CHAPTER XXX.

_A CHRISTMAS SCENE._

The great dining-hall of Bishop's Hull was wreathed in greenery and all ablaze with lights. In the gallery overhead a band of musicians discoursed sweet music, whilst below were assembled a party of gay and merry guests, gathered round Sir Ralph Bridges' hospitable table; and the only sorrowful face to be seen at that board was the grave, anxious countenance of Lord Lonsdale.

I was there, clad in the livery of the house, and waiting at table with the practised skill which I had learned in my uncle's inn. My heart was beating fast as I came and went, and caught here and there a word of the talk passing between the merry guests. Now one gentleman would relate an anecdote or give us a reminiscence of his youth, or another would speak to his neighbour, perhaps with bated breath, of some of the recent events which had made this year so memorable in our part of the country.

Although it was the eve of Christmas, and the prevailing wish was to drop care and keep in the background all sorrowful topics, yet it was impossible altogether to forget or keep in abeyance thoughts so easily suggested by the passing mention of persons or places.

Moreover, the sight of the sword hanging upon the wall in a conspicuous position--Mistress Mary's sword--called forth towards the close of the repast an account of that incident, which had become known far and wide by this time; and when Sir Ralph told the tale, with pardonable pride in his bright-faced young daughter, whose rosy countenance glowed half with pleasure and half with modest shame at all the notice bestowed upon her, every glass was raised to be drained to her health, and a cheer went up from many throats in honour of the maid who had not feared to strike so goodly a blow in defence of her mother.

It was just when this buzz of acclamation was going round that I heard Lord Lonsdale say mournfully to his host, next to whom he was seated: "Ah, if my poor boy were living yet, how happy it would have made me to seek for him the hand of that brave daughter of yours in marriage. Methinks the maid could soon have learned to love him. I never knew any whom he had not the power to win by his handsome face and winning ways."

"He was a very goodly youth," answered Sir Ralph, quietly and gravely. "Have you given up all hopes of seeing him again? Are you assured of his death?"

"I have ceased to hope now," replied the father, with steady gravity. "It seems probable that he died of his wounds in the Castle, albeit the Governor was not informed of the fact, and in the general confusion of those days was unable to trace whether he had died or been removed by mistake to the pestilential Bridewell, where he was like to perish quickly, enfeebled as he was, or whether he made good his escape. For long I hoped that this last had been the case; and from the day on which the pardon appeared I have been eagerly looking for tidings of or from him. His name was not upon the list of exceptions. There was no fear for him once that was out. If in the land of the living, why does he give no sign? Alas, alas! I fear there can be no doubt but that he is dead. And I must bear about with me the life-long remorse of having driven him to his death."

"Nay, my good friend, how could that be so?"

"I thwarted the lad in the dearest wish of his heart," answered Lord Lonsdale sadly. "Ah, how often have I mourned that step and its dire consequences! Thou knowest my ward, Mary Mead, one of the sweetest maidens that ever walked this earth? Ah, why did I not see things then as I do now? I loved her as a daughter, and yet I had never thought of her as a wife for my son, being anxious to ally myself through him with the Portman family, as you know. And when, as little more than children, the pair plighted their troth and sought my blessing, I denied it harshly, and sought to separate them by sending her away to that place where she learned those lessons which have been her undoing and that of my poor boy also."

"Ah, I see! Had she remained with you and been wedded early to Lord Vere, she would have been saved from the influences which worked so strongly upon her--"

"Ay, and were the cause at last of her death, as well as the cause of my son's joining the rebels. His heart was not with the Duke of Monmouth, albeit his soul doubtless swelled within him at the tales of coward cruelty and tyranny which he heard of his Majesty. After all, good Sir Ralph, if you and I can foresee a day when perhaps some such struggle must again be fought, though with another and a more righteous and legitimate champion, ere this land can be freed from the curse of tyranny, can we blame so harshly the younger and more ardent souls who saw in this young Duke a champion of liberty and religion? Had all England known something more of the temper of the King and the nature of the tools he employed, and purposes yet more fully to employ, I sometimes wonder whether more of our class might not have joined issue with the Duke of Monmouth, in despair of ever serving such a monarch as the treacherous and unkingly James."

Sir Ralph Bridges bent his head with a look of sternness upon his face; and I hearing these words, marvelled at the change already creeping over the minds of the gentry, who but a short time back, in the hour of his peril, had rallied so gallantly round their monarch, even though for his own person they held but small love.

Surely the coward cruelty of the King and his officers had done much to estrange the hearts of his subjects from him.

Then, after a brief pause, Sir Ralph took up the thread of the discourse.

"And so you did truly love the poor maiden, who was said to drop down dead, or nigh to dead, at sight of Jeffreys' evil face? You would not have forbidden her union with your son had things turned out differently with both?"

