likewise far more magnificent than he found it. The fall need not necessarily have been fatal, especially to one insensible and opposing no resistance, but even supposing that death had not resulted, in those Draconian days, the intent to murder was equally subject with its full accomplishment to capital punishment. Still, as Colonel Archfield could plead with all his heart that he had left home with no evil intentions towards young Oakshott, the lawyers agreed that to prove that the death of the victim was uncertain would reduce the matter to a mere youthful brawl, which could not be heavily visited. Mr. Harcourt further asked whether it were possible to prove that the prisoner had been otherwise employed than in meddling with the body; but unfortunately it had been six hours before he came home. "I was distracted," said Charles; "I rode I knew not whither, till I came to my senses on finding that my horse was ready to drop, when I led him into a shed at a wayside public-house, bade them feed him, took a drink, then I wandered out into the copse near, and lay on the ground there till I thought him rested, for how long I know not. I think it must have been near Bishops Waltham, but I cannot recollect." Mr. Lee decided on setting forth at peep of dawn the next morning to endeavour to collect witnesses of Peregrine's appearances. Sir Edmund Nutley intended to accompany him as far as Fareham to fetch little Philip and Lady Nutley, if the latter could leave her mother after the tidings had been broken to them, and also to try to trace whether Charles's arrival at any public-house were remembered. To her dismay, Anne received another summons from the other party to act as witness. "I hoped to have spared you this, my sweet," said Charles, "but never mind; you cannot say anything worse of me than I shall own of myself." The two were left to each other for a little while in the bay window. "Oh, sir! can you endure me thus after all?" murmured Anne, as she felt his arm round her. "Can you endure me after all I left you to bear?" he returned. "It was not like what I brought on you," she said. But they could not talk much of the future; and Charles told how he had rested through all his campaigns in the knowledge that his Anne was watching and praying for him, and how his long illness had brought before him deeper thoughts than he had ever had before, and made him especially dwell on the wrong done to his parents by his long absence, and the lightness with which he had treated home duties and responsibilities, till he had resolved that if his life were then spared, he would neglect them no longer. "And now," he said, and paused, "all I shall have done is to break their hearts. What is that saying, 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'" "Oh, sir! they are sure not to deal hardly with you." "Perhaps the Emperor's Ambassador may claim me. If so, would you go into banishment with the felon, Anne, love? It would not be quite so mad as when I asked you before." "I would go to the ends of the world with you; and we would take little Phil. Do you know, he is growing a salad, and learning Latin, all for papa?" And so she told him of little Phil till his father was seen looking wistfully at him. With Sir Philip, Charles was all cheerfulness and hope, taking such interest in all there was to hear about the family, estate, and neighbourhood that the old gentleman was beguiled into feeling as if there were only a short ceremony to be gone through before he had his son at home, saving him ease and trouble. But after Sir Philip had been persuaded to retire, worn out with the day's agitations, and Anne likewise had gone to her chamber to weep and pray, Charles made his arrangements with Mr. Lee for the future for all connected with him in case of the worst; and after the lawyer's departure poured out his heart to Dr. Woodford in deep contrition, as he said he had longed to do when lying in expectation of death at the Iron Gates. "However it may end," he said, "and I expect, as I deserve, the utmost, I am thankful for this opportunity, though unhappily it gives more pain to those about me than if I had died out there. Tell them, when they need comfort, how much better it is for me." "My dear boy, I cannot believe you will have to suffer." "There is much against me, sir. My foolish flight, the state of parties, and the recent conspiracy, which has made loyal families suspected and odious. I saw something of that as I came down. The crowd fancied my uniform French, and hooted and hissed me. Unluckily I have no other clothes to wear. Nor can I from my heart utterly disclaim all malice or ill will when I remember the thrill of pleasure in driving my sword home. I have had to put an end to a Janissary or two more than once in the way of duty, but their black eyes never haunted me like those parti-coloured ones. Still I trust, as you tell me I may, that God forgives me, for our Blessed Lord's sake; but I should like, if I could, to take the Holy Sacrament with my love while I am still thus far a free man. I have not done so since the Easter before these troubles." "You shall, my dear boy, you shall." There were churches at which the custom freshly begun at the Restoration was not dropped. The next was St. Matthias's Day, and Anne and her uncle had already purposed to go to the quiet little church of St. Lawrence, at no great distance, in the very early morning. They were joined on their way down the stair into the courtyard of the inn by a gentleman in a slouched hat and large dark cloak, who drew Anne's arm within his own. Truly there was peace on that morning, and strength to the brave man beyond the physical courage that had often before made him bright in the face of danger, and Anne, though weeping, had a sense of respite and repose, if not of hope. Late in the afternoon, little Philip was lifted down from riding before old Ralph into the arms of the splendid officer, whose appearance transcended all his visions. He fumbled in his small pocket, and held out a handful of something green and limp. "Here's my salad, papa. I brought it all the way for you to eat." And Colonel Archfield ate every scrap of it for supper, though it was much fitter for a rabbit, and all the evening he held on his knee the tired child, and responded to his prattle about Nana and dogs and rabbits; nay, ministered to his delight and admiration of the sheriff's coach, javelin men, and even the judge, with a strange mixture of wonder, delight, and with melancholy only in eyes and undertones.	{ "id": "12449" }
30	SENTENCE	"I have hope to live, and am prepared to die." Measure for Measure. Ralph was bidden to be ready to take his young master home early the next morning. At eight o'clock the boy, who had slept with his father, came down the stair, clinging to his father's hand, and Miss Woodford coming closely with him. "Yes," said Charles, as he held the little fair fellow in his arms, ere seating him on the horse, "he knows all, Ralph. He knows that his father did an evil thing, and that what we do in our youth finds us out later, and must be paid for. He has promised me to be a comfort to the old people, and to look on this lady as a mother. Nay, no more, Ralph; 'tis not good-bye to any of you yet. There, Phil, don't lug my head off, nor catch my hair in your buttons. Give my dutiful love to your grandmamma and to Aunt Nutley, and be a good boy to them." "And when I come to see you again I'll bring another salad," quoth Philip, as he rode out of the court; and his father, by way of excusing a contortion of features, smoothed the entangled lock of hair, and muttered something about, "This comes of not wearing a periwig." Then he said-- "And to think that I have wasted the company of such a boy as that, all his life except for this mere glimpse!" "Oh! you will come back to him," was all that could be said. For it was time for Charles Archfield to surrender himself to take his trial. He had been instructed over and over again as to the line of his defence, and cautioned against candour for himself and delicacy towards others, till he had more than once to declare that he had no intention of throwing his life away; but the lawyers agreed in heartily deploring the rules that thus deprived the accused of the assistance of an advocate in examining witnesses and defending himself. All depended, as they knew and told Sir Edmund Nutley, on the judge and jury. Now Mr. Baron Hatsel had shown himself a well- meaning but weak and vacillating judge, whose summing up was apt rather to confuse than to elucidate the evidence; and as to the jury, Mr. Lee scanned their stolid countenances somewhat ruefully when they were marshalled before the prisoner, to be challenged if desirable. A few words passed, into which the judge inquired. "I am reminded, my Lord," said Colonel Archfield, bowing, "that I once incurred Mr. Holt's displeasure as a mischievous boy by throwing a stone which injured one of his poultry; but I cannot believe such a trifle would bias an honest man in a question of life and death." Nevertheless the judge put aside Mr. Holt. "I like his spirit," whispered Mr. Harcourt. "But," returned Lee, "I doubt if he has done himself any good with those fellows by calling it a trifle to kill an old hen. I should like him to have challenged two or three more moody old Whiggish rascals; but he has been too long away from home to know how the land lies." "Too generous and high-spirited for this work," sighed Sir Edmund, who sat with them. The indictment was read, the first count being "That of malice aforethought, by the temptation of the Devil, Charles Archfield did wilfully kill and slay Peregrine Oakshott," etc. The second indictment was that "By misadventure he had killed and slain the said Peregrine Oakshott." To the first he pleaded 'Not guilty;' to the second 'Guilty.' Tall, well-made, manly, and soldierly he stood, with a quiet set face, while Mr. Cowper proceeded to open the prosecution, with a certain compliment to the prisoner and regret at having to push the case against one who had so generously come forward on behalf of a kinsman; but he must unwillingly state the circumstances that made it doubtful, nay, more than doubtful, whether the prisoner's plea of mere misadventure could stand. The dislike to the unfortunate deceased existing among the young Tory country gentlemen of the county was, he should prove, intensified in the prisoner on account of not inexcusable jealousies, as well as of the youthful squabbles which sometimes lead to fatal results. On the evening of the 30th of June 1688 there had been angry words between the prisoner and the deceased on Portsdown Hill, respecting the prisoner's late lady. At four or five o'clock on the ensuing morning, the 1st of July, the one fell by the sword of the other in the then unfrequented court of Portchester Castle. It was alleged that the stroke was fatal only through the violence of youthful impetuosity; but was it consistent with that supposition that the young gentleman's time was unaccounted for afterwards, and that the body should have been disposed of in a manner that clearly proved the assistance of an accomplice, and with so much skill that no suspicion had arisen for seven years and a half, whilst the actual slayer was serving, not his own country, but a foreign prince, and had only returned at a most suspicious crisis? The counsel then proceeded to construct a plausible theory. He reminded the jury that at that very time, the summer of 1688, messages and invitations were being despatched to his present Gracious Majesty to redress the wrongs of the Protestant Church, and protect the liberties of the English people. The father of the deceased was a member of a family of the country party, his uncle a distinguished diplomatist, to whose suite he had belonged. What was more obvious than that he should be employed in the correspondence, and that his movements should be dogged by parties connected with the Stewart family? Already there was too much experience of how far even the most estimable and conscientious might be blinded by the sentiment that they dignified by the title of loyalty. The deceased had already been engaged in a struggle with one of the Archfield family, who had been acquitted of his actual slaughter; but considering the strangeness of the hour at which the two cousins were avowedly at or near Portchester, the condition of the clothes, stripped of papers, but not of valuables, and the connection of the principal witness with the pretended Prince of Wales, he could not help thinking that though personal animosity might have added an edge to the weapon, yet that there were deeper reasons, to prompt the assault and the concealment, than had yet been brought to light. "He will make nothing of that," whispered Mr. Lee. "Poor Master Peregrine was no more a Whig than old Sir Philip there." " 'Twill prejudice the jury," whispered back Mr. Harcourt, "and discredit the lady's testimony." Mr. Cowper concluded by observing that half truths had come to light in the former trial, but whole truths would give a different aspect to the affair, and show the unfortunate deceased to have given offence, not only as a man of gallantry, but as a patriot, and to have fallen a victim to the younger bravoes of the so-called Tory party. To his (the counsel's) mind, it was plain that the prisoner, who had hoped that his crime was undiscovered and forgotten, had returned to take his share in the rising against Government so happily frustrated. He was certain that the traitor Charnock had been received at his father's house, and that Mr. Sedley Archfield had used seditious language on several occasions, so that the cause of the prisoner's return at this juncture was manifest, and only to the working of Providence could it be ascribed that the evidence of the aggravated murder should have at that very period been brought to light. There was an evident sensation, and glances were cast at the upright, military figure, standing like a sentinel, as if the audience expected him to murder them all. As before, the examination began with Robert Oakshott's identification of the clothes and sword, but Mr. Cowper avoided the subject of the skeleton, and went on to inquire about the terms on which the two young men had lived. "Well," said Robert, "they quarrelled, but in a neighbourly sort of way." "What do you call a neighbourly way?" "My poor brother used to be baited for being so queer. But then we were as bad to him as the rest," said Robert candidly. "That is, when you were boys?" "Yes." "And after his return from his travels?" "It was the same then. He was too fine a gentleman for any one's taste." "You speak generally. Was there any especial animosity?" "My brother bought a horse that Archfield was after." "Was there any dispute over it?" "Not that I know of." "Can you give an instance of displeasure manifested by the prisoner at the deceased?" "I have seen him look black when my brother held a gate open for his wife." "Then there were gallant attentions towards Mrs. Archfield?" Charles's face flushed, and he made a step forward, but Robert gruffly answered: "No more than civility; but he had got Frenchified manners, and liked to tease Archfield." "Did they ever come to high words before you?" "No. They knew better." "Thank you, Mr. Oakshott," said the prisoner, as it was intimated that Mr. Cowper had finished. "You bear witness that only the most innocent civility ever passed between your brother and my poor young wife?" "Certainly," responded Robert. "Nothing that could cause serious resentment, if it excited passing annoyance." "Nothing." "What were your brother's political opinions?" "Well"--with some slow consideration--"he admired the Queen as was, and could not abide the Prince of Orange. My father was always _at him_ for it." "Would you think him likely to be an emissary to Holland?" "No one less likely." But Mr. Cowper started up. "Sir, I believe you are the younger brother?" "Yes." "How old were you at the time?" "Nigh upon nineteen." "Oh!" as if that accounted for his ignorance. The prisoner continued, and asked whether search was made when the deceased was missed. "Hardly any." "Why not?" "He was never content at home, and we believed he had gone to my uncle in Muscovy." "What led you to examine the vault?" "My wife was disquieted by stories of my brother's ghost being seen." "Did you ever see this ghost?" "No, never." That was all that was made of Robert Oakshott, and then again came Anne Woodford's turn, and Mr. Cowper was more satirical and less considerate than the day before. Still it was a less dreadful ordeal than previously, though she had to tell the worst, for she knew her ground better, and then there was throughout wonderful support in Charles's eyes, which told her, whenever she glanced towards him, that she was doing right and as he wished. As she had not heard the speech for the prosecution it was a shock, after identifying herself a niece to a 'non-swearing' clergyman, to be asked about the night of the bonfire, and to be forced to tell that Mrs. Archfield had insisted on getting out of the carriage and walking about with Mr. Oakshott. "Was the prisoner present?" "He came up after a time." "Did he show any displeasure?" "He thought it bad for her health." "Did any words pass between him and the deceased?" "Not that I remember." "And now, madam, will you be good enough to recur to the following morning, and continue the testimony in which you were interrupted the day before yesterday? What was the hour?" "The church clock struck five just after." "May I ask what took a young gentlewoman out at such an untimely hour? Did you expect to meet any one?" "No indeed, sir," said Anne hotly. "I had been asked to gather some herbs to carry to a friend." "Ah! And why at that time in the morning?" "Because I was to leave home at seven, when the tide served." "Where were you going?" "To London, sir." "And for what reason?" "I had been appointed to be a rocker in the Royal nursery." "I see. And your impending departure may explain certain strange coincidences. May I ask what was this same herb?" in a mocking tone. "Mouse-ear, sir," said Anne, who would fain have called it by some less absurd title, but knew no other. "A specific for the whooping- cough." "Oh! Not 'Love in a mist.' Are your sure?" "My lord," here Simon Harcourt ventured, "may I ask, is this regular?" The judge intimated that his learned brother had better keep to the point, and Mr. Cowper, thus called to order, desired the witness to continue, and demanded whether she was interrupted in her quest. "I saw Mr. Peregrine Oakshott enter the castle court, and I hurried into the tower, hoping he had not seen me." "You said before he had protected you. Why did you run from him?" She had foreseen this, and quietly answered, "He had made me an offer of marriage which I had refused, and I did not wish to meet him." "Did you see any one else?" "Not till I had reached the door opening on the battlements. Then I heard a clash, and saw Mr. Archfield and Mr. Oakshott fighting." "Mr. Archfield! The prisoner? Did he come to gather mouse-ear too?" "No. His wife had sent him over with a pattern of sarcenet for me to match in London." "Early rising and prompt obedience." And there ensued the inquiries that brought out the history of what she had seen of the encounter, of the throwing the body into the vault, full dressed, and of her promise of silence and its reason. Mr. Cowper did not molest her further except to make her say that she had been five months at the Court, and had accompanied the late Queen to France. Then came the power of cross-examination on the part of the prisoner. He made no attempt to modify what had been said before, but asked in a gentle apologetic voice: "Was that the last time you ever saw, or thought you saw, Peregrine Oakshott?" "No." And here every one in court started and looked curious. "When?" "The 31st of October 1688, in the evening." "Where?" "Looking from the window in the palace at Whitehall, I saw him, or his likeness, walking along in the light of the lantern over the great door." The appearance at Lambeth was then described, and that in the garden at Archfield House. This strange cross-examination was soon over, for Charles could not endure to subject her to the ordeal, while she equally longed to be able to say something that might not damage him, and dreaded every word she spoke. Moreover, Mr. Cowper looked exceedingly contemptuous, and made the mention of Whitehall and Lambeth a handle for impressing on the jury that the witness had been deep in the counsels of the late royal family, and that she was escorted from St. Germain by the prisoner just before he entered on foreign service. One of the servants at Fareham was called upon to testify to the hour of his young master's return on the fatal day. It was long past dinner-time, he said. It must have been about three o'clock. Charles put in an inquiry as to the condition of his horse. "Hard ridden, sir, as I never knew your Honour bring home Black Bess in such a pickle before." After a couple of young men had been called who could speak to some outbreaks of dislike to poor Peregrine, in which all had shared, the case for the prosecution was completed. Cowper, in a speech that would be irregular now, but was permissible then, pointed out that the jealousy, dislike, and Jacobite proclivities of the Archfield family had been fully made out, that the coincidence of visits to the castle at that untimely hour had been insufficiently explained, that the condition of the remains in the vault was quite inconsistent with the evidence of the witness, Mistress Woodford, unless there were persons waiting below unknown to her, and that the prisoner had been absent from Fareham from four or five o'clock in the morning till nearly three in the afternoon. As to the strange story she had further told, he (Mr. Cowper) was neither superstitious nor philosophic, but the jury would decide whether conscience and the sense of an awful secret were not sufficient to conjure up such phantoms, if they were not indeed spiritual, occurring as they did in the very places and at the very times when the spirit of the unhappy young man, thus summarily dismissed from the world, his corpse left in an unblessed den, would be most likely to reappear, haunting those who felt themselves to be most accountable for his lamentable and untimely end. The words evidently told, and it was at a disadvantage that the prisoner rose to speak in his own defence and to call his witnesses. "My lord," he said, "and gentlemen of the jury, let me first say that I am deeply grieved and hurt that the name of my poor young wife has been brought into this matter. In justice to her who is gone, I must begin by saying that though she was flattered and gratified by the polite manners that I was too clownish and awkward to emulate, and though I may have sometimes manifested ill-humour, yet I never for a moment took serious offence nor felt bound to defend her honour or my own. If I showed displeasure it was because she was fatiguing herself against warning. I can say with perfect truth, that when I left home on that unhappy morning, I bore no serious ill-will to any living creature. I had no political purpose, and never dreamt of taking the life of any one. I was a heedless youth of nineteen. I shall be able to prove the commission of my wife's on which this learned gentleman has thought fit to cast a doubt. For the rest, Mistress Anne Woodford was my sister's friend and playfellow from early childhood. When I entered the castle court I saw her hurrying into the keep, pursued by Oakshott, whom I knew her to dread and dislike. I naturally stepped between. Angry words passed. He challenged my right to interfere, and in a passion drew upon me. Though I was the taller and stronger, I knew him to be proud of his skill in fencing, and perhaps I may therefore have pressed him the harder, and the dislike I acknowledge made me drive home my sword. But I was free from all murderous intention up to that moment. In my inexperience I had no doubt but that he was dead, and in a terror and confusion which I regret heartily, I threw him into the vault, and for the sake of my wife and mother bound Miss Woodford to secrecy. I mounted my horse, and scarcely knowing what I did, rode till I found it ready to drop. I asked for rest for it in the first wayside public-house I came to. I lay down meanwhile among some bushes adjoining, and there waited till my horse could take me home again. I believe it was at the White Horse, near Bishops Waltham, but the place has changed hands since that time, so that I can only prove my words, as you have heard, by the state of my horse when I came home. For the condition of the remains in the vault I cannot account; I never touched the poor fellow after throwing him there. My wife died a few hours after my return home, where I remained for a week, nor did I suggest flight, though I gladly availed myself of my father's suggestion of sending me abroad with a tutor. Let me add, to remove misconception, that I visited Paris because my tutor, the Reverend George Fellowes, one of the Fellows of Magdalen College expelled by the late King, and now Rector of Portchester, had been asked to provide for Miss Woodford's return to her home, and he is here to testify that I never had any concern with politics. I did indeed accompany him to St. Germain, but merely to find the young gentlewoman, and in the absence of the late King and Queen, nor did I hold intercourse with any other person connected with their Court. After escorting her to Ostend, I went to Hungary to serve in the army of our ally, the Emperor, against the Turks, the enemies of all Christians. After a severe wound, I have come home, knowing nothing of conspiracies, and I was taken by surprise on arriving here at Winchester at finding that my cousin was on his trial for the unfortunate deed into which I was betrayed by haste and passion, but entirely without premeditation or intent to do more than to defend the young lady. So that I plead that my crime does not amount to murder from malicious intent; and likewise, that those who charge me with the actual death of Peregrine Oakshott should prove him to be dead." Charles's first witness was Mrs. Lang, his late wife's 'own woman,' who spared him many questions by garrulously declaring 'what a work' poor little Madam had made about the rose-coloured sarcenet, causing the pattern to be searched out as soon as she came home from the bonfire, and how she had 'gone on at' her husband till he promised to give it to Mistress Anne, and how he had been astir at four o'clock in the morning, and had called to her (Mrs. Lang) to look to her mistress, who might perhaps get some sleep now that she had her will and hounded him out to go over to Portchester about that silk. Nothing was asked of this witness by the prosecution except the time of Mr. Archfield's return. The question of jealousy was passed over. Of the pond apparition nothing was said. Anne had told Charles of it, but no one could have proved its identity but Sedley, and his share in it was too painful to be brought forward. Three other ghost seers were brought forward: Mrs. Fellowes's maid, the sentry, and the sexton; but only the sexton had ever seen Master Perry alive, and he would not swear to more than that it was something in his likeness; the sentry was already bound to declare it something unsubstantial; and the maid was easily persuaded into declaring that she did not know what she had seen or whether she had seen anything. There only remained Mr. Fellowes to bear witness of his pupil's entire innocence of political intrigues, together with a voluntary testimony addressed to the court, that the youth had always appeared to him a well-disposed but hitherto boyish lad, suddenly sobered and rendered thoughtful by a shock that had changed the tenor of his mind. Mr. Baron Hatsel summed up in his dreary vacillating way. He told the gentlemen of the jury that young men would be young men, especially where pretty wenches were concerned, and that all knew that there was bitterness where Whig and Tory were living nigh together. Then he went over the evidence, at first in a tone favourable to the encounter having been almost accidental, and the stroke an act of passion. But he then added, it was strange, and he did not know what to think of these young sparks and the young gentlewoman all meeting in a lonely place when honest folks were abed, and the hiding in the vault, and the state of the clothes were strange matters scarce agreeing with what either prisoner or witness said. It looked only too like part of a plot of which some one should make a clean breast. On the other hand, the prisoner was a fine young gentleman, an only son, and had been fighting the Turks, though it would have been better to have fought the French among his own countrymen. He had come ingenuously forward to deliver his cousin, and a deliberate murderer was not wont to be so generous, though may be he expected to get off easily on this same plea of misadventure. If it was misadventure, why did he not try to do something for the deceased, or wait to see whether he breathed before throwing him into this same pit? though, to be sure, a lad might be inexperienced. For the rest, as to these same sights of the deceased or his likeness, he (the judge) was no believer in ghosts, though he would not say there were no such things, and the gentlemen of the jury must decide whether it was more likely the poor youth was playing pranks in the body, or whether he were haunting in the spirit those who had most to do with his untimely end. This was the purport, or rather the no-purport, of the charge. The jury were absent for a very short time, and as it leaked out afterwards, their intelligence did not rise above the idea that the young gentleman was thick with they Frenchies who wanted to bring in murder and popery, warming-pans and wooden shoes. He called stoning poultry a trifle, so of what was he not capable? Of course he spited the poor young chap, and how could the fact be denied when the poor ghost had come back to ask for his blood? So the awful suspense ended with 'Guilty, my Lord.' "Of murder or manslaughter?" "Of murder." The prisoner stood as no doubt he had faced Turkish batteries. The judge asked the customary question whether he had any reason to plead why he should not be condemned to death. "No, my lord. I am guilty of shedding Peregrine Oakshott's blood, and though I declare before God and man that I had no such purpose, and it was done in the heat of an undesigned struggle, I hated him enough to render the sentence no unjust one. I trust that God will pardon me, if man does not." The gentlemen around drew the poor old father out of the court so as not to hear the final sentence, and Anne, half stunned, was taken away by her uncle, and put into the same carriage with him. The old man held her hands closely and could not speak, but she found voice, "Sir, sir, do not give up hope. God will save him. I know what I can do. I will go to Princess Anne. She is friendly with the King now. She will bring me to tell him all." Hurriedly she spoke, her object, as it seemed to be that of every one, to keep up such hope and encouragement as to drown the terrible sense of the actual upshot of the trial. The room at the George was full in a moment of friends declaring that all would go well in the end, and consulting what to do. Neither Sir Philip nor Dr. Woodford could be available, as their refusal to take the oaths to King William made them marked men. The former could only write to the Imperial Ambassador, beseeching him to claim the prisoner as an officer of the Empire, though it was doubtful whether this would be allowed in the case of an Englishman born. Mr. Fellowes undertook to be the bearer of the letter, and to do his best through Archbishop Tenison to let the King know the true bearings of the case. Almost in pity, to spare Anne the misery of helpless waiting, Dr. Woodford consented to let her go under his escort, starting very early the next morning, since the King might immediately set off for the army in Holland, and the space was brief between condemnation and execution. Sir Edmund proposed to hurry to Carisbrooke Castle, being happily on good terms with that fiery personage, Lord Cutts, the governor of the Isle of Wight as well as a favoured general of the King, whose intercession might do more than Princess Anne's. Moreover, a message came from old Mr. Cromwell, begging to see Sir Edmund. It was on behalf of Major Oakshott, who entreated that Sir Philip might be assured of his own great regret at the prosecution and the result, and his entire belief that the provocation came from his unhappy son. Both he and Richard Cromwell were having a petition for pardon drawn up, which Sir Henry Mildmay and almost all the leading gentlemen of Hampshire of both parties were sure to sign, while the sheriff would defer the execution as long as possible. Pardons, especially in cases of duelling, had been marketable articles in the last reigns, and there could not but be a sigh for such conveniences. Sir Philip wanted to go at once to the jail, which was very near the inn, but consented on strong persuasion to let his son-in-law precede him. Anne longed for a few moments to herself, but durst not leave the poor old man, who sat holding her hand, and at each interval of silence saying how this would kill the boy's mother, or something equally desponding, so that she had to talk almost at random of the various gleams of hope, and even to describe how the little Duke of Gloucester might be told of Philip and sent to the King, who was known to be very fond of him. It was a great comfort when Dr. Woodford came and offered to pray with them. By and by Sir Edmund returned, having been making arrangements for Charles's comfort. Ordinary prisoners were heaped together and miserably treated, but money could do something, and by application to the High Sheriff, permission had been secured for Charles to occupy a private room, on a heavy fee to the jailor, and for his friends to have access to him, besides other necessaries, purchased at more than their weight in gold. Sir Edmund brought word that Charles was in good heart; sent love and duty to his father, whom he would welcome with all his soul, but that as Miss Woodford was--in her love and bravery--going so soon to London, he prayed that she might be his first visitor that evening. There was little more to do than to cross the street, and Sir Edmund hurried her through the flagged and dirty yard, and the dim, foul hall, filled with fumes of smoke and beer, where melancholy debtors held out their hands, idle scapegraces laughed, heavy degraded faces scowled, and evil sounds were heard, up the stairs to a nail-studded door, where Anne shuddered to hear the heavy key turned by the coarse, rude-looking warder, only withheld from insolence by the presence of a magistrate. Her escort tarried outside, and she saw Charles, his rush-light candle gleaming on his gold lace as he wrote a letter to the ambassador to be forwarded by his father. He sprang up with outstretched arms and an eager smile. "My brave sweetheart! how nobly you have done. Truth and trust. It did my heart good to hear you." Her head was on his shoulder. She wanted to speak, but could not without loosing the flood of tears. "Faith entire," he went on; "and you are still striving for me." "Princess Anne is--" she began, then the choking came. "True!" he said. "Come, do not expect the worst. I have not made up my mind to that! If the ambassador will stir, the King will not be disobliging, though it will probably not be a free pardon, but Hungary for some years to come--and you are coming with me." "If you will have one who might be--may have been--your death. Oh, every word I said seemed to me stabbing you;" and the tears would come now. "No such thing! They only showed how true my love is to God and me, and made my heart swell with pride to hear her so cheering me through all." His strength seemed to allow her to break down. She had all along had to bear up the spirits of Sir Philip and Lady Archfield, and though she had struggled for composure, the finding that she had in him a comforter and support set the pent-up tears flowing fast, as he held her close. "Oh, I did not mean to vex you thus!" she said. "Vex! no indeed! 'Tis something to be wept for. But cheer up, Anne mine. I have often been in far worse plights than this, when I have ridden up in the face of eight big Turkish guns. The balls went over my head then, by God's good mercy. Why not the same now? Ay! and I was ready to give all I had to any one who would have put a pistol to my head and got me out of my misery, jolting along on the way to the Iron Gates. Yet here I am! Maybe the Almighty brought me back to save poor Sedley, and clear my own conscience, knowing well that though it does not look so, it is better for me to die thus than the other way. No, no; 'tis ten to one that you and the rest of you will get me off. I only meant to show you that supposing it fails, I shall only feel it my due, and much better for me than if I had died out there with it unconfessed. I shall try to get them all to feel it so, and, after all, now the whole is out, my heart feels lighter than it has done these seven years. And if I could only believe that poor fellow alive, I could almost die content, though that sounds strange. It will quiet his poor restless spirit any way." "You are too brave. Oh! I hoped to come here to comfort you, and I have only made you comfort me." "The best way, sweetest. Now, I will seal and address this letter, and you shall take it to Mr. Fellowes to carry to the ambassador." This gave Anne a little time to compose herself, and when he had finished, he took the candle, and saying, "Look here," he held it to the wall, and they read, scratched on the rough bricks, "Alice Lisle, 1685. This is thankworthy." "Lady Lisle's cell! Oh, this is no good omen!" "I call it a goodly legacy even to one who cannot claim to suffer wrongfully," said Charles. "There, they knock--one kiss more--we shall meet again soon. Don't linger in town, but give me all the days you can. Yes, take her back, Sir Edmund, for she must rest before her journey. Cheer up, love, and do not lie weeping all night, but believe that your prayers to God and man must prevail one way or another."	{ "id": "12449" }
