Chapter 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. CHAP. II. CHAP. III. CHAP. IV. CHAP. V. CHAP. VI. CHAP. VII. CHAP. VIII. CHAP. IX. CHAP. X. CHAP. XI.

THE LOYALISTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Abate the edge of Traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these bloody days again, And make poor England weep in streams of blood!

Shakspeare.

Those who have but an indifferent banquet to offer, are not usually inclined to discourage their guests, by a repulsive bill of fare; yet surely, when a public invitation is given, there is honesty, and prudence too, in simply stating the kind of regale we are going to spread, lest a palled and sickly appetite should expect stimulants, or a perverted taste should pine for foreign luxuries and modern cookery, when we have nothing to set before them but plain old English food. Church and King now look as obsolete in a publication, as beef and pudding would at a gala dinner; yet let us remember, that as the latter have fed our heroes from the days of Cressy and Agincourt to the present times, so the former have fashioned minds fit to animate these mighty bodies. It is only to those who have a relish for stern virtue and grave reflection, that I would recommend the following pages.

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

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

Nor is the moral harvest a mere gleaning of good deeds. Where misery and wickedness seem most to abound; where desperadoes and plunderers go forth to destroy and pillage; the passive virtues pray, and endure. Self-devoting generosity then interposes her shield, and magnanimous heroism her sword; benevolence seeks out and consoles distress; the confessor intercedes with heaven; the patriot sacrifices his fortune and his comforts; the martyr dies on the scaffold, and the hero in the field. England hath often witnessed such piteous scenes, and many fear she is now on the verge of similar calamities, which threaten to cloud her glory from the envy and admiration of foreign nations, making her a taunting proverb of reproach to her enemies, while she points a moral, and adorns a tale, for posterity. May those who govern her wide extended empire, so study the records of our former woes, and shape their political course with such single-hearted observance of the unerring laws of God, as to become, under his Providence, our preservers from danger; and may the governed, remembering the tyranny which originated from insubordination; the daring ambition of popular demagogues; the hypocrisy of noisy reformers, and all the certain misery which arises from the pursuit of speculative unattainable perfection, adhere to those institutions, which have been consecrated with the best blood in England, and proved by the experience of ages to be consistent with as large a portion of national prosperity, as any people have ever enjoyed. Yet as our offences may prevail over our prayers, let us prepare our minds for times of trial. The public duties they require, are adapted to the discussion of that sex, whose physical and mental powers fit it for active life, and deliberate policy. But the exercise of the milder virtues is imperiously called for in seasons of national alarm. Whether we are to endure the loss of our accustomed wealth and luxury, or to encounter the far heavier trial of domestic confusion, there are habits of thinking and acting, which will conduce to individual comfort and improvement. There are sorrows which neither "King nor laws can cause or cure;" enjoyments, that no tyrant can withhold; and blessings, which even the wildest theories of democracy cannot destroy. The asylum where these sacred heritages of a good conscience are generally concealed, is the domestic hearth, that circumscribed but important precinct where the female Lares sit as guardians. Is it presumptuous in one, who has long officiated at such an household altar, again to solicit the forbearance and favour, which she has often experienced, by calling public attention to a popular way of communicating opinions, not first invented by herself, though she has often had recourse to it. The tale she now chooses as a vehicle, aims at conveying instruction to the present times, under the form of a chronicle of the past. The political and religious motives, which convulsed England in the middle of the seventeenth century, bear so striking a resemblance to those which are now attempted to be promulgated, that surely it must be salutary to remind the inconsiderate, that reformists introduced first anarchy and then despotism, and that a multitude of new religions gave birth to infidelity.

Nor let the serious hue which a story must wear that is dated in those times, when the church militant was called to the house of mourning, deter the gay and young from a patient perusal. Whatever mere prudential instructors may affirm, worldly prosperity should not be held out as the criterion, or the reward of right conduct. Let us remember St. Augustine's answer to those Pagans, who reproached him with the evils that Christians, in common with themselves, suffered from the then convulsed state of the world. They asked him, "Where is thy God?" But he declined founding the believer's privileges on individual exemptions, or personal providences. "My God," said he, "in all his attributes, different from the false impotent Gods of the Heathen, is to be found wherever his worshippers are;--if I am carried into captivity, his consolations shall yet reach me;--if I lose the possessions of this life, my precious faith shall still supply their want;--and if I die, not as the suffering heathen dies, by his own impious and impatient hand, but in obedience to the will of God, my great reward begins. I shall enter upon a life that will never be taken from me; and henceforth all tears shall be wiped from my eyes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] Lord Clarendon.

CHAP. II.

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

Shakspeare.

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

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

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

Such was the man who presented himself to the agonized Evellin; nor was the latter surprized at the visit, or at the serious admonition which he received. Parochial care was not then regarded as a novelty, when it extended beyond the altar or the pulpit; and the graceful stranger felt himself reproved by one who had a right to exercise the functions of spiritual authority. He bowed to the pastor's instructions, with a respect which characterized those times, when the power of the church was supported by superior holiness, and acknowledged even by those who in their lives disobeyed her precepts. His subsequent behaviour made Dr. Beaumont not only pardon the infirmities of a wounded spirit, but also apply the balm of friendship to them, by giving the stranger a most cordial invitation to the glebe-house, where he promised him a friendly welcome as often as he was disposed to relish the quiet habits of his family.

It so happened, that after Evellin had twice or thrice passed the little wicket that separated the parson's garden from the village green, he disliked taking any other road. Yet though Mrs. Beaumont's person was of that description which subjects Lancashire ladies to the imputation of witchcraft, (a charge too clearly proved against them to be denied,) it was not the fascination of her eyes which drew the loitering step, fixed the unconscious gaze, and almost charmed to repose the stranger's untold sorrows. The wife of his friend excited only the respect and esteem of this antique courtier; but a young unaffianced Arachne sat spinning by her side, discreet and ingenious as Minerva, rosy and playful as Hebe. This was Isabel, the younger sister of his reverence, who, not inwardly displeased that the family party was enlarged by such an agreeable guest, nor wholly unconscious of the power of her own charms, strove with all the unsuspecting confidence of youth to amuse a visitor whom her honoured brother pronounced worthy of esteem and pity, and willingly exerted her arch vivacity to divert a melancholy of which no one knew the cause. Evellin soon discovered that he interested the fair recluse, and though she was not the first lady who viewed him with favour, he was flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed he, on perceiving an unnoticed tear steal down her cheek, when with unguarded confidence, momentarily excited by the benign manners and calm happiness of his host, he inveighed against the treachery of courts and the weakness of Kings. "Can she love me?" was his next thought; "or why this lively interest in my sorrows?" This doubt, or rather hope, was suggested by hearing Isabel sob aloud while he told Dr. Beaumont not to look for any earthly return for the kindness he shewed him. "Were my fortunes," said he one day to his hospitable friends, "equal to my birth, you should find me a prodigal in my gratitude, but my own folly in 'believing integrity of manners and innocence of life are a guard strong enough to secure any man in his voyage through the world in what company soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pass[1],' furnished my enemies with weapons which have been used to my undoing. For this last year I have suffered alternate hopes and fears. Whether my heart is sick of suspence, or the clouds of mischance really thicken around me, I can scarcely ascertain, but my meditations grow more gloomy, and I believe myself doomed to an obscure life of little usefulness to others, and less enjoyment to myself. Among my privations I must rank that of spending my days in unconnected solitude. Who will willingly share the scant portion of bare sufficiency, or interweave their destiny with the tangled web of my intricate fortunes? Would you plant a flourishing eglantine under the blasted oak? Remove it from such a neighbourhood, or the blessed rain passing through the blighted branches, will affect its verdure with pestilent mildew, instead of cherishing it with wholesome shade."

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

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

Mrs. Beaumont acquiesced in her husband's opinion, and determined that love should take its course, but it met with an opponent in the person of Mrs. Mellicent Beaumont, who perhaps was not free from those objections which elder sisters often entertain to the engagements of the younger branches of the family, while they themselves write spinster. She had now, however, a more colourable plea; the beauty of Mrs. Isabel had attracted the notice of Sir William Waverly, and to see her sister the lady of Waverly Park, roused that desire of pre-eminence which, though absolutely foreign to the principles of Dr. Beaumont, was not overlooked by all his family. She thought it became her to lecture Isabel on her preference, and unwittingly confirmed it by exhibiting, in opposition, two men of most dissimilar characters and endowments; the one, brave, generous, enlightened, accomplished, but unhappy; the other, lord of a vast demesne, but selfish, ignorant, scant of courtesy, and proud of wealth. "Tell me not of Waverly Park," said Mrs. Isabel, "I would sooner gather cresses by his lakes as a beggar, than sail over them under a silken awning with him by my side as my companion for life. His language, his ideas, his manners, differ from those of our meanest rustics in no other way than that theirs is the native simplicity which had no means of improvement, and his the wilful grossness which rejected it when offered, resting satisfied in what he received from his ancestors, without adding to it attainments that would properly have been his own. I know not what Evellin has been: clouds and storms hover over his future prospects. I see him only as he is the chief among ten thousand, and one who suffers no diminution even while conversing with our honoured brother; and I should be prouder of allying him to our house than of changing this silken braid for a golden coronet." Mrs. Mellicent, after some remarks on the inconsiderate obstinacy of three and twenty, and the sure repentance of head-strong people, withdrew her opposition, to be renewed when the event should justify her predictions.

The lovers did not long rest in that unavowed consciousness which left a shadow of doubt as to their reciprocal attachment. To Evellin's declaration of unalterable love, Isabella answered, that she knew too little of his situation to say whether she ought to be his, but her heart told her she never could be another's. The lover poured forth protestations of gratitude. "No," answered she, "I deserve no thanks; for, to tell you the truth, I have endeavoured to see you with indifference, but find it is impossible. You have lived in courts, Mr. Evellin, where women are hardly won and quickly lost; but do not therefore despise a Lancashire girl who dares not play with Cupid's arrows, but loves in sad sincerity, or rejects with steady courtesy; yet if you suspect that you cannot meet my devoted constancy with equal singleness of heart, leave me now, good Evellin, ere yet my life is so bound up in your sincerity, that I shall want strength of mind to dissolve the bond. At present I am so much more disposed to respect you than myself, that I may think what you have said was only meant for gallantry, which my ignorance of the world has misconstrued. If after this warning you still persist in your suit, you must either be, till death, my faithful lover, or virtually my murderer."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even now, when the universal passion for luxury and self-enjoyment renders prosperity so alluring, subdues our native energies, and makes us the puppets and slaves of fortune, there are some lovely young martyrs who immolate prudence on the shrine of love. It may easily be imagined, therefore, that this heroine of a simpler age, instead of being discouraged by the difficulties her Allan had to encounter, loved him with more intense affection. He an assassin!--the eye that flamed defiance on an ungrateful vicegerent of the King, when every knee but his bent in homage, could never pursue a court-butterfly, or guide a murderous dagger to a page's breast, while indignant virtue pointed the sword of justice to a public delinquent. Isabel agreed that it was wrong in Evellin to fly; but when, on her lonely pillow, she cast her thoughts on the alternative, and contemplated her beloved, in the hands of him before whom a potent peer had recently fallen; in the power of a man armed with the confidence of two successive monarchs, and now the idol of the people; when she saw Evellin arraigned before a packed jury, no evidence to prove him innocent, and scarce an advocate sufficiently courageous to defend him; female softness shrunk at the image of such perils. She blessed the prudent De Vallance who had snatched him from sure destruction, and rejoiced at an event which afforded her the means of seeing human nature in its most captivating form.

When Evellin found that her constancy was proof to this trial, he unfolded the brighter prospects which the letters he received from De Vallance occasionally afforded. This invaluable friend had, to the great joy of Evellin, allied himself to their house by marrying the Lady Eleanor Neville, his only sister. Though Buckingham never stood firmer in the King's favour, he had already experienced that popular esteem is a quicksand, fair to the eye, but fallacious and destructive to all who build their greatness on it. Two parliaments that were called, in succession, to grant the supplies which the favourite's profusion, and the war in which he had unwisely engaged, rendered necessary, had been angrily dissolved for presenting petitions for redress of grievances instead of passing money-bills. The King was still deservedly popular. The odium of these acts, therefore, rested on the minister. He had, besides, a potent enemy in the palace, no less a person than the beautiful queen, who complained that the Duke, not content with directing state affairs, intruded into the domestic privacies of royalty, and left her without the power, which as a wife and Princess she ought to exercise, that of choosing her servants and rewarding her friends. Nor did this presumptuous servant rest here. The spotless purity of the King shrunk from conjugal infidelity; but Buckingham found means, during the hours of easy confidence, to insinuate such reflections against the religion, the foreign manners, and the native country of Henrietta Maria, that the affection which once bade fair to cement the union of a virtuous and amiable Prince with the lady of his choice, was weakened by reserve, doubt, distaste, and all the sentiments hostile to conjugal peace.

The Lady Eleanor De Vallance held a situation in the household of the Queen, and possessed a secure place in her affection. She knew the secret discontent of her royal mistress, and the pique she felt against Buckingham, who, she also knew, sought the ruin of the house of Neville. Evellin did not enlarge on the amiable features of his sister's character. He spoke of her as one who panted for aggrandisement, and possessed the means of attaining her object; adding also, that she was pledged to the ruin of the favourite by those strong inducements, interest and revenge. He dwelt with pleasure on the valuable and useful qualities of her husband, who, he said, united to the talents which generally achieve success, the circumspection and foresight that secure it. While such able assistants advocated his cause, despair would have been weakness.

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

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

Isabel entered into all these happy anticipations. He thought her worthy to share his fortunes, and though she doubted, she now forbore to urge the plea of insufficiency. Of one point she was certain, I mean her willingness to suffer with him. She wanted little; she could endure much; she had many resources in her own mind; she considered no evil as insupportable but the unworthiness of those she loved; and when she looked on Evellin, she did not fear that trial. She smiled and blushed her full consent, and her lover informed Dr. Beaumont, that the time for claiming his sister was arrived. "My affairs," continued he, "require my immediate presence in London, and the woman of my heart must accompany me as my wife. You have long placed implicit confidence in my honour. We have now known each other till affection has lost the gloss of novelty; and instead of depending on hope and imagination, it assumes the fixed character of experience. If I perceived the germ of avarice, or lurking yearnings after aggrandizement in your heart, I would point to stalls and mitres; for such endowments have originated from fortunate alliances. But I will only say to the Christian pastor who is content with feeding his few sheep in a wilderness, that I came not as a ravenous wolf to steal his favourite lamb. It is from well-weighed preference that I select your sister as the partner of my fortunes. You bestow on me a pure and inestimable pearl, but you give it to one who knows its worth. And rest assured, worthy Beaumont, I will neither burden your generosity nor disgrace your family."

When Evellin signed the certificate of his marriage, he left a blank after the name of Allan, "Observe me well," said he to the witnesses of the ceremony; "note the time, place, and every circumstance; this is an important contract." Mrs. Mellicent, to whom this remark was particularly addressed, unbent her stiff features from that aspect of disapprobation with which she had silently condemned her brother's precipitation, and saluted the bride with great cordiality, telling her, that dames of quality, like the wives of the Patriarchs, always called their husbands lords. She added, that even those of the younger brothers of peers took place of baronets' ladies.

