Chapter 48

"His nature is so far from doing harm, That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy." _King Lear._

When Virginia aroused again to consciousness, her eyes met the features of Alfred Bernard, as he knelt over her form. Not yet realizing her situation, she gazed wildly about her, and in a hoarse, husky whisper, which fell horridly on the ear, she said, "Where is my father?"

"At home, Virginia," replied Bernard, softly, chafing her white temples the while--"And you are here in Accomac. Look up, Virginia, and see that you are not without a friend even here."

"Oh, now, yes, now I know it all," she shrieked, springing up with a wild bound, and rushing like a maniac toward the door. "They have killed him! I have slept here, instead of begging his life. I have murdered him! Ha! you, sir, are you the jailer? I should know your face."

"Nay, do not speak thus, Virginia," said Bernard, holding her gently in his arms, "Hansford is yet alive. Be calm."

"Hansford! I thought he was dead!" said the poor girl, her mind still wandering. "Did not Mamalis--no--she is dead--all are dead--ha? where am I? Sure this is not Windsor Hall. Nay, what am I talking about. Let me see;" and she pressed her hand to her forehead, and smoothed back her fair hair, as she strove to collect her thoughts. "Ah! now I know," she said at length, more calmly, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Bernard, I have acted very foolishly, I fear. But you will forgive a poor distracted girl."

"I promised you my influence with the governor," said Bernard, "and I do not yet despair of effecting my object. And so be calm."

"Despair!" said Virginia, bitterly, "as well might you expect to turn a river from the sea, as to turn the relentless heart of that bigoted old tyrant from blood. And yet, I thank you, Mr. Bernard, and beg that you will leave no means untried to preserve my poor doomed Hansford. You see I am quite calm now, and should you fail in your efforts to procure a pardon, may I ask one last melancholy favour at your hands! I would see him once more before we part, forever." And to prove how little she knew her own heart, the poor girl burst into a renewed agony of grief.

"Calm your feelings, then, dear Virginia," said Bernard, "and you shall see him. But by giving way thus, you would unman him."

"You remind me of my duty, my friend," said Virginia, controlling herself, with a strong effort, "and I will not again forget it in my selfish grief. Shall we go now?"

"Remain here, but a few moments, patiently," he replied, "and I will seek the governor, and urge him to relent. If I fail, I will return to you."

Leaving the young girl once more to her own sad reflections, Alfred Bernard left the room.

"Virtue has its own reward," he muttered, as he walked slowly along. "I wonder how many would be virtuous if it were not so! Self is at last the mainspring of action, and when it produces good, we call it virtue; when it accomplishes evil, we call it vice; wherein, then, am I worse than my fellow man? Here am I, now, giving this poor girl a interview with her rebel lover, and extracting some happiness for them, even from their misery. And yet I am not a whit the worse off. Nay, I am benefited, for gratitude is a sure prompter of love; and when Hansford is out of the way, who so fit to supply the niche, left vacant in her heart, as Alfred Bernard, who soothed their mutual grief. Thus virtue is often a valuable handmaid to success, and may be used for our purposes, when we want her assistance, and afterwards be whistled to the winds as a pestilent jade. Machiavelli in politics, Loyola in religion, Rochefoucault in society, ye are the mighty three, who, seeing the human heart in all its nakedness, have dared to tear the mask from its deformed and hideous features."

"What in the world are you muttering about, Alfred?" said Governor Berkeley, as they met in the porch, as Bernard had finished this diabolical soliloquy.

"Oh nothing," replied the young intriguer. "But I came to seek your excellency."

"And I to seek for you, my sage young counsellor; I have to advise with you upon a subject which lies heavy on my heart, Alfred."

"You need only command my counsel and it is yours," said Bernard, "but I fear that I can be of little assistance in your reflections."

"Yes you can, my boy," returned Berkeley, "I know not whether you will esteem it a compliment or not, Alfred, but yours is an old head on young shoulders, and the heart, which in the season of youth often flits away from the sober path of judgment, seems with you to follow steadily in the wake of reason."

"If you mean that I am ever ready to sacrifice my own selfish impulses to my duty, I do esteem it as a compliment, though I fear not altogether deserved."

"Well, then," said the Governor, "this poor boy, Hansford, who is to suffer death to-morrow, I have had a strange interview concerning him since I last saw you."

"Aye, with Miss Temple," returned Bernard. "She told me she had seen you, and that you were as impregnable to assault as the rock of Gibraltar."

"I thought so too, where treason was concerned," said Berkeley. "But some how, the leaven of the poor girl's tears is working strangely in my heart; and after I had left her, who should I meet but her old father."

"Is Colonel Temple here?" asked Bernard, surprised.

"Aye is he, and urged Hansford's claims to pardon with such force, that I had to fly from temptation. Nay he even put his plea for mercy upon the ground of his own former kindness to me."