31	ELF-LAND	"Three ruffians seized me yestermorn, Alas! a maiden most forlorn; They choked my cries with wicked might, And bound me on a palfrey white." S. T. COLERIDGE. Yet after the night it was with more hope than despondency, Anne, in the February morning, mounted en croupe behind Mr. Fellowes's servant, that being decided on as the quickest mode of travelling. She saw the sunrise behind St. Catherine's Hill, and the gray mists filling the valley of the Itchen, and the towers of the Cathedral and College barely peeping beyond them. Would her life rise out of the mist? Through hoar-frosted hedges, deeply crested with white, they rode, emerging by and by on downs, becoming dully green above, as the sun touched them, but white below. Suddenly, in passing a hollow, overhung by two or three yew-trees, they found themselves surrounded by masked horsemen. The servant on her horse was felled, she herself snatched off and a kerchief covered her face, while she was crying, "Oh sir, let me go! I am on business of life and death." The covering was stuffed into her mouth, and she was borne along some little way; then there was a pause, and she freed herself enough to say, "You shall have everything; only let me go;" and she felt for the money with which Sir Philip had supplied her, and for the watch given her by King James. "We want you; nothing of yours," said a voice. "Don't be afraid. No one will hurt you; but we must have you along with us." Therewith she was pinioned by two large hands, and a bandage was made fast over her eyes, and when she shrieked out, "Mr. Fellowes! Oh! where are you?" she was answered-- "No harm has been done to the parson. He will be free as soon as any one comes by. 'Tis you we want. Now, I give you fair notice, for we don't want to choke you; there's no one to hear a squall. If there were, we should gag you, so you had best be quiet, and you shall suffer no hurt. Now then, by your leave, madam." She was lifted on horseback again, and a belt passed round her and the rider in front of her. Again she strove, in her natural voice, to plead that to stop her would imperil a man's life, and to implore for release. "We know all that," she was told. It was not rudely said. The voice was not that of a clown; it was a gentleman's pronunciation, and this was in some ways more inexplicable and alarming. The horses were put in rapid motion; she heard the trampling of many hoofs, and felt that they were on soft turf, and she knew that for many miles round Winchester it was possible to keep on the downs so as to avoid any inhabited place. She tried to guess, from the sense of sunshine that came through her bandage, in what direction she was being carried, and fancied it must be southerly. On--on--on--still the turf. It seemed absolutely endless. Time was not measurable under such circumstances, but she fancied noon must have more than passed, when the voice that had before spoken said, "We halt in a moment, and shift you to another horse, madam; but again I forewarn you that our comrades here have no ears for you, and that cries and struggles will only make it the worse for you." Then came the sound as of harder ground and a stop-- undertones, gruff and manly, could be heard, the peculiar noise of horses' drinking; and her captor came up this time on foot, saying, "Plaguy little to be had in this accursed hole; 'tis but the choice between stale beer and milk. Which will you prefer?" She could not help accepting the milk, and she was taken down to drink it, and a hunch of coarse barley bread was given to her, with it the words, "I would offer you bacon, but it tastes as if Old Nick had smoked it in his private furnace." Such expressions were no proof that gentle blood was lacking, but whose object could her abduction be--her, a penniless dependent? Could she have been seized by mistake for some heiress? In that moment's hope she asked, "Sir, do you know who I am--Anne Woodford, a poor, portionless maid, not--" "I know perfectly well, madam," was the reply. "May I trouble you to permit me to mount you again?" She was again placed behind one of the riders, and again fastened to him, and off they went, on a rougher horse, on harder ground, and, as she thought, occasionally through brushwood. Again a space, to her illimitable, went by, and then came turf once more, and by and by what seemed to her the sound of the sea. Another halt, another lifting down, but at once to be gathered up again, and then a splashing through water. "Be careful," said the voice. A hand, a gentleman's hand, took hers; her feet were on boards--on a boat; she was drawn down to sit on a low thwart. Putting her hand over, she felt the lapping of the water and tasted that it was salt. "Oh, sir, where are you taking me?" she asked, as the boat was pushed off. "That you will know in due time," he answered. Some more refreshment was offered her in a decided but not discourteous manner, and she partook of it, remembering that exhaustion might add to her perils. She perceived that after pushing off from shore sounds of eating and low gruff voices mingled with the plash of oars. Commands seemed to be given in French, and there were mutterings of some strange language. Darkness was coming on. What were they doing with her? And did Charles's fate hang upon hers? Yet in spite of terrors and anxieties, she was so much worn out as to doze long enough to lose count of time, till she was awakened by the rocking and tossing of the boat and loud peremptory commands. She became for the first time in her life miserable with sea- sickness, for how long it was impossible to tell, and the pitching of the boat became so violent that when she found herself bound to one of the seats she was conscious of little but a longing to be allowed to go to the bottom in peace, except that some great cause-- she could hardly in her bewildered wretchedness recollect what-- forbade her to die till her mission was over. There were loud peremptory orders, oaths, sea phrases, in French and English, sometimes in that unknown tongue. Something expressed that a light was directing to a landing-place, but reaching it was doubtful. "Unbind her eyes," said a voice; "let her shift for herself." "Better not." There followed a fresh upheaval, as if the boat were perpendicular; a sudden sinking, some one fell over and bruised her; another frightful rising and falling, then smoothness; the rope that held her fast undone; the keel grating; hands apparently dragging up the boat. She was lifted out like a doll, carried apparently through water over shingle. Light again made itself visible; she was in a house, set down on a chair, in the warmth of fire, amid a buzz of voices, which lulled as the bandage was untied and removed. Her eyes were so dazzled, her head so giddy, her senses so faint, that everything swam round her, and there that strange vision recurred. Peregrine Oakshott was before her. She closed her eyes again, as she lay back in the chair. "Take this; you will be better." A glass was at her lips, and she swallowed some hot drink, which revived her so that she opened her eyes again, and by the lights in an apparently richly curtained room, she again beheld that figure standing by her, the glass in his hand. "Oh!" she gasped. "Are you alive?" The answer was to raise her still gloved hand with substantial fingers to a pair of lips. "Then--then--he is safe! Thank God!" she murmured, and shut her eyes again, dizzy and overcome, unable even to analyse her conviction that all would be well, and that in some manner he had come to her rescue. "Where am I?" she murmured dreamily. "In Elf-land?" "Yes; come to be Queen of it." The words blended with her confused fancies. Indeed she was hardly fully conscious of anything, except that a woman's hands were about her, and that she was taken into another room, where her drenched clothes were removed, and she was placed in a warm, narrow bed, where some more warm nourishment was put into her mouth with a spoon, after which she sank into a sleep of utter exhaustion. That sleep lasted long. There was a sensation of the rocking of the boat, and of aching limbs, through great part of the time; also there seemed to be a continual roaring and thundering around her, and such strange misty visions, that when she finally awoke, after a long interval of deeper and sounder slumber, she was incapable of separating the fact from the dream, more especially as head and limbs were still heavy, weary, and battered. The strange roaring still sounded, and sometimes seemed to shake the bed. Twilight was coming in at a curtained window, and showed a tiny chamber, with rafters overhead and thatch, a chest, a chair, and table. There was a pallet on the floor, and Anne suspected that she had been wakened by the rising of its occupant. Her watch was on the chair by her side, but it had not been wound, and the dim light did not increase, so that there was no guessing the time; and as the remembrance of her dreadful adventures made themselves clear, she realised with exceeding terror that she must be a prisoner, while the evening's apparition relegated itself to the world of dreams. Being kidnapped to be sent to the plantations was the dread of those days. But if such were the case, what would become of Charles? In the alarm of that thought she sat up in bed and prepared to rise, but could nowhere see her clothes, only the little cloth bag of toilet necessaries that she had taken with her. At that moment, however, the woman came in with a steaming cup of chocolate in her hand and some of the garments over her arm. She was a stout, weather-beaten, kindly-looking woman with a high white cap, gold earrings, black short petticoat, and many-coloured apron. "Monsieur veut savoir si mademoiselle va bien?" said she in slow careful French, and when questions in that language were eagerly poured out, she shook her head, and said, "Ne comprends pas." She, however, brought in the rest of the clothes, warm water, and a light, so that Anne rose and dressed, exceedingly perplexed, and wondering whether she could be in a ship, for the sounds seemed to say so, and there was no corresponding motion. Could she be in France? Certainly the voyage had seemed interminable, but she did not think it _could_ have been long enough for that, nor that any person in his senses would try to cross in an open boat in such weather. She looked at the window, a tiny slip of glass, too thick to show anything but what seemed to be a dark wall rising near at hand. Alas! she was certainly a prisoner! In whose hands? With what intent? How would it affect that other prisoner at Winchester? Was that vision of last night substantial or the work of her exhausted brain? What could she do? It was well for her that she could believe in the might of prayer. She durst not go beyond her door, for she heard men's tones, suppressed and gruff, but presently there was a knock, and wonder of wonders, she beheld Hans, black Hans, showing all his white teeth in a broad grin, and telling her that Missee Anne's breakfast was ready. The curtain that overhung the door was drawn back, and she passed into another small room, with a fire on the open hearth, and a lamp hung from a beam, the walls all round covered with carpets or stuffs of thick glowing colours, so that it was like the inside of a tent. And in the midst, without doubt, stood Peregrine Oakshott, in such a dress as was usually worn by gentlemen in the morning--a loose wrapping coat, though with fine lace cuffs and cravat, all, like the shoes and silk stockings, worn with his peculiar daintiness, and, as was usual when full-bottomed wigs were the rule in grande tenue, its place supplied by a silken cap. This was olive green with a crimson tassel, which had assumed exactly the characteristic one-sided Riquet-with-a-tuft aspect. For the rest, these years seemed to have made the slight form slighter and more wiry, and the face keener, more sallow, and more marked. He bowed low with the foreign courtesy which used to be so offensive to his contemporaries, and offered a delicate, beringed hand to lead the young lady to the little table, where grilled fowl and rolls, both showing the cookery of Hans, were prepared for her. "I hope you rested well, and have an appetite this morning." "Sir, what does it all mean? Where am I?" asked Anne, drawing herself up with the native dignity that she felt to be her defence. "In Elf-land," he said, with a smile, as he heaped her plate. "Speak in earnest," she entreated. "I cannot eat till I understand. It is no time for trifling! Life and death hang on my reaching London! If you saved me from those men, let me go free." "No one can move at present," he said. "See here." He drew back a curtain, opened first one door and then another, and she saw sheets of driving rain, and rising, roaring waves, with surf which came beating in on the force of such a fearful gust of wind that Peregrine hastily shut the door, not without difficulty. "Nobody can stir at present," he said, as they came into the warm bright room again. "It is a frightful tempest, the worst known here for years, they say. The dead-lights, as they call them, have been put in, or the windows would be driven in. Come and taste Hans's work; you know it of old. Will you drink tea? Do you remember how your mother came to teach mine to brew it, and how she forgave me for being graceless enough to squirt at her?" There was something so gentle and reassuring in the demeanour of this strange being that Anne, convinced of the utter hopelessness of confronting the storm, as well as of the need of gathering strength, allowed herself to be placed in a chair, and to partake of the food set before her, and the tea, which was served without milk, in an exquisite dragon china cup, but with a saucer that did not match it. "We don't get our sets perfect," said Peregrine, with a smile, who was waiting on her as if she were a princess. "I entreat you to tell me where we are!" said Anne. "Not in France?" "No, not in France! I wish we were." "Then--can this be the Island?" "Yes, the Island it is," said Peregrine, both speaking as South Hants folk; "this is the strange cave or chasm called Black Gang Chine." "Black Gang! Oh! the highwaymen, the pirates! You have saved me from them. Were they going to send me to the plantations?" "You need have no fears. No one shall touch you, or hurt you. You shall see no one save by your own consent, my queen." "And when this storm is passed--Oh!" as a more fearful roar and dash sounded as if the waves were about to sweep away their frail shelter--"you will come with me and save Mr. Archfield's life? You cannot know--" "I know," he interrupted; "but why should I be solicitous for his life? That I am here now is no thanks to him, and why should I give up mine for the sake of him who meant to make an end of me?" "You little know how he repented. And your own life? What do you mean?" "People don't haunt the Black Gang Chine when their lives are secure from Dutch Bill," he answered. "Don't be terrified, my queen; though I cannot lay claim, like Prospero, to having raised this storm by my art magic, yet it perforce gives me time to make you understand who and what I am, and how I have recovered my better angel to give her no mean nor desperate career. It will be better thus than with the suddenness with which I might have had to act." A new alarm seized upon Anne as to his possible intentions, but she would not forestall what she so much apprehended, and, sensible that self-control alone could guard her, since escape at present was clearly impossible, she resigned herself to sit opposite to him by the ample hearth of what she perceived to be a fisherman's hut, thus fitted up luxuriously with, it might be feared, the spoils of the sea. The story was a long one, and not by any means told consecutively or without interruption, and all the time those eyes were upon her, one yellow the other green, with the effect she knew so well of old in childish days, of repulsion yet compulsion, of terror yet attraction, as if irresistibly binding a reluctant will. Several times Peregrine was called off to speak to some one outside the door, and at noon he begged permission for his friends to dine with them, saying that there was no other place where the dinner could be taken to them comfortably in this storm.	{ "id": "12449" }
32	SEVEN YEARS	"It was between the night and day, When the Fairy King has power, That I sunk down in a sinful fray, And 'twixt life and death was snatched away To the joyless Elfin bower." SCOTT. This motto was almost the account that the twisted figure, with queer contortions of face, yet delicate feet and hands, and dainty utterance, might have been expected to give, when Anne asked him, "Was it you, really?" "I--or my double?" he asked. "When?" She told him, and he seemed amazed. "So you were there? Well, you shall hear. You know how things stood with me--your mother, my good spirit, dead, my uncle away, my father bent on driving me to utter desperation, and Martha Browning laying her great red hands on me--" "Oh, sir, she really loved you, and is far wiser and more tolerant than you thought her." "I know," he smiled grimly. "She buried the huge Scot that was killed in the great smuggling fray under the Protector, with all honours, in our family vault, and had a long-winded sermon preached on my untimely end. Ha! ha!" with his mocking laugh. "Don't, sir! If you had seen your father then! Why did no one come forward and explain?" "Mayhap there were none at hand who knew, or wished to meddle with the law," he said. "Well, things were beyond all bearing at home, and you were going away, and would not so much as look at me. Now, one of the few sports my father did not look askance at was fishing, and he would endure my being out at night with, as he thought, poor man, old Pete Perring, who was as stern a Puritan as himself; but I had livelier friends, and more adventurous. They had connections with French free-traders for brandy and silks, and when they found I was one with them, my French tongue was a boon to them, till I came to have a good many friends among the Norman fishermen, and to know the snug hiding-places about the coast. So at last I made up my mind to be off with them, and make my way to my uncle in Muscovy. I had raised money enough at play and on the jewels one picks up in an envoy's service, and there was one good angel whom I meant to take with me if I could secure her and bind her wings. Now you know with what hopes I saw you gathering flowers alone that morning." Anne clasped her hands; Charles had truly interfered with good cause. "I had all arranged," he continued; "my uncle would have given you a hearty welcome, and made our peace with my father, or if not, he would have left us all his goods, and secured my career. What call had that great lout, with a wife of his own too, to come thrusting between us? I thought I should make short work of him, and give him a lesson against meddling--great unlicked cub as he was, while I had had the best training at Berlin and Paris in fencing; but somehow those big strong fellows, from their very clumsiness, throw one out. And he meant mischief--yes, that he did. I saw it in his eyes. I suppose his sulky rustic jealousy was a-fire at a few little civilities to that poor little wife of his. Any way, when he bore me down like the swing of a windmill, he drove his sword home. Talk of his being innocent! Why should he never look whether I were dead or alive, but fling me headlong into that pit?" Anne could not but utter her eager defence, but it was met with a sinister smile, half of scorn, half of pity, and as she would have gone on, "Hush! your pleading only fills up the measure of my loathing." Her heart sank, but she let him go on, listening perhaps less attentively as she considered how to take him. "In fact," he continued, "little as the lubber knew it, 'twas the best he could have done for me. For though I never looked for such luck as your being out in the court at that hour, I did think the chance not to be lost of visiting the garden or the churchyard, and there were waiting in the vault a couple of stout Normans, who were to come at my whistle. It seems that when I came tumbling down in their midst, senseless and bleeding like a calf, they did not take it quite so easily as your champion above, but began doing what they could for me, and were trying to staunch the wound, when they heard a trampling and a rumbling overhead, and being aware that our undertaking might look ugly in the sight of the law, and thinking this might be pursuers, they carried me off with all speed, not so much as stopping to pick up the things that have made such a commotion. Was there any pursuit?" "Oh no; it must have been the haymakers." "No doubt. The place was in no great favour with our own people; they were in awe of the big Scot, who is in comfortable quarters in my grave, and the Frenchmen could not have found their way thither, so it was let alone till Mistress Martha's researches. So I came to myself in the boat in which they took me on board the lugger that was waiting for us; and instead of making for Alderney, as I had intended, so as to get the knot safely tied to your satisfaction, they sailed straight for Havre. They had on board a Jesuit father, whom I had met once or twice among the Duke of Berwick's people, but who had found Portsmouth too hot to hold him in the frenzy of Protestant zeal on the Bishops' account. He had been beset, and owed his life, he says, to the fists of the Breton and Norman sailors, who had taken him on board. It was well for me, for I doubt if ever I was tough enough to have withstood my good friends' treatment. He had me carried to a convent in Havre, where the fathers nursed me well; and before I was on my legs again, I had made up my mind to cast in my lot with them, or rather with their Church." "Oh!" "I had been baulked of winning the one being near whom my devil never durst come. And blood-letting had pretty well disposed of him. I was as meek and mild as milk under the good fathers. Moreover, as my good friend at Turin had told me, and they repeated it, such a doubly heretical baptism as mine was probably invalid, and accounted for my being as much a vessel of wrath as even my father was pleased to call me. There was the Queen's rosary drawing me too. Everything else was over with me, and it seemed to open a new life. So, bless me, what a soft and pious frame I was in when they chastened me, water, oil, salt and all, on what my father raged at folks calling Lammas Day, but which it seems really belongs to St. Peter in the Fetters. So I was named Pierre or Piers after him, thus keeping my own initial." "Piers! oh! not Piers Pigwiggin?" "Pierre de Pilpignon, if you please. I have a right to that too; but we shall come to it by and by. I can laugh now, or perhaps weep, over the fervid state I was in then, as if I had trodden down my snake, and by giving up everything--you, estate, career, I could keep him down. So it was settled that I would devote myself to the priesthood--don't laugh! --and I was ordered off to their seminary in London, partly, I believe, for the sake of piloting a couple of fathers, who could not speak a word of English. It was, as they rightly judged, the last place where my father would think of looking for me, but they did not as rightly judge that we should long keep possession there. Matters grew serious, and it was not over safe in the streets. There was a letter of importance from a friend in Holland, carrying the Prince of Orange's hypocritical Declaration, which was to be got to Father Petre or the King on the night--Hallowmas Eve it was--and I was told off to put on a secular dress, which I could wear more naturally than most of them, and convey it." "Ah, that explains!" "Apparition number one! I guessed you were somewhere in those parts, and looked up at the windows, and though I did not see you, I believe it was your eyes that first sent a thrill through me that boded ill for Roman orders. After that we lived in a continual state of rumours and alarms, secret messages and expeditions, until I, being strong in the arm and the wind and a feather-weight, was one of those honoured by rowing the Queen and Prince across the river. M. de St. Victor accepted me. He told me there would be two nurses, but never knew or cared who they were, nor did I guess, as we sat in the dark, how near I was to you. And only for one second did I see your face, as you were entering the carriage, and I blessed you the more for what you were doing for Her Majesty." He proceeded to tell how he had accompanied the Jesuit fathers, on their leaving London, to the great English seminary at Douai, and being for the time convinced by them that his feelings towards Anne were a delusion of the enemy, he had studied with all his might, and as health and monotony of life began to have their accustomed effect in rousing the restlessness and mischievousness of his nature, with all the passions of manhood growing upon him, he strove to force them down by fasting and scourging. He told, in a bitter, almost savage way, of his endeavours to flog his demon out of himself, and of his anger and disappointment at finding Piers Pilgrim in the seminary of Douai, quite as subject to his attacks as ever was Perry Oakshott under a sermon of Mr. Horncastle's. Then came the information among the students that the governor of the city, the Marquis de Nidemerle, had brought some English gentlemen and ladies to visit the gardens. As most of the students were of British families there was curiosity as to who they were, and thus Peregrine heard that one was young Archfield of the Hampshire family, with his tutor, and the lady was Mistress Darpent, daughter to a French lawyer, who had settled in England after the Fronde. Anne's name had not transpired, for she was viewed merely as an attendant. Peregrine had been out on some errand in the town, and had a distant view of his enemy as he held him, flaunting about with a fine lady on his arm, forgetting the poor little pretty wife whom no doubt he had frightened to death." "Oh! you little know how tenderly he speaks of her." "Tenderly! --that's the way they speak of me at Oakwood, eh? Human, not to say elf, nature, could not withstand giving the fellow a start. I sped off, whipped into the Church, popped into a surplice I found ready to hand, caught up a candle, and! --Little did I think who it was that was hanging on his arm. So little did I know it that my heart began to be drawn to St. Germain, where I still imagined you. Altogether, after that prank, all broke out again. I entertained the lads with a few more freaks, for which I did ample penance, but it grew on me that in my case all was a weariness and a sham, and that my demon might get a worse hold of me if I got into a course of hypocrisy. They were very good to me, those fathers, but Jesuits as they were, I doubt whether they ever fathomed me. Any way, perhaps they thought I should be a scandal, but they agreed with me that their order was not my vocation, and that we had better part before my fiend drove me to do so with dishonour. They even gave me recommendations to the French officers that were besieging Tournay. I knew the Duke of Berwick a little at Portsmouth, and it ended in my becoming under-secretary to the Duke of Chartres. A man who knows languages has his value among Frenchmen, who despise all but their own." Peregrine did not enter into full details of this stage of his career, and Anne was not fully informed of the habits that the young Duke of Chartres, the future Regent Duke of Orleans, was already developing, but she gathered that, what the young man called his demon, had nearly undisputed sway over him, and she had not spent eight months at St. Germain without knowing by report of the dissolute manners of the substratum of fashionable society at Paris, even though outward decorum had been restored by Madame de Maintenon. Yet he seemed to have been crossed by fits of vehement penitence, and almost the saddest part of the story was the mocking tone in which he alluded to these. He had sought service at the Court in the hope of meeting Miss Woodford there, and had been grievously disappointed when he found that she had long since returned to England. The sight of the gracious and lovely countenance of the exiled Queen seemed always to have moved and touched him, as in some inexplicable manner her eyes and expression recalled to him those of Mrs. Woodford and Anne; but the thought had apparently only stung him into the sense of being forsaken and abandoned to his own devices or those of his evil spirit. One incident, occurring some three years previously, he told more fully, as it had a considerable effect on his life. "I was attending the Duke in the gardens at Versailles," he said, "when we were aware of a great commotion. All the gentlemen were standing gazing up into the top of a great chestnut tree, the King and all, and in the midst stood the Abbe de Fenelon with his little pupils, the youngest, the Duke of Anjou, sobbing piteously, and the Duke of Burgundy in a furious passion, stamping and raging, and only withheld from rolling on the ground by the Abbe's hand grasping his shoulder. 'I will not have him killed! He is mine,' he cried. And up in the tree, the object of all their gaze, was a monkey with a paper fluttering in his hand. Some one had made a present of the creature to the King's grandsons; he was the reigning favourite, and having broken his chain, had effected an entrance by the window into the King's cabinet, where after giving himself the airs of a minister of state, on being interrupted, he had made off through the window with an important document, which he was affecting to peruse at his leisure, only interrupting himself to hurl down leaves or unripe chestnuts at those who attempted to pelt him with stones, and this only made him mount higher and higher, entirely out of their reach, for no one durst climb after him. I believe it was a letter from the King of Spain; at any rate the whole Cabinet was in agony lest the brute should proceed to tear it into fragments, and a musqueteer had been sent for to shoot him down. I remembered my success with the monkey on poor little Madam Archfield's back--nay, perhaps 'twas the same, my familiar taking shape. I threw myself at the King's feet, and desired permission to deal with the beast. By good luck it had not been so easy as they supposed to find a musquet fit for immediate use, so I had full time. To ascend the tree was no more than I had done many times before, and I went high in the branches, but cautiously, not to give Monsieur le Singe the idea of being pursued, lest he should leap to a bough incapable of supporting me. When I had reached a fork tolerably high, and where he could see me, I settled myself, took out a letter, which fortunately was in my pocket, read it with the greatest deliberation, the monkey watching me all the time, and finally I proceeded to fold it neatly in all its creases. The creature imitated me with its black fingers, little aware, poor thing, that the musqueteer had covered him with his weapon, and was waiting for the first sign of tearing the letter to pull the trigger, but withheld by a sign from the King, who did not wish to sacrifice his grandson's pet before his eyes. Finally, after finishing the folding, I doubled it a second time, and threw it at the animal. To my great joy he returned the compliment by throwing the other at my head. I was able to catch it, and moreover, as he was disposed to go in pursuit of his plaything, he swung his chain so near me that I got hold of it, twisted it round my arm, and made the best of my way down the tree, amid the 'Bravos!' started by the royal lips themselves, and repeated with ecstasy by all the crowd, who waved their hats, and made such a hallooing that I had much ado to get the monkey down safely; but finally, all dishevelled, with my best cuffs and cravat torn to ribbons, and my wig happily detached, unlike Absalom's, for it remained in the tree, I had the honour of presenting on my knee the letter to the King, and the monkey to the Princes. I kissed His Majesty's hand, the little Duke of Anjou kissed the monkey, and the Duke of Burgundy kissed me with arms round my neck, then threw himself on his knees before his grandfather to ask pardon for his passion. Every one said my fortune was made, and that my agility deserved at least the cordon bleu. My own Duke of Chartres, who in many points is like his cousin, our late King Charles, gravely assured me that a new office was to be invented for me, and that I was to be Grand Singier du Roi. I believe he pushed my cause, and so did the little Duke of Burgundy, and finally I got the pension without the office, and a good deal of occasional employment besides, in the way of translation of documents. There were moments of success at play. Oh yes, quite fairly, any one with wits about him can make his profit in the long-run among the Court set. And thus I had enough to purchase a pretty little estate and chateau on the coast of Normandy, the confiscated property of a poor Huguenot refugee, so that it went cheap. It gives the title of Pilpignon, which I assumed in kindness to the tongues of my French friends. So you see, I have a station and property to which to carry you, my fair one, won by myself, though only by catching an ape." He went on to say that the spot had been chosen advisedly, with a view to communication with the opposite coast, where his old connection with the smugglers was likely to be useful in the Jacobite plots. "As you well know," he said, "my father had done his utmost to make Whiggery stink in my nostrils, to say nothing of the kindness I have enjoyed from our good Queen; and I was ready to do my utmost in the cause, especially after I had stolen a glimpse of you, and when Charnock, poor fellow, returning from reconnoitring among the loyal, told me that you were still unmarried, and living as a dependent in the Archfields' house. Our headquarters were in Romney Marsh, but it was as well to have, as it were, a back door here, and as it has turned out it has been the saving of some of us." "Oh, sir! you were not in that wicked plot?" "Nay; surely _you_ are not turned Whig." "But this was assassination." "Not at all, if they would have listened to me. The Dutchman is no bigger than I am. I could have dropped on him from one of his trees at Hampton Court, or through a window, via presto, and we would have had him off by the river, given him an interview to beg his uncle's pardon, and despatched him for the benefit of his asthma to the company of the Iron Mask at St. Marguerite; then back again, the King to enjoy his own again, Dr. Woodford, archbishop or bishop of whatever you please, and a lady here present to be Marquise de Pilpignon, or Countess of Havant, whichever she might prefer. Yes, truly those were the hopes with which I renewed my communications with the contraband trade on this coast, a good deal more numerous since the Dutchman and his wars have raised the duties and driven many good men to holes and corners. "Ever since last spring, when the Princess Royal died, and thus extinguished the last spark of forbearance in the King's breast, I have been here, there, and everywhere--Romney Marsh, Drury Lane, Paris, besides this place and Pilpignon, where I have a snug harbour for the yacht, Ma Belle Annik, as the Breton sailors call her. The crew are chiefly Breton; it saves gossip; but I have a boat's crew of our own English folk here, stout fellows, ready for anything by land or sea." "The Black Gang," said Anne faintly. "Don't suppose I have meddled in their exploits on the road," he said, "except where a King's messenger or a Royal mail was concerned, and that is war, you know, for the cause. Unluckily my personal charms are not easily disguised, so that I have had to lurk in the background, and only make my private investigations in the guise of my own ghost." "Then so it was you saved the dear little Philip?" said Anne. "The Archfield boy? I could not see a child sent to his destruction by that villain Sedley, whoever were his father, for he meant mischief if ever man did. 'Twas superhuman scruple not to hold your peace and let him swing." "What was it, then, on his cousin's part?" Peregrine only answered with a shrug. It appeared further, that as long as the conspirators had entertained any expectation of success, he had merely kept a watch over Anne, intending to claim her in the hour of the triumph of his party, when he looked to enjoy such a position as would leave his brother free to enjoy his paternal inheritance. In the failure of all their schemes through Mr. Pendergrast's denunciation, Sir George Barclay, and one or two inferior plotters, had succeeded in availing themselves of the assistance of the Black Gang, and had been conducted by Peregrine to the hut that he had fitted up for himself. Still trusting to the security there, although his name of Piers Pilgrim or de Pilpignon had been among those given up to the Privy Council, he had insisted on lingering, being resolved that an attempt should be made to carry away the woman he had loved for so many years. Captain Burford had so disguised himself as to be able to attend the trial, loiter about the inn, and collect intelligence, while the others waited on the downs. Peregrine had watched over the capture, but being unwilling to disclose himself, had ridden on faster and crossed direct, traversing the Island on horseback, while the captive was rounding it in the boat. "As should never have been done," he said, "could I have foretold to what stress of weather you would be exposed while I was preparing for your reception. But for this storm--it rages louder than ever--we would have been married by a little parson whom Burford would have fetched from Portsmouth, and we should have been over the Channel, and my people hailing my bride with ecstasy." "Never!" exclaimed Anne. "Can you suppose I could accept one who would leave an innocent man to suffer?" "People sometimes are obliged to accept," said Peregrine. Then at her horrified start, "No, no, fear no violence; but is not something due to one who has loved you through exile all these years, and would lay down his life for you? you, the only being who overcomes his evil angel!" "This is what you call overcoming it," she said. "Nay; indeed, Mistress Anne, I would let the authorities know that they are hanging a man for murdering one who is still alive if I could; but no one would believe without seeing, and I and all who could bear witness to my existence would be rushing to an end even worse than a simple noose. You were ready enough to denounce him to save that worthless fellow." "Not ready. It tore my heart. But truth is truth. I could not do that wickedness. Oh! how can you? This _is_ the prompting of the evil spirit indeed, to expect me to join in leaving that innocent, generous spirit to die in cruel injustice. Let me go. I will not betray where you are. You will be safe in France; but there will yet be time for me to bear witness to your life. Write a letter. Your father would thankfully swear to your handwriting, and I think they would believe me. Only let me go." "And what then becomes of the hopes of a lifetime?" demanded Peregrine. "I, who have waited as long as Jacob, to be defrauded now I have you; and for the sake of the fellow who killed me in will if not in deed, and then ran away like a poltroon leaving you to bear the brunt!" "He did not act like a poltroon when he saved the life of his general, or when he rescued the colours of his regiment, still less when he stood up to save me from the pain of bearing witness against him, and to save a guiltless man," cried Anne, with flashing eyes. Before she had finished her indignant words, Hans was coming in from some unknown region to lay the cloth for supper, and Peregrine, with an imprecation under his breath, had gone to the door to admit his two comrades, who came into the narrow entry on a gust of wind as it were, struggling out of their cloaks, stamping and swearing. In the middle of the day, they had been much more restrained in their behaviour. There had at that time been a slight clearance in the sky, though the wind was as furious as ever, and they were in haste to despatch the meal and go out again to endeavour to stand on the heights and to watch some vessels that were being tossed by the storm. Almost all the conversation had then been on the chances of their weathering the tempest, and the probability of its lasting on, and they had hurried away as soon as possible. Anne had not then known who they were, and only saw that they were fairly civil to her, and kept under a certain constraint by Pilpignon, as they called their host. Now she fully knew the one who was addressed as Sir George to be Barclay, the prime mover in the wicked scheme of assassination of which all honest Tories had been so much ashamed, and she could see Captain Burford to be one of those bravoes who were only too plentiful in those days, attending on dissolute and violent nobles. She was the less inclined to admit their attentions, and shielded herself with a grave coldness of stately manners; but their talk was far more free than at noon, suggesting the thought that they had anticipated the meal with some of the Nantz or other liquors that seemed to be in plenty. They began by low bows of affected reverence, coarser and worse in the ruffian of inferior grade, and the knight complimented Pilpignon on being a lucky dog, and hoped he had made the best use of his time in spite of the airs of his duchess. It was his own fault if he were not enjoying such fair society, while they, poor devils, were buffeting with the winds, which had come on more violently than ever. Peregrine broke in with a question about the vessels in sight. There was an East Indiaman, Dutch it was supposed, laying-to, that was the cause of much excitement. "If she drives ashore our fellows will neither be to have nor to hold," said Sir George. "They will obey me," said Peregrine quietly. "More than the sea will just yet," laughed the captain. "However, as soon as this villainous weather is a bit abated, I'll be off across the Island to do your little errand, and only ask a kiss of the bride for my pains; but if the parson be at Portsmouth there will be no getting him to budge till the water is smooth. Never mind, madam, we'll have a merry wedding feast, whichever side of the water it is. I should recommend the voyage first for my part." All Anne could do was to sit as upright and still as she could, apparently ignoring the man's meaning. She did not know how dignified she looked, and how she was daunting his insolence. When presently Sir George Barclay proposed as a toast a health to the bride of to-morrow, she took her part by raising the glass to her lips as well as the gentlemen, and adding, "May the brides be happy, wherever they may be." "Coy, upon my soul," laughed Sir George. "You have not made the best of your opportunities, Pil." But with an oath, "It becomes her well." "A truce with fooling, Barclay," muttered Peregrine. "Come, come, remember faint heart--no lowering your crest, more than enough to bring that devilish sparkle in the eyes, and turn of the neck!" "Sir," said Anne rising, "Monsieur de Pilpignon is an old neighbour, and understands how to respect his most unwilling guest. I wish you a good-night, gentlemen. Guennik, venez ici, je vous prie." Guennik, the Breton boatswain's wife, understood French thus far, and comprehended the situation enough to follow willingly, leaving the remainder of the attendance to Hans, who was fully equal to it. The door was secured by a long knife in the post, but Anne could hear plainly the rude laugh at her entrenchment within her fortress and much of the banter of Peregrine for having proceeded no further. It was impossible to shut out all the voices, and very alarming they were, as well as sometimes so coarse that they made her cheeks glow, while she felt thankful that the Bretonne could not understand. These three men were all proscribed traitors in haste to be off, but Peregrine, to whom the yacht and her crew belonged, had lingered to obtain possession of the lady, and they were declaring that now they had caught his game and given him his toy, they would brook no longer delay than was absolutely necessitated by the storm, and married or not married, he and she should both be carried off together, let the damsel-errant give herself what haughty airs she would. It was a weak concession on their part to the old Puritan scruples that he might have got rid of by this time, to attempt to bring about the marriage. They jested at him for being afraid of her, and then there were jokes about gray mares. The one voice she could not hear was Peregrine's, perhaps because he realised more than they did that she was within ear-shot, and besides, he was absolutely sober; but she thought he silenced them; and then she heard sounds of card-playing, which made an accompaniment to her agonised prayers.	{ "id": "12449" }