[1] These, according to Clarendon, were the errors of Archbishop Laud.

CHAP. III.

Man may the sterner virtues know, Determin'd Justice, Truth severe, But female hearts with Pity glow, And Woman holds affliction dear.

Crabbe.

The bells of Ribblesdale had hardly finished the merry peal which announced the joy of the villagers, that their sweet rose-bud, Isabel de Beaumont, was married to the strange gentleman, whom they had long thought a prince in disguise, come to make their good Doctor a Bishop, when an unexpected dispatch from London cast the deepest gloom on the bridegroom's joy.

In this letter De Vallance conjured his friend to postpone his intended return till his affairs took a brighter aspect.--The King at first bore the sad tidings of his favourite's death with such apparent tranquillity, that he proceeded unruffled to his devotions; yet reflecting on the circumstances of the deed, and deeply affected by an interview with the widowed Duchess, who with her orphan children had thrown herself at his feet and implored justice, he now cherished such an appetite for revenge that it was suspected many lives would scarce be deemed a fit atonement. He discharged the Duke's debts out of his privy purse, he promised to provide for his servants, and frowned on all who had ever been his enemies. Thomas Felton had at first denied having any accomplice, and enthusiastically called himself the champion of an injured people; yet it was expected that the close interrogatories to which he would be exposed would overawe his firmness, and perhaps prevail on him to name some innocent persons as abettors of the crime. At all events Evellin must remain in privacy during the storm of the King's anger, which now agitated him so violently that he would attend to no other business till the Duke's murder was thoroughly investigated.--De Vallance concluded with describing the impatience which both himself and Lady Eleanor felt to restore him to his honours; and he trusted that the Queen's growing influence would be useful in recalling to the recollection of the King a person he had once highly favoured, while he saw in Buckingham an insolent minister rather than a devoted friend.

Weary of delay, eager to vindicate his honour, yet at the same time conscious of his own impetuosity, and confiding in the management of his friends, Evellin fretted at his situation, and yielding his mind to irritability, became incapable of cool discrimination or vigorous action. He had borne a long banishment with melancholy patience, disdaining to complain, and affecting resignation, but he was then an unconnected man, and his fate was of small importance. A gleam of hope, improved by his sanguine temper into confident expectation, had encouraged him to unite himself to a most amiable woman, in whose breast he had excited an expectation of the most exalted fortunes. He had given an implicit promise, that he would add to Dr. Beaumont's power of doing good; and after this, must he still continue a nameless exile, poorly content to barter reputation for life!

Subsequent dispatches from De Vallance heightened his distress. In a moment of extreme irritation, when, by long pondering on his own and the nation's wrongs, passion gained the ascendancy of judgement, Evellin in a confidential letter to Walter had anticipated with hope and exultation the fate that afterwards befell the Duke of Buckingham. A sermon of Dr. Beaumont's afterwards convinced him of the guiltiness of an expression, which, though proceeding from a sudden unweighed suggestion rather than a deliberate purpose, yet, certainly, as our church has well determined, proves "the infection of our nature, and has in it the nature of sin." Convinced that positive evil may not be committed to procure problematical good, and that no uninspired person should presume to think himself God's champion, unless placed in that station which visibly arms him with his authority, Evellin had often lamented this rash letter, as one of his secret faults. He now severely felt it also, as an imprudence, in having given vent to his angry feelings, even in a confidential communication. De Vallance informed him that, through a fatal mistake of his secretary, this very letter had been laid with some other papers, tending to prove him innocent of the death of Saville, and was thus put along with them into the King's hands by the Queen, who had graciously undertaken to plead for the brother of her favourite Lady Eleanor. No expiatory apology could be urged to weaken the effect of sentiments attested by his own writing, and they were obliged to yield him to the storm, as the King now declared that mercy would be compromising blood. Walter was in despair. Lady Eleanor still determined to watch for a favourable moment; they both continued his firm friends, and would punctually remit ample sums for his support, till some change in the state of affairs should again admit of their active interposition.

How dreadful was Evellin's situation! Ruined by his own rashness, and restrained from a step, to which impatience of present suffering had long impelled him, namely to throw himself on the King's mercy, and either regain his birthright or forfeit his life! He was now a husband; he expected to be a father. Isabel must not be deserted in the hour of distress, and her life was bound up in his. She endured the change in her prospects with a cheerful serenity, that seemed as if she felt only the sorrows of her beloved. Nor did Dr. Beaumont betray any feeling which tended to shew that the expectation of stalls and mitres ever withdrew his thoughts from the celestial contemplations in which he loved to expatiate.

"Why should I grieve for those who seem wrapped in measureless content?" said Evellin. "Is this apathy the effect of ignorance of greater good, or the result of a long indulged habit of contemning every exterior advantage?--Isabel, while planning your baby-cloaths, or loitering among your flowers, you seem to forget that life admits of more exalted pleasures and ampler scenes of duty. Have you no desire beyond filling your days with such a series of trivial occupations, which make our years glide away with undistinguishable sameness? Have you no wish to extend your views beyond Ribblesdale? Does the scene of life, exhibited among your native villagers, satisfy your wish of being acquainted with human nature? Do the mountains, which bound your horizon, limit your desire of seeing the wonders of your Creator's hand? When you read the history of the mighty and the good, your countenance expresses your ardour to emulate their actions; yet here you seem to wish to set up your rest, and slumber away your life, content with security, and careless of renown."

"When I am summoned to another station," replied Isabel, "it will be time enough to cherish the feeling which will beseem it. At present, suffer me to think of the advantages of my own. In the hour of danger, and the decline of life, the most courageous spirits long for a quiet harbour. Does not this shew that safety is desirable, and repose a blessing? The difference which even my inexperienced mind discovers, between the inward feeling and the exterior advantages of greatness, abates my wish to wear the gorgeous pall of splendid fortune. Yet, dearest Allan, I am aware, that our present state cannot be permanent. Two alternatives await us, either a restoration to your rank in society, or removal to a plate of greater security. The King will soon visit Scotland, to receive his hereditary crown. He will pass through Ribblesdale, and my brothers duty will call him to attend him; is there a hope that he can plead your cause successfully, after the eloquence of your friend, and the address of your sister have failed?"

Evellin answered, there was no probability.

"Consider then," returned Isabel, "this place lies in a frequented road. Some busy courtier will be eager to beat the covert and start the noble quarry, which the King desires to hunt down. If indeed His Highness's mind is so obscured by anger, as to combine a rash expression and a deliberate plan of murder in the same degree of guilt; to condemn you unheard for one crime, and by implication make you accessary to another, can there be safety or honour in being his servant? Surely, my Allan's loyalty once arrayed his Prince with visionary excellence; or Walter acted like one of those unskilful surgeons, who convert a slight wound into a deep gangrene."

The tone of displeasure, in which Evellin checked every suggestion against the integrity or discretion of his friend, had no other effect on Isabel's mind, than to convince her of her husband's unbounded confidence. Walter's own letters furnished her with many reasons for suspicion; there was in them a studied air of plausibility, a nice arrangement of minutiae, and a wary shifting from important points, which seemed to her strong but artless mind, more like the drapery of design, than the frank simplicity of truth. They were seldom replies to Evellin's statements or requests. The kindness they contained had the flourish of sentiment; there was much ostentatious display of trivial offices of goodwill, and of those every-day assistances, which affection wants memory to record. If Evellin seemed determined to risk all, by a bold appeal to the laws, better prospects were held out, which precipitation would blast; and larger remittances were forwarded. If he affected to be reconciled to obscurity, Walter, by gently censuring, actually confirmed the wise moderation of his choice, describing himself as tired of the court, and reluctantly chained to it by the rooted attachment of Lady Eleanor, who sparkled in the Queen's train, eclipsing all in splendor, and all but her royal mistress in beauty. He subjoined to these complaints of the unsatisfactoriness of a life of pleasure, lamentable statements of the misrule of the King, and the oppression of his government, the arbitrary punishments of the Star-chamber, the illegal fines, loans and projects, by which the royal coffers were filled, and concluded with affirming, that they only were safe and happy, whose contracted wants, and mortified desires, asked but the primeval simplicity of nature. All this time, though the honours of the house of Neville lay in abeyance, the rents were received by De Vallance, and Isabel wondered that so mortified a spirit should encumber itself with the dross which it affected to despise.

Meantime Evellin, partially blinded by a fatal security, and in part deprived of the use of his judgement by his acute feelings, at one time scorned to impute treachery to the friend of his youth; at another fear to trust even himself. One master stroke of policy still remained. Walter wrote to him in great alarm; their correspondence was discovered to the King, and reported to be of a factious tendency. He was in the most imminent danger of being sacrificed to their mutual enemies. He conjured Evellin to fly to some more remote retreat instantly, but first to give up to the confidential agent, whom he named, all their correspondence, that he might instantly destroy it, lest it should fall into the hands of those who would construe it into a disclosure of the King's counsels. The credulous Evellin fell into the snare. He returned all Walter's letters, and retired with his family to a freehold of Isabel's, situated among the mountainous parts of Lancashire, and in his anxiety for Walter's safety, forgot for a time his own troubles. But though their correspondence ceased, the voice of fame was not silent, and its echoes reached even to the Fourness Fells, telling that Walter De Vallance was created Earl of Bellingham, and that all the possessions of the ancient house of Neville were bestowed on Lady Eleanor.

The ocean beats at the bottom of a cliff for ages, and imperceptibly wears its rugged projections to smoothness; but an earthquake overthrows it in an instant. The mind of Evellin, which for a period of seven years had contended with hope and fear, sometimes almost suspecting, and at other times rejecting distrust, was by this proof of his friend's treachery, bereft of all fortitude and patience. Wounded by the neglect of the world, his confidence in Walter had been his preservative from misanthropy; and when vexed at the recollection of his own imprudent frankness and folly, in provoking the resentment of powerful foes, he soothed his galled spirit by considering, that the guileless simplicity of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved false, his sister unnatural, his King a tyrant. So different were these objects from what he once believed them, that he doubted whether life afforded any realities. Did his Isabel really choose him for his own merit, or was latent ambition the spur to her affection? Did the village-pastor seek out and console a stranger from motives of Christian benevolence, or had he discovered his rank and hopes, and on them formed expectation of advancement?

Whatever the most unalterable and entire affection, acting on a noble mind and an active temper, could do, Isabel performed with cheerful tenderness and never-wearied patience. To assist in supporting her family, she took the farm into her own management, and endeavoured to rouse the attention of her much-altered husband, by pointing out the humble, but secure comforts, which husbandry afforded. She dwelt on every example of unhappy greatness; she reminded him, that to be deceived by specious characters, was the common error of superior understandings, who, lightly valuing the goods of fortune, never suspect that to others they will prove irresistible temptations. Her surprise, she said, was not that the artful should impose upon the honourable, or the mean ensnare the magnanimous; but that the former should have the audacity to attempt to cozen those who were every way above them, because, in so doing, they must depend upon the operation of qualities, which their narrow hearts and warped principles could not allow them to estimate. She once went so far as to say, that it was not superior discernment, which enabled her to suspect the perfidiousness of Walter. She did not view him with the partiality of youthful affections; she was ignorant of the many ties which bound him to a brave and grateful heart. Her anxiety for her Allan kept her attention fixed on one object, the progress which his agent made; and when she saw that the cause did not prosper in his hand, she searched for instances of mismanagement, and combined circumstances to his prejudice, which were not likely to strike an affectionate friend, who was too confident in the actor to scrutinize the action. How could she, who loved a brother with the same unquestioning fidelity as Allan did Walter, condemn the errors of overflowing affection? Evellin listened in gloomy silence. Too deeply wounded to endure even this mild censure of his own folly, in the shape of an apology for his weakness, he sternly enjoined her to avoid that theme.

Undismayed by such rebuffs, Isabel attempted other topics. She often assured him she was now more at her ease, than if seated at the head of the Earl's table, in Castle Bellingham. "I should have been embarrassed," said she, "and might, perhaps, have acted wrong through my solicitude to be very right. Our little household is easily catered for; hence we can devote the more time to our darling babes. Was not the husbandman's life preferred by the wisest, the most favoured of mankind? Does it not afford health and peace? Are not our cares innocent, our enjoyments unenvied? We do not anticipate, with aching hearts, the fall or the death of a rival; neither do we, after having distorted our faces with the hilarity of forced merriment in public, meet, in our privacies, with anger and fear; reproaching each other for some neglect, and commenting on the frowns of royalty. We need not study to be expert in ceremony, or adroit in flattery. When nature calls, we take our simple food, we rest when she requires relaxation, and when rest is satiety, innocent and useful labour improves our mental and corporeal functions. How pitiable are they, whom necessity drags to the banquet of ostentation, who secretly yawn through the lengthened vigil of unenjoyed dissipation; who rise from feverish slumbers to tasteless delights; who feel that their present course of life is a captivity; and yet look on that which would bring them freedom as disgrace. Unmolested by creditors, unvexed by the reproachful glances of those who would attribute their undoing to our extravagance, with no open enemies to insult us, no secret sorrows to afflict us, our desires subdued rather than gratified, our domestic union perfect, our minds informed, and our souls expatiating in a still happier world, O my Allan, let us forget the past, and call our lot rare felicity. These mountains, which shut from your view a deceitful treacherous world are now your towers of defence. These clear lakes which reflect the blue skies, dispose us to serene contemplation. When all my household toils are finished, and suspended care sleeps till the morning, I lead my children to their evening sports; I point to the sublime scenes around us, and remind them that the Almighty mind, that formed these wonders, dictated the book which is their daily study. He piled the grey cliffs on each other, some awfully barren, others cloathed with verdure, to shew that fertility and desolation, like joy and grief, are at his disposal. He, through fringed rocks, hollowed a cavern, whence burst the majestic cataract, whose course no mortal hand shall divert or restrain. So should man submit to the dispensations of Omniscient wisdom. While thus meditating, I despise the insignificance of worldly cares, I become almost spiritualized, and am in danger of losing social affections, as well as earthly desires, till my children, fancifully decked with wild flowers, call aloud to point you out, descending from the cliff, loaded with game, and accompanied by your spaniels and falcon. They rush into your embraces. You return safe, uninjured by your exhilarating sports. If, at such a moment, I can fancy that parental transport predominates over sorrow in your aspect, I lift my hands in transport to Heaven, and ask if a mighty Princess ever was so blessed."

The dejected Evellin sometimes listened in silence to these fond breathings of chaste affection, wrung her hand, and pronounced her worthy of a happier lot, calling her a pledge of divine favour and reconciliation to a much-offending man. He never spoke of his wrongs, and she sometimes entertained a hope that they were fading from his remembrance. At least she knew it was the wisest course to avoid dwelling on sorrows, for which patience was the only cure, and being thoroughly practised in the duty of resignation, she wished to impart its comforts to him, whom she so strongly loved.

CHAP. IV.

My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thoughts engage, These, my sole oracles, inspire my rage.

Pope's Homer.