"The good old gentleman seems determined to be paid for that hospitality," said Bernard, with a sneer. "Well!"

"Well, altogether I am almost determined to interpose my reprieve, until the wishes of his majesty are known," said Berkeley, with some hesitation.

Bernard was silent, for some moments, and the Governor continued.

"What do you say to this course Alfred?"

"Simply, that if you are determined, I have nothing to say."

"Nay, but I am not determined, my young friend."

"Then I must ask you what are the grounds of your hesitation, before I can express an opinion?" said Bernard.

"Well, first," said the Governor, "because it will be a personal favour to Colonel Temple, and will dry the tears in those blue eyes of his pretty daughter. His kindness to me in this unhappy rebellion would be but poorly requited, if I refused the first and only favour that he has ever asked of me."

"Then hereafter," returned Bernard, quietly, "it would be good policy in a rebellion, for half the rebels to remain at home and entertain the Governor at their houses. They would thus secure the pardon of the rest."

"Well, you young Solomon," said Berkeley, laughing, "I believe you are right there. It would be a dangerous precedent. But then, a reprieve is not a pardon, and while I might thus oblige my friends, the king could hereafter see the cause of justice vindicated."

"And you would shift your own responsibility upon the king," replied Bernard. "Has not Charles Stuart enough to trouble him, with his rebellious subjects at home, without having to supervise every petty felony or treason that occurs in his distant colonies? This provision of our charter, denying to the Governor the power of absolute pardon, but granting him power to reprieve, was only made, that in doubtful cases, the minister might rely upon the wisdom of majesty. It was never intended to shift all the trouble and vexation of a colonial executive upon the overloaded hands of the king. If you have any doubt of Hansford's guilt, I would be the last to turn your heart from clemency, by a word of my mouth. If he be guilty, I only ask whether Sir William Berkeley is the man to shrink from responsibility, and to fasten upon his royal master the odium, if odium there be, attending the execution of the sentence against a rebel."

"Zounds, no, Bernard, you know I am not. But then there are a plenty of rebels to sate the vengeance of the law, besides this poor young fellow. Does justice demand that all should perish?"

"My kind patron," said Bernard, "to whom I owe all that I have and am, do not further urge me to oppose feelings so honorable to your heart. Exercise your clemency towards this unhappy young man, in whose fate I feel as deep an interest as yourself. If harm should flow from your mercy, who can censure you for acting from motives so generous and humane. If by your mildness you should encourage rebellion again, posterity will pardon the weakness of the Governor in the benevolence of the man."

"Stay," said Berkeley, his pride wounded by this imputation, "you know, Alfred, that if I thought that clemency towards this young rebel would encourage rebellion in the future, I would rather lose my life than spare his. But speak out, and tell me candidly why you think the execution of this sentence necessary to satisfy justice."

"You force me to an ungrateful duty," replied the young hypocrite, "for it is far more grateful to the heart of a benevolent man to be the advocate of mercy, than the stern champion of justice. But since you ask my reasons, it is my duty to obey you. First, then, this young man, from his talent, his bravery, and his high-flown notions about liberty, is far more dangerous than any of the insurgents who have survived Nathaniel Bacon. Then, he has shown that so far from repenting of his treason, he is ready to justify it, as witness his speech, wherein he predicted the triumph of revolution in Virginia, and denounced the vengeance of future generations upon tyranny and oppression. Nay, he even went farther, and characterized as brutal bloody butchers the avengers of the broken laws of their country."

"I remember," said Berkeley, turning pale at the recollection.

"But there is another cogent reason why he should suffer the penalty which he has so richly incurred. If your object be to secure the returning loyalty and affection of the people, you should not incense them by unjust discrimination in favour of a particular rebel. The friends of Drummond, of Lawrence, of Cheeseman, of Wilford, of Bland, of Carver, will all say, and say with justice, that you spared the principal leader in the rebellion, the personal friend and adviser of Bacon, while their own kinsmen were doomed to the scaffold. Nor will those ghosts walk unavenged."

"I see, I see," cried Berkeley, grasping Bernard warmly by the hand. "You have saved me, Alfred, from a weakness which I must ever afterwards have deplored, and at the expense of your own feelings, my boy."

"Yes, my dear patron," replied Bernard, with a sigh, "you may well say at the expense of my own feelings. For I too, have just witnessed a scene which would have moved a heart of stone; and it was at the request of that poor, weeping, broken-hearted girl, to save whom from distress, I would willingly lay down my life--it was at her request that I came to beg at your hands the poor privilege of a last interview with her lover. Even Justice, stern as are her decrees, cannot deny this boon to Mercy."

"You have a generous heart, my dear boy," said the Governor, with the tears starting from his eyes. "There are not many men who would thus take delight in ministering consolation to the heart of a successful rival. You have my full and free permission. Go, my son, and through life may your heart be ever thus awake to such generous impulses, yet sustained and controlled by your unwavering devotion to duty and justice."