33	BLACK GANG CHINE	"Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace, Let us fly this cursed place, Lest the sorcerer us entice With some other new device. Not a word or needless sound Till we come to holier ground. I shall be your faithful guide Through this gloomy covert wide." MILTON. Never was maiden in a worse position than that in which Anne Woodford felt herself when she revolved the matter. The back of the Isle of Wight, all along the Undercliff, had always had a wild reputation, and she was in the midst of the most lawless of men. Peregrine alone seemed to have any remains of honour or conscience, and apparently he was in some degree in the hands of his associates. Even if the clergyman came, there was little hope in an appeal to him. Naval chaplains bore no good reputation, and Portsmouth and Cowes were haunted by the scum of the profession. All that seemed possible was to commit herself and Charles to Divine protection, and in that strength to resist to the uttermost. The tempest had returned again, and seemed to be raging as much as ever, and the delay was in her favour, for in such weather there could be no putting to sea. She was unwilling to leave the stronghold of her chamber, but Hans came to announce breakfast to her, telling her that the Mynheeren were gone, all but Massa Perry; and that gentleman came forward to meet her just as before, hoping 'those fellows had not disturbed her last night.' "I could not help hearing much," she said gravely. "Brutes!" he said. "I am sick of them, and of this life. Save for the King's sake, I would never have meddled with it." The roar of winds and waves and the beat of spray was still to be heard, and in the manifest impossibility of quitting the place and the desire of softening him, Anne listened while he talked in a different mood from the previous day. The cynical tone was gone, as he spoke of those better influences. He talked of Mrs. Woodford and his deep affection for her, of the kindness of the good priests at Havre and Douai, and especially of one Father Seyton, who had tried to reason with him in his bitter disappointment, and savage penitence on finding that 'behind the Cross lurks the Devil,' as much at Douai as at Havant. He told how a sermon of the Abbe Fenelon's had moved him, and how he had spent half a Lent in the severest penance, but only to have all swept away again in the wild and wicked revelry with which Easter came in. Again he described how his heart was ready to burst as he stood by Mrs. Woodford's grave at night and vowed to disentangle himself and lead a new life. "And with you I shall," he said. "No," she answered; "what you win by a crime will never do you good." "A crime! 'Tis no crime. You _know_ I mean honourable marriage. You owe no duty to any one." "It is a crime to leave the innocent to undeserved death," she said. "Do you love the fellow?" he cried, with a voice rising to a shout of rage. "Yes," she said firmly. "Why did not you say so before?" "Because I hoped to see you act for right and justice sake," was Anne's answer, fixing her eyes on him. "For God's sake, not mine." "Yours indeed! Think, what can be his love to mine? He who let them marry him to that child, while I struggled and gave up everything. Then he runs away--_runs away_--leaving you all the distress; never came near you all these years. Oh yes! he looks down on you as his child's governess! What's the use of loving him? There's another heiress bespoken for him no doubt." "No. His parents consent, and we have known one another's love for six years." "Oh, that's the way he bound you to keep his secret! He would sing another song as soon as he was out of this scrape." "You little know!" was all she said. "Ay!" continued Peregrine, pacing up and down the room, "you know that all that was wanting to fill up the measure of my hatred was that he should have stolen your heart." "You cannot say that, sir. He was my kind protector and helper from our very childhood. I have loved him with all my heart ever since I durst." "Ay, the great straight comely lubbers have it all their own way with the women," said he bitterly. "I remember how he rushed headlong at me with the horse-whip when I tripped you up at the Slype, and you have never forgiven that." "Oh! indeed I forgot that childish nonsense long ago. You never served me so again." "No indeed, never since you and your mother were the first to treat me like a human being. You will be able to do anything with me, sweetest lady; the very sense that you are under the same roof makes another man of me. I loathe what I used to enjoy. Why, the very sight of you, sitting at supper like the lady in Comus, in your sweet grave dignity, made me feel what I am, and what those men are. I heard their jests with your innocent ears. With you by my side the Devil's power is quelled. You shall have a peaceful beneficent life among the poor folk, who will bless you; our good and gracious Queen will welcome you with joy and gratitude; and when the good time comes, as it must in a few years, you will have honours and dignities lavished on you. Can you not see what you will do for me?" "Do you think a broken-hearted victim would be able to do you any good?" said she, looking up with tears in her eyes. "I _do_ believe, sir, that you mean well by me, in your own way, and I could, yes, I can, be sorry for you, for my mother did feel for you, and yours has been a sad life; but how could I be of any use or comfort to you if you dragged me away as these cruel men propose, knowing that he who has all my heart is dying guiltless, and thinking I have failed him!" and here she broke down in an agony of weeping, as she felt the old power in his eyes that enforced submission. He marched up and down in a sort of passion. "Don't let me see you weep for him! It makes me ready to strangle him with my own hands!" A shout of 'Pilpignon!' at the door here carried him off, leaving Anne to give free course to the tears that she had hitherto been able to restrain, feeling the need of self-possession. She had very little hope, since her affection for Charles Archfield seemed only to give the additional sting of jealousy, 'cruel as the grave,' to the vindictive temper Peregrine already nourished, and which certainly came from his evil spirit. She shed many tears, and sobbed unrestrainingly till the Bretonne came and patted her shoulder, and said, "Pauvre, pauvre!" And even Hans looked in, saying, "Missee Nana no cry, Massa Perry great herr--very goot." She tried to compose herself, and think over alternatives to lay before Peregrine. He might let her go, and carry to Sir Edmund Nutley letters to which his father would willingly swear, while he was out of danger in Normandy. Or if this was far beyond what could be hoped for, surely he could despatch a letter to his father, and for such a price she _must_ sacrifice herself, though it cost her anguish unspeakable to call up the thought of Charles, of little Philip, of her uncle, and the old people, who loved her so well, all forsaken, and with what a life in store for her! For she had not the slightest confidence in the power of her influence, whatever Peregrine might say and sincerely believe at present. If there were, more palpably than with all other human beings, angels of good and evil contending for him, swaying him now this way and now that; it was plain from his whole history that nothing had yet availed to keep him under the better influence for long together; and she believed that if he gained herself by these unjust and cruel means the worse spirit would thereby gain the most absolute advantage. If her heart had been free, and she could have loved him, she might have hoped, though it would have been a wild and forlorn hope; but as it was, she had never entirely surmounted a repulsion from him, as something strange and unnatural, a feeling involving fear, though here he was her only hope and protector, and an utter uncertainty as to what he might do. She could only hope that she might pine away and die quickly, and _perhaps_ Charles Archfield might know at last that it had been for his sake. And would it be in her power to make even such terms as these? How long she wept and prayed and tried to 'commit her way unto the Lord' she did not know, but light seemed to be making its way far more than previously through the shutters closed against the storm when Peregrine returned. "You will not be greatly troubled with those fellows to-day," he said; "there's a vessel come on the rocks at Chale, and every man and mother's son is gone after it." So saying he unfastened the shutters and let in a flood of sunshine. "You would like a little air," he said; "'tis all quiet now, and the tide is going down." After two days' dark captivity, Anne could not but be relieved by coming out, and she was anxious to understand where she was. It was, though only in March, glowing with warmth, as the sun beat against the cliffs behind, of a dark red brown, in many places absolutely black, in especial where a cascade, swelled by the rains into imposing size, came roaring, leaping, and sparkling down a sheer precipice. On either side the cove or chine was closely shut in by treeless, iron-coloured masses of rock, behind one of which the few inhabited hovels were clustered, and the boat which had brought her was drawn up. In front was the sea, still lashed by a fierce wind, which was driving the fantastically shaped remains of the great storm cloud rapidly across an intensely blue sky. The waves, although it was the ebb, were still tremendous, and their roar re-echoed as they reared to fearful heights and broke with the reverberations that she had heard all along. Peregrine kept quite high up, not venturing below the washed line of shingle, saying that the back draught of the waves was most perilous, and in a high wind could not be reckoned upon. "No escape!" he said, as he perceived Anne's gaze on the inaccessible cliff and the whole scene, the wild beauty of which was lost to her in its terrors. "Where's your ship?" she asked. "Safe in Whale Chine. No putting to sea yet, though it may be fair to-morrow." Then she put before him the first scheme she had thought out, of letting her escape to Sir Edmund Nutley's house, whence she could make her way back, taking with her a letter that would prove his existence without involving him or his friends in danger. And eagerly she argued, "You do not know me really! It is only an imagination that you can be the better for my presence." Then, unheeding his fervid exclamation, "It was my dear mother who did you good. What would she think of the way in which you are trying to gain me?" "That I cannot do without you." "And what would you have in me? I could be only wretched, and feel all my life--such a life as it would be--that you had wrecked my happiness. Oh yes! I do believe that you would try to make me happy, but don't you see that it would be quite impossible with such a grief as that in my heart, and knowing that you had caused it? I know you hate him, and he did you the wrong; but he has grieved for it, and banished himself. But above all, of this I am quite sure, that to persist in this horrible evil of leaving him to die, because of your revenge, and stealing me away, is truly giving Satan such a frightful advantage over you that it is mere folly to think that winning me in such a way could do you any good. It is just a mere delusion of his, to ruin us both, body and soul. Peregrine, will you not recollect my mother, and what she would think? Have pity on me, and help me away, and I would pledge myself never to utter a word of this place nor that could bring you and yours into danger. We would bless and pray for you always." "No use," he gloomily said. "I believe you, but the others will never believe a woman. No doubt we are watched even now by desperate men, who would rather shoot you than let you escape from our hands." It seemed almost in connection with these words that at that moment, from some unknown quarter, where probably there was an entrance to the Chine, Sir George Barclay appeared with a leathern case under his arm. It had been captured on the wreck, and contained papers which he wanted assistance in deciphering, since they were in Dutch, and he believed them to be either despatches or bonds, either of which might be turned to profit. These were carried indoors, and spread on the table, and as Anne sat by the window, dejected and almost hopeless as she was, she could not help perceiving that, though Peregrine was so much smaller and less robust than his companions, he exercised over them the dominion of intellect, energy, and will, as if they too felt the force of his strange eyes; and it seemed to her as if, supposing he truly desired it, whatever he might say, he must be able to deliver her and Charles; but that a being such as she had always known him should sacrifice both his love and his hate seemed beyond all hope, and "Change his heart! Turn our captivity, O Lord," could only be her cry. Only very late did Burford come back, full of the account of the wreck and of the spoils, and the struggles between the wreckers for the flotsam and jetsam. There was much of savage brutality mated with a cool indifference truly horrible to Anne, and making her realise into what a den of robbers she had fallen, especially as these narratives were diversified by consultations over the Dutch letters and bills of exchange in the wrecked East Indiaman, and how to turn them to the best advantage. Barclay and Burford were so full of these subjects that they took comparatively little notice of the young lady, only when she rose to retire, Burford made a sort of apology that this little business had hindered his going after the parson. He heard that the Salamander was at the castle, and redcoats all about, he said, and if the Annick could be got out to- morrow they must sail any way; and if Pil was still so squeamish, a Popish priest could couple them in a leash as tight as a Fleet parson could. And then Peregrine demanded whether Burford thought a Fleet parson the English for a naval chaplain, and there was some boisterous laughter, during which Anne shut herself up in her room in something very like despair, with that one ray of hope that He who had brought her back from exile before would again save her from that terrible fate. She heard card-playing and the jingle of glasses far into the night, as she believed, but it seemed to her as if she had scarcely fallen asleep before, to her extreme terror, she heard a knock and a low call at her door of 'Guennik.' Then as the Bretonne went to the door, through which a light was seen, a lantern was handed in, and a scrap of paper on which the words were written: "On second thoughts, my kindred elves at Portchester shall not be scared by a worricow. Dress quickly, and I will bring you out of this." For a moment Anne did not perceive the meaning of the missive, the ghastly idea never having occurred to her that if Charles had suffered, the gibbet would have been at Portchester. Then, with an electric flash of joy, she saw that it meant relenting on Peregrine's part, deliverance for them both. She put on her clothes with hasty, trembling hands, thankful to Guennik for helping her, pressed a coin into the strong toil-worn hand, and with an earnest thrill of thankful prayer opened the door. The driftwood fire was bright, and she saw Peregrine, looking deadly white, and equipped with slouched hat, short wrapping cloak, pistols and sword at his belt, dark lantern lighted on the table, and Hans also cloaked by his side. He bent his head in salutation, and put his finger to his lips, giving one hand to Anne, and showing by example instead of words that she must tread as softly as possible, as she perceived that he was in his slippers, Hans carrying his boots as well as the lantern she had used. Yet to her ears the roar of the advancing tide seemed to stifle all other sounds. Past the other huts they went in silence, then came a precipitous path up the cliff, steps cut in the hard sandy grit, but very crumbling, and in places supplemented by a rude ladder of sticks and rope. Peregrine went before Anne, Hans behind. Each had hung the lantern from his neck, so as to have hands free to draw her, support her, or lift her, as might be needful. How it was done she never could tell in after years. She might jestingly say that her lightened heart bore her up, but in her soul and in her deeper moments she thought that truly angels must have had charge over her. Up, up, up! At last they had reached standing ground, a tolerably level space, with another high cliff seeming to rise behind it. Here it was lighter--a pale streak of dawn was spreading over the horizon, both on sky and sea, and the waves still leaping glanced in the light of a golden waning moon, while Venus shone in the brightening sky, a daystar of hope. Peregrine drew a long breath, and gave an order in a very low voice in Dutch to Hans, who placed his boots before him, and went off towards a shed. "He will bring you a pony," said his master. "Excuse me;" and he was withdrawing his hand, when Anne clasped it with both hers, and said in a voice of intense feeling-- "Oh, how can I thank you and bless you! This _is_ putting the Evil Angel to flight." " 'Tis you that have done it! You see, I cannot do the wicked act where you are," he answered gloomily, as he turned aside to draw on his boots. "Ah! but you have won the victory over him!" "Do not be too sure. We are not out of reach of those rascals yet." He was evidently anxious for silence, and Anne said no more. Hans presently brought from some unknown quarter, a little stout pony bridled and saddled; of course not with a side saddle, but cloaks were arranged so as to make a fairly comfortable seat for Anne, and Peregrine led the animal on the ascent to St. Catherine's Down. It was light enough to dispense with the lanterns, and as they mounted higher the glorious sight of daybreak over the sea showed itself-- almost due east, the sharp points of the Needles showing up in a flood of pale golden light above and below, with gulls flashing white as they floated into sunlight, all seeming to Anne's thankful heart to be a new radiance of joy and hope after the dark roaring terrors of the Chine. As they came out into the open freedom of the down, with crisp silvery grass under their feet, the breadth of sea on one side, before them fertile fields and hills, and farther away, dimly seen in gray mist, the familiar Portsdown outlines, not a sound to be heard but the exulting ecstasies of larks, far, far above in the depths of blue, Peregrine dared to speak above his breath, with a question whether Anne were at ease in her extemporary side saddle, producing at the same time a slice of bread and meat, and a flask of wine. "Oh, how kind! What care you take of me!" she said. "But where are we going?" "Wherever you command," he said. "I had thought of Carisbrooke. Cutts is there, and it would be the speediest way." "Would it not be the most dangerous for you?" "I care very little for my life after this." "Oh no, no, you must not say so. After what you are doing for me you will be able to make it better than ever it has been. This is what I thought. If you would bring me in some place whence I could reach Sir Edmund Nutley's house at Parkhurst, his servants would help me to do the rest, even if he be not there himself. I would never betray you! You know I would not! And you would have full time to get away to your place in Normandy with your friends." "You care?" asked he. "Of course I do!" exclaimed she. "Do I not feel grateful to you, and like and honour you better than ever I could have thought?" "You do?" in a strange choked tone. "Of course I do. You are doing a noble, thankworthy thing. It is not only that I thank you for _his_ sake, but it is a grand and beautiful deed in itself; and if my dear mother know, she is blessing you for it." "I shall remember those words," he said, "if--" and he passed his hand over his eyes. "See here," he presently said; "I have written out a confession of my identity, and explanation that it was I who drew first on Archfield. It is enough to save him, and in case my handwriting has altered, as I think it has, and there should be further doubt, I shall be found at Pilpignon, if I get away. You had better keep it in case of accidents, or if you carry out your generous plan. Say whatever you please about me, but there is no need to mention Barclay or Burford; and it would not be fair to the honest free-traders here to explain where their Chine lies. I should have brought you up blindfold, if I could have done so with safety, not that _I_ do not trust you, but I should be better able to satisfy those fellows if I ever see them again, by telling them I have sworn you to secrecy." Then he laughed. "The gowks! I won all those Indian bonds of them last night, but left them in a parcel addressed to them as a legacy." Anne took the required pledge, and ventured to ask, "Shall I say anything for you to your father?" "My poor old father! Let him know that I neither would nor could disturb Robert in his inheritance, attainted traitor as the laws esteem me. For the rest, mayhap I shall write to him if the good angel you talk of will help me." "Oh do! I am sure he would rejoice to forgive. He is much softened." "Now, we must hush, and go warily. I see sheep, and if there is a shepherd, I want him not to see us, or point our way. It is well these Isle of Wight folk are not early risers."	{ "id": "12449" }
34	LIFE FOR LIFE	"Follow Light, and do the Right--for man can half-control his doom-- Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb. Forward, let the stormy moment fly and mingle with the Past. I that loathed, have come to love him. Love will conquer at the last." TENNYSON. On they had gone in silence for the most part, avoiding villages, but as the morning advanced and they came into more inhabited places, they were not able entirely to avoid meeting labourers going out to work, who stared at Hans's black face with curiosity. The sun was already high when they reached a cross-road whence the massive towers of Carisbrooke were seen above the hedges, and another turn led to Parkhurst. They paused a moment, and Anne was beginning to entreat her escort to leave her to proceed alone, when the sound of horses' feet galloping was heard behind them. Peregrine looked back. "Ah!" he said. "Ride on as fast as you can towards the castle. You will be all right. I will keep them back. Go, I say." And as some figures were seen at the end of the road, he pricked the pony with the point of his sword so effectually that it bolted forward, quite beyond Anne's power of checking it, and in a second or two its speed was quickened by shouts and shots behind. Anne felt, but scarcely understood at the moment, a sharp pang and thrill in her left arm, as the steed whirled her round the corner of the lane and full into the midst of a party of gentlemen on horseback coming down from the castle. "Help! help!" she cried. "Down there." Attacks by highwaymen were not uncommon experiences, though scarcely at eight o'clock in the morning, or so near a garrison, but the horsemen, having already heard the shots, galloped forward. Perhaps Anne could hardly have turned her pony, but it chose to follow the lead of its fellows, and in a few seconds they were in the midst of a scene of utter confusion. Peregrine was grappling with Burford trying to drag him from his horse. Both fell together, and as the auxiliaries came in sight there was another shot and two more men rode off headlong. "Follow them!" said a commanding voice. "What have we here?" The two struggling figures both lay still for a moment or two, but as some of the riders drew them apart Peregrine sat up, though blood was streaming down his breast and arm. "Sir," he said, "I am Peregrine Oakshott, on whose account young Archfield lies under sentence of death. If a magistrate will take my affidavit while I can make it, he will be safe." Then Anne heard a voice exclaiming: "Oakshott! Nay--why, this is Mistress Woodford! How came she here?" and she knew Sir Edmund Nutley. Still it was Peregrine who answered-- "I captured her, in the hope of marrying her, but that cannot be--I have brought her back in all safety and honour." "Sir! Sir, indeed he has been very good to me. Pray let him be looked to." "Let him be carried to the castle," said the commander of the party, a tall man sunburnt to a fiery red. "Is the other alive?" "Only stunned, my lord, I think and not much hurt," was the answer of an attendant officer; "but here is a poor blackamoor dead." "Poor Hans! Best so perhaps," murmured Peregrine, as he was lifted. Then in a voice of alarm, "Look to the lady, she is hurt." "It is nothing," cried she. "O Mr. Oakshott! that this should have happened!" "My lord, this is the young gentlewoman I told you of, betrothed to poor young Archfield," said Sir Edmund Nutley. Lord Cutts, for it was indeed William's favoured 'Salamander,' took off his plumed hat in salutation, and both gentlemen perceiving that she too was bleeding, she was solicitously invited to the castle, to be placed under the charge of the lieutenant-governor's wife. She found by this time that she was in a good deal of pain, and thankfully accepted the support Sir Edmund offered her, when he dismounted and walked beside her pony, while explanations passed between them. The weather had prevented any communication with the mainland, so that he was totally ignorant of her capture, and did not know what had become of Mr. Fellowes. He himself had been just starting with Lord Cutts, who was going to join the King for his next campaign, and they were to represent the case to the King. Anne told him in return what she dared to say, but she was becoming so faint and dazed that she was in great fear of not saying what she ought; and indeed she could hardly speak, when after passing under the great gateway, she was lifted off her horse, at the door of the dwelling-house, and helped upstairs to a bedroom, where the wife of the lieutenant-governor, Mrs. Dudley, was very tender over her with essences and strong waters, and a surgeon of the suite almost immediately came to her. "Oh," she exclaimed, "you should be with Mr. Oakshott." The surgeon explained that Mr. Oakshott would have nothing done for him till he had fully made and signed his deposition, in case the power should afterwards be wanting. So Anne submitted to the dressing of her hurt, which was only a flesh wound, the bone being happily untouched. Both the surgeon and Mrs. Dudley urged her going to bed immediately, but she was unwilling to put herself out of reach; and indeed the dressing was scarcely finished before Sir Edmund Nutley knocked at the door to ask whether she could admit him. "Lord Cutts is very desirous of speaking with you, if you are able," he said. "Here has this other fellow come round, declaring that Oakshott is the Pilpignon who was in the Barclay Plot, and besides, the prime leader of the Black Gang, of whom we have heard so much." "The traitor!" cried Anne. "Poor Mr. Oakshott was resolved not to betray him! How is he--Mr. Oakshott, I mean?" "The surgeon has him in his hands. We will send another from Portsmouth, but it looks like a bad case. He made his confession bravely, though evidently in terrible suffering, seeming to keep up by force of will till he had totally exonerated Archfield and signed the deposition, and then he fainted, so that I thought him dead, but I fear he has more to go through. Can you come to the hall, or shall I bring Lord Cutts to you? We must hasten in starting that we may bring the news to Winchester to-night." Anne much preferred going to the hall, though she felt weak enough to be very glad to lean on Sir Edmund's arm. Lord Cutts, William's high-spirited and daring officer, received her with the utmost courtesy and kindness, inquired after her hurt, and lamented having to trouble her, but said that though he would not detain her long, her testimony was important, and he begged to hear what had happened to her. She gave the account of her capture and journey as shortly as she could. "Whither was she taken?" She paused. "I promised Mr. Oakshott for the sake of others--" she said. "You need have no scruples on that score," said Lord Cutts. "Burford hopes to get off for the murder by turning King's evidence, and has told all." "Yes," added Sir Edmund; "and poor Oakshott managed to say, 'Tell her she need keep nothing back. It is all up.'" So Anne answered all the questions put to her, and they were the fewer both out of consideration for her condition, and because the governor wanted to take advantage of the tide to embark on the Medina. In a very few hours the Archfields would have no more fears. Anne longed to go with Sir Edmund, but she was in no state for a ride, and could not be a drag. Sir Edmund said that either his wife would come to her at once and take her to Parkhurst, or else her uncle would be sure to come for her. She would be the guest of Major and Mrs. Dudley, who lived in the castle, the actual Lord Warden only visiting it from time to time; and though Major Dudley was a stern man, both were very kind to her. As a Whig, Major Dudley knew the Oakshott family, and was willing to extend his hospitality even to the long-lost Peregrine. The Lord Warden, who was evidently very favourably impressed, saying that there was no need at present to treat him as a prisoner, but that every attention should be paid to him, as indeed he was evidently a dying man. Burford and another of his associates were to be carried off, handcuffed, with the escort to Winchester jail, but before the departure, the soldiers who had been sent to the Chine returned baffled; the place was entirely deserted, and Barclay had escaped. Anne allowed herself to be put to bed, being indeed completely exhausted, and scarcely able to think of anything but the one blessed certainty that Charles was safe, and freed from all stigma. When, after the pain in her arm lulled enough to allow her to sleep, she had had a few hours' rest, she inquired for Peregrine, she heard that for many hours the surgeon had been trying to extract the balls, and that they considered that the second shot had made his case hopeless, as it was in the body. He was so much exhausted as to be almost unconscious; but the next morning, when Anne, against the persuasions of her hostess, had risen and been dressed, though still feeling weak and shaken, she received a message, begging her to do him the great kindness of visiting him. Deadly pale, almost gray, as he looked, lying so propped with pillows as to relieve his shattered shoulder, his face had a strange look of peace, almost of relief, and he smiled at her as she entered. He held out the hand he could use, and his first word was of inquiry after her hurt. "That is nothing--it will soon be well; I wish it were the same with you." "Nay, I had rather cheat the hangman. I told those doctors yesterday that they were giving themselves and me a great deal of useless trouble. The villains, as I told you, could not believe we should not betray them, and meant to make an end of us all. It's best as it is. My poor faithful Hans would never have had another happy moment." "But you must be better, Peregrine," for his voice, though low, was steady. "There's no living with what I have here," he said, laying his hand on his side; "and--I dreamt of your mother last night." With the words there was a look of gladness exceeding. "Ah! the Evil Angel is gone!" "I want your prayers that he may not come back at the last." Then, as she clasped her hands, and her lips moved, he added, "There were some things I could only say to you. If they don't treat my body as that of an attainted traitor, let me lie at your mother's feet. Don't disturb the big Scot for me, but let me rest at last near her. Then tell Robin 'tis not out of want of regard for him that I have not bequeathed Pilpignon to him, but he could do no good with a French estate full of Papists; and there's a poor loyal fellow, living ruined at Paris--a Catholic too--with a wife and children half starved, to whom it will do more good." "I meant to ask--Shall a priest be sent for? Surely Major Dudley would consent." "I don't know. I have not loved such priests lately. I had rather die as near your mother as may be." "Miss Woodford," said a voice at the door, and going to it, Anne found herself clasped in her uncle's arms. With very few words she led him to the bedside, and the first thing he said was "God bless you, Peregrine, for what you have done." Again Peregrine's face lighted up, but fell again when he was told of the Portsmouth surgeon's arrival at the same time, saying with one of his strange looks that it was odd sort of mercy to try to cure a man for Jack Ketch, but that he should baffle them yet. "Do not set your mind on that," said Dr. Woodford, "for Lord Cutts was so much pleased with you that he would do his utmost on your behalf." "Much good that would do me," said poor Peregrine, setting his teeth as his tormentor came in. Meantime, in Mrs. Dudley's parlour, while that good lady was assisting the surgeon at the dressing, Anne and her uncle exchanged information. Mr. Fellowes had arrived on foot at about noon, with his servant, having only been released after two hours by a traveller, and having been deprived both of money and horses, so that he could not proceed on his journey; besides that he had given the alarm about the abduction, and raised the hue and cry at the villages on his way. There had been great distress, riding and searching, and the knowledge had been kept from poor Charles Archfield in his prison. Mr. Fellowes had gone on to London as soon as possible, and Dr. Woodford had just returned from a fruitless attempt to trace his niece, when Sir Edmund Nutley and Lord Cutts appeared, with the joyful tidings, which, however, could be hardly understood. Nothing, Dr. Woodford said, could be more thorough than the vindication of Charles Archfield. Peregrine had fully stated that the young man had merely interposed to prevent the pursuit of Anne Woodford, that it was he himself who had made the first attack, and that his opponent had been forced to fight in self-defence. Lord Cutts had not only shown his affidavit to Sir Philip, but had paid a visit to the Colonel himself in his prison, had complimented him highly on his services in the Imperial army, only regretting that they had not been on behalf of his own country, and had assured him of equal, if not superior rank, in the British army if he would join it on the liberation that he might reckon upon in the course of a very few days. "How did you work on the unhappy young man to bring about this blessed change?" asked the Doctor. "Oh, sir, I do not think it was myself. It was first the mercy of the Almighty, and then my blessed mother's holy memory working on him, revived by the sight of myself. I cannot describe to you how gentle, and courteous, and respectful he was to me all along, though I am sure those dreadful men mocked at him for it. Do you know whether his father has heard?" "Robert Oakshott is gone in search of him. He had set off to beat up the country, good old man, to obtain signatures to the petition in favour of our prisoner, and Robert expected to find him with Mr. Chute at the Vine. It is much to that young man's credit, niece, he was so eager to see his brother that he longed to come with me himself; but he thought that the shock to his father would be so great that he ought to bear the tidings himself. And what do you think his good wife is about? Perhaps you did not know that Sedley Archfield brought away jail fever with him, and Mrs. Oakshott, feeling that she was the cause by her hasty action, has taken lodgings for him in Winchester, and is nursing him like a sister. No. You need not fear for your colonel, my dear maid. Sedley caught the infection because he neither was, nor wished to be, secluded from the rest of the prisoners, some of whom were, I fear, only too congenial society to him. But now tell me the story of your own deliverance, which seems to me nothing short of miraculous." The visit of the Portsmouth surgeon only confirmed Peregrine's own impression that it was impossible that he should live, and he was only surviving by the strong vitality in his little, spare, wiry frame. Dr. Woodford, after hearing Anne's story, thought it well to ask him whether he would prefer the ministrations of a Roman Catholic priest; but whether justly or unjustly, Peregrine seemed to impute to that Church the failure to exorcise the malignant spirit which had led him to far worse aberrations than he had confessed to Anne. Though by no means deficient in knowledge or controversian theology, as Dr. Woodford soon found in conversation with him, his real convictions were all as to what personally affected him, and his strong Protestant ingrain education, however he might have disavowed it, no doubt had affected his point of view. He had admired and been strongly influenced by the sight of real devotion and holiness, though as his temptations and hatred of monotony recurred, he had more than once swung back again. Then, however, he had been revolted by the perception of the concessions to popular superstition and the morality of a wicked state of society. His real sense of any religion had been infused by Mrs. Woodford, and to her belongings, and the faith they involved, he was clinging in these last days. Dr. Woodford could not but be glad that thus it was, not only on the penitent's own account, but on that of the father, who might have lost the comfort of finding him truly repentant in the shock of finding a Popish priest at his bedside. And indeed the contrition seemed to have gathered force in many a past fit of remorse, and now was deep but not unhopeful. In the evening the father and brother arrived. The Major was now an old man, hale indeed, and with the beauty that a pure, self- restrained life often sheds on an aged man. He was much shaken, and when he came in, with his own white hair on his shoulders, and actually tears in his eyes, the look that passed between them was like nothing but the spirit of the parable so often, but never too often, repeated. Peregrine, who never perhaps had spent a happy or fearless hour with him, and had dreaded his coming, felt probably for the first time the mysterious sense of home and peace given by the presence of those between whom there is the tie of blood. Not many words passed; he was hardly in a state for them, but from that time, he was never so happy as when his father and brother were beside him; and they seldom left him, the Major sitting day and night by his pillow attending to his wants, or saying words of prayer. The old man had become much softened, by nothing more perhaps than watching the way in which his daughter-in-law dealt with the manifestations of the Oakshott imp nature in her eldest child. "If I had understood," he said to Dr. Woodford. "If I had so treated that poor boy, never would he have been as he is now." "You acted according to your conscience." "Ah, sir! a man does not grow old without learning that the conscience may be blinded, above all by the spirit of opposition and party." "I will not say there were no mistakes," said the Doctor; "and yet, sir, the high standard, sound principle, and strong faith he learnt from you and your example have prevailed to bear him through." The Major answered with a groan, but added, "And yet, even now, stained as he tells me he is, and cut off in the flower of his age, I thank my God and his Saviour, and after Him, you and yours, that I am happier about him than I have been these eight and twenty years." With no scruple, Major Oakshott threw his heart into the ministrations of Dr. Woodford, which Peregrine declared kept at bay the Evil Angel who more than once seemed to his consciousness to be striving to make him despair, while friend and father brought him back to the one hope. From time to time Anne visited him for a short interval, always to his joy and gratitude. There was one visit at last which all knew would be the final one, when she shared in his first and last English Communion. As she was about to leave him, he held her hand, and signed to her to bend down to hear him better. "If you can, let good Father Seyton at Douai know that peace is come--the Evil One beaten, thanks to Him who giveth us the victory--and I thank them all there--and ask their prayers." "I will, I will." Some one at the door said, "May I come in?" There was a sunburnt face, a head with long brown hair, a white coat. "Archfield?" asked Peregrine. "Come, send me away with pardon." " 'Tis yours I need;" and as Charles knelt by the bed the two faces, one all health, the other gray and deathly, were close together. "You have given your life for mine, and given _her_. How shall I thank you?" "Make her happy. She deserves it." Charles clasped her hand with a look that was enough. Then with a strange smile, half sweetness, half the contortion of a mortal pang, the dying man said, "May she kiss me once?" And when her lips had touched the cold damp brow-- "There--My fourth seven. At last! The change is come. Old-- impish--evil--self left behind. At last! Thanks to Him who treads down Satan under our feet. Thanks! Take her away now." Charles took her away, scarce knowing where they went,--out into the spring sunshine, on the slopes above the turf bowling-green, where the captive King had beguiled his weary hours. Only then would awe and emotion let them speak, though his arm was round her, her hand in his, and his first words were, as he looked at the scarf that still bore up her arm, "And this is what you have borne for me?" "It is all but healed. Don't think of it." "I shall all my life! Poor fellow, he might well bid me deserve you. I never can. 