One evening, while the young Evellins were watching for their father, and fancying they discerned him returning from the mountains, they hastily ran back to their mother to inform her that a strange man lay at the bottom of the glen seemingly much fatigued, who asked the way to Mr. Neville's. Isabel knew that the real name of her husband was known only to herself in that neighbourhood, and suspected a snare of De Vallance's to get him into his power and rob him of all that remained, his life. She anxiously inquired what further passed, little Eustace answered, "We said nobody lived near but our father, whose name was not Neville but Evellin. He asked us if he was tall, with dark hair, and carried himself like a Prince. We had seen no Princes, but I put on my cap as he does, and shewed how he walked, and the poor man caught me in his arms, almost smothered me with kisses, and said he would never stir from that spot till his master came."

"Foolish children," said the mother; "perhaps you have betrayed your father to those who hunt for his life."

"No, indeed," replied Isabel, "he is too weak and ill to hurt any body. He is very hungry still, though I gave him all the cloud-berries I had gathered, and filled his can with water. He blessed us just as you do, and I am sure he never would hurt my father."

"Go round by the coppice, my darling; meet your father and tell him what you have seen; I will go to the stranger."--"And take some cordials with you," said both the children. "He shall want no cordials if he be what he appears," returned Mrs. Evellin; "but, sweet lambs, there are more wolves in the world than true shepherds."

The suspicions of the fond wife were in this instance groundless. The stranger was David Williams, formerly comptroller of the Earl of Bellingham's household, who, discovering that his real master was not dead, as Earl Walter now affirmed, set out with a determination of discovering his retreat. He carried with him the honourable savings of a life of industry; but having been attacked on the road and robbed of his property, he arrived, exhausted and pennyless, among the Fells of Fourness, in appearance a burden to the family he wished to serve.

Yet this faithful old servant, though bare and withering like the scathed oak, was inexpressibly welcome to one who so deeply suffered from the crimes of duplicity. Williams soon recovered his strength under the care of his dear old master; and though the mountain cottage bore no resemblance to the embattled towers of Castle Bellingham, still he was under the roof of a true Neville, and he would not change his service to attend an Emperor. Evellin took a lively interest in the society of his old domestic, who, happy that his recovered health enabled him to serve, in adversity, the noble stock under whose protection he had formerly flourished, followed his dear lord, as he called him, over the mountains, thinking of the days that were past. Sometimes Williams would lead Evellin to talk of former times, when Bellingham Castle blazed with feudal splendor, and the numerous dependents of its mighty owner, marshalled by the sound of the bugle, rode to their sports like the clans of the earlier ages, a gallant troop, to rouse the stag from his lair, or to loose the hawk at the crested pheasant. The heir of that castle, habited as an humble yeoman, sullenly listened to the narrative of his only follower. "Does not the chace," he would say, "now afford us equal pleasure? are not my dogs as swift, and these mountains as replete with game as those which engird my paternal residence." A deep groan contradicted the conclusion to which this inquiry seemed to lead; yet Williams, fancying he amused his master, continued to deepen those agonizing recollections which are most dangerous to poignant sensibility. Nor had Evellin the self-command to forbear making inquiries which must, when answered, aggravate his anguish. He bade Williams freely state what he knew of their old neighbours and dependents. The tale was diffusely told. Evellin listened with deep attention, execrated his own misconduct, enjoined silence, and then, by fresh questions, encouraged repetition. A hope had long clung to his heart, arising from that lofty tone of feeling which is more pained at becoming the tool of falsehood than at being the victim of misfortune. Long-continued moody musings had affected his judgment; and he sometimes actually doubted whether De Vallance was really treacherous, or had been defeated in his friendly efforts by the power of a host of enemies.

"Answer me truly, Williams," said he, while his lip quivered with emotion, and his hand trembled as he affected to stroke his falcon with a careless air: "you see the present and the future are now indifferent to me. You remember the time when Walter's father rescued me, a cradled infant, from Tyrone's rebellious kerns in Ireland, and thus laid the foundation of the friendship between our houses. You remember, Walter himself saving me from the lake when I was nearly drowned. Surely he was then a warm-hearted, generous boy. The tears he shed over my supposed corse could not be dangerous and deceitful drops. At school, at college, and when we crossed the Alps together, ever sharing my bed and table, I saw him in every different situation. Was his life one act of deceit, and mine a long dream of credulity? When, in the fullness of my soul, I told him he was more than worthy my sister's love, he answered that though the noble blood of Devereux ran in his veins, it did not become his humble fortunes to aspire to the Lady Eleanor. After my father's death, he would no longer reside with me, but entered into the service of his cousin, the Lord Essex, saying he would not quarter an expensive retainer on the scanty portion of a younger brother, which needed good husbandry, but that his heart still remained with me, and would be a cheap sojourner. Was not this the language of a noble spirit? You look, Williams, as if you had a mystery to unfold. Come, tell all your tale as you would repeat it to gossips on a wassail night. The world is now forgotten by me, and I am forgotten by the world."

"My noble Lord," Williams began--"Again," said Evellin, "after my strict injunctions, do not insult me with empty titles. Have I not told you that my patent of nobility is cancelled? I am Goodman Evellin of the Fells, husband of the best of women, and father of two wanton prattlers, who know not the misery of having fallen from an eminently glorious station. Mark, Williams, the story of what I was shall die with me, or only survive close shut in the treasured remembrance of my faithful wife. I would not for the universe cloud the laughing features of these happy babes, by awakening desires which I cannot gratify; therefore forget my lapsed greatness."

"Even in our privacies?" inquired Williams.

"Certainly; and habit will make familiarity easy. Sit beside me on the ground, and leave off putting your hand to your bonnet. Do we not look like two smart woodmen, enjoying, over our evening repast, a tale of other times?"

"I must turn my face from your honour," said Williams, "before I can attempt to forget that you was Sir Allan, my old master's favourite son; but it is in vain for you to try to pass for a country yeoman. They who have spent their lives in these mountains, and never seen a noble personage, rudely explain their notions of majesty and dignity by describing you; and, by the grace of Heaven, they shall find they guessed right, when they said the stranger from the south-country was a man of another sort of a world."

"Let us have no more day-dreams, I asked you about Walter de Vallance."

"He is now Earl of Bellingham."

Evellin gnawed his lip, and angrily struck his fawning spaniel. "True," replied he, "the King would have him so. He forced these honours on him; and if is thus, by prejudice and injustice, that he tampers with the loyalty of a brave nation. Canst thou blame De Vallance for catching my coronet before it fell to the ground by a false attainder? Why should the title lie in abeyance? Is it not better worn by one allied to our house than by an alien? Who so fit to sit in the baronial chair of our common ancestor as my sister's son, now I am exscinded as a diseased branch."

"He is a lad of the fairest promise," answered Williams, "but he will never live to be Earl of Bellingham. Grant that no singular judgments fall on the house of usurpation, yet the honourable blood which he inherits from the Nevilles will so strive with the foul current of De Vallance, that the ill-compounded body will not grow to manhood."

Evellin smiled: "Thou thinkest then," said he, "that Walter has played the thief's part, and stolen what he could not honestly acquire."

"'Tis past thinking about," answered Williams; "the blame rests not on the King's Majesty, whom Heaven prosper. He is too much raised above the common intercourse of life to look into the hearts of those who take care to approach him with a fair outside. His days are consumed by cares and perplexities, and those who are apt and courteous in business must needs have his ear. I well know that De Vallance gained the royal favour by appearing to be your devoted friend, and by praising you for those qualities in which it was Heaven's will to leave you somewhat defective. Thus he praised your prudence, and produced your flight in proof of your innocence; yet, in the same breath, gave some instance of your rashness, and shewed that flight was ever the villain's resource. So contrariwise were his pleadings and his praises, that His Grace said one day of him, jestingly, 'Whatever my council may decide about Neville, I must keep De Vallance in my service; for though he is an unapt advocate, he is a right trusty friend.'"

"We are now," returned Evellin, "acting as jurors, deciding upon the better part of a man's possessions, his honour. Let us then be candid and wary. Zeal, like anger, often overshoots the mark. The lively promptitude of feeling hurries our judgment beyond its natural pace. Let us admit that the stern character of that bloody conclave, before whom De Vallance often pleaded my cause, might confuse a man, among whose natural defects I have noted a constitutional timidity, apt to tremble at the frown of a fellow-creature. Before a court constituted like the Star-chamber, armed with unlimited powers to impose fines, imprisonment, sequestration, banishment, nay even the punishment of personal mutilation, no wonder the sole friend and unsupported advocate of a man, whom they were bent to ruin, took improper methods of serving him."

"It is too true," returned Williams, "that this court has of late stretched its originally unconstitutional powers, and has further provoked the unwarrantable licence of the times by trying to restrain it. The King's best friends allow that it has in many instances 'held that for honourable which pleased, and that for just which profited; and being the same persons who composed the council, the same individuals acted in two courts; in one, enjoining the people what was not law, and prohibiting what was not prohibited; and, in the other, censuring disobedience to their own decrees by heavy fines and severe imprisonments. But the tendency of these proceedings has been rather to supply the King's necessities with money, which, since his breach with his parliament he cannot legally obtain, than wantonly to sport with the rights of his people, from which no advantage can be derived to the crown[1].' And truly, those noble persons who compose this assembly are too well aware of the unpopularity and odium of their proceedings to give any needless cause of complaint; nor would they have dared to commit such a foul misdemeanor, as to condemn and sentence a peer of the realm for a capital offence, without giving him a solemn and public trial. Now, my dear master, has your clear understanding been so misled as to make you suppose their misdoings ever reached such atrocity, or that they would unwisely give contention such a handle."

Evellin's judgment had ever contradicted Walter's statements, and the conclusions which remaining affection, and his own unwillingness to own himself a dupe, laboured to draw, he now inquired how his estates came to be confiscated, and his person cast out of the protection of the law.

"On account of your contumacy," answered Williams; "you did not surrender when the royal proclamation called upon you to take your trial, and then a writ of outlawry was required by your prosecutor."

"Was it not Walter's duty to convey that proclamation to me?" said Evellin. Williams replied, it was; he mentioned its date, and Evellin knew it tallied with that of his marriage, at which time Walter more earnestly conjured him to remain in the closest concealment. A heavy groan burst from his heart, he rested his head on his folded hands, and bade Williams proceed.

"Yet though a long term of years had elapsed," continued he, "so unwilling was the King to proceed to extremities, that from term to term the cause stood over, and the hungry vulture who longed to gorge your possessions grew weary of acting the dove's part. I had long seen his base nature. In vain did he dress his face and his person in the solemn hue of mourning, or your false-hearted sister shed Hyaena tears,"--

"Tears! For what did she weep?"

"For your death."

"My death," said Evellin, starting up; "De Vallance knew I was alive."

"Aye, my noble master, and so did I too, or I should never have lived to drag my bones to the banks of Windermere; grief would have killed me ere I had gone half my journey. I caught the villain destroying your letters; I saw the date of one; you were alive at Ribblesdale in November, so could not have died the preceding month at Launceston."

"Who durst affirm that I did?"

"Walter De Vallance.--He claimed an audience of the King, and shewed an attested certificate, stating that Allan Neville had there deceased. An account was subjoined of his person, his way of living, and the time he had resided in that borough, all made to correspond with your likeness and history. I had followed him to the door of the privy-chamber, and waited among the pages. Methinks I see him now screw up his hypocritical face and wink his eyes, as if he wept." "Your Majesty," said he, "will be no more persecuted with my suit for my ill-fated brother-in-law.--Lady Eleanor commends her duty to the Queen.--Alas, I fear the same stroke will leave me friendless and a widower.--Never was such love." He went on, sobbing aloud--"A broken heart brought him to his grave.--One, only error; else the very mirror of honourable faculties." Thus he stood as one beside himself with anguish, holding out the certificate, which a gentleman read to His Highness. And then, my noble master, you might have seen how true pity looks by the side of its vile counterfeit. "I knew Allan Neville well," said the King, "and I once truly loved him. Ill rest the calumniators of those who can no longer justify themselves! His faults die with him. The pardon I meant to have granted to his offences, if he would have sought my mercy, shall turn into favours to those who share his blood." Walter answered, he could scarce be comforted even by such gracious words; but he acted his part ill, for though the King's goodness was too noble to suspect him, the courtiers nicknamed him the merry-mourner.

"Why speaks not my noble master," said Williams, observing the fixed posture and quenched eye of Evellin. At last he exclaimed--"I am not dead;" and bursting into an hysterical laugh, he swore De Vallance should find he was not dead.

"That is the point," replied Williams, "to which I have long wished to urge you. Only appear and prove your identity; nothing more is wanting. But rest on my arm, your whole frame is convulsed. Ah, woe is me, that a base upstart should thus destroy so true a sample of old English worth!"

"I have survived the loss of my patrimony," said Evellin; "I have bowed my aspiring mind to the lowliness of which I was born to be the protector; I have a good King, a good cause, a faithful wife, dear lovely children. De Vallance shall not long triumph. But say, Williams, didst than ever hear of treachery so complicated, so deep, so totally void of even a twinkling ray of common rectitude."

"I know but one character more vile and unnatural," returned Williams, "and that is the Lady Eleanor."

"I pass her by," said Evellin. "Nature cast her mind in its most sordid mould; and her heart is capable only of mean inclinations and low desires; I have, from my youth, reproved her follies, and as she never loved me, she would see no crime in plotting my destruction."

"What--because you strove to render her worthy her lineage," answered Williams. "If a bad nature is an excuse for crimes, may not Satan object to the severity of his sentence. Beauty made her vain, and adulation made her haughty. Yet other ladies on the same personal graces have engrafted the lovelier stock of truly noble virtues. The husband whom she deigned to marry, because she found him a ready slave to her designs, will live to rue the day when he made marriage a ladder to ambition. May Heaven guard our Queen from so dangerous a friend. Never did a falser serpent with a beautiful outside dart its poisons into the ear of Majesty."

Williams went on repeating anecdotes, which proved the degeneracy of the new Countess from the antient stock of noble ladies who were better pleased to act as faithful and provident stewards of the bounty of Heaven, than, like greedy whirlpools, to absorb every thing within their reach. He contrasted their circumspect liberality with her thoughtless waste; the matronly sobriety and tempered magnificence of their attire with her new fangled fickleness and wanton costliness; their modest dignified courtesy with her wayward perverseness; their gravity with her lightness, in acting at court-revels and maskings, familiar with every gallant, and accepting praise from the most polluted sources. He spoke to the winds; the full proof of that perfidy which Evellin had so long struggled to disbelieve, fell like a thundering cataract on his mind, and swept away all power of attention. Long-indulged sorrow had preyed on his mental and corporeal functions, and rendered him ill able to support that severe blow. Williams sincerely repented the circumstantial disclosure he had made. A feverish listlessness seized on the unhappy Evellin, which yielded only to the visitation of a more dreadful calamity. It was not decided insanity, but it dispelled the hopes which had been formed of his being able to reclaim his usurped birth-right. His bodily health was in time restored, and his mental infirmity became a wild humoursome eccentricity, preserving traces of his noble character, but querulously impatient of controul, subject to extravagant transports, and incapable of steady exertion or connected thought. Still magnanimous, independent and honourable, but moody, rash, and intractable, he was the automaton of generous instinct, no longer animated by reason.