"Had my son but been restored to me, he should have chosen his wife when and as he would. I would have never said him nay, never striven again to force my will upon his. But indeed I sometimes think that had he returned to find her dead, he would have never recovered the blow. His heart has been set on her ever since their childhood. I can see it now. Would to God I had never thwarted them! The load I have to bear about with me is well-nigh too heavy for me. The death of both lies at my door! I shall never see grandchildren sporting at my knees, and the fair mansion in Devonshire prepared for Vere and his bride will remain desolate and empty till it passes into the hands of aliens." And Lord Lonsdale's voice quivered as he spoke, and I thought that there was even a glint of tear-drops in his eyes.

At this moment Sir Ralph gave me a signal--the signal for which I had been anxiously waiting all through that long banquet.

Without a moment's delay I crossed the floor, then opened a pair of folding doors which shut off a smaller apartment within; and immediately there stepped forth, in all the bravery and beauty of their wedding garments, my lord the Viscount and his fair young wife, the latter so changed and transfigured by the few weeks of wedded happiness that I was startled by the wonderful radiancy of her beauty.

At the same moment the band struck up a measure so full of joy and triumph that no heart could fail to beat in unison with the glad strain; and to the accompaniment of this soul-stirring music the Viscount led forward his bride, and kneeling with her at his father's feet, said in accents which could reach only the few who stood nearest,--

"Father, I have come to ask your forgiveness for everything in which I have failed in filial duty towards you, and also to beg your love and fatherly blessing for me and for my wife."

Well, they call Lord Lonsdale a proud man, and one whose feelings lie deep hidden, and perhaps they do in the main. But there are moments in a man's lifetime when he cannot but show of what his heart is made--when love will not be hidden, but will force itself through the crust of pride and reserve and show itself to all the world, no matter who may be there to see.

The next minute Lord Lonsdale was weeping upon the necks of his long-lost son and his fair young bride, whilst the guests sprang to their feet, filled their glasses, and shouted as with one voice, "Long life and happiness to Lord Vere and his bride! Welcome and happiness and honour to the bridal pair!"

Yet whilst others shouted and laughed and made the hall ring with their acclamations and glad congratulations and wondering questions, I turned aside and wept for joy. For until this happy hour I had not known with certainty that all would be well; and now that I knew the best, my heart so swelled with happiness and triumphant gladness that there was nothing for it but to weep, although never in all my life had I known such a moment of unalloyed happiness.

But one surprise was yet in store for me, and an honour that I little deserved; for you who have read these pages will know that I am no hero, albeit it has been my lot to witness some stirring scenes, and to find myself sometimes in perilous places. Whilst I wept in my corner I felt a touch upon my arm, and there was my lord standing before me all shining in his white and silver; and he took me by the hand and led me forward and presented me to his father and the company as the person who had saved his life more than once (though how he made that out I know not, my head was in such a whirl), and my lady put her hand upon my shoulder and told how I had served her--but that was not me, but Mistress Mary Bridges. Then the guests shouted again, and drained a bumper to my good health; and when I left the hall, it was carrying in my hands a small but weighty packet, which was placed there by my lady, but which I was too dazed even to look at then. And only when I got to my own room in the hall did I find that it was a purse containing five hundred golden guineas, and that I, Dicon Snowe, at the age of fifteen and a half years, was made a rich man for life.

EPILOGUE.

My story is done, in so far as I set myself the task of telling the tale of the ill-fated rising of the Duke of Monmouth. Yet methinks it will be more complete if I add but a few more words, and tell of how Will Wiseman revenged himself upon that wicked Judge whose cruelty and injustice wrought such misery and havoc in the prosperous and happy homes of the West.

Whilst the King was rousing hatred and anger throughout his realm, which ended in his being forced to fly the kingdom but four short years after the events I have related, I was living happily at Master Simpson's, having elected to join with him in his business (though later in life I became possessed of the Three Cups Inn, and left the shop to my eldest son, as being a place of less temptation for a youth than a house of entertainment), and being at the age of eighteen betrothed to pretty Lizzie, who loved me in spite of my crooked back, and has made me the best and most loving of wives.

Will Wiseman remained with us, rising from apprentice to shopman in due time; and when the kingdom was all in a turmoil of excitement at the reports flying about as to the flight of the wicked King, and the landing of his son-in-law, William of Orange, nothing would serve Will but that he must go up to London to see and hear the news. And since he had had no holiday for many years, we gladly encouraged him to do so; and thus it came about that he became, through God's Providence, an instrument for the punishment of that most wicked of wicked men, Lord Jeffreys.

Will stayed in the house of a poor scrivener at Wapping, and this man had the most terrible fear of the great Judge, having been once brought before him, and having never forgotten the gleam of those rolling eyes nor the frightful aspect of those bloated features.