'Tis to you I owe all. I believe, indeed, the ambassador might have claimed me, but he is so tardy that probably I should have been hanged long before the proper form was ready; and it would have been to exile, and with a tainted name. You have won for me the clearing of name and honour--home, parents and child and all, besides your sweet self." "And it was not me, but he whom we so despised and dreaded. Had I not been seized, I could only have implored for you." "I know this, that if you had not been what you are, my boy would have borne a dishonoured name, and we should never have been together as now." It was in truth their first meeting in freedom and security as lovers; but it could only be in a grave, quiet fashion, under the knowledge that he, to whom their re-union was chiefly owing, was breathing out the life he had sacrificed for them. Thus they only gently and in a low voice went over their past doings and feelings as they walked up and down together, till Dr. Woodford came in the sunset to tell them that the change so longed for had come in peace, and with a smile that told of release from the Evil Angel. * * * * * Peregrine's wish was fulfilled, and he was buried in Portchester Churchyard at Mrs. Woodford's feet. This time it was Mr. Horncastle, old as he was, who preached the funeral sermon, the In Memoriam of our forefathers; and by special desire of Major Oakshott took for his text, 'At evening time there shall be light.' He spoke, sometimes in a voice broken, as much by feeling as by age, of the childhood blighted by a cruel superstition, and perverted, as he freely made confession, by discipline without comprehension, because no confidence had been sought. Then ensued a tribute of earnest, generous justice to her who had done her best to undo the warp in the boy's nature, and whose blessed influence the young man had owned to the last, through all the temptations, errors, and frenzies of his life. Nor did the good man fail to make this a means of testifying to the entire neighbourhood, who had flocked to hear him, all that might be desirable to be known respecting the conflict at Portchester, actually reading Peregrine's affidavit, as indeed was due to Colonel Archfield, so as to prove that this was no mere pardon, though technically it had so to stand, but actual acquittal. Nor was the struggle with evil at the end forgotten, nor the surrender alike of love and of hatred, as well as of his own life, which had been the final conquest, the decisive passing from darkness to light. It was a strange sermon according to present ideas, but not to those who had grown up to the semi-political preaching of the century then in its last decade; and it filled many eyes with tears, many hearts with a deeper spirit of that charity which hopeth all things. * * * * * A month later Charles Archfield and Anne Jacobina Woodford were married at the little parish church of Fareham. Sir Philip insisted on making it a gay and brilliant wedding, in order to demonstrate to the neighbourhood that though the maiden had been his grandson's governess, she was a welcomed and honoured acquisition to the family. Perhaps too he perceived the error of his middle age, when he contrasted that former wedding, the work of worldly conventionality, with the present. In the first, an unformed, undeveloped lad, unable to understand his own true feelings and affections had been passively linked to a shallow, frivolous, ill- trained creature, utterly incapable of growing into a helpmeet for him; whereas the love and trust of the stately-looking pair, in the fresh bloom of manhood and womanhood, had been proved in the furnace of trial, so that the troth they plighted had deep foundation for the past, and bright hope for the future. Nor was anybody more joyous than little Philip, winning his Nana for a better mother to him than his own could ever have been It was in a blue velvet coat that Colonel Archfield was married. He had resigned his Austrian commission; and though the 'Salamander,' was empowered to offer him an excellent staff appointment in the English army, he decided to refuse. Sir Philip showed signs of having been aged and shaken by the troubles of the winter, and required his son's assistance in the care of his property, and little Philip was growing up to need a father's hand, so that Charles came to the conclusion that there was no need to cross the old Cavalier's dislike to the new regime, nor to make his mother and wife again suffer the anxieties of knowing him on active service, while his duties lay at home. Sedley Archfield, after a long illness, owed recovery both in body and mind to Mrs. Oakshott, and by her arrangement finally obtained a fresh commission in a regiment raised for the defence of the possessions of the East India Company. And that the poor changeling was still tenderly remembered might be proved by the fact that when the bells rung for Queen Anne's coronation there was one baby Peregrine at Fareham and another at Oakwood.	{ "id": "12449" }
1	None	There is a pleasant villa on the southern bank of the James River, a few miles below the city of Richmond. The family mansion, an old fashioned building of white stone, surrounded by a spacious veranda, and embowered among stately elms and grave old oaks, is sure to attract the attention of the traveller by its picturesque appearance, and the dreamy elegance and air of comfort that pervade the spot. The volumes of smoke that roll from the tall chimneys, the wide portals of the hall, flung open as if for a sign of welcome, the merry chat and cheerful faces of the sable household, lazily alternating their domestic labors with a sly romp or a lounge in some quiet nook, these and other traits of the old Virginia home, complete the picture of hospitable affluence which the stranger instinctively draws as his gaze lingers on the grateful scene. The house stands on a wooded knoll, within a bowshot of the river bank, and from the steps of the back veranda, where creeping flowers form a perfumed network of a thousand hues, the velvety lawn shelves gracefully down to the water's edge. Toward sunset of one of the early days of April, 1861, a young girl stood leaning upon the wicket of a fence which separated the garden from the highway. She stood there dreamily gazing along the road, as if awaiting the approach of some one who would be welcome when he came. The slanting rays of the declining sun glanced through the honeysuckles and tendrils that intertwined among the white palings, and threw a subdued light upon her face. It was a face that was beautiful in repose, but that promised to be more beautiful when awakened into animation. The large, grey eyes were half veiled with their black lashes at that moment, and their expression was thoughtful and subdued; but ever as the lids were raised, when some distant sound arrested her attention, the expression changed with a sudden flash, and a gleam like an electric fire darted from the glowing orbs. Her features were small and delicately cut, the nostrils thin and firm, and the lips most exquisitely molded, but in the severe chiselling of their arched lines betraying a somewhat passionate and haughty nature. But the rose tint was so warm upon her cheek, the raven hair clustered with such luxuriant grace about her brows, and the _petite_ and lithe figure was so symmetrical at every point, that the impression of haughtiness was lost in the contemplation of so many charms. Oriana Weems, the subject of our sketch, was an orphan. Her father, a wealthy Virginian, died while his daughter was yet an infant, and her mother, who had been almost constantly an invalid, did not long survive. Oriana and her brother, Beverly, her senior by two years, had thus been left at an early age in the charge of their mother's sister, a maiden lady of excellent heart and quiet disposition, who certainly had most conscientiously fulfilled the sacred trust. Oriana had returned but a twelvemonth before from a northern seminary, where she had gathered up more accomplishments than she would ever be likely to make use of in the old homestead; while Beverly, having graduated at Yale the preceding month, had written to his sister that she might expect him that very day, in company with his classmate and friend, Arthur Wayne. She stood, therefore, at the wicket, gazing down the road, in expectation of catching the first glimpse of her brother and his friend, for whom horses had been sent to Richmond, to await their arrival at the depot. So much was she absorbed in revery, that she failed to observe a solitary horseman who approached from the opposite direction. He plodded leisurely along until within a few feet of the wicket, when he quietly drew rein and gazed for a moment in silence upon the unconscious girl. He was a tall, gaunt man, with stooping shoulders, angular features, lank, black hair and a sinister expression, in which cunning and malice combined. He finally urged his horse a step nearer, and as softly as his rough voice would admit, he bade: "Good evening, Miss Oriana." She started, and turned with a suddenness that caused the animal he rode to swerve. Recovering her composure as suddenly, she slightly inclined her head and turning from him, proceeded toward the house. "Stay, Miss Oriana, if you please." She paused and glanced somewhat haughtily over her shoulder. "May I speak a word with you?" "My aunt, sir, is within; if you have business, I will inform her of your presence." "My business is with you, Miss Weems," and, dismounting, he passed through the gate and stepped quickly to her side. "Why do you avoid me?" Her dark eye flashed in the twilight, and she drew her slight form up till it seemed to gain a foot in height. "We do not seek to enlarge our social circle, Mr. Rawbon. You will excuse me if I leave you abruptly, but the night dew begins to fall." She moved on, but he followed and placed his hand gently on her arm. She shook it off with more of fierceness than dignity, and the man's eyes fairly sought the ground beneath the glance she gave him. "You know that I love you," he said, in a hoarse murmur, "and that's the reason you treat me like a dog." She turned her back upon him, and walked, as if she heard him not, along the garden path. His brow darkened, and quickening his pace, he stepped rudely before her and blocked the way. "Look you, Miss Weems, you have insulted me with your proud ways time and time again, and I have borne it tamely, because I loved you, and because I've sworn that I shall have you. It's that puppy, Harold Hare, that has stepped in between you and me. Now mark you," and he raised his finger threateningly, "I won't be so meek with him as I've been with you." The girl shuddered slightly, but recovering, walked forward with a step so stately and commanding, that Rawbon, bold and angry as he was, involuntarily made way for her, and she sprang up the steps of the veranda and passed into the hall. He stood gazing after her for a moment, nervously switching the rosebush at his side with his heavy horsewhip; then, with a muttered curse, he strode hastily away, and leaping upon his horse, galloped furiously down the road. Seth Rawbon was a native of Massachusetts, but for some ten years previously to the date at which our tale commences, he had been mostly a resident of Richmond, where his acuteness and active business habits had enabled him to accumulate an independent fortune. His wealth and vigorous progressive spirit had given him a certain degree of influence among the middle classes of the community, but his uncouth manner, and a suspicion that he was not altogether free from the degradation of slave-dealing, had, to his great mortification and in spite of his persistent efforts, excluded him from social intercourse with the aristocracy of the Old Dominion. He was not a man, however, to give way to obstacles, and with characteristic vanity and self-reliance, he had, shortly after her return from school, greatly astonished the proud Oriana with a bold declaration of love and an offer of his hand and fortune. Not intimidated by a sharp and decidedly ungracious refusal, he had at every opportunity advocated his hopeless suit, and with so much persistence and effrontery, that the object of his unwelcome passion had been goaded from indifference to repugnance and absolute loathing. Harold Hare, whose name he had mentioned with so much bitterness in the course of the interview we have represented, was a young Rhode Islander, who had, upon her brother's invitation, sojourned a few weeks at the mansion some six months previously, while on his way to engage in a surveying expedition in Western Virginia. He had promised to return in good time, to join Beverly and his guest, Arthur Wayne, at the close of their academic labors. A few moments after Rawbon's angry departure, the family carriage drove rapidly up to the hall door, and the next instant Beverly was in his sister's arms, and had been affectionately welcomed by his old-fashioned, kindly looking aunt. As he turned to introduce his friend, Arthur, the latter was gazing with an air of absent admiration upon the kindled features of Oriana. The two young men were of the same age, apparently about one-and-twenty; but in character and appearance they were widely different. Beverly was, in countenance and manner, curiously like his sister, except that the features were bolder and more strongly marked. Arthur, on the contrary, was delicate in feature almost to effeminacy. His brow was pale and lofty, and above the auburn locks were massed like a golden coronet. His eyes were very large and blue, with a peculiar softness and sadness that suited well the expression of thoughtfulness and repose about his lips. He was taller than his friend, and although well-formed and graceful, was slim and evidently not in robust health. His voice, as he spoke in acknowledgment of the introduction, was low and musical, but touched with a mournfulness that was apparent even in the few words of conventional courtesy that he pronounced. Having thus domiciliated them comfortably in the old hall, we will leave them to recover from the fatigues of the journey, and to taste of the plentiful hospitalities of Riverside manor.	{ "id": "12452" }
2	None	Early in the fresh April morning, the party at Riverside manor were congregated in the hall, doing full justice to Aunt Nancy's substantial breakfast. "Oriana," said Beverly, as he paused from demolishing a well-buttered batter cake, and handed his cup for a second supply of the fragrant Mocha, "I will leave it to your _savoir faire_ to transform our friend Arthur into a thorough southerner, before we yield him back to his Green Mountains. He is already half a convert to our institutions, and will give you not half so much trouble as that obstinate Harold Hare." She slightly colored at the name, but quietly remarked: "Mr. Wayne must look about him and judge from his own observation, not my arguments. I certainly do not intend to annoy him during his visit, with political discussions." "And yet you drove Harold wild with your flaming harangues, and gave him more logic in an afternoon ride than he had ever been bored with in Cambridge in a month." "Only when he provoked and invited the assault," she replied, smiling. "But I trust, Mr. Wayne, that the cloud which is gathering above our country will not darken the sunshine of your visit at Riverside manor. It is unfortunate that you should have come at an unpropitious moment, when we cannot promise you that perhaps there will not be some cold looks here and there among the townsfolk, to give you a false impression of a Virginia welcome." "Not at all, Oriana; Arthur will have smiles and welcome enough here at the manor house to make him proof against all the hard looks in Richmond. I prevailed on him to come at all hazards, and we are bound to have a good time and don't want you to discourage us; eh, Arthur?" "I am but little of a politician, Miss Weems," said Arthur, "although I take our country's differences much at heart. I shall surely not provoke discussion with you, like our friend Harold, upon an unpleasant subject, while you give me _carte blanche_ to enjoy your conversation upon themes more congenial to my nature." She inclined her head with rather more of gravity than the nature of the conversation warranted, and her lips were slightly compressed as she observed that Arthur's blue eyes were fixed pensively, but intently, on her face. The meal being over, Oriana and Wayne strolled on the lawn toward the river bank, while the carriage was being prepared for a morning drive. They stood on the soft grass at the water's edge, and as Arthur gazed with a glow of pleasure at the beautiful prospect before him, his fair companion pointed out with evident pride the many objects of beauty and interest that were within view on the opposite bank. "Are you a sailor, Mr. Wayne? If so, we must have out the boat this afternoon, and you will find some fairy nooks beyond the bend that will repay you for exploring them, if you have a taste for a lovely waterscape. I know you are proud of the grand old hills of your native State, but we have something to boast of too in our Virginia scenery." "If you will be my helmswoman, I can imagine nothing more delightful than the excursion you propose. But I am inland bred, and must place myself at the mercy of your nautical experience." "Oh, I am a skillful captain, Mr. Wayne, and will make a good sailor of you before you leave us. Mr. Hare will tell you that I am to be trusted with the helm, even when the wind blows right smartly, as it sometimes does even on that now placid stream. But with his memories of the magnificent Hudson, he was too prone to quiz me about what he called our pretty rivulet. You know him, do you not?" "Oh, well. He was Beverly's college-mate and mine, though somewhat our senior." "And your warm friend, I believe?" "Yes, and well worthy our friendship. Somewhat high-tempered and quick-spoken, but with a heart--like your brother's, Miss Weems, as generous and frank as a summer day." "I do not think him high-tempered beyond the requisites of manhood," she replied, with something like asperity in her tone. "I cannot endure your meek, mild mannered men, who seem to forget their sex, and almost make me long to change my own with them, that their sweet dispositions may be better placed." He glanced at her with a somewhat surprised air, that brought a slight blush to her cheek; but he seemed unconscious of it, and said, almost mechanically: "And yet, that same high spirit, which you prize so dearly, had, in his case, almost caused you a severe affliction." "What do you mean?" "Have you not heard how curiously Beverly's intimacy with Harold was brought about? And yet it was not likely that he should have told you, although I know no harm in letting you know." She turned toward him with an air of attention, as if in expectation. "It was simply this. Not being class-mates, they had been almost strangers to each other at college, until, by a mere accident, an argument respecting your Southern institutions led to an angry dispute, and harsh words passed between them. Being both of the ardent temperament you so much admire, a challenge ensued, and, in spite of my entreaty and remonstrance, a duel. Your brother was seriously wounded, and Harold, shocked beyond expression, knelt by his side as he lay bleeding on the sward, and bitterly accusing himself, begged his forgiveness, and, I need not add, received it frankly. Harold was unremitting in his attentions to your brother during the period of his illness, and from the day of that hostile meeting, the most devoted friendship has existed between them. But it was an idle quarrel, Miss Weems, and was near to have cost you an only brother." She remained silent for a few moments, and was evidently affected by the recital. Then she spoke, softly as if communing with herself: "Harold is a brave and noble fellow, and I thank God that he did not kill my brother!" and a bright tear rolled upon her cheek. She dashed it away, almost angrily, and glancing steadily at Arthur: "Do you condemn duelling?" "Assuredly." "But what would you have men do in the face of insult? Would you not have fought under the same provocation?" "No, nor under any provocation. I hold too sacred the life that God has given. With God's help, I shall not shed human blood, except in the strict line of necessity and duty." "It is evident, sir, that you hold your own life most sacred," she said, with a curl of her proud lip that was unmistakable. She did not observe the pallor that overspread his features, nor the expression, not of anger, but of anguish, that settled upon his face, for she had turned half away from him, and was gazing vacantly across the river. There was an unpleasant pause, which was broken by the noise of voices in alarm near the house, the trampling of hoofs, and the rattle of wheels. The carriage had been standing at the door, while Beverly was arranging some casual business, which delayed him in his rooms. While the attention of the groom in charge had been attracted by some freak of his companions, a little black urchin, not over five years of age, had clambered unnoticed into the vehicle, and seizing the long whip, began to flourish it about with all his baby strength. The horses, which were high bred and spirited, had become impatient, and feeling the lash, started suddenly, jerking themselves free from the careless grasp of the inattentive groom. The sudden shout of surprise and terror that arose from the group of idle negroes, startled the animals into a gallop, and they went coursing, not along the road, but upon the lawn, straight toward the river bank, which, in the line of their course, was precipitous and rocky. As Oriana and Arthur turned at the sound, they beheld the frightened steeds plunging across the lawn, and upon the carriage seat the little fellow who had caused the mischief was crouching bewildered and helpless, and screaming with affright. Oriana clasped her hands, and cried tearfully: "Oh! poor little Pomp will be killed!" In fact the danger was imminent, for the lawn at that spot merged into a rocky space, forming a little bluff which overhung the stream some fifteen, feet. Oriana's hand was laid instinctively upon Arthur's shoulder, and with the other she pointed, with a gesture of bewildered anxiety, at the approaching vehicle. Arthur paused only long enough to understand the situation, and then stepping calmly a few paces to the left, stood directly in the path of the rushing steeds. "Oh, Mr. Wayne! no, no!" cried Oriana, in a tone half of fear and half supplication; but he stood there unmoved, with the same quiet, mournful expression that he habitually wore. The horses faltered somewhat when they became conscious of this fixed, calm figure directly in their course. They would have turned, but their impetus was too great, and they swerved only enough to bring the head of the off horse in a line with Arthur's body. As coolly as if he was taking up a favorite book, but with a rapid movement, he grasped the rein below the bit with both hands firmly, and swung upon it with his whole weight. The frightened animal turned half round, stumbled, and rolled upon his side, his mate falling upon his knees beside him; the carriage was overturned with a crash, and little Pompey pitched out upon the greensward, unhurt. By this time, Beverly, followed by a crowd of excited negroes, had reached the spot. "How is it, Arthur," said Beverly, placing his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder, "are you hurt?" "No," he replied, the melancholy look softening into a pleasant smile; but as he rose and adjusted his disordered dress, he coughed painfully--the same dry, hacking cough that had often made those who loved him turn to him with an anxious look. It was evident that his delicate frame was ill suited to such rough exercise. "We shall be cheated out of our ride this morning," said Beverly, "for that axle has been less fortunate than you, Arthur; it is seriously hurt." They moved slowly toward the house, Oriana looking silently at the grass as she walked mechanically at her brother's side. When Arthur descended into the drawing-room, after having changed his soiled apparel, he found her seated there alone, by the casement, with her brow upon her hand. He sat down at the table and glanced abstractedly over the leaves of a scrap-book. Thus they sat silently for a quarter hour, when she arose, and stood beside him. "Will you forgive me, Mr. Wayne?" He looked up and saw that she had been weeping. The haughty curl of the lip and proud look from the eye were all gone, and her expression was of humility and sorrow. She held out her hand to him with an air almost of entreaty. He raised it respectfully to his lips, and with the low, musical voice, sadder than ever before, he said: "I am sorry that you should grieve about anything. There is nothing to forgive. Let us forget it." "Oh, Mr. Wayne, how unkind I have been, and how cruelly I have wronged you!" She pressed his hand between both her palms for a moment, and looked into his face, as if studying to read if some trace of resentment were not visible. But the blue eyes looked down kindly and mournfully upon her, and bursting into tears, she turned from him, and hurriedly left the room.	{ "id": "12452" }
3	None	The incident related in the preceding chapter seemed to have effected a marked change in the demeanor of Oriana toward her brother's guest. She realized with painful force the wrong that her thoughtlessness, more than her malice, had inflicted on a noble character, and it required all of Arthur's winning sweetness of disposition to remove from her mind the impression that she stood, while in his presence, in the light of an unforgiven culprit. They were necessarily much in each other's company, in the course of the many rambles and excursions that were devised to relieve the monotony of the old manor house, and Oriana was surprised to feel herself insensibly attracted toward the shy and pensive man, whose character, so far as it was betrayed by outward sign, was the very reverse of her own impassioned temperament. She discovered that the unruffled surface covered an under-current of pure thought and exquisite feeling, and when, on the bosom of the river, or in the solitudes of the forest, his spirit threw off its reserve under the spell of nature's inspiration, she felt her own impetuous organization rebuked and held in awe by the simple and quiet grandeur that his eloquence revealed. One afternoon, some two weeks after his arrival at the Riverside manor, while returning from a canter in the neighborhood, they paused upon an eminence that overlooked a portion of the city of Richmond. There, upon an open space, could be seen a great number of the citizens assembled, apparently listening to the harangue of an orator. The occasional cheer that arose from the multitude faintly reached their ears, and that mass of humanity, restless, turbulent and excited, seemed, even at that distance, to be swayed by some mighty passion. "Look, Miss Weems," said Arthur, "at this magnificent circle of gorgeous scenery, that you are so justly proud of, that lies around you in the golden sunset like a dream of a fairy landscape. See how the slanting rays just tip the crest of that distant ridge, making it glow like a coronet of gold, and then, leaping into the river beneath; spangle its bosom with dazzling sheen, save where a part rests in the purple shadow of the mountain. Look to the right, and see how those crimson clouds seem bending from heaven to kiss the yellow corn-fields that stretch along the horizon. And at your feet, the city of Richmond extends along the valley." "We admit the beauty of the scene and the accuracy of the description," said Beverly, "but, for my part, I should prefer the less romantic view of some of Aunt Nancy's batter-cakes, for this ride has famished me." "Now look below," continued Arthur, "at that swarm of human beings clustering together like angry bees. As we stand here gazing at the glorious pageant which nature spreads out before us, one might suppose that only for some festival of rejoicing or thanksgiving would men assemble at such an hour and in such a scene. But what are the beauties of the landscape, bathed in the glories of the setting-sun, to them? They have met to listen to words of passion and bitterness, to doctrines of strife, to denunciations and criminations against their fellow-men. And, doubtless, a similar scene of freemen invoking the spirit of contention that we behold yonder in that pleasant valley of the Old Dominion, is being enacted at the North and at the South, at the East and at the West, all over the length and breadth of our country. The seeds of discord are being carefully and persistently gathered and disseminated, and on both sides, these erring mortals will claim to be acting in the name of patriotism. Beverly, do you surmise nothing ominous of evil in that gathering?" "Ten to one, some stirring news from Charleston. We must ride over after supper, Arthur, and learn the upshot of it." "And I will be a sybil for the nonce," said Oriana, with a kindling eye, "and prophecy that Southern cannon have opened upon Sumter." In the evening, in despite of a threatening sky, Arthur and Beverly mounted their horses and galloped toward Richmond. As they approached the city, the rain fell heavily and they sought shelter at a wayside tavern. Observing the public room to be full, they passed into a private parlor and ordered some slight refreshment. In the adjoining tap-room they could hear the voices of excited men, discussing some topic of absorbing interest. Their anticipations were realized, for they quickly gathered from the tenor of the disjointed conversation that the bombardment of Fort Sumter had begun. "I'll bet my pile," said a rough voice, "that the gridiron bunting won't float another day in South Carolina." "I'll go you halves on that, hoss, and you and I won't grow greyer nor we be, before Old Virginny says 'me too.'" "Seth Rawbon, you'd better be packing your traps for Massachusetts. She'll want you afore long." "Boys," ejaculated the last-mentioned personage, with an oath, "I left off being a Massachusetts man twelve years ago. I'm with _you_, and you know it. Let's drink. Boys, here's to spunky little South Carolina; may she go in and win! Stranger, what'll you drink?" "I will not drink," replied a clear, manly voice, which had been silent till then. "And why will you not drink?" rejoined the other, mocking the dignified and determined tone in which the invitation was refused. "It is sufficient that I will not." "Mayhap you don't like my sentiment?" "Right." "Look you, Mr. Harold Hare, I know you well, and I think we'll take you down from your high horse before you're many hours older in these parts. Boys, let's make him drink to South Carolina." "Who is he, anyhow?" "He's an abolitionist; just the kind that'll look a darned sight more natural in a coat of tar and feathers. Cut out his heart and you'll find John Brown's picture there as large as life." At the mention of Harold's name, Arthur and Beverly had started up simultaneously, and throwing open the bar-room door, entered hastily. Harold had risen from his seat and stood confronting Rawbon with an air in which anger and contempt were strangely blended. The latter leaned with awkward carelessness against the counter, sipping a glass of spirits and water with a malicious smile. "You are an insolent scoundrel," said Harold, "and I would horsewhip you, if you were worth the pains." Rawbon looked around and for a second seemed to study the faces of those about him. Then lazily reaching over toward Harold, he took him by the arm and drew him toward the counter. "Say, you just come and drink to South Carolina." The heavy horsewhip in Harold's hand rose suddenly and descended like a flash. The knotted lash struck Rawbon full in the mouth, splitting the lips like a knife. In an instant several knives were drawn, and Rawbon, spluttering an oath through the spurting blood that choked his utterance, drew a revolver from its holster at his side. The entrance of the two young men was timely. They immediately placed themselves in front of Harold, and Arthur, with his usual mild expression, looked full in Rawbon's eye, although the latter's pistol was in a line with his breast. "Stand out of the way, you two," shouted Rawbon, savagely. "What is the meaning of this, gentlemen?" said Beverly, quietly, to the excited bystanders, to several of whom he was personally known. "Squire Weems," replied one among them, "you had better stand aside. Rawbon has a lien on that fellow's hide. He's an abolitionist, anyhow, and ain't worth your interference." "He is my very intimate friend, and I will answer for him to any one here," said Beverly, warmly. "I will answer for myself," said Hare, pressing forward. "Then answer that!" yelled Rawbon, levelling and shooting with a rapid movement. But Wayne's quiet eye had been riveted upon him all the while, and he had thrown up the ruffian's arm as he pulled the trigger. Beverly's eyes flashed like live coals, and he sprang at Rawbon's throat, but the crowd pressed between them, and for a while the utmost confusion prevailed, but no blows were struck. The landlord, a sullen, black-browed man, who had hitherto leaned silently on the counter, taking no part in the fray, now interposed. "Come, I don't want no more loose shooting here!" and, by way of assisting his remark, he took down his double-barrelled shot-gun and jumped upon the counter. The fellow was well known for a desperate though not quarrelsome character, and his action had the effect of somewhat quieting the excited crowd. "Boys," continued he, "it's only Yankee against Yankee, anyhow; if they're gwine to fight, let the stranger have fair play. Here stranger, if you're a friend of Squire Weems, you kin have a fair show in my house, I reckon, so take hold of this," and taking a revolver from his belt, he passed it to Beverly, who cocked it and slipped it into Harold's hand. Rawbon, who throughout the confusion had been watching for the opportunity of a shot at his antagonist, now found himself front to front with the object of his hate, for the bystanders had instinctively drawn back a space, and even Wayne and Weems, willing to trust to their friend's coolness and judgment, had stepped aside. Harold sighted his man as coolly as if he had been aiming at a squirrel. Rawbon did not flinch, for he was not wanting in physical courage, but he evidently concluded that the chances were against him, and with a bitter smile, he walked slowly toward the door. Turning at the threshold, he scowled for a moment at Harold, as if hesitating whether to accept the encounter. "I'll fix you yet," he finally muttered, and left the room. A few moments afterward, the three friends were mounted and riding briskly toward Riverside manor.	{ "id": "12452" }