Such a situation required constant vigilance to prevent irritation and supply soothing recreations and gratifying objects. Williams was a most useful assistant to Mrs. Evellin. He was practically versed in husbandry, he knew the world, and had a creditable share of literature; he could thus amuse his master, direct the domestic management, and instruct the children. Isabel in all these instances found him a considerable relief to her cares. That excellent woman knew not what immediately hastened her husband's malady. Williams had often stated the possibility of his regaining his rights; but she, dreading every proposal that might agitate his mind, solemnly urged that that topic should be avoided. "In my prayers to Heaven," said she, "I never dared to supplicate for more than that he might ever continue what he was when I first revered and loved him. Reason and judgment are positive advantages; fortune and title, accidents which the possessor may convert into evils. I should have been most thankful, if, during our journey to the vale of years, he had been always able to act as my counsellor and guide. His conversation was 'the daily banquet of my nourished mind.' I hoped ever to feed on the words of wisdom breathed from the lips of kindness. I know not what important contingencies in my eternal existence are connected with my present trial; but this I know, if I sustain it patiently and cheerfully, it must promote much present good. I did not consider marriage merely as a summer voyage. Before I left the quiet harbour of singleness I thought of winter and its future storms. Most happily I did not choose a vessel laden with perishable treasures. While reason and judgment illuminated his mind, my Evellin was the delight and ornament of society; yet still his holier hopes, pursued a good, less transient than the applause of man. If while the faithful servant labours in his vocation a premature night falls upon him and suspends his toil, will the just Master who ordains the privation, be extreme in noting the remissness of infirmity? I once was the happiest of wives, nor can I now be wretched since I still minister comfort to my beloved."

Thus, with a mind naturally firm, and still further supported by principle and undeviating affection through years of trial, Mrs. Evellin persevered in active duty and enduring fortitude. The anxiety which her suffering husband excited, and the attentions he required, slowly undermined a constitution originally delicate, but she made no parade either of her sorrows or her cares. She courted no compassion, and her suppressed anguish would have been known only to her Creator, had she not observed that Evellin, in his wildest aberrations of intellect, felt her sorrows, and was not only tranquillized but restored to a transient recollection by the sight of her distress. She bestowed infinite care on her children, labouring to impart to them a portion of her own cheerful fortitude and active vigilance. The superintendance of her farm added to her employments; she had no leisure for unavailing regret; and till sickness was added to sorrow, her busy days were frequently rewarded by nights of peaceful slumber. The occupied mind, however acute its sensibility, rarely sinks into despondence. The soothing consciousness of usefulness overcomes its regrets, and the habit of exertion creates confidence in its own powers. This sentiment, though criminal when it annihilates religious dependence, is highly commendable when it acts as its ally, inspiring a generous resolution of not adding to the burden of our fellow-pilgrims, who like us toil heavy-laden through the wilderness of life. On the other hand those, who, when visited by irremediable affliction, give up their whole souls to the indulgence of grief, may dignify their passive dejection with the name of finer feelings, and more tender sensibility, but they will at last find, that they have submitted to the bondage of a tyrant who will deprive them of all their remaining comforts. Does gloomy despondence bespeak a higher degree of social virtue? Is melancholy an instance of the soul's reliance on Divine goodness? Do they not rather shew a rebellious disposition to Him from whom affliction proceeds, and a selfish disregard of those whose comforts are all blasted by the depressing influence of indulged despair?

[1] This is Clarendon's account of that famous court.

CHAP. V.

Scripture was not writ to beget pride and disputation, and opposition to government, but moderation, humility, and obedience, and peace, and piety, in mankind, of which no good man ever did or will repent himself on his death-bed.

Hooker.

The subject of my story embraces a long period of eventful years; I must therefore imitate the chroniclers of old, and, leaving the Evellins among their mountain-fastnesses, return to Ribblesdale, and describe the situation of Dr. Beaumont.

This worthy divine continued to exercise his pastoral functions in respectable tranquillity, adorning his station by a happy union of literary accomplishments with Christian graces. In these duties he was assisted by his amiable and beloved wife, who, though endowed with an unusual share of personal beauty, and descended from a noble stock, thought it no degradation to practise the duties which the inspired Apostle requires from the wives of Christian pastors, whom he rightly considers as called to be associates and partners in the ministry. She was indeed "grave, no slanderer, sober, faithful in all things, adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, abounding in good works, and a teacher of good things." Preserving the decorous and just superiority of polished manners and an enlightened mind, blended with the courtesy, humility, and meekness which result from true religious feeling, this amiable woman lived beloved and died lamented. A victim to the pestilence which ravaged England about the year 1630, she fell in the prime of life; a proof that length of days and exemption from sorrow are no sure marks of Divine favour. Her assiduity in ministering to the afflicted, exposed her to the infection which deprived Dr. Beaumont of all his numerous family except one daughter; while the household of Sir William Waverly, closely barricadoed by every contrivance which caution could suggest, enjoyed uninterrupted health. The only share he had in the general distress arose from his fears that some of the convalescent might pass the barrier he had placed round his park, or that infection might be communicated through the medium of the bailiff, who was allowed to sell corn from his granaries to the starving populace, at an exorbitant rate. The Baronet gave himself great credit for this act of generosity and patriotism, often observing that it would be very hard if it should expose him to the danger of falling a victim to his philanthropy, which sentiment was re-echoed by those who had the honour of sitting at his table, now more splendidly furnished by these extra profits, to the great satisfaction of all his humble retainers.

Dr. Beaumont resigned his wife and children to Him who had bestowed them, as intrusted blessings, which he had dearly valued, and now as tenderly regretted. Resolved to pass the rest of his days in widowhood, he made Mrs. Mellicent superintendant of his household and director of his daughter's feminine accomplishments. She also undertook to supply the place of Mrs. Beaumont in the parish, but in the task of managing the humours and improving the inclinations of the lower orders, something beside zeal and activity is necessary, even granting (as was the case in this instance) that they are guided by right principles. There was an unfortunate degree of rigidity and austerity about Mrs. Mellicent that was less connected with her heart than her manner, unless we ascribe it to a latent conviction of her own wisdom and an inclination to govern by its acknowledged superiority rather than by acquired influence. The villagers allowed that the ladies were equally good; but Madam Beaumont smiled them into a persuasion that she was an angel, and they adored her because they thought she loved them; while Madam Mellicent chided them for their faults, traced their misfortunes to their imprudence, and instead of trying to persuade them out of their prejudices, informed them that their capacities and education best fitted them for the duty of obedience. She was a woman of natural shrewdness, but not sufficiently conversant with the world to know the advantage of prudently temporizing, or the usefulness of forbearance. She had not allowed herself to study the temper of the times; she saw not that the bands of subordination were relaxing, and that the populace, leaving the practice of duties, were now busy in ascertaining rights. A change so important and so similar to that to which of late years public opinion has again leaned, will justify a few remarks on its causes, before I describe its effects.

The coercive system of government, which, during the arbitrary reigns of the Tudor family, wore the dignified aspect of prescriptive authority, was submitted to by a people grateful to that popular house, whose accession healed the wounds of a long protracted civil war; but when continued by what England esteemed a race of foreign Kings, it was stigmatized by the name of tyranny. The favours and privileges which Henry the Seventh bestowed on the commons, and the stratagems he employed to reduce the power of those barons who had been the makers and unmakers of Kings, had, during the course of five reigns, created a new order of men, whose power and influence in the commonwealth were yet unknown to the advisers of the crown. The long internal peace of a century and a half, added to the stimulus which commerce had received during the reign of Elizabeth, introduced a vast influx of wealth. The religious disputes, which were the only contests that disturbed this repose, engrafted a sour spirit of theological controversy on the warm devotional feelings that distinguished the age immediately succeeding the reformation. This temper was fomented by the clerical disputants among their respective flocks; the pulpit became a stage for spiritual attack and defence, and the most illiterate congregations were crazed with discussions of metaphysical divinity, or inflamed with rancorous hatred against the opponents of their peculiar preacher, who might be truly said to preach his own doctrine and defend his own cause, and not the doctrine or cause of his master. Thus the great mass of the community had their attention diverted from that important part of the Christian covenant which consists in practice, and were taught to rest their hopes of salvation on speculative points, to the disbelief of which were annexed those dreadful anathemas that entirely destroyed the spirit of Christian charity, and made the professors of the same religion enemies from principle, instead of brothers in love, united "by one faith, one hope, one baptism."

This religious intoxication was increased by those confused, undefined discussions about civil privileges, which, considering the altered circumstances of the community, it would have been wise for the Crown not to have provoked. There would, on the contrary, have been more policy in permitting some claims, not authorized by precedent, to have stolen in by connivance, and a few obnoxious institutions to have silently died away. The parsimonious frugality of Elizabeth was a powerful support to her prerogative, while the prodigal grants of King James to his favourites paved the way to his son's ruin. The disputes between King Charles and his three first parliaments induced him to have recourse to measures for raising supplies which were unconstitutional, and though the sums thus procured did not amount to a moiety of what would have been granted in the shape of taxes, the people murmured at forced loans, ship-money, and other unhappy expedients, when they would cheerfully have paid much larger sums if granted as subsidies. The house of Commons during the reign of Henry the Eighth were frowned and menaced into the most abject subjection; and Elizabeth, with no less authority, but superior address, awed them into non-resistance; but ever since the accession of the house of Stewart they felt their importance, as bearers of the public purse. Their decrees as well as their debates breathed a spirit at once alarming and displeasing to Princes educated in the opinion of their own Divine right, and succeeding a Queen who, though wisely intent on the public good, was as despotic a Sovereign as ever filled the English throne. A want of attention to the change which had rendered his situation different from that of his predecessors, and a too sanguine confidence in the affections of his people, which his virtues and abilities richly deserved, hurled the unhappy Charles from his throne. He wanted those pre-monitory lessons which his own subsequent misfortunes afforded. The eventful scenes which Europe has exhibited these last twenty years have awefully multiplied such warnings: May they act on the minds of Englishmen, and on those of their rulers, till the last great day of general audit which shall terminate the existence of this island with that of the earth!

The same good intentions and mistaken methods that distinguished the administration of the Sovereign, marked Mrs. Mellicent's superintendance of Ribblesdale. She was a politician of the school of Elizabeth, very willing to do good to her inferiors, but positively requiring that they should obey her. Prescription and authority, docility and respect, old principles and old manners, were her favourite topics; and in preaching submission to all superiors from the King to the village constable, precedence and decorum were her constant texts. Her notions were perhaps urged too far, but this was an age of extremes; the minds of the people were kept in a continual ferment, every object was distorted, and the calamities which ensued, in many instances, proceeded more from ill-directed zeal than positive malice; from fanaticism rather than hypocrisy. At least a bewildered imagination seems at first to have actuated the majority of the most eminent commonwealth's men to support what they deemed a righteous cause, though in their subsequent actions party-spirit urged them to do what they knew to be sinful, and to attempt to gloss it with those false colourings which make us now justly combine the names of hypocrite and fanatic, and hold them up as a reproach to the age in which they passed for saint and patriot.

The new lights, as they were termed, had begun to set England in a blaze, and two of their burning torches were greeted in Ribblesdale in the persons of Morgan and Davies, the latter the village-schoolmaster, the former a low-minded money-scrivener, who had amassed a large fortune in "the godly city of Gloucester"; and retired to spend it in his native town, where he purchased an estate, acted as justice of the peace, and styled himself gentleman. Both were illuminated apostles of the new doctrines, but each had a peculiar department in the work of reformation; one wishing to batter down the spiritual abominations of the church, while the other confined his zeal to destroying the bands of tyrannical rulers, and "calling Israel to their tents." Davies laboured under the pressure of poverty. He had displeased Dr. Beaumont by his seditious and impertinent behaviour, and the inhabitants withdrew their children from his school; but as his means of living decreased, his opinion of his own deserts enlarged; he mistook the cravings of want for spiritual illumination, and so perplexed his mind by reading the scurrilous libels of the day, as to be firmly persuaded that the King was the Devil's bairn, and Archbishop Laud the personal antichrist. A description of church ceremonies thrilled him with horror, and in every prosecution of a contumacious minister his ardent fancy saw a revival of the flames of Smithfield, while his confused notions of right and justice convinced him, that if the arm of the spirit failed, that of the flesh must be exerted, to throw down these strong holds. He had long believed himself equal to Dr. Beaumont in learning, and fancied that the unction of gifts and graces, with which he was favoured, gave him a decided preference over man's ordination. He continued to attend the church, but not in the capacity of an humble learner. By coming late, he avoided the zeal-quenching liturgy, which, as it avowedly retained ancient prayers, he considered as Babylonish and idolatrous, and he exercised his Christian liberty of choosing his religion by listening to the sermon, with a design of cavilling at the preacher, whom he soon found to be a mere legal teacher, descanting on the doctrine of works exploded by the new covenant.

Morgan had less zeal than Davies, and more foresight. Though equally anxious to pull down and destroy, he was not so certain that the fragments would re-edify themselves into a habitable fabric; and as he liked the comforts he enjoyed in the present state of things, he was not inclined to lay the foundation of a republic, till he was certain of getting a good apartment in it himself. He saw that the aspect of the times forboded extraordinary changes; but as he could not divine which of the numerous sects that opposed the church would acquire the ascendancy, he left his religion to future contingences. He found Davies an able assistant, and therefore determined to keep him hungry and discontented, in order to make him the more active in recommending the sovereign panacea, that was to cure all the national disorders. This recipe was no other than the covenant promulgated in Scotland, and which was called "a golden girdle to tie themselves to Heaven, a joining and glueing themselves to the Lord, a binding themselves apprentice to God[1]." These terms were applied to an agreement which made those that entered into it, if in a public station, break their oath of allegiance, (for the covenanters were bound to overturn the ecclesiastical branch of the constitution,) and which though it affected loyalty by professing deference for the person of the King, yet maintained the independence and paramount power of the parliament, and denounced the King's friends as malignant incendiaries and evil instruments, who prevented his reconciliation with his people. The pretext of separating the royal person from the free exercise of his functions, was too gross to deceive the most short-sighted. Equally palpable was the falsehood of pretending to promote peace and unity by an instrument, which, in the form of a religious sacrament, forbade concession, and solemnly denounced eternal enmity to all who held different opinions. Such mockery could be equalled only by that of the popish inquisitors, who intreat the secular power to be merciful, even in the warrant by which they virtually consign their victims to the flames.

These were the pestiferous principles of the intermeddlers, who disturbed the tranquillity of Ribblesdale, and alienated the minds of the people from their good pastor. The doctrine of Davies was most popular, for Morgan cut only the fifth commandment and its dependant duties out of the decalogue, while Davies, by always insisting on the freedom of grace, led his hearers, who were unskilled in theological subtilties, to think he meant to limit duty to the simple act of belief. From the period of their opposition to Dr. Beaumont, a marked change was visible in the manners of the villagers; their time was devoted to contentious disputation, which is in truth the most dangerous sort of idleness, and as they became in their own ideas more enlightened, they became more miserable; a sullen morose gloom usurped the frank hilarity of satisfied rusticity, which formerly animated their countenances. Athletic exercises and cheerful sports were renounced as sinful, and the green became the resort of conceited politicians, who, with misapplications of Scripture in their mouths and newspapers and libels in their hands, boasted their renunciation of the sensual vices, yet cherished as graces the baneful passions of pride, malice, and stubbornness, which the Scriptures assure us are most odious in the sight of God.