All London was in a ferment. The King had fled, so it was said; and rumour said also that the wicked Chancellor, in awful terror of what might now befall him, had fled likewise, and that he was about to leave the kingdom in disguise, hidden away in some coaling-boat.

No one was perhaps more excited than Will by this intelligence; and when further information was brought by the mate of a coaling-vessel lying in the river to the effect that the Chancellor (if indeed he could be so termed seeing that the King had taken over the Great Seal into his own possession to destroy it) had come on board in disguise, and was actually lying hidden there till sailing-time next morning, Will was one of the excited and furious crowd who rushed off to the Justices of the Peace in that neighbourhood to obtain a warrant for his arrest.

But the Justices complained that since no specific charge was brought against Jeffreys, they could not grant this; and perhaps they were, in truth, still afraid of the man before whom so many of them had trembled in the days of his power. The people might have been baffled by this rebuff had it not been for the firmness of Will, who suggested that they should demand a warrant from the Lords of the Council; and from these dignitaries, who were still sitting, they obtained a warrant to arrest him on the charge of high treason, those ministers thinking it injurious to the welfare of the kingdom that he should be allowed to leave.

Armed with the warrant, they went on board the coaling-boat, and searched it through and through, but found no person bearing any likeness to the Chancellor. The Captain baffled all their inquiries; and it was only later that they discovered that Jeffreys had indeed been there, but finding the boat could not sail before morning, had gone upon another vessel for the night, and thereby nearly saved himself from his enemies and pursuers.

Nearly--but not quite. Chance, as some would call it; Providence and an outraged Maker, as we of Taunton maintain, decreed it otherwise.

Will, sorely grieved and disappointed, retired home at dark and went to bed as usual; but with the morning light restlessness came upon him, and he felt inaction impossible.

His host, the humble scrivener, was going about his daily duties, and Will walked with him. Their way led them through an unsavoury lane that was called Hope Alley, and lay hard by King Edward's Stair at Wapping. In passing down this alley they saw before them a sign hanging out, representing a Red Cow, which was the name of a pot-house much frequented by sailors. Will's glance travelling to this gaudy sign, suddenly encountered the gaze of a pair of rolling blood-shot eyes which seemed suddenly and strangely familiar. The next instant he had recognized, beneath the shade of a tarpaulin hat, the bloated visage of the terrible Judge last seen by him in the Assize Hall of Taunton.

Grasping the scrivener by the arm and whispering a few hurried words to him, Will hastened away for the guard; whilst the scrivener entered the house and the room, where the too reckless fugitive had adventured himself in order to indulge once more his intemperate love for strong drink, and found that worthy shrinking back into a corner, his hat pulled far over his eyes, his face hidden as much as he could hide it by a pint pot.

In a moment the house was surrounded by a hooting and yelling crowd. I have heard Will describe the scene a hundred times, and each time I seem to see it more plainly than the last--the cowering, craven coward now shivering and shrinking before men whom he had sworn at, raved at, cursed and brow-beaten, more cowed and terrified than the most miserable of his victims. And verily that crowd would have torn him limb from limb or ever the guards had come at him (for, contrary to the custom of an English mob, this one was bloodthirsty and furious to an extent which can better be imagined than described), had it not been for the action of the train-bands, who forced a way through the hooting mob and got the prisoner safe into a coach, though not before his clothes were torn half off his back, and he had been wounded by many a flying stone, and had shrieked aloud for mercy in his agony and terror.

That very day, after an interview with the Lord Mayor and by his own desire, he was carried to the Tower, but even so he barely escaped the fury of the populace; for when it was known that the coach contained this man so bitterly detested and feared, there were continual and determined attacks made upon it, and the bloated visage was seen from time to time appearing first at one window and then at another, whilst the miserable man clasped his hands and cried aloud for the mercy he never bestowed upon those who had implored it of him.

And thus he entered the Tower a miserable and despairing captive, only a little more than three years after that Bloody Assize with which his name will always be associated. Four months later he perished miserably, despised and hated by all men; and not even left in peace to die, but assailed by all sorts of malicious letters and even gifts which must have made his last days a hell upon earth to him. But enough of that bad man.

We of the West Country heard with stern satisfaction of his end, in the bright spring-tide and the happiness we were all feeling in the wise and just rule of our new Sovereigns. And the tale of how Will Wiseman was the instrument of his final capture, and thus was the means of avenging the miseries his hands had inflicted upon so many here, will always be a favourite one with young and old in Taunton Town.

Men remembered the prognostication of Mother Whale, and how she had prophesied an evil end for him, even as she had prophesied the exile of the tyrant monarch. It seemed, indeed, that in spite of all we had suffered, the Lord had been working on the side of virtue and freedom. The wicked King was disgraced and driven away; the yet more wicked Judge had died in the Tower.

THE END.

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