4	None	Oriana, after awaiting till a late hour the return of her brother and his friend, had retired to rest, and was sleeping soundly when the party entered the house, after their remarkable adventure. She was therefore unconscious, upon descending from her apartment in the morning, of the addition to her little household. Standing upon the veranda, she perceived what she supposed to be her brother's form moving among the shrubbery in the garden. She hastened to accost him, curious to ascertain the nature of the excitement in Richmond on the preceding afternoon. Great was her astonishment and unfeigned her pleasure, upon turning a little clump of bushes, to find herself face to face with Harold Hare. He had been lost in meditation, but upon seeing her his brow lit up as a midnight sky brightens when a passing cloud has unshrouded the full moon. With a cry of joy she held out both her hands to him, which he pressed silently for a moment as he gazed tenderly upon the upturned, smiling face, and then, pushing back the black tresses, he touched her white forehead with his lips. Arthur Wayne was looking out from his lattice above, and his eye chanced to turn that way at the moment of the meeting. He started as if struck with a sudden pang, and his cheek, always pale, became of an ashen hue. Long he gazed with labored breath upon the pair, as if unable to realize what he had seen; then, with a suppressed moan, he sank into a chair, and leaned his brow heavily upon his hand. Thus for half an hour he remained motionless; it was only after a second summons that he roused himself and descended to the morning meal. At the breakfast table Oriana was in high spirits, and failed to observe that Arthur was more sad than usual. Her brother, however, was preoccupied and thoughtful, and even Harold, although happy in the society of one he loved, could not refrain from moments of abstraction. Of course the adventure of the preceding night was concealed from Oriana, but it yet furnished the young men with matter for reflection; and, coupled with the exciting intelligence from South Carolina, it suggested, to Harold especially, a vision of an unhappy future. It was natural that the thought should obtrude itself of how soon a barrier might be placed between friends and loved ones, and the most sacred ties sundered, perhaps forever. Miss Randolph, Oriana's aunt, usually reserved and silent, seemed on this occasion the most inquisitive and talkative of the party. Her interest in the momentous turn that affairs had taken was naturally aroused, and she questioned the young men closely as to their view of the probable consequences. "Surely," she remarked, "a nation of Christian people will choose some alternative other than the sword to adjust their differences." "Why, aunt," replied Oriana, with spirit, "what better weapon than the sword for the oppressed?" "I fear there is treason lurking in that little heart of yours," said Harold, with a pensive smile. "I am a true Southerner, Mr. Hare; and if I were a man, I would take down my father's rifle and march into General Beauregard's camp. We have been too long anathematized as the vilest of God's creatures, because we will not turn over to the world's cold charity the helpless beings that were bequeathed into our charge by our fathers. I would protect my slave against Northern fanaticism as firmly as I would guard my children from the interference of a stranger, were I a mother." "The government against which you would rebel," said Harold, "contemplates no interference with your slaves." "Why, Mr. Hare," rejoined Oriana, warmly, "we of the South can see the spirit of abolitionism sitting in the executive chair, as plainly as we see the sunshine on an unclouded summer day. As well might we change places with our bondmen, as submit to this deliberate crusade against our institutions. Mr. Wayne, you are a man not prone to prejudice, I sincerely believe. Would you from your heart assert that this government is not hostile to Southern slavery?" "I believe you are, on both sides, too sensitive upon the unhappy subject. You are breeding danger, and perhaps ruin, out of abstract ideas, and civil war will have laid the country waste before either party will have awakened to a knowledge that no actual cause of contention exists." "Perhaps," said Beverly, "the mere fact that the two sections are hostile in sentiment, is the best reason why they should be hostile in deed, if a separation can only be accomplished by force of arms." "And do you really fancy," said Harold, sharply, "that a separation is possible, in the face of the opposition of twenty millions of loyal citizens?" "Yes," interrupted Oriana, "in the face of the opposing world. We established our right to self-government in 1776; and in 1861 we are prepared to prove our power to sustain that right." "You are a young enthusiast," said Harold, smiling. "This rebellion will be crushed before the flowers in that garden shall be touched with the earliest frost." "I think you have formed a false estimate of the movement," remarked Beverly, gravely; "or rather, you have not fully considered of the subject." "Harold," said Arthur, sadly, "I regret, and perhaps censure, equally with yourself, the precipitancy of our Carolinian brothers; but this is not an age, nor a country, where six millions of freeborn people can be controlled by bayonets and cannon." They were about rising from the table, when a servant announced that some gentlemen desired to speak with Mr. Weems in private. He passed into the drawing-room, and found himself in the presence of three men, two of whom he recognized as small farmers of the neighborhood, and the other as the landlord of a public house. With a brief salutation, he seated himself beside them, and after a few commonplace remarks, paused, as if to learn their business with him. After a little somewhat awkward hesitation, the publican broke silence. "Squire Weems, we've called about a rather unpleasant sort of business" "The sooner we transact it, then, the better for all, I fancy, gentlemen." "Just so. Old Judge Weems, your father, was a true Virginian, squire, and we know you are of the right sort, too." Beverly bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment. "Squire, the boys hereabouts met down thar at my house last night, to take into consideration them two Northern fellows that are putting up with you." "Well, sir?" "We don't want any Yankee abolitionists in these parts." "Mr. Lucas, I have no guests for whom I will not vouch." "Can't help that, squire, them chaps is spotted, and the boys have voted they must leave. As they be your company, us three've been deputized to call on you and have a talk about it. We don't want to do nothing unpleasant whar you're consarned, squire." "Gentlemen, my guests shall remain with me while they please to honor me with their company, and I will protect them from violence or indignity with my life." "There's no mistake but you're good grit, squire, but 'tain't no use. You know what the boys mean to do, they'll do. Now, whar's the good of kicking up a shindy about it?" "No good whatever, Mr. Lucas. You had better let this matter drop. You know me too well to suppose that I would harbor dangerous characters. It is my earnest desire to avoid everything that may bring about an unnecessary excitement, or disturb the peace of the community; and I shall therefore make no secret of this, interview to my friends. But whether they remain with me or go, shall be entirely at their option. I trust that my roof will be held sacred by my fellow-citizens." "There'll be no harm done to you or yours, Squire Weems, whatever happens. But those strangers had better be out of these parts by to-morrow, sure. Good morning, squire." "Good morning, gentlemen." And the three worthies took their departure, not fully satisfied whether the object of their mission had been fulfilled. Beverly, anxious to avoid a collision with the wild spirits of the neighborhood, which would be disagreeable, if not dangerous, to his guests, frankly related to Harold and Arthur the tenor of the conversation that had passed. Oriana was on fire with indignation, but her concern for Harold's safety had its weight with her, and she wisely refrained from opposing their departure; and both the young men, aware that a prolongation of their visit would cause the family at Riverside manor much inconvenience and anxiety, straightway announced their intention of proceeding northward on the following morning. But it was no part of Seth Rawbon's purpose to allow his rival, Hare, to depart in peace. The chastisement which he had received at Harold's hands added a most deadly hate to the jealousy which his knowledge of Oriana's preference had caused. He had considerable influence with several of the dissolute and lawless characters of the vicinity, and a liberal allowance of Monongahela, together with sundry pecuniary favors, enabled him to depend upon their assistance in any adventure that did not promise particularly serious results. Now the capture and mock trial of a couple of Yankee strangers did not seem much out of the way to these not over-scrupulous worthies; and Rawbon's cunning representations as to the extent of their abolition proclivities were scarcely necessary, in view of the liberality of his bribes, to secure their cooperation in his scheme. Rawbon had been prowling about the manor house during the day, in the hope of obtaining some clue to the intentions of the inmates, and observing a mulatto boy engaged in arranging the boat for present use, he walked carelessly along the bank to the old boat-house, and, by a few adroit questions, ascertained that "Missis and the two gen'lmen gwine to take a sail this arternoon." The evening was drawing on apace when Oriana, accompanied by Arthur and Harold, set forth on the last of the many excursions they had enjoyed on James River; but they had purposely selected a late hour, that on their return they might realize the tranquil pleasures of a sail by moonlight. Beverly was busy finishing some correspondence for the North, which he intended giving into the charge of his friend Arthur, and he therefore remained at home. Phil, a smart mulatto, about ten years of age, who was a general favorite in the family and an especial pet of Oriana, was allowed to accompany the party. It was a lovely evening, only cool enough to be comfortable for Oriana to be wrapped in her woollen shawl. As the shadows of twilight darkened on the silent river, a spirit of sadness was with the party, that vague and painful melancholy that weighs upon the heart when happy ties are about to be sundered, and loved ones are about to part. Arthur had brought his flute, and with an effort to throw off the feeling of gloom, he essayed a lively air; but it seemed like discord by association with their thoughts. He ceased abruptly, and, at Oriana's request, chose a more mournful theme. When the last notes of the plaintive melody had been lost in the stillness of the night, there was an oppressive pause, only broken by the rustle of the little sail and the faint rippling of the wave. "I seem to be sailing into the shadows of misfortune," said Oriana, in a low, sad tone. "I wish the moon would rise, for this darkness presses upon my heart like the fingers of a sorrowful destiny. What a coward I am to-night!" "A most obedient satellite," replied Arthur. "Look where she heralds her approach by spreading a misty glow on the brow of yonder hill." "We have left the shadows of misfortune behind us," said Harold, as a flood of moonlight flashed over the river, seeming to dash a million of diamonds in the path of the gliding boat. "Alas! the fickle orb!" murmured Oriana; "it rises but to mock us, and hides itself already in the bosom of that sable cloud. Is there not a threat of rain there, Mr. Hare?" "It looks unpromising, at the best," said Harold; "I think it would be prudent to return." Suddenly, little Phil, who had been lying at ease, with his head against the thwarts, arose on his elbow and cried out: "Wha'dat?" "What is what, Phil?" asked Oriana. "Why, Phil, you have been dreaming," she added, observing the lad's confusion at having spoken so vehemently. "Miss Orany, dar's a boat out yonder. I heard 'em pulling, sure." "Nonsense, Phil! you've been asleep." "By Gol! I heard 'em, sure. What a boat doing round here dis time o' night? Dem's some niggers arter chickens, sure." And little Phil, satisfied that he had fathomed the mystery, lay down again in a fit of silent indignation. The boat was put about, but the wind had died away, and the sail flapped idly against the mast. Harold, glad of the opportunity for a little exercise, shipped the sculls and bent to his work. "Miss Oriana, put her head for the bank if you please. We shall have less current to pull against in-shore." The boat glided along under the shadow of the bank, and no sound was heard but the regular thugging and splashing of the oars and the voices of insects on the shore. They approached a curve in the river where the bank was thickly wooded, and dense shrubbery projected over the stream. "Wha' dat?" shouted Phil again, starting up in the bow and peering into the darkness. A boat shot out from the shadow of the foliage, and her course was checked directly in their path. The movement was so sudden that, before Harold could check his headway, the two boats fouled. A boathook was thrust into the thwarts; Arthur sprang to the bows to cast it off. "Don't touch that," shouted a hoarse voice; and he felt the muzzle of a pistol thrust into his breast. "None of that, Seth," cried another; and the speaker laid hold of his comrade's arm. "We must have no shooting, you know." Arthur had thrown off the boathook, but some half-dozen armed men had already leaped into the frail vessel, crowding it to such an extent that a struggle, even had it not been madness against such odds, would have occasioned great personal danger to Oriana. Both Arthur and Harold seemed instinctively to comprehend this, and therefore offered no opposition. Their boat was taken in tow, and in a few moments the entire party, with one exception, were landed upon the adjacent bank. That exception was little Phil. In the confusion that ensued upon the collision of the two boats, the lad had quietly slipped overboard, and swam ground to the stern where his mistress sat. "Miss Orany, hist! Miss Orany!" The bewildered girl turned and beheld the black face peering over the gunwale. "Miss Orany, here I is. O Lor'! Miss Orany, what we gwine to do?" She bowed her head toward him and whispered hurriedly, but calmly: "Mind what I tell you, Phil. You watch where they take us to, and then run home and tell Master Beverly. Do you understand me, Phil?" "Yes, I does, Miss Orany;" and the little fellow struck out silently for the shore, and crept among the bushes. Oriana betrayed no sign, of fear as she stood with her two companions on the bank a few paces from their captors. The latter, in a low but earnest tone, were disputing with one who seemed to act as their leader. "You didn't tell us nothing about the lady," said a brawny, rugged-looking fellow, angrily. "Now, look here, Seth Rawbon, this ain't a goin' to do. I'd cut your heart out, before I'd let any harm come to Squire Weems's sister." "You lied to us, you long-headed Yankee turncoat," muttered another. "What in thunder do you mean bringing us down here for kidnapping a lady?" "Ain't I worried about it as much as you?" answered Rawbon. "Can't you understand it's all a mistake?" "Well, now, you go and apologize to Miss Weems and fix matters, d'ye hear?" "But what can we do?" "Do? Undo what you've done, and show her back into the boat." "But the two abo"-- "Damn them and you along with 'em! Come, boys, don't let's keep the lady waiting thar." The party approached their prisoners, and one among them, hat in hand, respectfully addressed Oriana. "Miss Weems, we're plaguy sorry this should 'a happened. It's a mistake and none of our fault. Your boat's down thar and yer shan't be merlested." "Am I free to go?" asked Oriana, calmly. "Free as air, Miss Weems." "With my companions?" "No, they remain with us," said Rawbon. "Then I remain with them," she replied, with dignity and firmness. The man who had first remonstrated with Rawbon, stepped up to him and laid his hand heavily on his shoulder: "Look here, Seth Rawbon, you've played out your hand in this game, now mind that. Miss Weems, you're free to go, anyhow, with them chaps or not, just as you like." They stepped down the embankment, but the boats were nowhere to be seen. Rawbon, anticipating some trouble with his gang, had made a pretence only of securing the craft to a neighboring bush. The current had carried the boats out into the stream, and they had floated down the river and were lost to sight in the darkness.	{ "id": "12452" }
5	None	There was no remedy but to cross the woodland and cornfields that for about a league intervened between their position and the highway. They commenced the tedious tramp, Arthur and Harold exerting themselves to the utmost to protect Oriana from the brambles, and to guide her footsteps along the uneven ground and among the decayed branches and other obstacles that beset their path. Their rude companions, too, with the exception of Rawbon, who walked moodily apart, seemed solicitous to assist her with their rough attentions. To add to the disagreeable nature of their situation, the rain began to fall in torrents before they had accomplished one half of the distance. They were then in the midst of a tract of wooded land that was almost impassable for a lady in the darkness, on account of the yielding nature of the soil, and the numerous ruts and hollows that were soon transformed into miniature pools and streams. Oriana strove to treat the adventure as a theme for laughter, and for awhile chatted gaily with her companions; but it was evident that she was fast becoming weary, and that her thin-shod feet were wounded by constant contact with the twigs and sharp stones that it was impossible to avoid in the darkness. Her dress was torn, and heavy with mud and moisture, and the two young men were pained to perceive that, in spite of her efforts and their watchful care, she stumbled frequently with exhaustion, and leaned heavily on their arms as she labored through the miry soil. One of the party opportunely remembered a charcoal-burner's hut in the vicinity, that would at least afford a rude shelter from the driving storm. Several of the men hastened in search of it, and soon a halloo not far distant indicated that the cabin, such as it was, had been discovered. As they approached, they were surprised to observe rays of light streaming through the cracks and crevices, as if a fire were blazing within. It was an uninviting structure, hastily constructed of unhewn logs, and upon ordinary occasions Oriana would have hesitated to pass the threshold; but wet and weary as she was, she was glad to obtain the shelter of even so poor a hovel. "There's a runaway in thar, I reckon," said one of the party. He threw open the door, and several of the men entered. A fire of logs was burning on the earthen floor, and beside it was stretched a negro's form, wrapped in a tattered blanket. He started up as his unwelcome visitors entered, and looked frightened and bewildered, as if suddenly awakened from a sound sleep. However, he had no sooner laid eyes upon Seth Rawbon than, with a yell of fear, he sprang with a powerful leap through the doorway, leaving his blanket in the hands of those who sought to grasp him. "That's my nigger Jim!" cried Rawbon, discharging his revolver at the dusky form as it ran like a deer into the shadow of the woods. At every shot, the negro jumped and screamed, but, from his accelerated speed, was apparently untouched. "After him, boys!" shouted Rawbon. "Five dollars apiece and a gallon of whisky if you bring the varmint in." With a whoop, the whole party went off in chase and were soon lost to view in the darkness. Harold and Arthur led Oriana into the hut, and, spreading their coats upon the damp floor, made a rude couch for her beside the fire. The poor girl was evidently prostrated with fatigue and excitement, yet, with a faint laugh and a jest as she glanced around upon the questionable accommodations, she thanked them for their kindness, and seated herself beside the blazing fagots. "This is a strange finale to our pleasure excursion," she said, as the grateful warmth somewhat revived her spirits. "You must acknowledge me a prophetess, gentlemen," she added, with a smile, "for you see that we sailed indeed into the shadows of misfortune." "Should your health not suffer from this exposure," replied Arthur, "our adventure will prove no misfortune, but only a theme for mirth hereafter, when we recall to mind our present piteous plight." "Oh, I am strong, Mr. Wayne," she answered cheerfully, perceiving the expression of solicitude in the countenances of her companions, "and have passed the ordeal of many a thorough wetting with impunity. Never fear but I shall fare well enough. I am only sorry and ashamed that all our boasted Virginia hospitality can afford you no better quarters than this for your last night among us." "Apart from the discomfort to yourself, this little episode will only make brighter by contrast my remembrance of the many happy hours we have passed together," said Arthur, with a tone of deep feeling that caused Oriana to turn and gaze thoughtfully into the flaming pile. Harold said nothing, and stood leaning moodily against the wall of the hovel, evidently a prey to painful thoughts. His mind wandered into the glooms of the future, and dwelt upon the hour when he, perhaps, should tread with hostile arms the soil that was the birthplace of his beloved. "Can it be possible," he thought, "that between us twain, united as we are in soul, there can exist such variance of opinion as will make her kin and mine enemies, and perhaps the shedders of each other's blood!" There was a pause, and Oriana, her raiment being partially dried, rested her head upon her arm and slumbered. The storm increased in violence, and the rain, pelting against the cabin roof, with its weird music, formed a dismal accompaniment to the grotesque discomfort of their situation. Arthur threw fresh fuel upon the fire, and the crackling twigs sent up a fitful flame, that fell athwart the face of the sleeping girl, and revealed an expression of sorrow upon her features that caused him to turn away with a sigh. "Arthur," asked Harold, abruptly, "do you think this unfortunate affair at Sumter will breed much trouble?" "I fear it," said Arthur, sadly. "Our Northern hearts are made of sterner stuff than is consistent with the spirit of conciliation." "And what of Southern hearts?" "You have studied them," said Arthur, with a pensive smile, and bending his gaze upon the sleeping maiden. Harold colored slightly, and glanced half reproachfully at his friend. "I cannot help believing," continued the latter, "that we are blindly invoking a fatal strife, more in the spirit of exaltation than of calm and searching philosophy. I am confident that the elements of union still exist within the sections, but my instinct, no less than my judgment, tells me that they will no longer exist when the chariot-wheels of war shall have swept over the land. Whatever be the disparity of strength, wealth and numbers, and whatever may be the result of encounters upon the battle-field, such a terrible war as both sides are capable of waging can never build up or sustain a fabric whose cement must be brotherhood and kindly feeling. I would as soon think to woo the woman of my choice with angry words and blows, as to reconcile our divided fellow citizens by force of arms." "You are more a philosopher than a patriot," said Harold, with some bitterness. "Not so," answered Arthur, warmly. "I love my country--so well, indeed, that I cannot be aroused into hostility to any section of it. My reason does not admit the necessity for civil war, and it becomes therefore a sacred obligation with me to give my voice against the doctrine of coercion. My judgment may err, or my sensibilities may be 'too full of the milk of human kindness' to serve the stern exigencies of the crisis with a Spartan's callousness and a Roman's impenetrability; but for you to affirm that, because true to my own opinions, I must be false to my country, is to deny me that independence of thought to which my country, as a nation, owes its existence and its grandeur." "You boast your patriotism, and yet you seem to excuse those who seek the dismemberment of your country." "I do not excuse them, but I would not have them judged harshly, for I believe they have acted under provocation." "What provocation can justify rebellion against a government so beneficent as ours?" "I will not pretend to justify, because I think there is much to be forgiven on either side. But if anything can palliate the act, it is that system of determined hostility which for years has been levelled against an institution which they believe to be righteous and founded upon divine precept. But I think this is not the hour for justification or for crimination. I am convinced that the integrity of the Union can only be preserved by withholding the armed hand at this crisis. And pray Heaven, our government may forbear to strike!" "Would you, then, have our flag trampled upon with impunity, and our government confessed a cipher, because, forsooth, you have a constitutional repugnance to the severities of warfare? Away with such sickly sentimentality! Such theories, if carried into practice, would reduce us to a nation of political dwarfs and puny drivellers, fit only to grovel at the footstools of tyrants." "I could better bear an insult to our flag than a deathblow to our nationality. And I feel that our nationality would not survive a struggle between the sections. There is no danger that we should be dwarfed in intellect or spirit by practising forbearance toward our brothers." "Is treason less criminal because it is the treason of brother against brother? If so, then must a traitor of necessity go unpunished, since the nature of the crime requires that the culprit be your countryman. How hollow are your arguments when applied to existing facts!" "You forget that I counsel moderation as an expediency, as even a necessity, for the public good. It were poor policy to compass the country's ruin for the sake of bringing chastisement upon error." "That can be but a questionable love of country that would humiliate a government to the act of parleying with rebellion." "My love of country is not confined to one section of the country, or to one division of my countrymen. The lessons of the historic past have taught me otherwise. If, when a schoolboy, poring over the pages of my country's history, I have stood, in imagination, with Prescott at Bunker Hill, and stormed with Ethan Allen at the gates of Ticonderoga, I have also mourned with Washington at Valley Forge, and followed Marion and Sumter through the wilds of Carolina. If I have fancied myself at work with Yankee sailors at the guns, and poured the shivering broadside into the Guerriere, I have helped to man the breastworks at New Orleans, and seen the ranks that stood firm at Waterloo wavering before the blaze of Southern rifles. If I have read of the hardy Northern volunteers on the battle-plains of Mexico; I remember the Palmetto boys at Cherubusco, and the brave Mississippians at Buena Vista. Is it a wonder, then, that my heartstrings ache when I see the links breaking that bind me to such memories? If I would have the Government parley awhile for the sake of peace, even although the strict law sanction the bayonet and cannon, I do it in the name of the sacred past, when the ties of brotherhood were strong. I counsel not humiliation nor submission, but conciliation. I counsel it, not only as an expedient, but as a tribute to the affinities of almost a century. I love the Union too well to be willing that its fate should be risked upon the uncertainties of war. I believe in my conscience that the chances of its reconstruction depend rather upon negotiation than upon battles. I may err, or you, as my opponent in opinion, may err; for while I assume not infallibility for myself, I deny it, with justice, to my neighbor. But I think as my heart and intellect dictate, and my patriotism should not be questioned by one as liable to error as myself. Should I yield my honest convictions upon a question of such vital importance as my country's welfare, then indeed should I be a traitor to my country and myself. But to accuse me of questionable patriotism for my independence of thought, is, in itself, treason against God and man." "I believe you sincere in your convictions, Arthur, not because touched by your argument, but because I have known you too long and well to believe you capable of an unworthy motive. But what, in the name of common justice, would you have us do, when rebellion already thunders at the gates of our citadels with belching cannon? Shall we sit by our firesides and nod to the music of their artillery?" "I would have every American citizen, in this crisis, as in all others, divest himself of all prejudice and sectional feeling: I would have him listen to and ponder upon the opinions of his fellow citizens, and, with the exercise of his best judgment, to discard the bad, and take counsel from the good; then, I would have him conclude for himself, not whether his flag has been insulted, or whether there are injuries to avenge, or criminals to be punished, but what is best and surest to be done for the welfare of his country. If he believe the Union can only be preserved by war, let his voice be for war; if by peace, let him counsel peace, as I do, from my heart; if he remain in doubt, let him incline to peace, secure that in so doing he will best obey the teachings of Christianity, the laws of humanity, and the mighty voice that is speaking from the soul of enlightenment, pointing out the errors of the past, and disclosing the secret of human happiness for the future." Arthur's eye kindled as he spoke, and the flush of excitement, to which he was habitually a stranger, colored his pale cheek. Oriana had awakened with the vehemence of his language, and gazing with interest upon his now animated features, had been listening to his closing words. Harold was about to answer, when suddenly the baying of a hound broke through the noise of the storm. "That is a bloodhound!" exclaimed Harold with an accent of surprise. "Oh, no," said Oriana. "There are no bloodhounds in this neighborhood, nor are they at all in use, I am sure, in Virginia." "I am not mistaken," replied Harold. "I have been made familiar with their baying while surveying on the coast of Florida. Listen!" The deep, full tones came swelling upon the night wind, and fell with a startling distinctness upon the ear. "It's my hound, Mister Hare," said a low, coarse voice at the doorway, and Seth Rawbon entered the cabin and closed the door behind him.	{ "id": "12452" }
6	None	"It's my hound. Miss Weems, and I guess he's on the track of that nigger, Jim." Oriana started as if stung by a serpent, and rising to her feet, looked upon the man with such an expression of contempt and loathing that the ruffian's brow grew black with anger as he returned her gaze. Harold confronted him, and spoke in a low, earnest tone, and between his clenched teeth: "If you are a man you will go at once. This persecution of a woman is beneath even your brutality. If you have an account with me, I will not balk you. But relieve her from the outrage of your presence here." "I guess I'd better be around," replied Rawbon, coolly, as he leaned against the door, with his hands in his coat pocket. "That dog is dangerous when he's on the scent. You see, Miss Weems," he continued, speaking over Harold's shoulder, "my niggers are plaguy troublesome, and I keep the hound to cow them down a trifle. But he wouldn't hurt a lady, I think--unless I happened to encourage him a bit, do you see." And the man showed his black teeth with a grin that caused Oriana to shudder and turn away. Harold's brow was like a thunder-cloud, from beneath which his eyes flashed like the lightning at midnight. "Your words imply a threat which I cannot understand. Ruffian! What do mean?" "I mean no good to you, my buck!" His lip, with the deep cut upon it, curled with hate, but he still leaned coolly against the door, though a quick ear might have caught a click, as if he had cocked a pistol in his pocket. It was a habit with Harold to go unarmed. Fearless and self-reliant by nature, even upon his surveying expeditions in wild and out of the way districts, he carried no weapon beyond sometimes a stout oaken staff. But now, his form dilated, and the muscles of his arm contracted, as if he were about to strike. Oriana understood the movement and the danger. She advanced quietly but quickly to his side, and took his hand within her own. "He is not worth your anger, Harold. For my sake, Harold, do not provoke him further," she added softly, as she drew him from the spot. At this moment the baying of the hound was heard, apparently in close proximity to the hovel, and presently there was a heavy breathing and snuffling at the threshold, followed by a bound against the door, and a howl of rage and impatience. Nothing prevented the entrance of the animal except the form of Rawbon, who still leaned quietly against the rude frame, which, hanging upon leathern hinges, closed the aperture. There was something frightful in the hoarse snarling of the angry beast, as he dashed his heavy shoulder against the rickety framework, and Oriana shrank nervously to Harold's side. "Secure that dog!" he said, as, while soothing the trembling girl, he looked over his shoulder reproachfully at Rawbon. His tone was low, and even gentle, but it was tremulous with passion. But the man gave no answer, and continued leering at them as before. Arthur walked to him and spoke almost in an accent of entreaty. "Sir, for the sake of your manhood, take away your dog and leave us." He did not answer. The hound, excited by the sound of voices, redoubled his efforts and his fury. Oriana was sinking into Harold's arms. "This must end," he muttered. "Arthur, take her from me, she's fainting. I'll go out and brain the dog." "Not yet, not yet," whispered Arthur. "For her sake be calm," and while he received Oriana upon one arm, with the other he sought to stay his friend. But Harold seized a brand from the fire, and sprang toward the door. "Stand from the door," he shouted, lifting the brand above Rawbon's head. "Leave that, I say!" Rawbon's lank form straightened, and in an instant the revolver flashed in the glare of the fagots. He did not shoot, but his face grew black with passion. "By God! you strike me, and I'll set the dog at the woman." At the sound of his master's voice, the hound set up a yell that seemed unearthly. Harold was familiar with the nature of the species, and even in the extremity of his anger, his anxiety for Oriana withheld his arm. "Look you here!" continued Rawbon, losing his quiet, mocking tone, and fairly screaming with excitement, "do you see this?" He pointed to his mangled lip, from which, by the action of his jaws while talking, the plaster had just been torn, and the blood was streaming out afresh. "Do you see this? I've got that to settle with you. I'll hunt you, by G--d! as that hound hunts a nigger. Now see if I don't spoil that pretty face of yours, some day, so that she won't look so sweet on you for all your pretty talk." He seemed to calm abruptly after this, put up his pistol, and resumed the wicked leer. "What would you have?" at last asked Arthur, mildly and with no trace of anger in his voice. Rawbon turned to him with a searching glance, and, after a pause, said: "Terms." "What?" "I want to make terms with you." "About what?" "About this whole affair." "Well. Go on." "I know you can hurt me for this with the law, and I know you mean to. Now I want this matter hushed up." Harold would have spoken, but Arthur implored him with a glance, and answered: "What assurance can you give us against your outrages in the future?" "None." "None! Then why should we compromise with you?" "Because I've got the best hand to-night, and you know it. For her, you know, you'll do 'most anything--now, won't you?" The fellow's complaisant smile caused Arthur to look away with disgust. He turned to Harold, and they were conferring about Rawbon's strange proposition, when Oriana raised her head suddenly and her face assumed an expression of attention, as if her ear had caught a distant sound. She had not forgotten little Phil, and knowing his sagacity and faithfulness, she depended much upon his having followed her instructions. And indeed, a moment after, the plashing of the hoofs of horses in the wet soil could be distinctly heard. "Them's my overseer and his man, I guess," said Rawbon, with composure, and he smiled again as he observed how effectually he had checked the gleam of joy that had lightened Oriana's face. " 'Twas he, you see, that set the dog on Jim's track, and now he's following after, that's all." He had scarcely concluded, when a vigorous and excited voice was heard, shouting: "There 'tis! --there's the hut, gentlemen! Push on!" "It is my brother! my brother!" cried Oriana, clasping her hands with joy; and for the first time that night she burst into tears and sobbed on Harold's shoulder. Rawbon's face grew livid with rage and disappointment. He flung open the door and sprang out into the open air; but Oriana could see him pause an instant at the threshold, and stooping, point into the cabin. The low hissing word of command that accompanied the action reached her ear. She knew what it meant and a faint shriek burst from her lips, more perhaps from horror at the demoniac cruelty of the man, than from fear. The next moment, a gigantic bloodhound, gaunt, mud-bespattered and with the froth of fury oozing from his distended jaws, plunged through the doorway and stood glaring in the centre of the cabin. Oriana stood like a sculptured ideal of terror, white and immovable; Harold with his left arm encircled the rigid form, while his right hand was uplifted, weaponless, but clenched with the energy of despair, till the blood-drops burst from his palm. But Arthur stepped before them both and fixed his calm blue eyes upon the monster's burning orbs. There was neither fear, nor excitement, nor irresolution in that steadfast gaze--it was like the clear, straightforward glance of a father checking a wayward child--even the habitual sadness lingered in the deep azure, and the features only changed to be cast in more placid mold. It was the struggle of a brave and tranquil soul with the ferocious instincts of the brute. The hound, crouched for a deadly spring, was fascinated by this spectacle of the utter absence of emotion. His huge chest heaved like a billow with his labored respiration, but the regular breathing of the being that awed him was like that of a sleeping child. For full five minutes--but it seemed an age--this silent but terrible duel was being fought, and yet no succor came. Beverly and those who came with him must have changed their course to pursue the fleeing Rawbon. "Lead her out softly, Harold," murmured Arthur, without changing a muscle or altering his gaze. But the agony of suspense had been too great--Oriana, with a convulsive shudder, swooned and hung like a corpse upon Harold's arm. "Oh, God! she is dying, Arthur!" he could not help exclaiming, for it was indeed a counterpart of death that he held in his embrace. Then only did Arthur falter for an instant, and the hound was at his throat. The powerful jaws closed with a snap upon his shoulder, and you might have heard the sharp fangs grate against the bone. The shock of the spring brought Arthur to the ground, and man and brute rolled over together, and struggled in the mud and gore. Harold bore the lifeless girl out into the air, and returning, closed the door. He seized a brand, and with both hands levelled a fierce blow at the dog's neck. The stick shivered like glass, but the creature only shook his grisly head, but never quit his hold. With his bare hand he seized the live coals from the thickest of the fire and pressed them against the flanks and stomach of the tenacious animal; the brute howled and quivered in every limb, but still the blood-stained fangs were firmly set into the lacerated flesh. With both hands clasped around the monster's throat, he exerted his strength till the finger-bones seemed to crack. He could feel the pulsations of the dog's heart grow fainter and slower, and could see in his rolling and upheaved eyeballs that the death-pang was upon him; but those iron jaws still were locked in the torn shoulder; and as Harold beheld the big drops start from his friend's ashy brow, and his eyes filming with the leaden hue of unconsciousness, the agonizing thought came to him that the dog and the man were dying together in that terrible embrace. It was then that he fairly sobbed with the sensation of relief, as he heard the prancing of steeds close by the cabin-door; and Beverly, entering hastily, with a cry of horror, stood one moment aghast as he looked on the frightful scene. Then, with repeated shots from his revolver, he scattered the dog's brains over Arthur's blood-stained bosom. Harold arose, and, faint and trembling with excitement and exhaustion, leaned against the wall. Beverly knelt by the side of the wounded man, and placed his hand above his heart. Harold turned to him with an anxious look. "He has but fainted from loss of blood," said Beverly. "Harold, where is my sister?" As he spoke, Oriana, who, in the fresh night air, had recovered from her swoon, pale and with dishevelled hair, appeared at the cabin-door. Harold and Beverly sought to lead her out before her eyes fell upon Arthur's bleeding form; but she had already seen the pale, calm face, clotted with blood, but with the beautiful sad smile still lingering upon the parted lips. She appeared to see neither Harold nor her brother, but only those tranquil features, above which the angel of Death seemed already to have brushed his dewy wing. She put aside Beverly's arm, which was extended to support her, and thrust him away as if he had been a stranger. She unloosed her hand from Harold's affectionate grasp, and with a long and suppressed moan of intense anguish, she kneeled down in the little pool of blood beside the extended form, with her hands tightly clasped, and wept bitterly. They raised her tenderly, and assured her that Arthur was not dead. "Oh, no! oh, no!" she murmured, as the tears streamed out afresh, "he must not die! He must not die for _me_! He is so good! so brave! A child's heart, with the courage of a lion. Oh, Harold! why did you not save him?" But as she took Harold's hand almost reproachfully, she perceived that it was black and burnt, and he too was suffering; and she leaned her brow upon his bosom and sobbed with a new sorrow. Beverly was almost vexed at the weakness his sister displayed. It was unusual to her, and he forgot her weariness and the trial she had passed. He had been binding some linen about Arthur's shoulder, and he looked up and spoke to her in a less gentle tone. "Oriana, you are a child to-night. I have never seen you thus. Come, help me with this bandage." She sighed heavily, but immediately ceased to weep, and said "Yes," calmly and with firmness. Bending beside her brother, without faltering or shrinking, she gave her white fingers to the painful task. In the stormy midnight, by the fitful glare of the dying embers, those two silent men and that pale woman seemed to be keeping a vigil in an abode of death. And the pattering rain and moan of the night-wind sounded like a dirge.	{ "id": "12452" }