Dr. Beaumont was not an inactive spectator, while he beheld his parishioners thus exchanging the infirmities of the flesh for spiritual contumacy; but the evil had spread beyond the reach of lenient remedies. It is possible to instruct the ignorant, and reform a conscious culprit, but who shall teach those who are wise in their own eyes, or convince an offender, who, while he condemns righteousness as filthy rags, boasts of his freedom from the power of sin. The church was deserted, or frequented only by the Doctor's most inveterate opponents, who came not to reform their lives, but to impugn the doctrine of one, whom they had previously denounced, as not preaching the gospel, and what with omissions, transpositions, inuendoes, and insertions, they took care so to disguise his discourses in their reports, as to make him appear to maintain what he had uniformly controverted.

As his ministerial credentials were thus discredited, even while he stood by the mercy-seat, as priest of the Most High, so when he performed the social part of his pastoral functions, his visits to his flock exposed him to derision and insult. The smile of respectful affection, and the salute of humility and gratitude, no longer greeted His Reverence; his charity was received as a right, and the legal maintenance which the law allowed him was grudgingly paid, or vexatiously withheld from him, being deemed a pledge of servitude to a preacher whom the people had not chosen, and who fed them with garbage instead of wholesome food. Even his own tithe-holder, farmer Humphreys, was led away by the delusion. He was a man of rough manners and gloomy unsocial disposition, but he had hitherto never ventured to rebel, farther than occasionally to absent himself from church, on the Sunday after every admonition which Dr. Beaumont from time to time privately gave him to abstain from too free indulgence at market. He would have thought it sacrilegious as well as impudent to question the lawful endowment of the church, and he reproved his wife for being piqued at Mrs. Mellicent's blaming her passion for high-crowned hats, ruffs, and farthingales, which the sage spinster thought indecorous for yeomen's wives, though very suitable to Lady Waverly. He silenced the good dame's remarks on Mrs. Mellicent's interfering disposition, by reminding her of the value of that lady's green ointment, adding that though she was apt to be domineering and outrageous, she was ever a true friend, and more useful in sickness than the great Doctor at Lancaster. But Humphreys's opinions were totally changed, since he had the honour of joining the club at Squire Morgan's, and heard the evening lectures which Davies gave in the schoolroom. He now found that man was born equal and free, that he had a right to choose by whom and how he would be governed or taught, that tithes were a Jewish ordinance, and therefore carnal; and that as he was nearly as rich as his pastor, it was lording it over the Lord's heritage for Dr. Beaumont to be called Your Reverence, while himself was only Goodman Humphreys. As to the Doctor's superior share of virtue and wisdom, he had reason to doubt whether he really possessed them, because he never heard him say he did, but he knew Squire Morgan was wiser, and Master Davies more godly than other people, for they told him so every day. And they made such fine speeches, and uttered such long prayers, that he knew they wished him well. Some things indeed, that they said about free grace, and agrarian laws he did not quite understand, but he believed these dark sayings meant, that when he came to be one of the elect, he should get to Heaven without any trouble; and that if church and King were overthrown, he should occupy the glebe without paying any rent. Be this as it would, the right of choosing his own pastor, which Davies peremptorily insisted on as the foundation-stone of the reformation, secured him from the mortification of continually hearing Dr. Beaumont insist on duties he had no inclination to practice, and condemn faults he did not like to renounce. It is no wonder, therefore, that Humphreys wrought himself into a most patriotic resolution, no longer to submit to tyranny and priestcraft, and to vow that the next time the Doctor admonished him, he would retort with "Ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi."

People who resolve to speak their minds, seldom wait long for an opportunity. Farmer Humphreys's zeal for the holy covenant, which he was assured confirmed these privileges, not only induced him to take it himself, but to insist on his carter, Jobson's, subscribing to it also. Not that he intended the blessed panacea should work a similar change in the situation of Jobson, who, he discovered, was predestined to hard work and hard fare; but, as the good cause might want an arm of flesh in its defence, the muscular strength of the ploughman, like that of the ox, would help to drag the new ark into the sanctuary. For this purpose, he carefully concealed from Jobson the latent privileges and immunities that were vested in these cabalistical words, nor did he think it any infringement of his principles to inforce by his own behaviour the abominable doctrine of passive obedience, and to insist that Jobson should either become a covenanter, or quit his service, and forfeit his wages. Jobson had once heard the _rigmarole_, as he called it, read over, and by a strange perverseness of understanding, fancied these indentures of faith and unity, to be no other than binding himself to the Devil, to pull down the church and curse the King, and he preferred persecution and poverty to such servitude. As he resisted all Davies's attempts to enlighten him, and met his master's threats with a stedfastness which these friends to liberty called contumacy, the alternative was dismissal from his present service, without any remuneration for his past.

He applied to Justice Morgan for redress, who, anxious to disprove the suspicions that were circulated of his disposition to favour disorganizing principles, enjoined Jobson to obey his master, and reproved him for thinking that his soul could be endangered by following the example of so many great men, who had taken the covenant. It inopportunely happened, that at this moment Jobson recollected a sermon of Dr. Beaumont's, against the sin of following a multitude to do evil, in which every man's responsibility for his own offences, and the attention of Omniscience to individual transgressions, were illustrated by proofs drawn from the minute watchfulness of Providence, which superintends the heedless flight of the sparrow, and adorns the lilies of the field with more than regal magnificence. In reply to Morgan's enumeration of the Dukes, Marquisses, Lords and Squires, Godly Ministers and staunch Common-wealth men, who had taken the covenant, Jobson shook his head, and said, none of them would answer for his soul. "I heard," said he, "last Sunday in church, that all the Princes of a great nation worshipped a golden image, and three men would not, so every body went against these men, and threw them into a burning furnace. But the men were right after all in the end of the story; and so, please Your Worship, I'll not sign the Devil's bond for any body."

Davies, who was present at the examination, now remarked that Jobson had not only forfeited his wages as an hireling, by his disobedience to a believing master, but deserved to be committed for slandering the holy covenant; and Morgan, though he knew this had not yet been made an offence by statute, yet relying on the temper of the parish, the ignorance of the culprit, and the protection he would be sure to meet from a faction, whose violence had driven the King from his capital, and usurped the government, made out a Mittimus. Some remaining sense of justice, and a dislike of oppression when exercised against one of their own rank, induced the peasants to shew their disapprobation. A crowd collected around Morgan's door, determined to exercise their rights and to rescue the prisoner. The tears and cries of his wife and children had just roused them to the assumption of that summary mode of vengeance, so gratifying to an English mob, when the appearance of Dr. Beaumont suspended their fury. The long-formed associations of habitual reverence were not so intirely abrogated as to allow them to continue their riotous conduct under the influence of that mild eye, which had often silently reproved their faults, or that benevolent countenance, which had pitied their wants, and confirmed their virtues; they stood in suspence, involuntarily waiting for his opinion.

Dr. Beaumont severely condemned their misconduct in taking justice into their own hands, and assured them he would use all proper means for the liberation of Jobson. A confused murmur arose, as he entered the house. Some wondered if he knew that Morgan was his enemy, supposing that, if he did, he never would have objected to their breaking his windows; others said that the Doctor and Davies would now have it out. Davies had often said the Doctor was a Babylonish trafficker in works, an Alexander the copper-smith; and they wondered what names the other would invent. All were amazed how he dared venture among them, as they wanted something on which to accuse him to the new government.

Personal safety, and a regard to his own peculiar contests, were the last things that suggested themselves to the mind of Doctor Beaumont. Forgetful of the injuries and insults he had received, he addressed his opponents with graceful manners, and in conciliatory language. He requested to know what was Jobson's offence, expressing a hope that it was of such a nature as to admit of his urging the extenuating plea of his former good conduct.

Many voices spoke at once. Humphreys exclaimed, that he had disobeyed his orders, and was an eye-servant. Davies said, that he had dared to speak slanderously of the holy covenant. Dr. Beaumont declared himself an enemy to slander and disobedience, but in order to afford a pretext for the commitment of Jobson, Humphreys must shew his commands were strictly lawful, and Davies that the covenant was holy.

Both answered at the same time. The powerful lungs of Humphreys enabled him to thunder out, that the time was now past when he cared for the Doctor, that he knew he was as good as he, would do as he liked, and ere long meant to shew him he had the best right to the glebe, where he would no longer moil and toil for a caterpillar, that fattened on his labours. The shrill pipe of Davies issuing from his meagre form in a still higher key, insisted that the covenant was our only defence against malignant men, and evil counsellors, Arminians and Jesuits, and that if this godly bond was trampled on, the nation would be overrun with popery and formality.

When his antagonists, in striving to drown each other's voices, had mutually exhausted their powers of utterance, Dr. Beaumont answered, that since temporal endowment was no essential mark of a true church, but rather an adjunct springing out of a right feeling in the public for their spiritual advisers, the depriving him of his emoluments by the strong arm of power, would not degrade him from the office to which he had been divinely appointed. "It will, therefore," said he, "friend Humphreys, be always my duty to advise and assist you, and if you violently deprive me of what the most ancient of our laws has made mine, the necessity of my interference to convince you of your fault will become more evident. As for the wonderful efficacy which our neighbour Davies attributes to what I consider as a mere party-engagement, I must observe that popery received a blow from the labours of our first reformers, which would ere now have proved mortal, had not the divisions and subdivisions, the schisms and sects, that have originated in the importunate spirit of puritanical objectors, afforded leisure and security for the Hydra to heal her deadly wounds. In the early part of the reign of our late Queen of glorious memory, the Papists generally attended their several parish-churches, listened to our Liturgy and services with devotion, and seemed in a fair way to be won over by the moderation and decency of our worship. But the intemperance of those who, for the merest trifles, quarrelled with the establishment, who rejected even apostolical usages, because they had been practised by the catholics, who, instead of allowing Rome to be a church in error, denied that its followers could be saved, and thus raised the dark cloud of schism against the sun of the reformation; their rashness, uncharitableness, and fastidious scruples, in purifying what they owned to be non-essentials, have, I say, imped the dragon's wings, and placed the scarlet abomination, as ye call it, in a tower of strength, which the artillery of your covenant, lighted as it is by the flame of treason and civil commotion, can never overthrow.--The champions of these sects in the reign of Elizabeth, countenanced by that most flagitious courtier and tyrannical governor, the Earl of Leicester, accused Hooker, the great bulwark of the Protestant cause, of leaning towards popery, because he refused to consign the souls of our ancestors to perdition; and a most uncharitable outcry was raised against a Bishop for the same bias, because he trusted that the grandmother of our good King would experience the mercies of our Saviour, on whose merits, in her last moments, she declared she relied.--Thus did these ill-advised persons, by a breach of that charity and unity, which Scripture every where enjoins, prevent the Protestant church from exhibiting the surest marks of Christian verity. Instead of alluring people to come out of the mystical Babylon, these most lamentable divisions and controversies about trifles have driven thousands into the perilous labyrinths of a persuasion, which admits no difference of opinion, or into the yet more dreary dungeons of Atheism, whose most formidable objection to our faith, is the ill blood which it foments. Never have these enemies to God and man made such progress, as since the time when spiritual pride, turbulence and ambition, united under the name of perfect reformation, to pluck down an edifice constructed in moderation, defended by the doctrines, beautified by the labours, and cemented by the blood of its founders."

The fiery zeal of Davies would not permit Dr. Beaumont to finish his harangue. "And ye planted in your edifice," said he, "a poisonous scion, an abominable branch of the tree of evil; but our friend Humphreys speaks not unadvisedly, or at peradventure. Your Anti-christian bishops are all sent to prison; they are caged vultures, jackdaws stripped of their Babylonish trappings, their robes and square caps, their lawn formalities, their hoods and scarfs, and mitres, and crosiers, and thrones, by which these Diotrepheses lorded it over the faithful, and made the land stink with idolatries which Scripture forbids. But the blood of that Popish inquistior, Laud, will soon flow on the scaffold, and be a cleansing stream over a foul garment; and with him episcopacy shall be coffined up and buried without expectation of a resurrection."

"It is strange," observed Dr. Beaumont, "that the Papacy should rejoice at his degradation, and consider his present sufferings as a judgment upon him for composing a treatise which exposed their fopperies with a strength of reasoning to which their most able divines know not how to reply."

Morgan here interposed, and, with a smile of condescension, advised Dr. Beaumont to reflect on his own situation, and consider his temporal advantages and personal security. He spoke in praise of his learning, benevolence, and inoffensive conduct, and desired him, by a timely conformity to the prevailing doctrines, to avoid being implicated in the ruin of a falling church.

"A true branch of the Catholic church," replied the Doctor, "may be shaken, but cannot fall, because it has the promise of resisting the attacks of the powers of darkness to the end of the world. But you mistake me, Sir, if you suppose that policy was the schoolmaster who taught me my creed, or that I will desert that Church in adversity who fed me with her bread, and graced me with her ministerial appointments. The pastoral office she intrusted to me may be wrested from my grasp by force; my body may be imprisoned, my goods confiscated; you may drag me to the flames, like Ridley, or to the scaffold, like Laud, but you cannot change truth into falsehood, or make that right, which, though successful, is intrinsically wrong. Whether the doctrines of the Church of England be branded as those of a declining sect, or set by the throne as a light to guide our hereditary Princes, they must be tried by other criterions than popularity, I mean, by reason, Scripture, and apostolical usage. I trust she will ever have sons equal to the task of defending her, men uncorrupted by sensuality when she basks in sunshine, undaunted by danger when tempests threaten her destruction. And with all your boasts of making this land a Zoar and a Zion, I will tell you that you will never make it the Jerusalem which is at unity with itself and therefore meet for the residence of the Holy One, until it shall please 'God to bless the common people with sense to see that there is such a sin as schism, and that they are not judges what schism is.' Peace is not promoted by yielding to captious objections, but by subduing the spirit, which is more prone to dispute than to obey. Those who dissent from us say they only crave liberty, but when the church is overthrown they will find that it is the spirit of domination which they mistook for zeal in the cause of freedom. This will make every sect strive for pre-eminence, and the hatred they now shew us will, if we are subdued, be diverted from a superior whom they cease to fear, to equals whom they wish to depress; the anarchy and discord they will then experience will lead the moderate and well-informed to remember with regret the mild government of the deposed church."

"How, Sir?" said Morgan; "do you defend a church that has ever been a determined enemy to liberty, an ally to tyrants; a church that has vindicated forced loans and ship-money, and asserted those popish doctrines, passive obedience in the subject, and infallibility in the sovereign, dividing mankind into despots and slaves? All men are born free and equal; and he, who taxes my fortune, restrains my conscience, or confines my person without my leave, or, which is the same thing, against those laws to which I or my representative have consented; is my enemy and a tyrant, whom I may treat as Jael did Sisera. But you Episcopalians say, 'Oh no, the persons of Kings are sacred, and they can do no wrong;' so it follows that subjects are slaves whom they may crush, and trample, and grind as they please."