7	None	Several gentlemen of the neighborhood, whom Beverly, upon hearing little Phil's story, had hastily summoned to his assistance, now entered the cabin, together with the male negroes of his household, who had mounted the farm horses and eagerly followed to the rescue of their young mistress. They had been detained without by an unsuccessful pursuit of Rawbon, whose flight they had discovered, but who had easily evaded them in the darkness. A rude litter was constructed for Arthur, but Oriana declared herself well able to proceed on horseback, and would not listen to any suggestion of delay on her account. She mounted Beverly's horse, while he and Harold supplied themselves from among the horses that the negroes had rode, and thus, slowly and silently, they threaded the lonely forest, while ever and anon a groan from the litter struck painfully upon their ears. Arrived at the manor house, a physician who had been summoned, pronounced Arthur's hurt to be serious, but not dangerous. Upon receiving this intelligence, Oriana and Harold were persuaded to retire, and Beverly and his aunt remained as watchers at the bedside of the wounded man. Oriana, despite her agitation, slept well, her rest being only disturbed by fitful dreams, in which Arthur's pale face seemed ever present, now smiling upon her mournfully, and now locked in the repose of death. She arose somewhat refreshed, though still feverish and anxious, and walking upon the veranda to breathe the morning air, she was joined by Harold, with his hand in a sling, and much relieved by the application of a poultice, which the skill of Miss Randolph had prepared. He informed her that Arthur was sleeping quietly, and that she might dismiss all fears as to his safety; and perhaps, if he had watched her closely, the earnest expression of something more than pleasure with which she received this assurance, might have given him cause for rumination. Beverly descended soon afterward, and confirmed the favorable report from the sick chamber, and Oriana retired into the house to assist in preparing the morning meal. "Let us take a stroll by the riverside," said Beverly; "the air breathes freshly after my night's vigil." "The storm has left none but traces of beauty behind," observed Harold, as they crossed the lawn. The loveliness of the early morning was indeed a pleasant sequel to the rude tempest of the preceding night. The dewdrops glistened upon grass-blade and foliage, and the bosom of the stream flashed merrily in the sunbeams. "It is," answered Beverly, "as if Nature were rejoicing that the war of the elements is over, and a peace proclaimed. Would that the black cloud upon our political horizon had as happily passed away." After a pause, he continued: "Harold, you need not fear to remain with us a while longer. I am sure that Rawbon's confederates are heartily ashamed of their participation in last night's outrage, and will on no account be seduced to a similar adventure. Rawbon himself will not be likely to show himself in this vicinity for some time to come, unless as the inmate of a jail, for I have ordered a warrant to be issued against him. The whole affair has resulted evidently from some unaccountable antipathy which the fellow entertains against us." "I agree with you," replied Harold, "but still I think this is an unpropitious time for the prolongation of my visit. There are events, I fear, breeding for the immediate future, in which I must take a part. I shall only remain with you a few days, that I may be assured of Arthur's safety." "I will not disguise from you my impression that Virginia will withdraw from the Union. In that case, we will be nominal enemies. God grant that our paths may not cross each other." "Amen!" replied Harold, with much feeling. "But I do not understand why we should be enemies. You surely will not lend your voice to this rebellion?" "When the question of secession is before the people of my State, I shall cast my vote as my judgment and conscience shall dictate. Meanwhile I shall examine the issue, and, I trust, dispassionately. But whatever may become of my individual opinion, where Virginia goes I go, whatever be the event." "Would you uphold a wrong in the face of your own conscience?" "Oh, as to that, I do not hold it a question between right and wrong, but simply of advisability. The right of secession I entertain no doubt about." "No doubt as to the right of dismembering and destroying a government which has fostered your infancy, developed your strength, and made you one among the parts of a nation that has no peer in a world's history? Is it possible that intellect and honesty can harbor such a doctrine!" "My dear Harold, you look at the subject as an enthusiast, and you allow your heart not to assist but to control your brain. Men, by association, become attached to forms and symbols, so as in time to believe that upon their existence depends the substance of which they are but the signs. Forty years ago, in the Hawaiian Islands, the death-penalty was inflicted upon a native of the inferior caste, should he chance to pass over the shadow of one of noble birth. So would you avenge an insult to a shadow, while you allow the substance to be stolen from your grasp. Our jewel, as freemen, is the right of self-government; the form of government is a mere convenience--a machine, which may be dismembered, destroyed, remodelled a thousand times, without detriment to the great principle of which it is the outward sign." "You draw a picture of anarchy that would disgrace a confederation of petty savage tribes. What miserable apology for a government would that be whose integrity depends upon the caprice of the governed?" "It is as likely that a government should become tyrannical, as that a people should become capricious. You have simply chosen an unfair word. For _caprice_ substitute _will_, and you have my ideal of a true republic." "And by that ideal, one State, by its individual act, might overturn the entire system adopted for the convenience and safety of the whole." "Not so. It does not follow that the system should be overturned because circumscribed in limit, more than that a business firm should necessarily be ruined by the withdrawal of a partner. Observe, Harold, that the General Government was never a sovereignty, and came into existence only by the consent of each and every individual State. The States were the sovereignties, and their connection with the Union, being the mere creature of their will, can exist only by that will." "Why, Beverly, you might as well argue that this pencil-case, which became mine by an act of volition on your part, because you gave it me, ceases to be mine when you reclaim it." "If I had appointed you my amanuensis, and had transferred my pencil to you simply for the purposes of your labor in my behalf, when I choose to dismiss you, I should expect the return of my property. The States made no gifts to the Federal Government for the sake of giving, but only delegated certain powers for specific purposes. They never could have delegated the power of coercion, since no one State or number of States possessed that power as against their sister States." "But surely, in entering into the bonds of union, they formed a contract with each other which should be inviolable." "Then, at the worst, the seceding States are guilty of a breach of contract with the remaining States, but not with the General Government, with which they made no contract. They formed a union, it is true. But of what? Of sovereignties. How can those States be sovereignties which admit a power above them, possessing the right of coercion? To admit the right of coercion is to deny the existence of sovereignty." "You can find nothing in the Constitution to intimate the right of secession." "Because its framers considered the right sufficiently established by the very nature of the confederation. The fears upon the subject that were expressed by Patrick Henry, and other zealous supporters of State Rights, were quieted by the assurances of the opposite party, who ridiculed the idea that a convention, similar to that which in each State adopted the Constitution, could not thereafter, in representation of the popular will, withdraw such State from the confederacy. You have, in proof of this, but to refer to the annals of the occasion." "I discard the theory as utterly inconsistent with any legislative power. We have either a government or we have not. If we have one, it must possess within itself the power to sustain itself. Our chief magistrate becomes otherwise a mere puppet, and our Congress a shallow mockery, and the shadow only of a legislative body. Our nationality becomes a word, and nothing more. Our place among the nations becomes vacant, and the great Republic, our pride and the world's wonder, crumbles into fragments, and with its downfall perishes the hope of the oppressed of every clime. I wonder, Beverly, that you can coldly argue against the very life of your country, and not feel the parricide's remorse! Have you no lingering affection for the glorious structure which our fathers built for and bequeathed to us, and which you now seek to hurl from its foundations? Have you no pride and love for the brave old flag that has been borne in the vanguard to victory so often, that has shrouded the lifeless form of Lawrence, that has gladdened the heart of the American wandering in foreign climes, and has spread its sacred folds over the head of Washington, here, on your own native soil?" "Yes, Harold, yes! I love the Union, and I love and am proud of the brave old flag; I would die for either, and, although I reason with you coldly, my soul yearns to them both, and my heart aches when I think that soon, perhaps, they will no more belong to me. But I must sacrifice even my pride and love to a stern sense of duty. So Washington did, when he hurled his armed squadrons against the proud banner of St. George, under which he had been trained in soldiership, and had won the laurel of his early fame. He, too, no doubt, was not without a pang, to be sundered from his share of Old England's glorious memories, the land of his allegiance, the king whom he had served, the soil where the bones of his ancestors lay at rest. It would cause me many a throb of agony to draw my sword against the standard of the Republic--but I would do it, Harold, if my conscience bade me, although my nearest friends, although you, Harold--and I love you dearly--were in the foremost rank." "Where I will strive to be, should my country call upon me. But Heaven forbid that we should meet thus, Beverly!" "Heaven forbid?" he replied, with a sigh, as he pressed Harold's hand. "But yonder comes little Phil, running like mad, to tell us, doubtless, that breakfast is cold with waiting for us." They retraced their steps, and found Miss Randolph and Oriana awaiting their presence at the breakfast-table.	{ "id": "12452" }
8	None	During the four succeeding days, the house hold at Riverside manor were much alarmed for Arthur's safety, for a violent fever had ensued, and, to judge from the physician's evasive answers, the event was doubtful. The family were unremitting in their attentions, and Oriana, quietly, but with her characteristic self-will, insisted upon fulfilling her share of the duties of a nurse. And no hand more gently smoothed the sick man's pillow or administered more tenderly the cooling draught. It seemed that Arthur's sleep was calmer when her form was bending over him, and even when his thoughts were wandering and his eyes were restless with delirium, they turned to welcome her as she took her accustomed seat. Once, while she watched there alone in the twilight, the open book unheeded in her hand, and her subdued eyes bent thoughtfully upon his face as he slept unconscious of her presence, she saw the white lips move and heard the murmur of the low, musical voice. Her fair head was bent to catch the words--they were the words of delirium or of dreams, but they brought a blush to her cheek. And yet she bent her head still lower and listened, until her forehead rested on the pillow, and when she looked up again with a sigh, and fixed her eyes mechanically on the page before her, there was a trace of tears upon the drooping lashes. He awoke from a refreshing slumber and it seemed that the fever was gone; for his glance was calm and clear, and the old smile was upon his lips. When he beheld Oriana, a slight flush passed over his cheek. "Are you indeed there, Miss Weems," he said, "or do I still dream? I have been dreaming, I know not what, but I was very happy." He sighed, and closed his eyes, as if he longed to woo back the vision which had fled. She seemed to know what he had been dreaming, for while his cheek paled again, hers glowed like an autumn cloud at sunset. "I trust you are much better, Mr. Wayne?" "Oh yes, much better. I fear I have been very troublesome to you all. You have been very kind to me." "Do not speak so, Mr. Wayne," she replied, and a tear glistened in her eyes. "If you knew how grateful we all are to you! You have suffered terribly for my sake, Mr. Wayne. You have a brave, pure heart, and I could hate myself with thinking that I once dared to wrong and to insult it." "In my turn, I say do not speak so. I pray you, let there be no thoughts between us that make you unhappy. What you accuse yourself of, I have forgotten, or remember only as a passing cloud that lingered for a moment on a pure and lovely sky. There must be no self-reproaches between us twain, Miss Weems, for we must become strangers to each other in this world, and when we part I would not leave with you one bitter recollection." There was sorrow in his tone, and the young girl paused awhile and gazed through the lattice earnestly into the gathering gloom of evening. "We must not be strangers, Mr. Wayne." "Alas! yes, for to be otherwise were fatal, at least to me." She did not answer, and both remained silent and thoughtful, so long, indeed, that the night shadows obscured the room. Oriana arose and lit the lamp. "I must go and prepare some supper for you," she said, in a lighter tone. He took her hand as she stood at his bed-side and spoke in a low but earnest voice: "You must forget what I have said to you, Miss Weems. I am weak and feverish, and my brain has been wandering among misty dreams. If I have spoken indiscreetly, you will forgive me, will you not?" "It is I that am to be forgiven, for allowing my patient to talk when the doctor prescribes silence. I am going to get your supper, for I am sure you must be hungry; so, good bye," she added gaily, as she smoothed the pillow, and glided from the room. Oriana was silent and reserved for some days after this, and Harold seemed also to be disturbed and ill at ease. Some link appeared to be broken between them, for she did not look into his eyes with the same frank, trusting gaze that had so often returned his glance of tenderness, and sometimes even she looked furtively away with heightened color, when, with some gentle commonplace, his voice broke in upon her meditation. Arthur was now able to sit for some hours daily in his easy-chair, and Oriana often came to him at such times, and although they conversed but rarely, and upon indifferent themes, she was never weary of reading to him, at his request, some favorite book. And sometimes, as the author's sentiment found an echo in her heart, she would pause and gaze listlessly at the willow branches that waved before the casement, and both would remain silent and pensive, till some member of the family entered, and broke in upon their revery. "Come, Oriana," said Harold, one afternoon, "let us walk to the top of yonder hillock, and look at this glorious sunset." She went for her bonnet and shawl, and joined him. They had reached the summit of the hill before either of them broke silence, and then Oriana mechanically made some commonplace remark about the beauty of the western sky. He replied with a monosyllable, and sat down upon a moss-covered rock. She plucked a few wild-flowers, and toyed with them. "Oriana, Arthur is much better now." "Much better, Harold." "I have no fears for his safety now. I think I shall go to-morrow." "Go, Harold?" "Yes, to New York. The President has appealed to the States for troops. I am no soldier, but I cannot remain idle while my fellow citizens are rallying to arms." "Will you fight, Harold?" "If needs be." "Against your countrymen?" "Against traitors." "Against me, perhaps." "Heaven forbid that the blood of any of your kin should be upon my hands. I know how much you have suffered, dearest, with the thought that this unhappy business may separate us for a time. Think you that the eye of affection could fail to notice your dejection and reflective mood for some days past?" Her face grew crimson, and she tore nervously the petals of the flower in her hand. "Oriana, you are my betrothed, and no earthly discords should sever our destinies or estrange our hearts. Why should we part at all. Be mine at once, Oriana, and go with me to the loyal North, for none may tell how soon a barrier may be set between your home and me." "That would be treason to my kindred and the home of my birth." "And to be severed from me--would it not be treason to your heart?" She did not answer. "I have spoken to Beverly about it, and he will not seek to control you. We are most unhappy, Oriana, in our national troubles; why should we be so in our domestic ties. We can be blest, even among the rude alarms of war. This strife will soon be over, and you shall see the old homestead once again. But while the dark cloud lowers, I call upon you, in the name of your pledged affection, to share my fortunes with me, and bless me with this dear hand." That hand remained passively within his own, but her bosom swelled with emotion, and presently the large tears rolled upon her cheek. He would have pressed her to his bosom, but she gently turned from him, and sinking upon the sward, sobbed through her clasped fingers. "Why are you thus unhappy, dear Oriana?" he murmured, as he bent tenderly above her. "Surely you do not love me less because of this poison of rebellion that infects the land. And with love, woman's best consolation, to be your comforter, why should you be unhappy?" She arose, pale and excited, and raised his hand to her lips. The act seemed to him a strange one for an affianced bride, and he gazed upon her with a troubled air. "Let us go home, Harold." "But tell me that you love me." She placed her two hands lightly about his neck, and looked up mournfully but steadily into his face. "I will be your true wife, Harold, and pray heaven I may love you as you deserve to be loved. But I am not well to-day, Harold. Let us speak no more of this now, for there is something at my heart that must be quieted with penitence and prayer. Oh, do not question me, Harold," she added, as she leaned her cheek upon his breast; "we will talk with Beverly, and to-morrow I shall be stronger and less foolish. Come, Harold, let us go home." She placed her arm within his, and they walked silently homeward. When they reached the house, Oriana was hastening to her chamber, but she lingered at the threshold, and returned to Harold. "I am not well to-night, and shall not come down to tea. Good night, Harold. Smile upon me as you were wont to do," she added, as she pressed his hand and raised her swollen eyes, beneath whose white lids were crushed two teardrops that were striving to burst forth. "Give me the smile of the old time, and the old kiss, Harold," and she raised her forehead to receive it. "Do not look disturbed; I have but a headache, and shall be well to-morrow. Good night--dear--Harold." She strove to look pleasantly as she left the room, but Harold was bewildered and anxious, and, till the summons came for supper, he paced the veranda with slow and meditative steps.	{ "id": "12452" }
9	None	The following morning was warm and springlike, and Arthur was sufficiently strong and well to walk out a little in the open air. He had been seated upon the veranda conversing with Beverly and Harold, when the latter proposed a stroll with Beverly, with whom he wished to converse in relation to his proposed marriage. As the beams of the unclouded sun had already chased away the morning dew, and the air was warm and balmy, Arthur walked out into the garden and breathed the freshness of the atmosphere with the exhilaration of a convalescent freed for the first time from the sick-room. Accidentally, or by instinct, he turned his steps to the little grove which he knew was Oriana's favorite haunt; and there, indeed, she sat, upon the rustic bench, above which the drooping limbs of the willow formed a leafy canopy. The pensive girl, her white hand, on which she leaned, buried among the raven tresses, was gazing fixedly into the depths of the clear sky, as if she sought to penetrate that azure veil, and find some hope realized among the mysteries of the space beyond. The neglected volume had fallen from her lap, and lay among the bluebells at her feet. Arthur's feeble steps were unheard upon the sward, and he had taken his seat beside her, before, conscious of an intruder, she started from her dream. "The first pilgrimage of my convalescence is to your bower, my gentle nurse. I have come to thank you for more kindness than I can ever repay, except with grateful thoughts." She had risen when she became aware of his presence; and when she resumed her seat, it seemed with hesitation, and almost an effort, as if two impulses were struggling within her. But her pleasure to see him abroad again was too hearty to be checked, and she timidly gave him the hand which his extended palm invited to a friendly grasp. "Indeed, Mr. Wayne, I am very glad to see you so far recovered." "To your kind offices chiefly I owe it, and those of my good friends, your brother and Harold, and our excellent Miss Randolph. My sick-room has been the test of so much friendship, that I could almost be sinful enough to regret the returning health which makes me no longer a dependent on your care. But you are pale, Miss Weems. Or is it that my eyes are unused to this broad daylight? Indeed, I trust you are not ill?" "Oh, no, I am quite well," she answered; but it was with an involuntary sigh that was in contrast with the words. "But you are not strong yet, Mr. Wayne, and I must not let you linger too long in the fresh morning air. We had best go in under shelter of the veranda." She arose, and would have led the way, but he detained her gently with a light touch upon her sleeve. "Stay one moment, I pray you. I seem to breathe new life with this pure air, and the perfume of these bowers awakens within me an inexpressible and calm delight. I shall be all the better for one tranquil hour with nature in bloom, if you, like the guardian nymph of these floral treasures, will sit beside me." He drew her gently back into the seat, and looked long and earnestly upon her face. She felt his gaze, but dared not return it, and her fair head drooped like a flower that bends beneath the glance of a scorching sun. "Miss Weems," he said at last, but his voice was so low and tremulous that it scarce rose above the rustle of the swinging willow boughs, "you are soon to be a bride, and in your path the kind Destinies will shower blessings. When they wreathe the orange blossoms in your hair, and you are led to the altar by the hand to which you must cling for life, if I should not be there to wish you joy, you will not deem, will you, that I am less your friend?" The fair head drooping yet lower was her only answer. "And when you shall be the mistress of a home where Content will be shrined, the companion of your virtues, and over your threshold many friends shall be welcomed, if I should never sit beside your hearthstone, you will not, will you, believe that I have forgotten, or that I could forget?" Still lower the fair head drooped, but she answered only with a falling tear. "I told you the other day that we should be strangers through life, and why, I must not tell, although perhaps your woman's heart may whisper, and yet not condemn me for that which, Heaven knows, I have struggled against--alas, in vain! Do not turn from me. I would not breathe a word to you that in all honor you should not hear, although my heart seems bursting with its longing, and I would yield my soul with rapture from its frail casket, for but one moment's right to give its secret wings. I will bid you farewell to-morrow"-- "To-morrow!" "Yes, the doctor says that the sea air will do me good, and an occasion offers to-morrow which I shall embrace. It will be like setting forth upon a journey through endless solitudes, where my only companions will be a memory and a sorrow." He paused a while, but continued with an effort at composure. "Our hearts are tyrants to us, Miss Weems, and will not, sometimes, be tutored into silence. I see that I have moved, but I trust not offended you." "You have not offended," she murmured, but in so low a tone that perhaps the words were lost in the faint moan of the swaying foliage. "What I have said," he continued earnestly, and taking her hand with a gentle but respectful pressure, "has been spoken as one who is dying speaks with his fleeting breath; for evermore my lips shall be shackled against my heart, and the past shall be sealed and avoided as a forbidden theme. We are, then, good friends at parting, are we not?" "Yes." "And, believe me, I shall be happiest when I think that you are happy--for you will be happy." She sighed so deeply that the words were checked upon his lips, as if some new emotion had turned the current of his thought. "Are you _not_ happy?" The tears that, in spite of her endeavor, burst from beneath the downcast lids, answered him as words could not have done. He was agitated and unnerved, and, leaning his brow against his hand, remained silent while she wept. "Harold is a noble fellow," he said at last, after a long silence, and when she had grown calmer, "and deserves to be loved as I am sure you love him." "Oh, he has a noble heart, and I would die rather than cause him pain." "And you love him?" "I thought I loved him." The words were faint--hardly more than a breath upon her lips; but he heard them, and his heart grew big with an undefined awe, as if some vague danger were looming among the shadows of his destiny. Oriana turned to him suddenly, and clasped his hand within her trembling fingers. "Oh, Mr. Wayne! you must go, and never see me more. I am standing on the brink of an abyss, and my heart bids me leap. I see the danger, and, oh God! I have prayed for power to shun it. But Arthur, Arthur, if you do not help me, I am lost. You are a man, an honest man, an honorable man, who will not wrong your friend, or tempt the woman that cannot love you without sin. Oh, save me from myself--from you--from the cruel wrong that I could even dream of against him to whom I have sworn my woman's faith. I am a child in your hands, Arthur, and in the face of the reproaching Providence above me, I feel--I feel that I am at your mercy. I feel that what you speak I must listen to; that should you bid me stand beside you at the altar, I should not have courage to refuse. I feel, oh God! Arthur, that I love you, and am betrothed to Harold. But you are strong--you have courage, will, the power to defy such weakness of the heart--and you will save me, for I know you are a good and honest man." As she spoke, with her face upturned to him, and the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, her fingers convulsively clasped about his hand, and her form bending closer and closer toward him, till her cheek was resting on his bosom, Arthur shuddered with intensity of feeling, and from his averted eyes the scalding drops, that had never once before moistened their surface, betrayed how terribly he was shaken with emotion. But while she spoke, rapt as they were within themselves, they saw not one who stood with folded arms beside the rustic bench, and gazed upon them. "As God is my hope," said Arthur, "I will disarm temptation. Fear not. From this hour we part. Henceforth the living and the dead shall not be more estranged than we." He arose, but started as if an apparition met his gaze. Oriana knelt beside him, and touched her lips to his hand in gratitude. An arm raised her tenderly, and a gentle voice murmured her name. It was not Arthur's. Oriana raised her head, with a faint cry of terror. She gasped and swooned upon the intruder's breast. It was Harold Hare who held her in his arms. Arthur, with folded arms, stood erect, but pale, in the presence of his friend. His eye, sorrowful, yet calm, was fixed upon Harold, as if awaiting his angry glance. But Harold looked only on the lifeless form he held, and parting the tresses from her cold brow, his lips rested there a moment with such a fond caress as sometimes a father gives his child. "Poor girl!" he murmured, "would that my sorrow could avail for both. Arthur, I have heard enough to know you would not do me wrong. Grief is in store for us, but let us not be enemies." Mournfully, he gave his hand to Arthur, and Oriana, as she wakened from her trance, beheld them locked in that sad grasp, like two twin statues of despair. They led her to the house, and then the two young men walked out alone, and talked frankly and tranquilly upon the subject. It was determined that both should leave Riverside manor on the morrow, and that Oriana should be left to commune with her own heart, and take counsel of time and meditation. They would not grieve Beverly with their secret, at least not for the present, when his sister was so ill prepared to bear remonstrance or reproof. Harold wrote a kind letter for Oriana, in which he released her from her pledged faith, asking only that she should take time to study her heart, but in no wise let a sense of duty stand in the way of her happiness. He took pains to conceal the depth of his own affliction, and to avoid whatever she might construe as reproach. They would have gone without an interview with Oriana, but that would have seemed strange to Beverly. However, Oriana, although pale and nervous, met them in the morning with more composure than they had anticipated. Harold, just before starting, drew her aside, and placed the letter in her hand. "That will tell you all I would say, and you must read it when your heart is strong and firm. Do not look so wretched. All may yet be well. I would fain see you smile before I go." But though she had evidently nerved herself to be composed, the tears would come, and her heart seemed rising to her throat and about to burst in sobs. "I will be your true wife, Harold, and I will love you. Do not desert me, do not cast me from you. I cannot bear to be so guilty. Indeed, Harold, I will be true and faithful to you." "There is no guilt in that young heart," he answered, as he kissed her forehead. "But now, we must not talk of love; hereafter, perhaps, when time and absence shall teach us where to choose for happiness. Part from me now as if I were your brother, and give me a sister's kiss. Would you see Arthur?" She trembled and whispered painfully: "No, Harold, no--I dare not. Oh, Harold, bid him forget me." "It is better that you should not see him. Farewell! be brave. We are good friends, remember. Farewell, dear girl." Beverly had been waiting with the carriage, and as the time was short, he called to Harold. Arthur, who stood at the carriage wheel, simply raised his hat to Oriana, as if in a parting salute. He would have given his right hand to have pressed hers for a moment; but his will was iron, and he did not once look back as the carriage whirled away.	{ "id": "12452" }
10	None	In the drawing-room of an elegant mansion in a fashionable quarter of the city of New York, toward the close of April, a social party were assembled, distributed mostly in small conversational groups. The head of the establishment, a pompous, well-to-do merchant, stout, short, and baldheaded, and evidently well satisfied with himself and his position in society, was vehemently expressing his opinions upon the affairs of the nation to an attentive audience of two or three elderly business men, with a ponderous earnestness that proved him, in his own estimation, as much _au fait_ in political affairs as in the routine of his counting-room. An individual of middle age, a man of the world, apparently, who was seated at a side-table, carelessly glancing over a book of engravings, was the only one who occasionally exasperated the pompous gentleman with contradictions or ill-timed interruptions. "The government must be sustained," said the stout gentleman, "and we, the merchants of the North, will do it. It is money, sir, money," he continued, unconsciously rattling the coin in his breeches pocket, "that settles every question at the present day, and our money will bring these beggarly rebels to their senses. They can't do without us, sir. They would be ruined in six months, if shut out from commercial intercourse with the North." "How long before you would be ruined by the operations of the same cause?" inquired the individual at the side-table. "Sir, we of the North hold the wealth of the country in our pockets. They can't fight against our money--they can't do it, sir." "Your ancestors fought against money, and fought passably well." "Yes, sir, for the great principles of human liberty." "Which these rebels believe they are fighting for. You have need of all your money to keep a respectable army in the field. These Southerners may have to fight in rags, as insurgents generally do: witness the struggle of your Revolution; but until you lay waste their corn-fields and drive off their cattle, they will have full stomachs, and that, after all, is the first consideration." "You are an alien, sir, a foreigner; you know nothing of our great institutions; you know nothing of the wealth of the North, and the spirit of the people." "I see a great deal of bunting in the streets, and hear any quantity of declamation at your popular gatherings. But as I journeyed northward from New Orleans, I saw the same in the South--perhaps more of it." "And could not distinguish between the frenzy of treason and the enthusiasm of patriotism?" "Not at all; except that treason seemed more earnest and unanimous." "You have seen with the eyes of an Englishman--of one hostile to our institutions." "Oh, no; as a man of the world, a traveller, without prejudice or passion, receiving impressions and noting them. I like your country; I like your people. I have observed foibles in the North and in the South, but there is an under-current of strong feeling and good sense which I have noted and admired. I think your quarrel is one of foibles--one conceived in the spirit of petulance, and about to be prosecuted in the spirit of exaltation. I believe the professed mutual hatred of the sections to be superficial, and that it could be cancelled. It is fostered by the bitterness of fanatics, assisted by a very natural disinclination on the part of the masses to yield a disputed point. If hostilities should cease to-morrow, you would be better friends than ever." "But the principle, sir! The right of the thing, and the wrong of the thing! Can we parley with traitors? Can we negotiate with armed rebellion? Is it not our paramount duty to set at rest forever the doctrine of secession?" "As a matter of policy, perhaps. But as a right, I doubt it. Your government I look upon as a mere agency appointed by contracting parties to transact certain affairs for their convenience. Should one or more of those contracting parties, sovereignties in themselves, hold it to their interest to transact their business without the assistance of an agent, I cannot perceive that the right can be denied by any provision of the contract. In your case, the employers have dismissed their agent, who seeks to reinstate the office by force of arms. As justly might my lawyer, when I no longer need his services, attempt to coerce me into a continuance of business relations, by invading my residence with a loaded pistol. The States, without extinguishing their sovereignty, created the Federal Government; it is the child of State legislation, and now the child seeks to chastise and control the parent. The General Government can possess no inherent or self-created function; its power, its very existence, were granted for certain uses. As regards your State's connection with that Government, no other State has the right to interfere; but as for another State's connection with it, the power that made it can unmake." "So you would have the government quietly acquiesce in the robbery of public property, the occupation of Federal strongholds and the seizure of ships and revenues in which they have but a share?" "If, by the necessity of the case, the seceded States hold in their possession more than their share of public property, a division should be made by arbitration, as in other cases where a distribution of common property is required. It may have been a wrong and an insult to bombard Fort Sumter and haul down the Federal flag, but that does not establish a right on the part of the Federal Government to coerce the wrong-doing States into a union with the others. And that, I take it, is the avowed purpose of your administration." "Yes, and that purpose will be fulfilled. We have the money to do it, and we will do it, sir." A tall, thin gentleman, with a white cravat and a bilious complexion, approached the party from a different part of the room. "It can't be done with money, Mr. Pursely," said the new comer, "Unless the great, the divine principle of universal human liberty is invoked. An offended but merciful Providence has given the people this chance for redemption, in the opportunity to strike the shackle from the slave. I hold the war a blessing to the nation and to humanity, in that it will cleanse the land from its curse of slavery. It is an invitation from God to wipe away the record of our past tardiness and tolerance, by striking at the great sin with fire and sword. The blood of millions is nothing--the woe, the lamentation, the ruin of the land is nothing--the overthrow of the Union itself is nothing, if we can but win God's smile by setting a brand in the hand of the bondman to scourge his master. But assuredly unless we arouse the slave to seize the torch and the dagger, and avenge the wrongs of his race, Providence will frown upon our efforts, and our arms will not prevail." A tall man in military undress replied with considerable emphasis: "Then your black-coated gentry must fight their own battle. The people will not arm if abolition is to be the watchword. I for one will not strike a blow if it be not understood that the institutions of the South shall be respected." "The government must be sustained, that is the point," cried Mr. Pursely. "It matters little what becomes of the negro, but the government must be sustained. Otherwise, what security will there be for property, and what will become of trade?" "Who thinks of trade or property at such a crisis?" interrupted an enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine broadcloth of his sleeve. "The insult to our flag must be wiped out," said the military gentleman. "The honor of the glorious stripes and stars must be vindicated to the world." "Let us chastise these boasting Southrons," said another, "and prove our supremacy in arms, and I shall be satisfied." "But above all," insisted a third, "we must check the sneers and exultation of European powers, and show them that we have not forgotten the art of war since the days of 1776 and 1812." "I should like to know what you are going to fight about," said the Englishman, quietly; "for there appears to be much diversity of opinion. However, if you are determined to cut each others' throats, perhaps one pretext is as good as another, and a dozen better than only one." In the quiet recess of a window, shadowed by the crimson curtains, sat a fair young girl, and a man, young and handsome, but upon whose countenance the traces of dissipation and of passion were deeply marked. Miranda Ayleff was a Virginian, the cousin and quondam playmate of Oriana Weems, like her an orphan, and a ward of Beverly. Her companion was Philip Searle. She had known him in Richmond, and had become much attached to him, but his habits and character were such, that her friends, and Beverly chiefly, had earnestly discouraged their intimacy. Philip left for the North, and Miranda, who at the date of our story was the guest of Mrs. Pursely, her relative, met him in New York, after a separation of two years. Philip, who, in spite of his evil ways, was singularly handsome and agreeable in manners, found little difficulty in fanning the old flame, and, upon the plea of old acquaintance, became a frequent visitor upon Miranda at Mr. Pursely's mansion, where we now find them, earnestly conversing, but in low tones, in the little solitude of the great bay window. "You reproach me with vices which your unkindness has helped to stain me with. Driven from your presence, whom alone I cared to live for, what marvel if I sought oblivion in the wine-cup and the dice-box? Give me one chance, Miranda, to redeem myself. Let me call you wife, and you will become my guardian angel, and save me from myself." "You know that I love you, Philip," she replied, "and willingly would I share your destiny, hoping to win you from evil. Go with me to Richmond. We will speak with Beverly, who is kind and truly loves me. We will convince him of your good purposes, and will win his consent to our union." "No, Miranda; Beverly and your friends in Richmond will never believe me worthy of you. Besides, it would be dangerous for me to visit Richmond. I have identified myself with the Northern cause, and although, for your sake, I might refrain from bearing arms against Virginia, yet I have little sympathy with any there, where I have been branded as a drunkard and a gambler." "Yet, Philip, is it not the land of your birth--the home of your boyhood?" "The land of my shame and humiliation. No Miranda, I will not return to Virginia. And if you love me, you will not return. What are these senseless quarrels to us? We can be happy in each other's love, and forget that madmen are at war around us. Why will you not trust me, Miranda--why do you thus withhold from me my only hope of redemption from the terrible vice that is killing me? I put my destiny, my very life in your keeping, and you hesitate to accept the trust that alone can save me. Oh, Miranda! you do not love me." "Philip, I cannot renounce my friends, my dear country, the home of my childhood." "Then look you what will be my fate: I will join the armies of the North, and fling away my life in battle against my native soil. Ruin and death cannot come too soon when you forsake me." Miranda remained silent, but, through the gloom of the recess, he could see the glistening of a tear upon her cheek. The hall-bell rang, and the servant brought in a card for Miss Ayleff. Following it, Arthur Wayne was ushered into the room. She rose to receive him, somewhat surprised at a visit from a stranger. "I have brought these letters for you from my good friend Beverly Weems," said Arthur. "At his request, I have ventured to call in person, most happy, if you will forgive the presumption, in the opportunity." She gave her hand, and welcomed him gracefully and warmly, and, having introduced Mr. Searle, excused herself while she glanced at the contents of Beverly's letter. While thus employed, Arthur marked her changing color; and then, lifting his eyes lest his scrutiny might be rude, observed Philip's dark eye fixed upon her with a suspicious and searching expression. Then Philip looked up, and their glances met--the calm blue eye and the flashing black--but for an instant, but long enough to confirm the instinctive feeling that there was no sympathy between their hearts. A half-hour's general conversation ensued, but Philip appeared restless and uneasy, and rose to take his leave. She followed him to the parlor door. "Come to me to-morrow," she said, as she gave her hand, "and we will talk again." A smile of triumph rested upon his pale lips for a second; but he pressed her hand, and, murmuring an affectionate farewell, withdrew. Arthur remained a few moments, but observing that Miranda was pensive and absent, he bade her good evening, accepting her urgent invitation to call at an early period.	{ "id": "12452" }