"Part of these doctrines," replied the Doctor, "are not held merely by the Church, but form a branch of that ancient constitution of the kingdom which no subsequent acts of the whole legislature can change, without, at the same time, endangering the safety and property of every individual. Much less can they be legally infringed by a packed junto of men, calling themselves the House of Commons, but in which, according to your own system, not a tenth of the nation is nominally represented. As to the inference you draw from what I call the fundamental principles of our government, prove that the Anglican church holds them, and I will allow her to be an ally of despotism; but you shall bring your proofs from her canons, articles, and liturgy, not from the servants of court-chaplains, or the flatteries of those who forget the priest in the sycophant. Wolves and worldlings creep into every church. The apostolic age had its Demas, and ours has its Williams. Remember it has its Andrews too. But since your principles of freedom will be best exemplified by your practice, I trust you will recollect the case of Jobson. He has neither by himself, nor by his representatives, consented to the Covenant; and his equal and free rights allow him to reject it. No ordinance has yet made it law; and the liberty of conscience you require for yourself will not allow you to force it upon him as gospel, seeing he cannot think it so."

Davies, whose extravagance had been checked by the admonitory frown of Morgan, took advantage of the dilemma to which Dr. Beaumont's application of his own principles had reduced him, and renewed his deafening declamations, to which (as neither argument nor fact were regarded, and the length of the harangue depended on his bodily strength,) the attention of his hearers might be dispensed with. Humphreys endeavoured to impress his neighbours with an idea of the advantages that would result from supporting the Covenant. "It was better than the law," he said, "because if any one came upon them for taxes they had only to go to a brother-covenanter, and be he a peer or parliament-man, he was bound to support them." Davies, in the mean time, turning up the whites of his eyes, raved against so carnalizing a spiritual bond as to apply it to the protection of temporal goods. "This," he said, "was making the gospel a post-horse to ride their own errands; stopping the entrance of an oven with a King's robe royal; and making a covenant with Heaven a chariot and stirrup to mount up to the height of carnal and clay projects. By the Covenant," added he, "I am enabled to preach the true gospel in spite of my persecutor in a surplice, who would starve the lambs with formality, and forbid me to feed them. He that opposeth me hath in his dwelling idols of wood and stone, and painted symbols of men and women whom Antichrist made saints, and Pagan books treating of false gods, and moral treatises without one word of saving faith in them, and musical instruments, and Jewish contrivances; and he goes into his study, not to wrestle with the Spirit, but to consult the evil one; and then he goes into the steeple-house, and, instead of the milk of the word, pours ladles-full of leaden legality among ye, till ye all look like his own dumb idols, instead of faithful souls overflowing with illumination."

This specimen of Davies's oratory is sufficient. The tumult he excited allowed Morgan to put in practice a safer plan than that of committing Jobson to prison, namely, to remove him privately to Hull, where Sir John Hotham was raising men for the service of Parliament, and he thought the threat of sending him to the plantations would prevail on him to enlist. Affecting, therefore, to be convinced that the liberty of a brother-man should be respected, he tore the warrant for Jobson's commitment, and ordered that he should be set at liberty. Jobson, however, could not be found. It was suggested that he had probably run away during the confusion; and Dr. Beaumont returned home, hoping his interference had been of some use.

[1] Several passages in this and the next chapters are extracted from fanatical sermons on public occasions.

CHAP. VI.

He could not bear the slightest mention of the incorrigible guilt of the nation without dissolving into tears; especially when he happened to advert unto the impudence of that hypocrisy which reconciled goodness and villainy, and made it possible for men to be saints and devils both together; whereby religion became ruinous to itself, and faith became instructed to confute and baffle duty.

Bishop Fell's Life of Dr. Henry Hammond.

Morgan could not soon forgive the insult of being contradicted and confuted when seated on the magisterial bench; nor could Davies pardon the attack on the holy Covenant, and the principles on which it was founded. They jointly determined, therefore, to take the first opportunity of exciting the villagers to acts of violence, that might either provoke Dr. Beaumont to some step on which an accusation to Parliament might be founded, or drive him away through fear for his personal safety. A public rejoicing was ordained on account of the fleet's declaring against the King; and Morgan's liberality to the populace spread a general intoxication through the town, which Davies hoped, at such a good time, might be overlooked.

Since the death of Mrs. Beaumont the Doctor had mixed little with the world, seeking, in his library and clerical functions, that calm tranquillity and self-sustained content which constitute all the earthly enjoyment that remains to a heart that has once been happy. The late ungrateful, rebellious behaviour of his flock tended still more to circumscribe his pleasures; yet though the painful feelings of rejected kindness and undeserved contumely made his village walks and sacerdotal functions a penance instead of a gratification, he considered the probability of disappointment as no apology for relaxing his endeavours to do good. The morning and evening sacrifices were offered in the temple; the ignorant were instructed, the bad reproved, and the decent commended with his wonted zeal and meekness, though only his own family and dependants joined in his orisons, though the foolish and the guilty laughed at his exhortations, and the well-disposed could derive no stimulus to perseverance from his praise. Satisfied with labouring faithfully in his vocation, the good man committed his cause to God, and found, in the refreshing recollections of self-satisfaction, and in the calm repose that followed a harassing day, spent in the performance of his manifold duties, a reward which might be termed a foretaste of heaven.

He had many true enjoyments of which the malice of his foes could not deprive him; such were, the steady affection of his sister, the gradual improvement of his daughter, and the philosophical and literary regale which his library afforded. The contests to which he was exposed, when he went out, rather grieved than irritated him; and he returned to his books and experiments to raise his spirits, not to allay the ferment of his passions. He cared little for exteriors; he knew his body could subsist without the vanities and luxuries of the world; and he depended on the promise, that the righteous should not be utterly forsaken. During his seclusion from society, he had cultivated and improved the powers of that never-dying mind which was destined to expatiate for ever amid the unveiled glories of creation, and to enjoy, after its probationary trials in this laborious world, a Sabbath of endless rest.

Mrs. Mellicent often advised him to remove from this disaffected neighbourhood, and seek the protection of the King's quarters; but Dr. Beaumont always strenuously insisted, that the period of his usefulness on his present station must not be determined by himself. The conversation was renewed on the night appointed for rejoicing, when the riotous exultation of the villagers disturbed the tranquillity which used to reign at the Rector's fire-side. "Fear," said he to his sister, "magnifies danger. At present, nothing has happened to prevent my continuing where I am now fixed in the cure of souls; and when my Master prescribes my dismissal, he will send some awakening providence that shall indicate his will. Report magnifies every thing, especially the foul language of our enemies, and often changes dissensions into feuds. I know not how long my residing here may be useful to others, nor whom I may yet be able to reclaim, by shewing that I can bear injury and encounter opposition without renouncing my own principles, or calumniating my opponents; but this I know, I am labouring at my post like a faithful subject, and had all men done the same, our good King would not now have been seen snatching his meal under a hedge like a common mendicant, nor would the great seal of England have had to be secretly carried to him like the booty of a cut-purse.

"The King's quarters, my dear Mellicent, will be filled with those court-flies who fed on the goodly vine till they had sucked all its juices, and, now winter is come, care not for its nakedness, but seek some covert where they may skulk till summer returns. You and I should make a notable appearance among those who call splendor, life; and subtlety, knowledge; we could neither speak their language nor enter into their views.--While we pined with desire to see the beauty of holiness restored, and the King's throne re-erected in judgment, they would be moaning for their masques and revels; for the royal grants and largesses; for their past enjoyments and present privations.--Or, perhaps, they would be scheming how they might creep into the confidence of the Parliament, while we wept the desolation of Zion. When the Church reposes in safety, gladdened by the favours of her spiritual bridegroom, let her officials then fear lest a worldly spirit should seize on them unawares, and convert them into hirelings more intent on the wages than on the service. Our enemies say such have been the effects of the long prosperity we have enjoyed; if so, a purifying fire must go forth among the sons of Levi. The dross will be consumed, but trust me, Mellicent, our venerable mother will rise like a phoenix, not consumed, but renewed and consecrated by the ordeal of adversity."

Mrs. Mellicent here reminded him, that he had other ties beside that of a Christian pastor, and she pointed to the young Constantia, who, overcome with watching, had fallen asleep in the great wicker-chair. "Look at that girl," said she; "consider her warm heart, and melting sensibility, her unusual beauty, delicate frame and tender years. Surely, brother, she wants a father, as much as the Church of England a friend."

Dr. Beaumont turned his head, recollected his lost Alicia at that age, and thanked Heaven that she had "safely passed the waves of this troublesome world." "Had Rogers or Taylor, my dear sister," said he, "been drawn to the earth by such a magnet, we should have lost those shining examples of true fortitude, and should have gone on, still stumbling in the darkness of papacy.--The torch of truth was kindled at the penal fires which consumed the martyrs, and its light illuminated distant ages and nations. He who bears the sacred character of ambassador of God should constantly remember that all other titles yield to its glorious superiority. It was the boast of the church of Rome, that her clergy acted not as individuals aiming at their own benefit, but as a compacted body actuated by one impulse and towards one object, the advantage and supremacy of the church. For this end they fed the poor at the convent-gates, the monastery was an asylum to the afflicted, and the middle orders were conciliated by that lenient treatment which procured them respect as mild masters and most indulgent landlords. At a time when tyranny and rapacity reigned in the castle, the clergy were a chain binding the great to their inferiors. We know by what unnatural restraints the Romish clergy were made thus superior to private interest, but let us not give them cause to say, that celibacy is necessary to prevent the man of God from becoming a man of the world. The ties of nature which he owns in common with others, must not supersede those duties which bind him to his congregation. He does not profess, like the priest at mass, to be a mediator between God and man, but he pleads to the rich in behalf of poverty; to the powerful for those who require protection. He instructs the indigent to be grateful; he stops the arm of oppression; he curbs avarice, by reminding it of the state where riches avail not; he comforts affliction, by proving that temporal distress, however great, may be supported. Our calling requires us thus to preach, and shall not our lives be a living comment on our doctrines? Shall our conversation prove that our unsanctified hearts are devoted to sensuality and aggrandisement, that we hold the censers with unhallowed hands, and in reality love the riches and pleasures which in our pulpits we affect to renounce."

"You have wandered from the subject, my good brother," said Mrs. Mellicent; "I was not talking of riches and pleasures, but of preserving a father for a poor girl, who, if any evil befall you, will have no protector. It is a long time since we heard from the mountains, and Isabel's last letter gave no hope that poor Evellin would ever be able even to take care of himself. She says that their dwelling is comfortable, their farm equal to their support, and that the disturbers of the world have not got among them. She writes cheerfully, but her writing is much altered. I was thinking we might take shelter there whenever those awakening providences, which my forebodings tell me are at hand, shall compel you to own that you are discharged from the care of ungrateful Ribblesdale."

The conversation was interrupted by Dame Humphreys, who rushed abruptly into the house, lamenting that things should come to this pass, and conjuring his reverence not to think any of her family were concerned in it. It was with difficulty that her agitation permitted her to state, that a mob bent on mischief were coming to the rectory; whether the house or the life of the pastor was threatened she could not discover, but the purport of her visit was to put them on their guard. A riotous crowd, inflamed alike with liquor and fanaticism, is a formidable object to the most determined courage; but escape was now impossible, and remonstrance would be utterly unavailing; there was only time to put up the slight fastenings to the doors and windows, which, as they corresponded to the peaceful and unsuspecting character of the owner of the mansion, could not long resist the infuriate attack of the besotted populace.

But their rage was pointed at another object, the Doctor's library, which was placed in a detached building in the garden, and fell an undefended sacrifice to their rage. The voice of Davies was heard, encouraging the destruction of a treasure which he had long envied, and the flames soon afforded him sufficient light to point out the objects of his particular abhorrence to which his ignorance gave false or exaggerated descriptions. A cast of Apollo destroying Python, he termed Moses and the brazen serpent, and named himself the Hezekiah who would break it in pieces and call it Nehushtan. "See, my Christian brethren," said he, "how truly I spake when I called this slumbering watchman, this dumb dog, a worshipper of idols of wood and stone. This is his oratory; but instead of a godly laboratory which should turn carnal lead into spiritual gold, what see we but provocatives to sinful thoughts. Here are no sackcloth and ashes, camel's hair and leathern girdles; this prophet's chamber has its silks and sattins, stuffed cushions and curtains, screens and wrapping gowns. The walls are hung with paintings of fair Jezebels, whom he calls Mary and Magdalen, though it is well known, they were godly women, who never braided their hair or put on gorgeous apparel. See you that bust? It represents Diana of the Ephesians, the very Diana who endangered Paul's life; and did I not rightly call this malignant priest Alexander the copper-smith? And here are necromancing figures," (taking up the Doctor's mathematical exercises,) "squares and triangles, and the sun, moon and stars, which Job said he never worshipped.--And here is that unrighteous Babylonish instrument, an organ, which proves he is either a Jew or a Papist, as none but the favourers of abominable superstition make dumb devices speak, when they might chaunt holy psalms and hymns with their own voices. And here are similitudes of Nero and Domitian, bloody persecutors, my brethren; which shews that he loved tyrants, and would have made us fry a faggot, had not the light of my preaching broke in upon his darkness, and made him like a rat with a bell, a scarecrow to the unconverted. Touch not his books, dearly beloved, they will prove the Devil's bird-lime, teaching you to despise my godly ministry; they will teach you nothing but Pagan fables or Romish ceremonies. Can Aristotle preach the Gospel? Do those church-histories tell us about saving faith? I tell you nay; therefore burn them altogether, and break the idols in pieces, and tear away the paintings, and demolish the Jewish instruments that send forth sounds of levity when the player upon them is disposed to provoke his hearers to wanton dances and vain mirth. So let us purify the place with fire, that the slumbering watchman may be awakened to a consideration of his offences and learn to repent," &c. &c.

An harangue so well adapted to inflame the minds of a drunken mob, produced a destruction as complete as Davies could desire, in whose mind zeal had produced a similar intoxication. At this instant Mr. Morgan arrived with a band of constables to protect Dr. Beaumont and his property. As the rescue came too late, the magistrate conceived it to be his duty to reprove the rioters, and dismiss them with an assurance, that if ever they again presumed to let their holy joy at the prosperity of the good cause stimulate them to actions which the law did not justify, he must resort to severer measures than censuring their misconduct. He then advised them to go quietly to their own houses, and as it was their first offence, he would endeavour to soften their behaviour to the commissioners whom Parliament had appointed conservators of the peace of the county.

He now inquired after the health of the family, sent in his service to the Doctor, and expressed his intention of coming in to comfort him in his misfortunes. Every drop of Mrs. Mellicent's blood rushed into her face at the effrontery of his proposal, and the familiar terms in which it was couched; but her brother begged her to consider that since no good could arise from appearing to feel an insult which they had not power to punish, the best way would be to seem to regard it in another light; Morgan therefore was admitted.

He began with expressing his concern for Dr. Beaumont's pecuniary loss, and inquired at what sum he valued his books and paintings. The Doctor answered, he would endeavour to make out an estimate, which he would present at the quarter-sessions, and pray for indemnification. He added, the severest part of his loss consisted in manuscripts and other valuables, inconceivably precious to himself, but of which (as money would not replace them) he should say nothing.