11	None	"Well, Arthur," said Harold Hare, entering the room of the former at his hotel, on the following evening, "I have come to bid you good bye. I start for home to-morrow morning," he added, in reply to Arthur's questioning glance. "I am to have a company of Providence boys in my old friend Colonel R----'s regiment. And after a little brisk recruiting, ho! for Washington and the wars!" "You have determined for the war, then?" "Of course. And you?" "I shall go to my Vermont farm, and live quietly among my books and pastures." "A dull life, Arthur, when every wind that blows will bring to your ears the swell of martial music and the din of arms." "If I were in love with the pomp of war, which, thank heaven, I am not, Harold, I would rather dwell in a hermit's cave, than follow the fife and drum over the bodies of my Southern countrymen." "Those Southern countrymen, that you seem to love better than the country they would ruin, would have little remorse in marching over your body, even among the ashes of your farm-house. Doubtless you would stand at your threshold, and welcome their butchery, should their ruffian legions ravage our land as far as your Green Mountains." "I do not think they will invade one foot of Northern soil, unless compelled by strict military necessity. However, should the State to which I owe allegiance be attacked by foreign or domestic foe, I will stand among its defenders. But, dear Harold, let us not argue this sad subject, which it is grief enough but to contemplate. Tell me of your plans, and how I shall communicate with you, while you are absent. My distress about this unhappy war will be keener, when I feel that my dear friend may be its victim." Harold pressed his hand affectionately, and the two friends spoke of the misty future, till Harold arose to depart. They had not mentioned Oriana's name, though she was in their thoughts, and each, as he bade farewell, knew that some part of the other's sadness was for her sake. Arthur accompanied Harold a short distance up Broadway, and returning, found at the office of the hotel, a letter, without post-mark, to his address. He stepped into the reading-room to peruse it. It was from Beverly, and ran thus: "RICHMOND, _May_ --, 1861. "DEAR ARTHUR: The departure of a friend gives me an opportunity to write you about a matter that I beg you will attend to, for my sake, thoroughly. I learned this morning, upon receipt of a letter from Mr. Pursely, that Miranda Ayleff, of whom we spoke together, and to whom I presume you have already delivered my communication, is receiving the visits of one Philip Searle, to whom, some two years since, she was much attached. _Entre nous_, Arthur, I can tell you, the man is a scoundrel of the deepest dye. Not only a drunkard and a gambler, but dishonest, and unfit for any decent girl's society. He is guilty of forgery against me, and, against my conscience, I hushed the matter only out of consideration for her feelings. I would still have concealed the matter from her, had this resumption of their intimacy not occurred. But her welfare must cancel all scruples of that character; and I therefore entreat you to see her at once, and unmask the man fully and unequivocally. If necessary you may show my letter for that purpose. I would go on to New York myself immediately, were I not employed upon a State mission of exceeding delicacy and importance; but I have full confidence in your good judgment. Spare no arguments to induce her to return immediately to Richmond. "Oriana has not been well; I know not what ails her, but, though she makes no complaint, the girl seems really ill. She knows not of my writing, for I would not pain her about Miranda, of whom she is very fond. But I can venture, without consulting her, to send you her good wishes. Let me hear from you in full about what I have written. Your friend. "BEVERLY WEEMS." "P.S.--Knowing that you must yet be weak with your late illness, I would have troubled Harold, rather than you, about this matter, but I am ignorant of his present whereabouts, while I know that you contemplated remaining a week or so in New York. Write me about the ugly bite in the shoulder, from which I trust you are well recovered. B.W." Arthur looked up from the letter, and beheld Philip Searle seated at the opposite side of the table. He had entered while Arthur's attention was absorbed in reading, and having glanced at the address of the envelope which lay upon the table, he recognized the hand of Beverly. This prompted him to pause, and taking up one of the newspapers which were strewn about the table, he sat down, and while he appeared to read, glanced furtively at his _vis-à-vis_ over the paper's edge. When his presence was noticed, he bowed, and Arthur, with a slight and stern inclination of the head, fixed his calm eye upon him with a searching severity that brought a flush of anger to Philip's brow. "That is Weems' hand," he muttered, inwardly, "and by that fellow's look, I fancy that no less a person than myself is the subject of his epistle." Arthur had walked away, but, in his surprise at the unexpected presence of Searle, he had allowed the letter to remain upon the table. No sooner had he passed out of the room, than Philip quietly but rapidly stretched his hand beneath the pile of scattered journals, and drew it toward him. It required but an instant for his quick eye to catch the substance. His face grew livid, and his teeth grated harshly with suppressed rage. "We shall have a game of plot and counterplot before this ends, my man," he muttered. There were pen and paper on the table, and he wrote a few lines hastily, placed them in the envelope, and put Beverly's letter in his pocket. He had hardly finished when Arthur reëntered the room, advanced rapidly to the table, and, with a look of relief, took up the envelope and its contents, and again left the room. Philip's lip curled beneath the black moustache with a smile of triumphant malice. "Keep it safe in your pocket for a few hours, my gamecock, and my heiress to a beggar-girl, I'll have stone walls between you and me."	{ "id": "12452" }
12	None	The evening was somewhat advanced, but Arthur determined at once to seek an interview with Miss Ayleff. Hastily arranging his toilet, he walked briskly up Broadway, revolving in his mind a fit course for fulfilling his delicate errand. To shorten his way, he turned into a cross street in the upper part of the city. As he approached the hall door of a large brick house, his eye chanced to fall upon a man who was ringing for admittance. The light from the street lamp fell full upon his face, and he recognized the features of Philip Searle. At that moment the door was opened, and Philip entered. Arthur would have passed on, but something in the appearance of the house arrested his attention, and, on closer scrutiny, revealed to him its character. One of those impulses which sometimes sway our actions, tempted him to enter, and learn, if possible, something further respecting the habits of the man whose scheme he had been commissioned to thwart. A moment's reflection might have changed his purpose, but his hand was already upon the bell, and the summons was quickly answered by a good-looking but faded young woman, with painted cheeks and gay attire. She fixed her keen, bold eyes upon him for a few seconds, and then, tossing her ringlets, pertly invited him to enter. "Who is within?" asked Arthur, standing in the hall. "Only the girls. Walk in." "The gentleman who came in before me, is he there?" "Do you want to see him?" she asked, suspiciously. "Oh, no. Only I would avoid being seen by any one." "He will not see you. Come right in." And she threw open the door, and flaunted in. Arthur followed her without hesitation. Bursts of forced and cheerless laughter, and the shrill sound of rude and flippant talk, smote unpleasantly upon his ear. The room was richly furnished, but without taste or modesty. The tall mirrors were displayed with ostentation, and the paintings, offensive in design, hung conspicuous in showy frames. The numerous gas jets, flashing among glittering crystal pendants, made vice more glaring and heartlessness more terribly apparent. Women, with bold and haggard eyes, with brazen brows, and cheeks from which the roses of virgin shame had been plucked to bloom no more forever--mostly young girls, scourging their youth into old age, and gathering poison at once for soul and body--with sensual indolence reclined upon the rich ottomans, or with fantastic grace whirled through lewd waltzes over the velvet carpets. There was laughter without joy--there was frivolity without merriment--there was the surface of enjoyment and the substance of woe, for beneath those painted cheeks was the pallor of despair and broken health, and beneath those whitened bosoms, half veiled with gaudy silks, were hearts that were aching with remorse, or, yet more unhappy, benumbed and callous with habitual sin. Yet there, like a crushed pearl upon a heap of garbage, lingers the trace of beauty; and there, surely, though sepulchred in the caverns of vice, dwells something that was once innocence, and not unredeemable. But whence is the friendly word to come, whence the guardian hand that might lift them from the slough. They live accursed by even charity, shunned by philanthropy, and shut from the Christian world like a tribe of lepers whose touch is contagion and whose breath is pestilence. In the glittering halls of fashion, the high-born beauty, with wreaths about her white temples and diamonds upon her chaste bosom, gives her gloved hand for the dance, and forgets that an erring sister, by the touch of those white fingers, might be raised from the grave of her chastity, and clothed anew with the white garments of repentance. But no; the cold world of fashion, that from its cushioned pew has listened with stately devotion to the words of the Redeemer, has taught her that to redeem the fallen is beneath her caste. The bond of sisterhood is broken. The lost one must pursue her hideous destiny, each avenue of escape blocked by the scorn and loathing which denies her the contact of virtue and the counsel of purity. In the broad fields of charity, invaded by cold philosophers, losing themselves in searching unreal and vague philanthropies, none so practical in beneficence as to take her by the hand, saying, "Go, and sin no more." But whenever the path of benevolence is intricate and doubtful, whenever the work is linked with a riddle whose solving will breed discord and trouble among men, whenever there is a chance to make philanthropy a plea for hate, and bitterness and charity can be made a battle-cry to arouse the spirit of destruction, and spread ruin and desolation over the fair face of the earth, then will the domes of our churches resound with eloquence, then will the journals of the land teem with their mystic theories, then will the mourners of human woe be loud in lamentation, and lift up their mighty voices to cry down an abstract evil. When actual misery appeals to them, they are deaf; when the plain and palpable error stalks before them, they turn aside. They are too busy with the tangles of some philanthropic Gordian knot, to stretch out a helping hand to the sufferer at their sides. They are frenzied with their zeal to build a bridge over a spanless ocean, while the drowning wretch is sinking within their grasp. They scorn the simple charity of the good Samaritan; theirs must be a gigantic and splendid achievement in experimental beneficence, worthy of their philosophic brains. The wrong they would redress must be one that half the world esteems a right; else there would be no room for their arguments, no occasion for their invective, no excuse for their passion. To do good is too simple for their transcendentalism; they must first make evil out of their logic, and then, through blood and wasting flames, drive on the people to destruction, that the imaginary evil may be destroyed. While Charity soars so high among the clouds, she will never stoop to lift the Magdalen from sin.	{ "id": "12452" }
13	None	Arthur heaved an involuntary sigh, as he gazed upon those sad wrecks of womanhood, striving to harden their sense of degradation by its impudent display. But an expression of bewildered and sorrowful surprise suddenly overspread his countenance. Seated alone upon a cushioned stool, at the chimney-corner, was a young woman, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her face bent thoughtfully upon her palms. She was apparently lost in thought to all around her. She was thinking--of what? Perhaps of the green fields where she played in childhood; perhaps of her days of innocence; perhaps of the mother at whose feet she had once knelt in prayer. But she was far away, in thought, from that scene of infamy of which she was a part; for, in the glare of the gaslight, a tear struggled through her eyelashes, and glittered like a ray from heaven piercing the glooms of hell. Arthur walked to her, and placed his hand softly upon her yellow hair. "Oh, Mary!" he murmured, in a tone of gentle sorrow, that sounded strangely amid the discordant merriment that filled the room. She looked up, at his touch, but when his voice fell upon her ear, she arose suddenly and stood before him like one struck dumb betwixt humiliation and wonder. The angel had not yet fled that bosom, for the blush of shame glowed through the chalk upon her brow and outcrimsoned the paint upon her cheek. As it passed away, she would have wreathed her lip mechanically with the pert smile of her vocation, but the smile was frozen ere it reached her lips, and the coarse words she would have spoken died into a murmur and a sob. She sank down again upon the cushion, and bent her face low down upon her hands. "Oh, Mary! is it you! is it you! I pray heaven your mother be in her grave!" She rose and escaped quickly from the room; but he followed her and checked her at the stairway. "Let me speak with you, Mary. No, not here; lead me to your room." He followed her up-stairs, and closing the door, sat beside her as she leaned upon the bed and buried her face in the pillow. It was the child of his old nurse. Upon the hill-sides of his native State they had played together when children, and now she lay there before him, with scarce enough of woman's nature left to weep for her own misery. "Mary, how is this? Look up, child," he said, taking her hand kindly. "I had rather see you thus, bent low with sorrow, than bold and hard in guilt. But yet look up and speak to me. I will be your friend, you know. Tell me, why are you thus?" "Oh, Mr. Wayne, do not scold me, please don't. I was thinking of home and mother when you came and put your hand on my head. Mother's dead." "Well for her, poor woman. But how came you thus?" "I scarcely seem to know. It seems to me a dream. I married John, and he brought me to New York. Then the war came, and he went and was killed. And mother was dead, and I had no friends in the great city. I could get no work, and I was starving, indeed I was, Mr. Wayne. So a young man, who was very handsome, and rich, I think, for he gave me money and fine dresses, he promised me--Oh, Mr. Wayne, I was very wrong and foolish, and I wish I could die, and be buried by my poor mother." "And did he bring you here?" "Oh no, sir. I came here two weeks ago, after he had left me. And when he came in one night and found me here, he was very angry, and said he would kill me if I told any one that I knew him. And I know why; but you won't tell, Mr. Wayne, for it would make him angry. I have found out that he is married to the mistress of this house. He's a bad man, I know now, and often comes here drunk, and swears at the woman and the girls. Hark! that's her room, next to mine, and I think he's in there now." The faint sound of voices, smothered by the walls, reached them from the adjoining chamber; but as they listened, the door of that room opened, and the loud and angry tones of a man, speaking at the threshold, could be distinctly heard. Arthur quietly and carefully opened the door of Mary's room, an inch or less, and listened at the aperture. He was not mistaken; he recognized the voice of Philip Searle. "I'll do it, anyhow," said Philip, angrily, and with the thick utterance of one who had been drinking. "I'll do it; and if you trouble me, I'll fix you." "Philip, if you marry that girl I'll peach; I will, so help me G--d," replied a woman's voice. "I've given you the money, and I've given you plenty before, as much as I had to give you, Philip, and you know it. I don't mind that, but you shan't marry till I'm dead. I'm your lawful wife, and if I'm low now, it's your fault, for you drove me to it." "I'll drive you to hell if you worry me. I tell you she's got lots of money, and a farm, and niggers, and you shall have half if you only keep your mouth shut. Come, now, Molly, don't be a fool; what's the use, now?" They went down the stairway together, and their voices were lost as they descended. Arthur determined to follow and get some clue, if possible, as to the man's, intentions. He therefore gave his address to Mary, and made her promise faithfully to meet him on the following morning, promising to befriend her and send her to his mother in Vermont. Hearing the front door close, and surmising that Philip had departed, he bade her good night, and descending hastily, was upon the sidewalk in time to observe Philip's form in the starlight as he turned the corner. It was now ten o'clock; too late to call upon Miranda without disturbing the household, which he desired to avoid. Arthur's present fear was that possibly an elopement had been planned for that night, and he therefore determined, if practicable, to keep Searle in view till he had traced him home. The latter entered a refreshment saloon upon Broadway; Arthur followed, and ordering, in a low tone, some dish that would require time in the preparation, he stepped, without noise, into an alcove adjoining one whence came the sound of conversation. "Well, what's up?" inquired a gruff, coarse voice. "Fill me some brandy," replied Philip. "I tell you, Bradshaw, it's risky, but I'll do it. The old woman's rock. She'll blow upon me if she gets the chance; but I'm in for it, and I'll put it through. We must manage to keep it mum from her, and as soon as I get the girl I'll accept the lieutenancy, and be off to the wars till all blows over. If Moll should smoke me out there, I'll cross the line and take sanctuary with Jeff. Davis." "What about the girl?" "Oh; she's all right," replied Philip, with a drunken chuckle. "I had an interview with the dear creature this morning, and she's like wax in my hands. It's all arranged for to-morrow morning. You be sure to have the carriage ready at the Park--the same spot, you know--by ten o'clock. She can't well get away before, but that will be time enough for the train." "I want that money now." "Moll's hard up, but I got a couple of hundred from her. Here's fifty for you; now don't grumble, I'm doing the best I can, d--n you, and you know it. Now listen--I want to fix things with you about that blue-eyed chap." The waiter here brought in Arthur's order, and a sudden silence ensued in the alcove. The two men had evidently been unaware of the proximity of a third party, and their tone, though low, had not been sufficiently guarded to escape Arthur hearing, whose ear, leaning against the thin partition, was within a few inches of Philip's head. A muttered curse and the gurgling of liquor from a decanter was all that could be heard for the space of a few-moments, when the two, after a brief whisper, arose and left the place, not, however, without making ineffectual efforts to catch a glimpse of the occupant of the tenanted alcove. Arthur soon after followed them into the street. He was aware that he was watched from the opposite corner, and that his steps were dogged in the darkness. But he drew his felt hat well over his face, and by mingling with the crowd that chanced to be pouring from one of the theatres, he avoided recognition and passed unnoticed into his hotel.	{ "id": "12452" }
14	None	Arthur felt ill and much fatigued when he retired to rest, and was restless and disturbed with fever throughout the night. He had overtasked his delicate frame, yet scarce recovered from the effects of recent suffering, and he arose in the morning with a feeling of prostration that he could with difficulty overcome. However, he refreshed himself with a cup of tea, and prepared to call upon Miss Ayleff. It was but seven o'clock, a somewhat early hour for a morning visit, but the occasion was one for little ceremony. As he was on the point of leaving his room, there was a peremptory knock at the door, and, upon his invitation to walk in, a stranger entered. It was a gentlemanly personage, with a searching eye and a calm and quiet manner. Arthur was vexed to be delayed, but received the intruder with a civil inclination of the head, somewhat surprised, however, that no card had been sent to give him intimation of the visit. "Are you Mr. Arthur Wayne?" inquired the stranger. "I am he," replied Arthur. "Be seated, sir." "I thank you. My name is ----. I am a deputy United States marshal of this district." Arthur bowed, and awaited a further statement of the purpose of his visit. "You have lately arrived from Virginia, I understand?" "A few days since, sir--from a brief sojourn in the vicinity of Richmond." "And yesterday received a communication from that quarter?" "I did. A letter from an intimate acquaintance." "My office will excuse me from an imputation of inquisitiveness. May I see that letter?" "Excuse me, sir. Its contents are of a private and delicate nature, and intended only for my own perusal." "It is because its contents are of that nature that I am constrained to ask you for it. Pardon me, Mr. Wayne; but to be brief and frank you, I must either receive that communication by your good will, or call in my officers, and institute a search. I am sure you will not make my duty more unpleasant than necessary." Arthur paused awhile. He was conscious that it would be impossible for him to avoid complying with the marshal's request, and yet it was most annoying to be obliged to make a third party cognizant of the facts contained in Beverly's epistle. "I have no desire to oppose you in the performance of your functions," he finally replied, "but really there are very particular reasons why the contents of this letter should not be made public." A very faint indication of a smile passed over the marshal's serious face; Arthur did not observe it, but continued: "I will hand you the letter, for I perceive there has been some mistake and misapprehension which of course it is your duty to clear up. But you must promise me that, when your perusal of it shall have satisfied you that its nature is strictly private, and not offensive to the law, you will return it me and preserve an inviolable secrecy as to its contents." "When I shall be satisfied on that score, I will do as you desire." Arthur handed him the letter, somewhat to the other's surprise, for he had certainly been watching for an attempt at its destruction, or at least was prepared for prevarication and stratagem. He took the paper from its envelope and read it carefully. It was in the following words: Richmond, _May_ --, 1861. Dear Arthur: This will be handed to you by a sure hand. Communicate freely with the bearer--he can be trusted. The arms can be safely shipped as he represents, and you will therefore send them on at once. Your last communication was of great service to the cause, and, although I would be glad to have you with us, the President thinks you are too valuable, for the present, where you are. When you come, the commission will be ready for you. Yours truly, Beverly Weems, Capt. C.S.A. "Are you satisfied?" inquired Arthur, after the marshal had silently concluded his examination of the document. "Perfectly satisfied," replied the other, placing the letter in his pocket. "Mr. Wayne, it is my duty to arrest you." "Arrest me!" "In the name of the United States." "For what offence?" "Treason." Arthur remained for a while silent with astonishment. At last, as the marshal arose and took his hat, he said: "I cannot conceive what act or word of mine can be construed as treasonable. There is some mistake, surely; I am a quiet man, a stranger in the city, and have conversed with but one or two persons since my arrival. Explain to me, if you please, the particular nature of the charge against me." "It is not my province, at this moment, to do so, Mr. Wayne. It is sufficient that, upon information lodged with me last evening, and forwarded to Washington by telegraph, I received from the Secretary of War orders for your immediate arrest, should I find the information true. I have found it true, and I arrest you." "Surely, nothing in that letter can be so misconstrued as to implicate me." "Mr. Wayne, this prevarication is as useless as it is unseemly. You _know_ that the letter is sufficient warrant for my proceeding. My carriage is at the door. I trust you will accompany me without further delay." "Sir, I was about to proceed, when you entered, upon an errand that involves the safety and happiness of the young lady mentioned in that letter. The letter itself will inform you of the circumstance, and I assure you, events are in progress that require my immediate action. You will at least allow me to visit the party?" The marshal looked at him with surprise. "What party?" "The lady of whom my friend makes mention." "I do not understand you. I can only conceive that, for some purpose of your own, you are anxious to gain time. I must request you to accompany me at once to the carriage." "You will permit me at least to send a, letter--a word--a warning?" "That your accomplice may receive information? Assuredly not." "Be yourself the messenger--or send"---- "This subterfuge is idle." He opened the door and stood beside it. "I must request your company to the carriage." Arthur's cheek flushed for a moment with anger. "This severity," he said, "is ridiculous and unjust. I tell you, you and those for whom you act will be accountable for a great crime--for innocence betrayed--for a young life made desolate--for perhaps a dishonored grave. I plead not for myself, but for one helpless and pure, who at this hour may be the victim of a villain's plot. In the name of humanity, I entreat you give me but time to avert the calamity, and I will follow you without remonstrance. Go with me yourself. Be present at the interview. Of what consequence to you will be an hour's delay?" "It may be of much consequence to those who are in league with you. I cannot grant your request. You must come with me, sir, or I shall be obliged to call for assistance," and he drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Arthur perceived that further argument or entreaty would be of no avail. He was much agitated and distressed beyond measure at the possible misfortune to Miranda, which, by this untimely arrest, he was powerless to avert. Knowing nothing of the true contents of the letter which Philip had substituted for the one received from Beverly, he could not imagine an excuse for the marshal's inflexibility. He was quite ill, too, and what with fever and agitation, his brain was in a whirl. He leaned against the chair, faint and dispirited. The painful cough, the harbinger of that fatal malady which had already brought a sister to an early grave, oppressed him, and the hectic glowed upon his pale cheeks. The marshal approached him, and laid his hand gently on his shoulder. "You seem ill," he said; "I am sorry to be harsh with you, but I must do my duty. They will make you as comfortable as possible at the fort. But you must come." Arthur followed him mechanically, and like one in a dream. They stepped into the carriage and were driven rapidly away; but Arthur, as he leaned back exhausted in his seat, murmured sorrowfully: "And poor little Mary, too! Who will befriend her now?"	{ "id": "12452" }
15	None	In the upper apartment of a cottage standing alone by the roadside on the outskirts of Boston, Miranda, pale and dejected, sat gazing vacantly at the light of the solitary lamp that lit the room. The clock was striking midnight, and the driving rain beat dismally against the window-blinds. But one month had passed since her elopement with Philip Searle, yet her wan cheeks and altered aspect revealed how much of suffering can be crowded into that little space of time. She started from her revery when the striking of the timepiece told the lateness of the hour. Heavy footsteps sounded upon the stairway, and, while she listened, Philip, followed by Bradshaw, entered the room abruptly. "How is this?" asked Philip, angrily. "Why are you not in bed?" "I did not know it was so late, Philip," she answered, in a deprecating tone. "I was half asleep upon the rocking-chair, listening to the storm. It's a bad night, Philip. How wet you are!" He brushed off the hand she had laid upon his shoulder, and muttered, with bad humor: "I've told you a dozen times I don't want you to sit up for me. Fetch the brandy and glasses, and go to bed." "Oh, Philip, it is so late! Don't drink: to-night, Philip. You are wet, and you look tired. Come to bed." "Do as I tell you," he answered, roughly, flinging himself into a chair, and beckoning Bradshaw to a seat. Miranda sighed, and brought the bottle and glasses from the closet. "Now, you go to sleep, do you hear; and don't be whining and crying all night, like a sick girl." The poor girl moved slowly to the door, and turned at the threshold. "Good night, Philip." "Oh, good night--there, get along," he cried, impatiently, without looking at her, and gulping down a tumblerful of spirits. Miranda closed the door and left the two men alone together. They remained silent for a while, Bradshaw quietly sipping his liquor, and Philip evidently disturbed and angry. "You're sure 'twas she?" he asked at last. "Oh, bother!" replied Bradshaw. "I'm not a mole nor a blind man. Don't I know Moll when I see her?" "Curse her! she'll stick to me like a leech. What could have brought her here? Do you think she's tracked me?" "She'd track you through fire, if she once got on the scent. Moll ain't the gal to be fooled, and you know it." "What's to be done?" "Move out of this. Take the girl to Virginia. You'll be safe enough there." "You're right, Bradshaw. It's the best way. I ought to have done it at first. But, hang the girl, she'll weary me to death with her sermons and crying fits. Moll's worth two of her for that, matter--she scolds, but at least she never would look like a stuck fawn when I came home a little queer. For the matter of that, she don't mind a spree herself at times." And, emptying his glass, the libertine laughed at the remembrance of some past orgies. While he was thus, in his half-drunken mood, consoling himself for present perplexities by dwelling upon the bacchanalian joys of other days, a carriage drove up the street, and stopped before the door. Soon afterward, the hall bell was rung, and Philip, alarmed and astonished, started from his seat. "Who's that?" he asked, almost in a whisper. "Don't know," replied his companion. "She couldn't have traced me here already--unless you have betrayed me, Bradshaw," he added suddenly, darting a suspicious glance upon his comrade. "You're just drunk enough to be a fool," replied Bradshaw, rising from his seat, as a second summons, more violent than the first, echoed through the corridors. "I'll go down and see what's the matter. Some one's mistaken the house, I suppose. That's all." "Let no one in, Bradshaw," cried Philip, as that worthy left the room. He descended the stairs, opened the door, and presently afterward the carriage drove rapidly away. Philip, who had been listening earnestly, could hear the sound of the wheels as they whirled over the pavement. "All right," he said, as he applied himself once more to the bottle before him. "Some fool has mistaken his whereabouts. Curse me, but I'm getting as nervous as an old woman." He was in the act of lifting the glass to his lips, when the door was flung wide open. The glass fell from his hands, and shivered upon the floor. Moll stood before him. She stood at the threshold with a wicked gleam in her eye, and a smile of triumph upon her lips; then advanced into the room, closed the door quietly, locked it, seated herself composedly in the nearest chair, and filled herself a glass of spirits. Philip glared upon her with an expression of mingled anger, fear and wonderment. "Are you a devil? Where in thunder did you spring from?" he asked at last. "You'll make me a devil, with your tricks, Philip Searle," she said, sipping the liquor, and looking at him wickedly over the rim of the tumbler. "Ha! ha! ha!" she laughed aloud, as he muttered a curse between his clenched teeth, "I'm not the country girl, Philip dear, that I was when you whispered your sweet nonsense in my ear. I know your game, my bully boy, and I'll play you card for card." "Bradshaw" shouted Philip, going to the door and striving to open it. "It's no use," she said, "I've got the key in my pocket. Sit down. I want to talk to you. Don't be a fool." "Where's Bradshaw, Moll?" "At the depot by this time, I fancy, for the carriage went off at a deuce of a rate." She laughed again, while he paced the room with angry strides. " 'Twas he, then, that betrayed me. The villain! I'll have his life for that, as I'm a sinner." "Your a great sinner; Philip Searle. Sit down, now, and be quiet. Where's the girl?" "What girl?" "Miranda Ayleff. The girl you've ruined; the girl you've put in my place, and that I've come to drive out of it. Where is she?" "Don't speak so loud, Moll. Be quiet, can't you? See here, Moll," he continued, drawing a chair to her side, and speaking in his old winning way--"see here, Moll: why can't you just let this matter stand as it is, and take your share of the plunder? You know I don't care about the girl; so what difference does it make to you, if we allow her to think that she's my lawful wife? Come, give us a kiss, Moll, and let's hear no more about it." "Honey won't catch such an old fly as I am, Philip," replied the woman, but with a gentled tone. "Where is the girl?" she asked suddenly, starting from the chair. "I want to see her. Is she in there?" "No," said Philip, quickly, and rising to her passage to the door of Miranda's chamber. "She is not there, Moll; you can't see her. Are you crazy? You'd frighten the poor girl out of her senses." "She's in there. I'm going in to speak with her. Yes I shall, Philip, and you needn't stop me." "Keep back. Keep quiet, can't you?" "No. Don't hold me, Philip Searle. Keep your hands off me, if you know what's good for you." She brushed past him, and laid her hand upon the door-knob; but he seized her violently by the arm and pulled her back. The action hurt her wrist, and she was boiling with rage in a second. With her clenched fist, she struck him straight in the face repeatedly, while with every blow, she screamed out an imprecation. "Keep quiet, you hag! Keep quiet, confound you!" said the infuriated man. "Won't you? Take that!" and he planted his fist upon her mouth. The woman, through her tears and sobs, howled at him curse upon curse. With one hand upon her throat, he essayed to choke her utterance, and thus they scuffled about the room. "I'll cut you, Philip; I will, by ----" Her hand, in fact, was fumbling about her pocket, and she drew forth a small knife and thrust it into his shoulder. They were near the table, over which Philip had thrust her down. He was wild with rage and the brandy he had drank. His right hand instinctively grasped the heavy bottle that by chance it came in contact with. The next instant, it descended full upon her forehead, and with a moan of fear and pain, she fell like lead upon the floor, and lay bleeding and motionless. Philip, still grasping the shattered bottle, gazed aghast upon the lifeless form. Then a cry of terror burst upon his ear. He turned, and beheld Miranda, with dishevelled hair, pale as her night-clothes, standing at the threshold of the open door. With a convulsive shudder, she staggered into the room, and fainted at his feet, her white arm stained with the blood that was sinking in little pools into the carpet. He stood there gazing from one to the other, but without seeking to succor either. The fumes of brandy, and the sudden revulsion from active wrath to apathy, seemed to stupefy his brain. At last he stooped beside the outstretched form of Molly, and, with averted face, felt in her pocket and drew out the key. Stealthily, as if he feared that they could hear him, he moved toward the door, opened it, and passing through, closed it gently, as one does who would not waken a sleeping child or invalid. Rapidly, but with soft steps, he descended the stairs, and went out into the darkness and the storm.	{ "id": "12452" }
16	None	When Miranda awakened from her swoon, the lamp was burning dimly, and the first light of dawn came faintly through the blinds. All was still around her, and for some moments she could not recall the terrible scene which had passed before her eyes. Presently her fingers came in contact with the clots of gore that were thickening on her garment, and she arose quickly, and, with a shudder, tottered against the wall. Her eyes fell upon Moll's white face, the brow mangled and bruised, and the dishevelled hair soaking in the crimson tide that kept faintly oozing from the cut. She was alone in the house with that terrible object; for Philip, careless of her convenience, had only procured the services of a girl from a neighboring farm-house, who attended to the household duties during the day, and went home in the evening. But her womanly compassion was stronger than her sense of horror, and kneeling by the side of the prostrate woman, with inexpressible relief she perceived, by the slight pulsation of the heart, that life was there. Entering her chamber, she hastily put on a morning wrapper, and returning with towel and water, raised Moll's head upon her lap, and washed the thick blood from her face. The cooling moisture revived the wounded woman; her bosom swelled with a deep sigh, and she opened her eyes and looked languidly around. "How do you feel now, madam?" asked Miranda, gently. "Who are you?" said Moll, in reply, after a moment's pause. "Miranda--Miranda Searle, the wife of Philip," she added, trembling at the remembrance of the woman's treatment at her husband's hands. Molly raised herself with an effort, and sat upon the floor, looking at Miranda, while she laughed with a loud and hollow sound. "Philip's wife, eh? And you love him, don't you? Well, dreams can't last forever." "Don't you feel strong enough to get up and lie upon the bed?" asked Miranda, soothingly, for she was uncomfortable tinder the strange glare that the woman fixed upon her. "I'm well enough," said Moll. "Where's Philip?" "Indeed, I do not know. I am very sorry, ma'am, that--that"-- "Never mind. Give me a glass of water." Miranda hastened to comply, and Moll swallowed the water, and remained silent for a moment. "Shan't I go for assistance?" asked Miranda, who was anxious to put an end to this painful interview, and was also distressed about her husband's absence. "There's no one except ourselves in the house, but I can go to the farmer's house near by." "Not for the world," interrupted Moll, taking her by the arm. "I'm well enough. Here, let me lean on you. That's it. I'll sit on the rocking-chair. Thank you. Just bind my head up, will you? Is it an ugly cut?" she asked, as Miranda, having procured some linen, carefully bandaged the wounded part. "Oh, yes! It's very bad. Does it pain you much, ma'am?" "Never mind. There, that will do. Now sit down there. Don't be afraid of me. I ain't a-going to hurt you. It's only the cut that makes me look so ugly." "Oh, no! I am not at all afraid, ma'am," said Miranda, shuddering in spite of herself. "You are a sweet-looking girl," said Moll, fixing her haggard, but yet beautiful eyes upon the fragile form beside her. "It's a pity you must be unhappy. Has that fellow been unkind to you?" "What fellow madam?" "Philip." "He is my husband, madam," replied Miranda, mildly, but with the slightest accent of displeasure. "He is, eh? Hum! You love him dearly, don't you?" Miranda blushed, and asked: "Do you know my husband?" "Know him! If you knew him as well, it would be better for you. You'll know him well enough before long. You come from Virginia, don't you?" "Yes." "You must go back there." "If Philip wishes it." "I tell you, you must go at once--to-day. I will give you money, if you have none. And you must never speak of what has happened in this house. Do you understand me?" "But Philip"-- "Forget Philip. You must never see him any more. Why should you want to? Don't you know that he's a brute, and will beat you as he beat me, if you stay with him. Why should you care about him?" "He is my husband, and you should not speak about him so to me," said Miranda, struggling with her tears, and scarce knowing in what vein to converse with the rude woman, whose strange language bewildered and frightened her. "Bah!" said Moll, roughly. "You're a simpleton. There, don't cry, though heaven knows you've cause enough, poor thing! Philip Searle's a villain. I could send him to the State prison if I chose." "Oh, no! don't say that; indeed, don't." "I tell you I could; but I will not, if you mind me, and do what I tell you. I'm a bad creature, but I won't harm you, if I can help it. You helped me when I was lying there, after that villain hurt me, and I can't help liking you. And yet you've hurt me, too." "I!" "Yes. Shall I tell you a story? Poor girl! you're wretched enough now, but you'd better know the truth at once. Listen to me: I was an innocent girl, like you, once. Not so beautiful, perhaps, and not so good; for I was always proud and willful, and loved to have my own way. I was a country girl, and had money left to me by my dead parents. A young man made my acquaintance. He was gay and handsome, and made me believe that he loved me. Well, I married him--do you hear? I married him--at the church, with witnesses, and a minister to make me his true and lawful wife. Curse him! I wish he had dropped down dead at the altar. There, you needn't shudder; it would have been well for you if he had. I married him, and then commenced my days of sorrow and--of guilt. He squandered my money at the gambling-table, and I was sometimes in rags and without food. He was drunk half the time, and abused me; but I was even with him there, and gave him as good as he gave me. He taught me to drink, and such a time as we sometimes made together would have made Satan blush. I thought I was low enough; but he drove me lower yet. He put temptation in my way--he did, curse his black heart! though he denied it. I fell as low as woman can fall, and then I suppose you think he left me? Well, he did, for a time; he went off somewhere, and perhaps it was then he was trying to ruin some other girl, as foolish as I had been. But he came back, and got money from me--the wages of my sin. And all the while, he was as handsome, and could talk as softly as if he was a saint. And with that smooth tongue and handsome face he won another bride, and married her--married her, I tell you; and that's why I can send him to the State prison." "Send him! Who? My God! what do you mean?" cried Miranda, rising slowly from her chair, with clasped hands and ashen cheeks. "Philip Searle, my husband!" shouted Moll, rising also, and standing with gleaming eyes before the trembling girl. Miranda sank slowly back into her seat, tearless, but shuddering as with an ague fit. Only from her lips, with a moaning sound, a murmur came: "No, no, no! oh, no!" "May God strike me dead this instant, if it is not true!" said Moll, sadly; for she felt for the poor girl's, distress. Miranda rose, her hands pressed tightly against her heart, and moved toward the door with tottering and uncertain steps, like one who suffocates and seeks fresh air. Then her white lips were stained with purple; a red stream gushed from her mouth and dyed the vestment on her bosom; and ere Moll could reach her, she had sunk, with an agonizing sob, upon the floor.	{ "id": "12452" }
17	None	The night after the unhappy circumstance we have related, in the bar-room of a Broadway hotel, in New York city, a colonel of volunteers, moustached and uniformed, and evidently in a very unmilitary condition of unsteadiness, was entertaining a group of convivial acquaintances, with bacchanalian exercises and martian gossip. He had already, with a month's experience at the seat of war, culled the glories of unfought fields, and was therefore an object of admiration to his civilian friends, and of envy to several unfledged heroes, whose maiden swords had as yet only jingled on the pavement of Broadway, or flashed in the gaslight of saloons. They were yet none the less conscious of their own importance, these embryo Napoleons, but wore their shoulder straps with a killing air, and had often, on a sunny afternoon, stood the fire of bright eyes from innumerable promenading batteries, with gallantry, to say the least. And now they stood, like Caesars, amid clouds of smoke, and wielded their formidable goblets with the ease of veterans, though not always with a soldierly precision. And why should they not? Their tailors had made them heroes, every one; and they had never yet once led the van in a retreat. "And how's Tim?" asked one of the black-coated hangers-on upon prospective glory. "Tim's in hot water," answered the colonel, elevating his chin and elbow with a gesture more suggestive of Bacchus than of Mars. "Hot brandy and water would be more like him," said the acknowledged wit of the party, looking gravely at the sugar in his empty glass, as if indifferent to the bursts of laughter which rewarded his appropriate sally. "I'll tell you about it," said the colonel. "Fill up, boys. Thompson, take a fresh segar." Thompson took it, and the boys filled up, while the colonel flung down a specimen of Uncle Sam's eagle with an emphasis that demonstrated what he would do for the bird when opportunity offered. "You see, we had a party of Congressmen in camp, and were cracking some champagne bottles in the adjutant's tent. We considered it a military necessity to floor the legislators, you know; but one old senator was tough as a siege-gun, and wouldn't even wink at his third bottle. So the corks flew about like minié balls, but never a man but was too good a soldier to cry 'hold, enough.' As for that old demijohn of a senator, it seemed he couldn't hold enough, and wouldn't if he could; so we directed the main battle against him, and opened a masked battery upon him, by uncovering a bottle of Otard; but he never flinched. It was a game of _Brag_ all over, and every one kept ordering 'a little more grape.' Presently, up slaps a mounted aid, galloping like mad, and in tumbles the sleepy orderly for the officer of the day. " 'That's you, Tim,' says I. But Tim was just then singing the Star Spangled Banner in a convivial whisper to the tune of the Red, White, and Blue, and wouldn't be disturbed on no account. " 'Tumble out, Tim,' says I, 'or I'll have you court-martialled and shot.' " 'In the neck,' says Tim. But he did manage to tumble out, and finished the last stanzas with a flourish, for the edification of the mounted aid-de-camp. " 'Where's the officer of the day?' asked the aid, looking suspiciously at Tim's shaky knees. " 'He stands before you,' replied Tim, steadying himself a little by affectionately hanging on to the horse's tail. " 'You sir? you're unfit for duty, and I'll report you, sir, at headquarters,' said the aid, who was a West Pointer, you know, stiff as a poker in regimentals. " 'Sir! --hic,' replied Tim, with an attempt at offended dignity, the effect of which was rather spoiled by the accompanying hiccough. " 'Where's the colonel!' asked the aid. " 'Drunk,' says that rascal, Tim, confidentially, with a knowing wink. " 'Where's the adjutant?' " 'Drunk.' " 'Good God, sir, are you all drunk?' " ''Cept the surgeon--he's got the measles.' " 'Orderly, give this dispatch, to the first sober officer you can find.' " 'It's no use, captain,' says Tim, 'the regiment's drunk--'cept me, hic!' and Tim lost his balance, and tumbled over the orderly, for you see the captain put spurs to his horse rather suddenly, and whisked the friendly tail out of his hands. "So we were all up before the general the next day, but swore ourselves clear, all except Tim, who had the circumstantial evidence rather too strong against him." "And such are the men in whom the country has placed its trust?" muttered a grey-headed old gentleman, who, while apparently absorbed in his newspaper, had been listening to the colonel's narrative. A young man who had lounged into the room approached the party and caught the colonel's eye: "Ah! Searle, how are you? Come up and take a drink." A further requisition was made upon the bartender, and the company indulged anew. Searle, although a little pale and nervous, was all life and gaiety. His coming was a fresh brand on the convivial flame, and the party, too much exhilarated to be content with pushing one vice to excess, sallied forth in search of whatever other the great city might afford. They had not to look far. Folly is at no fault in the metropolis for food of whatever quality to feed upon; and they were soon accommodated with excitement to their hearts content at a fashionable gambling saloon on Broadway. The colonel played with recklessness and daring that, if he carries it to the battle-field, will wreathe his brow with laurels; but like many a rash soldier before him, he did not win. On the contrary, his eagles took flight with a rapidity suggestive of the old adage that "gold hath wings," and when, long after midnight, he stood upon the deserted street alone with Philip Searle and his reflections, he was a sadder and a soberer man. "Searle, I'm a ruined man." "You'll fight all the better for it," replied Philip, knocking the ashes from his segar. "Come, you'll never mend the matter by taking cold here in the night air; where do you put up? I'll see you home." "D--n you, you take it easy," said the colonel, bitterly. Philip could afford to take it easy, for he had most of the colonel's money in his pocket. In fact, the unhappy votary of Mars was more thoroughly ruined than his companion was aware of, for when fortune was hitting him hardest, he had not hesitated to bring into action a reserve of government funds which had been intrusted to his charge for specific purposes. "Searle," said the colonel, after they had walked along silently for a few minutes, "I was telling you this evening about that vacant captaincy." "Yes, you were telling me I shouldn't have it," replied Philip, with an accent of injured friendship. "Well, I fancied it out of my power to do anything about it. But"-- "Well, but?" -- "I think I might get it for you, for--for"---- "A consideration?" suggested Philip, interrogatively. "Well, to be plain with you, let me have five hundred, and you've won all of that to-night, and I'll get you the captaincy." "We'll talk about it to-morrow morning," replied Philip. And in the morning the bargain was concluded; Philip, with the promise that all should be satisfactorily arranged, started the same day for Washington, to await the commission so honorably disposed of by the gallant colonel.	{ "id": "12452" }
18	None	We will let thirty days pass on, and bear the reader South of the Potomac, beyond the Federal lines and within rifle-shot of an advanced picket of the Confederate army, under General Beauregard. It was a dismal night--the 16th of July. The rain fell heavily and the wind moaned and shrieked through the lone forests like unhappy spirits wailing in the darkness. A solitary horseman was cautiously wending his way through the storm upon the Centreville road and toward the Confederate Hue. He bore a white handkerchief, and from time to time, as his ear seemed to catch a sound other than the voice of the tempest, he drew his rein and raised the fluttering symbol at his drawn sword's point. Through the dark masses of foliage that skirted the roadside, presently could be seen the fitful glimmer of a watchfire, and the traveller redoubled his precautions, but yet rode steadily on. "Halt!" cried a stern, loud voice from a clump of bushes that looked black and threatening in the darkness. The horseman checked his horse and sat immovable in the centre of the road. "Who goes there?" followed quick, in the same deep, peremptory tone. "An officer of the United States, with a flag of truce," was answered in a clear, firm voice. "Stand where you are." There was a pause, and presently four dark forms emerged from the roadside, and stood at the horse's head. "You've chosen a strange time for your errand, and a dangerous one," said one of the party, with a mild and gentlemanly accent. "Who speaks?" "The officer in command of this picket." "Is not that Beverly Weems?" "The same. And surely I know that voice." "Of course you do, if you know Harold Hare." And the stranger, dismounting, stretched out his hand, which was eagerly and warmly clasped, and followed by a silent and prolonged embrace. "How rash you have been, Harold," said Beverly, at last. "It is a mercy that I was by, else might a bullet have been your welcome. Why did you not wait till morning?" "Because my mission admits of no delay. It is most opportune that I have met you. You have spoken to me at times, and Oriana often, of your young cousin, Miranda." "Yes, Harold, what of her?" "Beverly, she is within a rifle-shot of where we stand, very sick--dying I believe." "Good God, Harold! what strange tale is this?" "I am in command of an advanced picket, stationed at the old farm-house yonder. Toward dusk this evening, a carriage drove up, and when challenged, a pass was presented, with orders to assist the bearer, Miranda Ayleff, beyond the lines. I remembered the name, and stepping to the carriage door, beheld two females, one of whom was bending over her companion, and holding a vial, a restorative, I suppose, to her lips. " 'She has fainted, sir,' said the woman, 'and is very ill. I'm afraid she won't last till she gets to Richmond. Can't you help her; isn't there a surgeon among you at the farm-house there?' "We had no surgeon, but I had her taken into the house, and made as comfortable as possible. When she recovered from her swoon, she asked for you, and repeatedly for Oriana, and would not be comforted until I promised her that she should be taken immediately on to Richmond. 'She could not die there, among strangers,' she said; 'she must see one friend before she died. She must go home at once and be forgiven.' And thus she went, half in delirium, until I feared that her life would pass away, from sheer exhaustion. I determined to ride over to your picket at once, not dreaming, however, that you were in command. At dawn to-morrow we shall probably be relieved, and it might be beyond my power then to meet her wishes." "I need not say how much I thank you, Harold. But you were ever kind and generous. Poor girl! Let us ride over at once, Harold. Who is her companion?" "A woman some years her senior, but yet young, though prematurely faded. I could get little from her. Not even her name. She is gloomy and reserved, even morose at times; but she seems to be kind and attentive to Miranda." Beverly left some hasty instructions with his sergeant, and rode over with Harold to the farm-house. They found Miranda reclining upon a couch of blankets, over which Harold had spread his military cloak, for the dwelling had been stripped of its furniture, and was, in fact, little more than a deserted ruin. The suffering girl was pale and attenuated, and her sunken eyes were wild and bright with the fire of delirium. Yet she seemed to recognize Beverly, and stretched out her thin arms when he approached, exclaiming in tremulous accents: "Take me home, Beverly, oh, take me home!" Moll was seated by her side, upon a soldier's knapsack; her chin resting upon her hands, and her black eyes fixed sullenly upon the floor. She would give but short and evasive answers to Beverly's questions, and stubbornly refused to communicate the particulars of Miranda's history. "She broke a blood-vessel a month ago in Boston. But she got better, and was always wanting to go to her friends in Richmond. And so I brought her on. And now you must take care of her, for I'm going back to camp." This was about all the information she would give, and the two young men ceased to importune her, and directed their attentions to the patient. The carriage was prepared and the cushions so arranged, with the help of blankets, as to form a kind of couch within the vehicle. Upon this Miranda was tenderly lifted, and when she was told that she should be taken home without delay, and would soon see Oriana, she smiled like a pleased child, and ceased complaining. Beverly stood beside his horse, with his hand clasped in Harold's. The rain poured down upon them, and the single watchfire, a little apart from which the silent sentinel stood leaning on his rifle, threw its rude glare upon their saddened faces. "Good bye, old friend," said Beverly. "We have met strangely to-night, and sadly. Pray heaven we may not meet more sadly on the battle-field." "Tell Oriana," replied Harold, "that I am with her in my prayers." He had not spoken of her before, although Beverly had mentioned that she was at the old manor house, and well. "I have not heard from Arthur," he continued, "for I have been much about upon scouting parties since I came, but I doubt not he is well, and I may find a letter when I return to camp. Good bye; and may our next meeting see peace upon the land." They parted, and the carriage, with Beverly riding at its side, moved slowly into the darkness, and was gone. Harold returned into the farm-house, and found Moll seated where he had left her, and still gazing fixedly at the floor. He did not disturb her, but paced the floor slowly, lost in his own melancholy thoughts. After a silence of some minutes, the woman spoke, without looking up. "Have they gone?" "Yes." "She is dying, ain't she?" "I fear she is very ill." "I tell you, she's dying--and it's better that she is." She then relapsed into her former mood, but after a while, as Harold paused at the window and looked out, she spoke again. "Will it soon be day?" "Within an hour, I think," replied Harold. "Do you go back at daylight?" "Yes." "You have no horse?" "You'll lend me one, won't you? If you don't, I don't care; I can walk." "We will do what we can for you. What is your business at the camp?" "Never mind," she answered gruffly. And then, after a pause, she asked: "Is there a man named Searle in your army--Philip Searle?" "Nay, I know not. There may be. I have never heard the name. Do you seek such a person? Is he your friend, or relative?" "Never mind," she said again, and then was silent as before. With the approach of dawn, the sentry challenged an advancing troop, which proved to be the relief picket guard. Harold saluted the officer in command, and having left orders respectively with their subordinates, they entered the farm-house together, and proceeded to the apartment where Moll still remained seated. She did not seem to notice their entrance; but when the new-comer's voice, in some casual remark, reached her ear, she rose up suddenly, and walking straight forward to where the two stood, looking out at the window, she placed her hand heavily, and even rudely, upon his shoulder. He turned at the touch, and beholding her, started back, with not only astonishment, but fear. "You needn't look so white, Philip Searle," she said at last, in a low, hoarse tone. "It's not a ghost you're looking at. But perhaps you're only angry that you only half did your business while you were at it." "Where did you pick up this woman?" asked Searle of Harold, drawing him aside. "She came with an invalid on her way to Richmond," replied Harold. "What invalid?" He spoke almost in a whisper, but Moll overheard him, and answered fiercely: "One that is dying, Philip; and you know well enough who murdered her. 'Twasn't me you struck the hardest blow that night. Do you see that scar? That's nothing; but you struck her to the heart." "What does she mean?" asked Harold, looking sternly into Philip's disturbed eye. "Heaven knows. She's mad," he answered. "Did she tell you nothing--no absurd story?" "Nothing. She was sullen and uncommunicative, and half the time took no notice of our questions." "No wonder, poor thing!" said Philip. "She's mad. However, I have some little power with her, and if you will leave us alone awhile, I will prevail upon her to go quietly back to Washington." Harold went up to the woman, who was leaning with folded arms against the wall, and spoke kindly to her. "Should you want assistance, I will help you. We shall be going in half an hour. You must be ready to go with us, you know, for you can't stay here, where there may be fighting presently." "Thank you," she replied. "Don't mind me. I can take care of myself. You can leave us alone together. I'm not afraid of him." Harold left the room, and busied himself about the preparations for departure. Left alone with the woman he had wronged, Philip for some moments paced the room nervously and with clouded brow. Finally, he stopped abruptly before Moll, who had been following his motions with her wild, unquiet eyes. "Where have you sprung from now, and what do you want?" "Do you see that scar?" she said again, but more fiercely than before. "While that lasts, there's no love 'twixt you and me, and it'll last me till my death." "Then why do you trouble me. If you don't love me, why do you hang about me wherever I go? We'll be better friends away from each other than together. Why don't you leave me alone?" "Ha! ha! we must be quits for that, you know," she answered, rather wildly, and pointing to her forehead. "Do you think I'm a poor whining fool like her, to get sick and die when you abuse me? I'll haunt you till I die, Philip; and after, too, if I can, to punish you for that." Philip fancied that he detected the gleam of insanity in her eye, and he was not wrong, for the terrible blow he had inflicted had injured her brain; and her mind, weakened by dissipation and the action of excitement upon her violent temperament, was tottering upon the verge of madness. "When I was watching that poor sick girl," she continued, "I thought I could have loved her, she was so beautiful and gentle, as she lay there, white and thin, and never speaking a word against you, Philip, but thinking of her friends far away, and asking to be taken home--home, where her mother was sleeping under the sod--home, to be loved and kissed again before she died. And I would have loved her if I hadn't hated you so much that there wasn't room for the love of any living creature in my bad heart. I used to sit all night and hear her talk--talk in her dreams and in her fever--as if there were kind people listening to her, people that were kind to her long ago. And the room seemed full of angels sometimes, so that I was afraid to move and look about; for I could swear I heard the fanning of their wings and the rustle of their feet upon the carpet. Sometimes I saw big round tears upon her wasted cheeks, and I wouldn't brush them away, for they looked like jewels that the angels had dropped there. And then I tried to cry myself, but, ha! ha! I had to laugh instead, although my heart was bursting. I wished I could have cried; I'm sure it would have made my heart so light, and perhaps it would have burst that ring of hot iron that was pressing so hard around my head. It's there now, sinking and burning right against my temples. But I can't cry, I haven't since I was a little girl, long ago, long ago; but I think I cried when mother died, long ago, long ago." She was speaking in a kind of dreamy murmur, while Philip paced the room; and finally she sank down upon the floor, and sat there with her hands pressed against her brows, rocking herself to and fro. "Moll," said Philip, stooping over her, and speaking in a gentle tone, "I'm sorry I struck you, indeed I am; but I was drunk, and when you cut me, I didn't know what I was about. Now let's be friends, there's a good girl. You must go back to Washington, you know, and to New York, and stay there till I come back. Won't you, now, Moll?" "Won't I? No, Philip Searle, I won't. I'll stay by you till you kill me; yes, I will. You want to go after that poor girl and torment her; but she's dying and soon you won't be able to hurt her any more." "Was it she, Moll, was it Miranda that came here with you? Was she going to Richmond?" "She was going to heaven, Philip Searle, out of the reach of such as you and me. I'm good enough for you, Philip, bad as I am; and I'm your wife, besides." "You told her that?" "Told her? Ha! ha! Told her? do you think I'm going to make that a secret? No, no. We're a bad couple, sure enough; but I'm not going to deny you, for all that. Look you, young man," she continued, addressing Harold, who at that moment entered the room, "that is Philip Searle, and Philip Searle is my husband--my husband, curse his black heart! and if he dares deny it, I'll have him in the State prison, for I can do it." "She's perfectly insane," said Philip; but Harold looked thoughtful and perplexed, and scanned his fellow-officer's countenance with a searching glance. "At all events," he said, "she must not remain here. My good woman, we are ready now, and you must come with us. We have a horse for you, and will make you comfortable. Are you ready?" "No," she replied, sullenly, "I won't go. I'll stay with my husband." "Nay," remonstrated Harold, gently, "you cannot stay here. This is no place for women. When we arrive at headquarters, you shall tell your story to General McDowell, and he will see that you are taken care of, and have justice if you have been wronged. But you must not keep us waiting. We are soldiers, you know, and must do our duty." Still, however, she insisted upon remaining where she was; but when two soldiers, at a gesture from Harold, approached and took her gently by the arms, she offered no resistance, and suffered herself to be led quietly out. Harold coldly saluted Searle, and left him in charge of the post; while himself and party, accompanied by Moll and the coachman who had driven them from Washington, were soon briskly marching toward the camp.	{ "id": "12452" }
19	None	Toward dusk of the same day, while Philip and his lieutenant were seated at the rude pine table, conversing after their evening meal, the sergeant of the guard entered with a slip of paper, on which was traced a line in pencil. "Is the bearer below?" asked Philip, as he cast his eyes over the paper. "Yes, sir. He was challenged a minute ago, and answered with the countersign and that slip for you, sir." "It's all right, sergeant; you may send him up. Mr. Williams," he continued, to his comrade, "will you please to look about a little and see that all is in order. I will speak a few words with this messenger." The lieutenant and sergeant left the room, and presently afterward there entered, closing the door carefully after him, no less a personage than Seth Rawbon. "You're late," said Philip, motioning him to a chair. "There's an old proverb to answer that," answered Rawbon, as he leisurely adjusted his lank frame upon the seat. Having established himself to his satisfaction, he continued: "I had to make a considerable circuit to avoid the returning picket, who might have bothered me with questions. I'm in good time, though. If you've made up your mind to go, you'll do it as well by night, and safer too." "What have you learned?" "Enough to make me welcome at headquarters. You were right about the battle. There'll be tough work soon. They're fixing for a general advance. If you expect to do your first fighting under the stars and bars, you must swear by them to-night." "Have you been in Washington?" "Every nook and corner of it. They don't keep their eyes skinned, I fancy, up there. Your fancy colonels have slippery tongues when the champagne corks are flying. If they fight as hard as they drink, they'll give us trouble. Well, what do you calculate to do?" he added, after a pause, during which Philip was moody and lost in thought. Philip rose from his seat and paced the floor uneasily, while Rawbon filled a glass from a flask of brandy on the table. It was now quite dark without, and neither of them observed the figure of a woman crouched on the narrow veranda, her chin resting on the sill of the open window. At last Philip resumed his seat, and he, too, swallowed a deep draught from the flask of brandy. "Tell me what I can count upon?" he asked. "The same grade you have, and in a crack regiment. It's no use asking for money. They've none to spare for such as you--now don't look savage--I mean they won't buy men that hain't seen service, and you can't expect them to. I told you all about that before, and it's time you had your mind made up." "What proofs of good faith can you give me?" Rawbon thrust his hand into his bosom and drew out a roll of parchment. "This commission, under Gen. Beauregard's hand, to be approved when you report yourself at headquarters." Philip took the document and read it attentively, while Rawbon occupied himself with filling his pipe from a leathern pouch. The female figure stepped in at the window, and, gliding noiselessly into the room, seated herself in a third chair by the table before either of the men became aware of her presence. They started up with astonishment and consternation. She did not seem to heed them, but leaning upon the table, she stretched her hand to the brandy flask and applied it to her lips. "Who's this?" demanded Rawbon, with his hand upon the hilt of his large bowie knife. "Curse her! my evil genius," answered Philip, grating his teeth with anger. It was Moll. "What's this, Philip!" she said, clutching the parchment which had been dropped upon the table. "Leave that," ejaculated her husband, savagely, and darting to take it from her. But she eluded his grasp, and ran with the document into a corner of the room. "Ha! ha! ha! I know what it is," she said, waving it about as a schoolboy sometimes exultingly exhibits a toy that he has mischievously snatched from a comrade. "It's your death-warrant, Philip Searle, if somebody sees it over yonder. I heard you. I heard you. You're going over to fight for Jeff. Davis. Well, I don't care, but I'll go with you. Don't come near me. Don't hurt me, Philip, or I'll scream to the soldier out there." "I won't hurt you, Moll. Be quiet now, there's a good girl. Come here and take a sup more of brandy." "I won't. You want to hurt me. But you can't. I'm a match for you both. Ha! ha! You don't know how nicely I slipped away from the soldiers when they, were resting. I went into the thick bushes, right down in the water, and lay still. I wanted to laugh when I saw them, hunting for me, and I could almost have touched the young officer if I had wished. But I lay still as a mouse, and they went off and never found me. Ha! ha! ha!" "Is she drunk or mad?" asked Rawbon. "Mad," answered Philip, "but cunning enough to do mischief, if she has a mind to. Moll, dear, come sit down here and be quiet; come, now." "Mad? mad?" murmured Moll, catching his word. "No, I'm not mad," she continued wildly, passing her hands over her brows, "but I saw spirits just now in the woods, and heard voices, and they've frightened me. The ghost of the girl that died in the hospital was there. You knew little blue-eyed Lizzie, Philip. She was cursing me when she died and calling for her mother. But I don't care. The man paid me well for getting her, and 'twasn't my fault if she got sick and died. Poor thing! poor thing! poor little blue-eyed Lizzie! She was innocent enough when she first came, but she got to be as bad as any--until she got sick and died. Poor little Lizzie!" And thus murmuring incoherently, the unhappy woman sat down upon the floor, and bent her head upon her knees. "Clap that into her mouth," whispered Philip, handing Rawbon his handkerchief rolled tightly into a ball. "Quietly now, but quick. Look out now. She's strong as a trooper." They approached her without noise, but suddenly, and while Philip grasped her wrists, Rawbon threw back her head, and forcing the jaws open by a violent pressure of his knuckles against the joint, thrust the handkerchief between her teeth and bound it tightly there with two turns of his sash. The shriek was checked upon her lips and changed into a painful, gurgling groan. The poor creature, with convulsive efforts, struggled to free her arms from Philip's grasp, but he managed to keep his hold until Rawbon had secured her wrists with the stout cord that suspended his canteen. A silk neckerchief was then tightly bound around her ankles, and Moll, with heaving breast and glaring eyes, lay, moaning piteously, but speechless and motionless, upon the floor. "We can leave her there," said Rawbon. "It's not likely any of your men will come in, until morning at least. Let's be off at once." Philip snatched up the parchment where it had fallen, and silently followed his companion. "We are going beyond the line to look about a bit," he said to the sergeant on duty, as they passed his post. "Keep all still and quiet till we return." "Take some of the boys with you, captain," replied the sergeant. "We're unpleasant close to those devils, sir." "It's all right, sergeant. There's no danger," And nodding to Seth, the two walked leisurely along the road until concealed by the darkness, when they quickened their pace and pushed boldly toward the Confederate lines. Half an hour, or less perhaps, after their departure, the sentry, posted at about a hundred yards from the house, observed an unusual light gleaming from the windows of the old farm-house. He called the attention of Lieutenant Williams, who was walking by in conversation with the sergeant, to the circumstance. "Is not the captain there?" asked the lieutenant. "No, sir," replied the sergeant, "he started off to go beyond the line half an hour ago." "Alone?" "No, sir; that chap that came in at dusk was with him." "It's strange he should have gone without speaking to me about it." "I wanted him to take some of our fellows along, sir, but he didn't care to. By George! that house is afire, sir. Look there." While talking, they had been proceeding toward the farm-house, when the light from the windows brightened suddenly into a broad glare, and called forth the sergeant's exclamation. Before they reached the building a jet of flame had leaped from one of the casements, and continued to whirl like a flaming ribbon in the air. They quickened their pace to a run, and bursting into the doorway, were driven back by a dense volume of smoke, that rolled in black masses along the corridor. They went in again, and the sergeant pushed open the door of the room where Moll lay bound, but shut it quickly again, as a tongue of flame lashed itself toward him like an angry snake. "It's all afire, sir," he said, coughing and spluttering through the smoke. "Are there any of the captain's traps inside?" "Nothing at all," replied the lieutenant. "Let's go in, however, and see what can be done." They entered, but were driven back by the baffling smoke and the flames that were now licking all over the dry plastering of the room. "It's no use," said the lieutenant, when they had gained their breath in the open air. "There's no water, except in the brook down yonder, and what the men have in their canteens. The house is like tinder. Let it go, sergeant; it's not worth saving at the risk of singing your whiskers." The men had now come up, and gathered about the officer to receive his commands. "Let the old shed go, my lads," he said. "It's well enough that some rebel should give us a bonfire now and then. Only stand out of the glare, boys, or you may have some of those devils yonder making targets of you." The men fell back into the shadow, and standing in little groups, or seated upon the sward, watched the burning house, well pleased to have some spectacle to relieve the monotony of the night. And they looked with indolent gratification, passing the light jest and the merry word, while the red flames kept up their wild sport, and great masses of rolling vapor upheaved from the crackling roof, and blackened the midnight sky. None sought to read the mystery of that conflagration. It was but an old barn gone to ashes a little before its time. Perhaps some mischievous hand among them had applied the torch for a bit of deviltry. Perhaps the flames had caught from Rawbon's pipe, which he had thrown carelessly among a heap of rubbish when startled by Molly's sudden apparition. Or yet, perhaps, though Heaven forbid it, for the sake of human nature, the same hand that had struck so nearly fatally once, had been tempted to complete the work of death in a more terrible form. But within those blistering walls, who can tell what ghastly revels the mad flames were having over their bound and solitary victim! Perhaps, as she lay there with distended jaws, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, that brain, amid the visions of its madness, became conscious of the first kindling of the subtle element that was so soon to clasp her in its terrible embrace. How dreadful, while the long minutes dragged, to watch its stealthy progress, and to feel that one little effort of an unbound hand could avert the danger, and yet to lie there helpless, motionless, without even the power to give utterance to the shriek of terror which strained her throat to suffocation. And then, as the creeping flame became stronger and brighter, and took long and silent leaps from one object to another, gliding along the lathed, and papered wall, rolling and curling along the raftered ceiling, would not the wretched woman, raving already in delirium, behold the spectres that her madness feared, beckoning to her in the lurid glare, or gliding in and out among the wild fires that whirled in fantastic gambols around and overhead! Nearer and nearer yet the rolling flame advances; it commences to hiss and murmur in its progress; it wreathes itself about the chairs and tables, and laps up the little pool of brandy spilled from the forgotten flask; it plays about her feet, and creeps lazily amid the folds of her gown, yet wet from the brook in which she had concealed herself that day; it scorches and shrivels up the flesh upon her limbs, while pendent fiery tongues leap from the burning rafters, and kiss her cheeks and brows where the black veins swell almost to bursting; every muscle and nerve of her frame is strained with convulsive efforts to escape, but the cords only sink into the bloating flesh, and she lies there crisping like a log, and as powerless to move. The dense, black smoke hangs over her like a pall, but prostrate as she is, it cannot sink low enough to suffocate and end her agony. How the bared bosom heaves! how the tortured limbs writhe, and the blackening cuticle emits a nauseous steam! The black blood oozing from her nostrils proclaims how terrible the inward struggle. The whole frame bends and shrinks, and warps like a fragment of leather thrown into a furnace--the flame has reached her vitals--at last, by God's mercy, she is dead.	{ "id": "12452" }

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