"My mother's picture and letters," said Constantia, lifting her head from Mrs. Mellicent's bosom, where she had sunk, from the extreme languor that succeeded the violent hysterics into which the terrors of this alarming night had thrown her. A more lovely or interesting object could scarcely be conceived than this charming girl, just ripening into woman, her mind mature beyond her years, and her heart agitated by the finest feelings of filial distress. Morgan gazed with involuntary approbation, while she threw her glossy ringlets from her face with one hand, and held out the other to welcome one whom she thought a pitying friend and protector of her father.

Mrs. Mellicent hastily snatched back the offered hand, and whispered, "Hush! child, you will bring on a return of your fits."

Morgan distended his broad face with a smile, which looked extremely like a grin, and talked of Dr. Beaumont's happiness in possessing what would always put him in mind of his wife. He then enlarged on the crosses and losses people often met with, and on the duties of patience and content. He made a swift transition to his own prosperous situation; declared when he began business he but just knew how to read and write, and had only a quire of paper and a case of pens; yet he was now worth ten thousand pounds. He thought the world would be a very good one as soon as a few lordlings were pulled down, such, for instance, as the Earl of Derby, who turned up his nose at people of fortune, and prevented even him from hunting on his manors, though exercise was good for his health, and he was very fond of hare and partridge. He talked of the influence he possessed at the quarter-sessions; assured Dr. Beaumont he would use it in his favour; then shaking Constantia by the hand, bade her not spoil her pretty face with crying, and thus concluded his _friendly_ visit.

"A vulgar knave," said Mrs. Mellicent, pushing-to the door. "Such visitors are more provoking than loss of property. If you are of my mind, brother, you will lose every shilling sooner than owe retribution to the son of your father's shoemaker."

Dr. Beaumont answered that since he was intrusted with a delegation of the King's authority, he should, as long as he ostensibly preserved his allegiance, look at the magistrate instead of the man; but as to receiving any favour from him, he was perfectly easy on that score, being sure he did not mean to shew him any. "I owe it to my own character, and to my child's interest," continued he, "to apply for redress, but I look upon this as the first of many misfortunes which, these convulsed times will bring upon me. When the head suffers grievously, the members must be indisposed. I should blush to be exempt from the misfortunes which weigh down my King."

A few days restored the Beaumont family to tranquillity; devotional exercises, and the resources of an enlarged mind, preserved the Doctor from sinking into depression. Constantia, ashamed of her want of fortitude, strained every nerve to imitate her father, though in her efforts to amuse him, the involuntary tears which her weakness could not restrain, excited in his breast more painful feelings than the malice of his enemies had power to occasion. Mrs. Mellicent was fully occupied by the villagers, many of whom were hurt at the riot, but as they happened to be (according to their own report) all belonging to the harmless class of lookers-on, her cordial waters, lotions, and plaisters, were in a constant state of requisition; this, added to the indispensable duty of scolding them for not keeping in their own houses when such mischief was afloat, kept her tongue and hands in continual action.

One night, as the Doctor was dismissing his household after family-prayers, with his usual exhortation, "to faint not, neither be weary in well-doing;" the trampling of horses was heard at the gate, and four strangers craved his hospitality. A gentleman muffled in a riding-coat, whose voice and figure recalled indistinct recollections, introduced a tall ingenuous-looking youth, a blooming girl, and a person habited as a servant. "We are of the King's party," said the graceful stranger; "and need no other recommendation to Dr. Beaumont for a night's lodging. Besides myself, a broken gentleman, here are a poor boy and girl, benumbed with fatigue, and an old-fashioned servant, who will not leave a ruined master." At hearing these words, Mrs. Mellicent rushed to the door, to assure them that the beds were well-aired. Constantia flew to assist in serving up supper; the Doctor lifted the young people from their horses, and all were in a few minutes assembled in his parlor.

"Allow me, Sir, to help off your coat," said Mrs. Mellicent; "and my dear young lady, draw nearer the fire.--Your face reminds me of some whom I well knew. When the King kept court at Oxford, I spent a winter there; could I have known your mother?"--"You knew her well," said the agonized stranger. "Dear Eusebius, have you forgot me?" "No, Evellin," replied Dr. Beaumont, folding the man of sorrows to his bosom, "Where is our Isabel?"--"In Heaven!" replied he, "and has left these treasures to the keeping of a crazed wanderer, who has no other portion than his sword, no relic of his former self but his honour."

Tears and embraces followed; even Mrs. Mellicent wept as she alternately clasped Eustace and Isabel to her heart. Her first care was to distinguish who they were like; and in their blended resemblance to both parents, she explained the confused ideas of recollection which her niece had excited at her first appearance. She then went out to see that due care was taken of Williams; nor were the horses forgotten, for they belonged to a gentleman and a Loyalist, and had conveyed to her arms the precious offspring of her beatified sister.

Eustace, Isabel, and Constantia, scarce needed the bond of kindred to ensure affection. Their ages, habits, manners, and principles, so well accorded, that their liking was instantaneous. The only difference was, that the young Evellins, "bred on the mountain's rough side," inured to severer trials, and exercised in a daily course of rigid duty, displayed an energy and self-dependence which agreeably contrasted the polished sweetness and feminine sensibility of Constantia Beaumont. Isabel was an admirable herbalist, and expert in supplying all the wants of a secluded family; robust with health and exercise, yet neither coarse in her person, vulgar in her manners, nor sordid in her mind. Constantia was mistress of every elegant accomplishment; she painted, sung, touched the lute with exquisite sweetness; melted at every tale of woe; loved all the world except her father's enemies, and was willing, as far as her slender frame permitted, to perform the lowest offices that would promote the welfare of others. Eustace was a year older than the girls, and just on the verge of fifteen, tall, and manly in mind and person, panting for enterprize, full of hope that he was able to correct the disorders of the times, and sure that his name would be recorded in the annals of his country, as one who loved his church and his King, and hated the Roundheads and Fanatics. He soon drew the attention of his hearers by wishing he had been at Ribblesdale on the night of the riot, vowing he would have beat the whole party, and tossed Davies into the flames.

Constantia smiled for a moment, and then shuddered at the idea of the suggested torture. "I make no doubt he would," said Isabel, "and then have rushed in himself to pull the villain out again."

"But my dear Eustace," inquired Constantia, "what are you to be?"

"A soldier to be sure," replied the boy. "Have you not heard that the King has set up his standard at Nottingham. My father has parted with our farm, and raised a levy of troops among the mountaineers, and he is going to follow them to the King, with all the money he has left, except a little which he leaves for Isabel."

"I tell you, brother," returned the sister, "we will dispute that point no longer. The King is to have every shilling; for I know how to support myself by my own labour."

"She shall never do that while we have a house--Shall she, aunt Mellicent?" said Constantia.

"No," returned the good lady; "honest people are now scarce, so we must take care of each other. But, Eustace, does your father approve of your turning soldier while you are such a child?"

"No, dear aunt, and that is the only trouble I ever knew, except the death of our blessed mother. I don't know his reasons, but he wants to place me in safety; I hate safety, it sounds so womanish. As we came along I met several fellows less than myself, who said they were ensigns. I know I could make an ensign; I could wrap the colours round my body, and die with the staff in my hand."

Constantia burst into tears, and declared Eustace talked so shockingly she could not bear it.

"My pretty love," said he, "I did not mean to frighten you. No, I intend, instead of being killed myself, to tear down the rebel standards, and send them to you. What would you do with them?"

Constantine paused a moment--"Would they," said she, "make a tent for my dear father to sit and read in? It goes to my heart to see him out of doors this stormy weather, wandering about and looking at his burnt library."

"Could I not put it a little in repair while I stay?" inquired Eustace. "I am a very good mason, and a tolerable carpenter. I built a shed last year for the old poney. Isabel, you can glaze the windows, and white-wash. I think, between us, we might put it into comfortable order."

Mrs. Mellicent, a little shocked at her niece's avowing her expertness in these handicraft employments, apprehended that her lamented sister had neglected her daughter's education through her solicitous attention to more important duties. She began therefore to question her about her accomplishments--"Can you work tent-stitch neat, my love?" was her first inquiry. "No!"--"Bless me, had you leather hangings to your best apartments?" Isabel was ignorant what hangings meant. Mrs. Mellicent proceeded to examine her skill in confectionery, and found with astonishment it was a science of which she did not know the name. "Can you paint chimney-boards, or cut paper, or work samplers?" "Dear aunt," said Isabel, "I am a brown bird of the mountains, as my mother called me. She taught me to sing, because she said it made work go on more merrily, but the longest day was short enough for what I had to do; I was laundress, and sempstress, and cook, and gardener; and if Cicely went to look for the sheep, I had to milk and bake, and at night I mended my father's fishing-nets, while I was learning Latin with Eustace. Yet I got through all very well, till my mother fell sick, and then I nursed and dressed her, as she lay helpless on the pallet. But if I live with you, I will learn all your employments, for I am never happy when I am idle, and my only wish is to be useful."

"There is sterling worth in this rustic hoyden," thought Mrs. Mellicent, who, in contriving some occupation for so active a mind, recollected that Mrs. Beaumont's dressing-plate had not been cleaned lately, and undertook to make Isabel expert in furbishing the delicate filigree. She called on Constantia to give up the key, it being considered as her property, who blushed, hesitated, begged not to be questioned on the subject, and at last owned it was gone.

"Gone! to whom?" "Dear aunt," returned Constantia, stealing a look at the approving eye of Eustace, "I sent it to the King at York, as the only contribution in my power. You must not be angry. My father and you set the example, by parting with all the money and valuables you could collect, and I thought it a bad excuse that, because I was under age, I might not send my mite to assist him, so I packed it up with my mother's jewels, and I am happy to say they got safe to His Majesty."

Mrs. Mellicent tried to frown. "Foolish girl," said she, "you should have kept the essence-box at least, as an heirloom. It was a present from Henry the Seventh's Queen to your great grandmother's aunt, who was her maid of honour. There was the union of the two roses wrought upon it; the King, standing with a red rose in his hand, and the Queen with a white, and a Bishop between them, and a large dove at the top, with an olive-branch in his mouth, so beautiful that it fell in festoons all down the side. Well, I am thankful that I took off the pattern in chain-stitch. It will shew what good blood you spring from when people come to be again valued for their families." Mrs. Mellicent retired to her chamber, secretly pleased with the dispositions of her young charge, and inclined to believe that a parcel of beggarly republicans could not long domineer over such generous and aspiring minds.

CHAP. VII.

O War, thou son of Hell, Throw, in the frozen bosoms of our part, Hot coals of vengeance, let no soldier fly; He that is truly dedicate to war Hath no self-love.

Shakspeare.

The impatience of Evellin to join his royal master frustrated the hospitable wish of Dr. Beaumont to detain his brother-in-law at Ribblesdale. A few weeks were all he would grant, and even this time was not unemployed, for Williams was sent forward to present the levy and supply of money to the King, to inquire where he would command his services, and to procure arms and accoutrements.

During this interval, the Doctor found, with unspeakable pleasure, that the intellectual disorder of Evellin, which had been caused by too keen a sense of his wrongs, was composed rather than heightened by the severe loss he had lately sustained. The death of that faithful partner, who had sacrificed her life in labouring for his benefit, impressed on him the conviction that he must either exert himself, or perish. The tender age of his children peremptorily required his assistance, and to a mind formed like his, a still more awakening consideration presented itself in the dangers and difficulties of his King. Was it worthy of the true Earl of Bellingham to wander among wilds and fastnesses, weeping for a dead wife, or raving at a false friend, when England's throne tottered under its legitimate Sovereign, and the lowest of the people, (like owls and satyrs in the capital of Assyria) fixed their habitations in the pleasant palaces where luxury late reigned! He felt that he had too long behaved like a woman, pining in secret when he ought to have acted; while his faithful consort, with masculine courage, opposed her tender frame to the tempest, and, at length, sunk beneath the added terrors of his imbecility. His weakness in lamenting an irremediable evil, was the fault to which he owed the loss of his invaluable Isabel. He would now shew how truly he deplored that loss, by changing moody reflection into vigorous action, and by becoming a protector and support to the family to which he had hitherto been a burden. To such a state of mind, the situation of the King supplied a powerful impetus, and Dr. Beaumont saw, with pleasure, that loyalty was likely to give full scope to those fine qualities, which had hitherto, like smothered fire, consumed the fabric in which they were engendered.

He, however, entreated Evellin not to compromise his own safety by acts of rashness, which could do his Prince no good, but to wait the return of Williams before he took the field. In raising a band of mountaineers, he had acted under the authority of the King's commission of array, against which Davies had preached, and Morgan had inveighed, not only with vehemence, but with falsehood. They had told the yeomen and peasants, that "some lords about the court said, twenty pounds a year was enough for any peasant to live upon, and, taking advantage of the commission being in Latin, they translated it into what English they pleased, persuading the freeholders, that at least two parts of their estates would be taken from them; and the poorer sort, that one day's labour in the week would be extorted as a tax to the King[1]." These calumnies were not peculiar to Ribblesdale, but unhappily were diffused over all the nation, in which a vast body of people were grown up, who, like Morgan, had acquired wealth, and were ambitious of equal consequence with the hereditary gentry and nobility, by whom they found themselves despised for their ignorance and coarse manners, and therefore endeavoured to supplant them. Such men were every-where fast friends to the Parliament, and by their freer intercourse with the common people, whose habits and ideas were originally their own, they misrepresented the King's designs, and counteracted the measures of those noble and brave patriots, who, notwithstanding their dislike of some former measures, felt it was their duty now to rally round the throne. "Nor can it be remembered without much horror, that this strange wild-fire among the people was not so much and so furiously kindled by the breath of the Parliament, as by that of their clergy, who both administered fuel and blowed the coals. These men having crept into and at last driven all learned and orthodox divines from the pulpits, had, from the commencement of this 'memorable Parliament,' under the notion of reformation and extirpation of popery, infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of men against the present government of the church with many libellous invectives against the state. But now they contained themselves in no bounds, and as freely and without controul inveighed against the person of the King, prophanely and blasphemously applying whatever had been spoken by God himself or the Prophets, against the most wicked and impious Kings, to incense and stir up the people against their most gracious Sovereign. Besides licensed divines, preaching and praying was at that time practiced by almost all men in the kingdom except scholars."

Thus as every parish had its Davies and its Morgan, the unhappy Charles, faultless as a man, and at worst only ill-advised as a Monarch, found himself, after much ineffectual submission, and many unconstitutional abridgements of his lawful rights, required to surrender the scanty remains of his prerogative, and consent to be a state-engine, in the hands of his enemies. When, driven from his capital by riots, his fleet, army, militia, garrisons, magazines, revenues, nay, his palaces and personalities seized, by those who still called themselves his most dutiful subjects, and prefaced their requisitions, that he would virtually surrender as their prisoner with the title of an humble petition; when, after all these humiliations and privations, the King found it necessary to throw himself on the allegiance of his faithful subjects, and to appeal to arms by raising the royal standard, only a few hundred, out of the millions he governed, joined him. Discouraged by this apparent defection, some of his friends advised him to treat with the Parliament, or, in other words, to submit unconditionally. In abandoning his own personal rights, His Majesty had gone as far as his conscience would permit, and he chose rather to suffer banishment or death, than yield to abolish the church he had sworn to defend, as Parliament now required him to do, in the phrase of "casting out an idle, unsound, unprofitable, and scandalous ministry, and providing a sound, godly, profitable, and preaching ministry, in every congregation through the land." Yet he so far conceded as to make an offer of reconciliation, secretly convinced that the latent insolence with which it would be rejected, though couched in smooth language, would awaken the nation to a sense of duty. The event justified his expectation, and the King was enabled to make a glorious, but unsuccessful resistance, during which, though many excellent persons fell (himself among the number), the principles of reciprocal duty between King and subject were defined, and hypocrites, fanatics, and republicans, were completely unmasked.

It was during this lowering aspect of the political horizon, while the clouds, congregating from all quarters, menaced a tremendous storm, that Evellin sheltered his woe-worn head at Ribblesdale. The time was not lost; for the well-informed piety of the Doctor succeeded in completely tranquillizing Evellin's mind, who, admitting him to unbounded confidence, told him all his early sorrows, the enmity of Buckingham, the falsehood of De Vallance, and the loss of his estate, title, and high connection. When in the sequel of his narrative, he stated that his perfidious friend was at this time Earl of Bellingham, the blood recoiled from Dr. Beaumont's heart, and he almost fainted with horror. "Do I understand you," said he; "was De Vallance thus exalted by the King? Was his wife the Queen's confidante, the dispenser of her favours and the adviser of her conduct?" He then shewed Evellin the British Mercury, which stated, that this same Bellingham had accepted a commission under the Parliament; that the treacherous favourite of the unfortunate Henrietta Maria had charged her mistress with the design of introducing popery and arbitrary power, as well as of secretly fomenting the Irish rebellion, and that she had involved in her slanders the merciful and truly religious King.

"This infinitely transcends all," exclaimed Evellin, "and drives from my remembrance the recollection of my private wrongs. I consider the infernal pair not merely as my enemies, but as the common foes of man; I regard them as a tiger and hyaena, whom I ought to hunt down and destroy. They are not depraved human beings, tempted by ambition to sin greatly; but demons, who know no moral feelings either of honour, pity, attachment, or gratitude."

"Restrain your warmth," said Dr. Beaumont; "this is only the natural progress of inordinate desires unchecked by principle, and gorged, not satiated, by indulgence. She who would betray a brother would never adhere to a fallen benefactress. He who would ruin a confiding friend, would desert his King in adversity. A coronet, a large estate, a magnificent castle, and splendid retinue, were the baubles for which these offenders forfeited their immortal souls. The compact once made, cannot (they think) be broken. Habit here becomes fixed as the Ethiop's die or the leopard's spots; and greater crimes must secure what lesser offences purchased."

The friends now consulted on their future measures. Evellin was for concealing his real self from the King, but Dr. Beaumont advised that though he should retain his borrowed name, as a personal security in case he should fall into the enemy's hands, the King should know him for the injured Allan Neville. "It will add to his distress," said Evellin, "to see a man whom he has wronged, and has now no power to redress." "It will console him," returned Beaumont, "to find one generous and loyal enough to forget injuries, when others renounce benefits. Affliction is sent by Providence, to teach us to recollect our ways. My loyalty does not make me forget that the King is equally subject to one great Master, nor am I so desirous to secure his temporal repose as to wish him to lose the advantages of adversity. Let him by seeing you be taught to distinguish between flatterers and friends. It will be happy for England if he regains his high station; it will do good to his own soul when he comes to give an account of his stewardship, at that tribunal before which the emperor and the slave must one day stand."

"Beaumont," said Evellin, grasping the Doctor's hand, "you are still that angel of truth who in my early life led my proud and rebellious thoughts to seek the consolation of religious humility; but in one circumstance you must give my weakness way. My gallant boy, ignorant of his noble birth, pants for military fame with all that generous ardour which during five centuries distinguished his ancestors. He is the last hope of an illustrious house. Accuse me not of malice, or of folly, when I own that, (next to the restoration of my King,) I beg of heaven that he may be spared to tear the polluted ermine from the shoulders of this branded rebel, and to purify the coronet of Bellingham from the foul contamination it receives by binding a villain's brow. Toss this storm-beaten carcase into any trench where it may in future serve as a mound against traitors; but let my young nursling be planted where the tempest that unroots the cedars shall pass over without injuring his tender growth. You, Beaumont, are a man of peace, bound by your functions to that bloodless warfare which attacks opinions, not men. Take him with you, wherever you go; keep him in your sight; cultivate in him every noble propensity, except his passion for military renown. In all else he is the son of my desires; and were it not for my peculiar circumstances, he would be so in this also. Consider him as a young avenger destined by heaven to punish the guilty, and never let despair of the royal cause induce you to yield him to his own impetuosity. While a branch of the Stewart stock remains, fear not, though these cursed malcontents cut down the royal tree; the scion, watered by a nation's tears, shall still grow, and the soiled regalia of England again look splendid among contemporary kingdoms. At that period the descendants of your Isabel shall reclaim the honours to which my services, and perhaps my death, will ensure them a renewed patent."

The Doctor complied with Evellin's wishes, thinking the youth and extreme impetuosity of Eustace rendered him unfit to take arms for a cause which required coolness and experience, and which zeal, unrestrained by such adjuncts, was likely to injure. He promised to use every effort to direct the youth's studies and guide his judgment, to consider him as his son, and Isabel as his daughter. "She is a worthy singular girl," said Evellin, "but I have little fear for her; not that I love her less; but she is one of those safe useful beings whose active and benevolent character always secures friends, and whose self-controul and indifference to their own ease make them comfortable in every situation."

It was determined by the gentlemen that the young people should be kept in perfect ignorance of Evellin's rank, but since it seemed prudent to increase the number of living witnesses of his identity, Mrs. Mellicent was admitted into their counsels. Though a woman, and an old maid, she belonged to that extraordinary class of people who can keep a secret; and I must do her the justice to say, that she never directly or indirectly betrayed her trust. And whenever she reproved the girls for what she called rompish tricks, which, she insisted, were very unbecoming in young ladies, she constantly endeavoured to look at Constantia as expressively as she did at the 'brown bird of the mountains.'

All that now was wanting was the return of Williams, for which the impatience of Evellin increased every hour.--During this period of suspence, the family were surprised one morning by a visit from Sir William Waverly, who came to inquire after the Doctor's health, and to condole with him on the destruction of his library. He earnestly advised him to apply for indemnification, and offered his services at the ensuing assizes. Nothing could be more friendly than Sir Williams's manner, or more liberal than his promises; but it unluckily happened that Mrs. Melicent, than whom no judge was ever more attentive to facts and dates, as well as to collateral circumstances, discovered that the polite Baronet, ere he paid this visit, had just time to hear of the King's victory at Edgehill, which event she was severe enough to believe, brought to recollection the loss sustained by his worthy pastor three months before. She also thought that the improved aspect of the royal cause had occasioned a hamper of game and venison to arrive at the rectory, which the keeper confessed had once been directed to Squire Morgan. It must however be admitted, that Mrs. Mellicent had a decided contempt for all the family of Waverly, which made her scarcely just to their real deserts.

Dr. Beaumont answered the Baronet's expressions of condolence with the firmness of a man who shewed himself superior even to the loss of the most rational and innocent delights. He soon changed the conversation to public affairs, when Sir William, having first commended caution and moderation, observed, that it began to be time for a wise man to choose his party.

"An honest man must have chosen his long ago," said Eustace, darting his animated eyes from Caesar's Commentaries to the countenance of the Baronet. "Was that remark in your book?" inquired Dr. Beaumont, with a look of calm reproof. "No uncle," replied the spirited boy, "but I loved my King as soon as I knew I had one, and thought every body did the same."

"That is a fine youth," said Sir William, smiling; "may I crave his name." "My sister Isabel's son," replied the Doctor; "and Colonel Evellin's, I presume," added Sir William, "for it is now known that His Majesty has conferred on him that dangerous military title."

Evellin coolly answered, that his life was his country's and his King's, and that those who highly valued safety never ought to buckle on a sword.

Sir William Waverly warmly reprobated a cold, selfish, time-serving character, declaring that, in the opinion of all his friends, his great fault consisted in absolutely disregarding himself, while he was sedulously attempting to benefit mankind. After a few flaming periods of egotism and flattery to a personage whom he held most dear, namely himself, he reverted to the possibility of duties being suspended in an equipoize so nice that a reflecting man could not know how to act between his King and his country.

Evellin answered, that he thought it easy to distinguish between the free voice of a well-informed people and the proceedings of an aspiring party, who, by misrepresentation, terror, and an appeal to the worst passions, had gained an undue influence; a party who, supported by men detesting every species of restraint, and hoping every change will benefit their condition, pass themselves upon the world as the British nation. "As well," said he, "may we venture to call their language to the King loyalty, or their actions law and justice, as to misname the present House of Commons, the representatives of England; when every friend to His Majesty or the constitution has been ejected, banished, or imprisoned, by votes passed under the immediate influence of hired mobs of apprentices, prostitutes, and the worst rabble London contains."

"Quite my opinion," resumed Sir William; "yet, Sir, though I excessively condemn and lament the unfortunate length to which Parliament has gone, I must say, that at the beginning there were faults on both sides. His Majesty was wrong, evidently wrong, and then Parliament went too far, and then the King promised and retracted, and then they applied to more coercive measures, till really it becomes doubtful who is most to blame."

"When," said Evellin, "you can find in the King's actions any violation of the constitution as flagrant as either the legal assassination of Lord Strafford, in which all forms and usages of Parliament were violated; the accusation of Laud, that eminent defender of the Protestant faith, for Popery; the imprisonment of the bishops for claiming their ancient privileges; or, lastly, a dependent and elective body voting itself supreme and permanent, and in that state levying war upon the King, by whose writs they were first summoned and consolidated; when you can find, I say, in the arbitrary proceedings of the Star Chamber, or of the High Commission courts, actions as repugnant to our fundamental laws as these, I will then agree with you, Sir William Waverly, and admit that a wise and considerate man would doubt what party to choose, as not knowing which was most to blame."

Sir William protested that there was not a man in England who lamented, more bitterly than himself, the excess which had brought the popular cause into disrepute; yet he thought candour required us to make allowances for the heat of debate, and the ebullition of passion incident to deliberative assemblies, which made the members often push matters further than they intended; and he extremely regretted that the King, by some ill-advised steps, such as that of violating the freedom of Parliament, by personally demanding five members to be given up to his vengeance, had fomented a spirit of animosity which mild counsels might have subdued.

These qualifying remarks irritated Evellin. "After a series of not merely passive, but submissive actions," said he, "after yielding one member of the Council to the Tower, and another to the block, from which even a King's prayer, for a friend and servant, could not procure unhappy Wentworth a day's respite, His Majesty did, I must own, adopt rash counsels. But it is not their illegality so much as his weakness in threatening when he wanted strength to punish, that I condemn. If your objection to the royal cause be founded on the distraction and imbecility that have marked the measures by which it has been supported, I must cease to rouse your dormant loyalty. It is not in the defenceless tents of our Prince that we must seek for safety; we must leave him to his fate, on the same principle that we abandon a naked child to the attacks of a man clad in complete armour."

Dr. Beaumont now took part in the debate. "If," said he, "we look back to the original pretences of those who set out as reformers, I think we shall be able to form a clear decision as to the part we ourselves should act, where the confusion they labour to excite has actually commenced. They first unsettle our obedience by discovering what they call the iniquity of our governors; and indeed it is not difficult for those who look with a malignant eye on their conduct to perceive such errors, or, if you will, vices, as an artful and censorious temper may dress up into glaring enormities, especially if it deals in those exaggerations which people, who give up their understandings to the views of a party, call true representations. The man of dullest intellect can discover faults in extensive complicated systems, and the more he confines his view, the more must he see matters in detail, and not in their general tendency. Yet these illiberal censors are sure to be regarded, because in all countries the majority of the people (I mean such as are uninformed) wish for nothing so much as to be their own masters, which they suppose will be the immediate consequence of overthrowing the existing system. A reformer thus sets off with every possible advantage, with an auditory predisposed to listen, and a fair field for censure, in which malice and ingenuity have space to expatiate; nor can his own pretensions to purity and wisdom at first be questioned, for as he generally rises from an obscure station, his former conduct is not known, and the glibness of his oratory, and the popularity of his topics, gain him ample credence for all the excellent qualities to which he lays claim. 'Tis true, when he has gained the ascendancy he aims at, his behaviour generally shews him to be not only frail and faulty, but a worse knave than any he has exposed; but before he thus discovers himself, he has gained a hold either of the affections or the fears of the multitude, which, added to their reluctance to owning their own mistake, maintains his popularity till a rival incendiary rises to dispossess him. In the mean time, candour, who was pushed behind the scenes, when she came to plead for our lawful governors, is brought into play, and made to utter fine declamations on the impossibility of always acting right, and on the distinction between public and private virtue, bespeaking that indulgence for usurpers or factious demagogues which was denied to the lapses of lawful rulers, whose inclinations at least must be on the side of an upright and wise administration, because they have a permanent interest in the welfare of the nation. The delusions of which I speak seldom last long; an enlightened people perceives the cheat; but it is lamentable that the tricks of these political puritans should never grow stale by practice, and that as often as a pseudo-reformer starts up with pretensions to great honesty and great wisdom, England should forget how often she has been deceived, and allow him to excite a tumult which wiser heads and better hearts cannot allay."

Sir William found no difficulty in replying to the Doctor. He had only to admit that his remarks were very just; but, at the same time, he must say, that, if pushed to their full extent, they would tend to establish abuses; since, who would dare to arrest the strong arm of tyranny, if liable to the odium which was thus cast on all promoters of reformation?

"I spake not of reformers truly so called," said Dr. Beaumont, "but of those factious persons who, to promote their own ends, tamper with the inflammable passions of the populace, and, instead of amending errors, snarl at restraints. A true patriot points out defects with a view to have them removed, and brings himself into as little notice as possible. We may as well pretend that Wickliffe and Jack Cade were moved by the same spirit, as say, that we cannot discern between those who seek to do good, and those who would breed distractions. Yet, as the mass of mankind are either too ignorant or too much occupied to discover the sophistry by which, for a time, falsehood passes for truth, 'it is an ill sign of the situation of a kingdom when controversy gets among the ignorant, the illiberal, or the ill-designing, or even when it descends to those who should practise, being too unskilful to debate, and too violent to differ, without breach of charity.' I have fortified my opinion by the words of an able, uncorrupt statesman, who, though he shared the grace and favour of many mighty Kings, died in honest poverty, knowing the weakness of mankind, but scorning to apply it to his own emolument--I mean Sir Henry Wootton. And his sentiments are confirmed by the son of Sirach, whose reflections have been thought worthy of being annexed to the volume of inspiration. After observing that 'the wisdom of the wise man cometh by opportunity of leisure,' and that they whose time is occupied in husbandry or handicraft-work, are devoted to those necessary but humble employments which render themselves respectable, and benefit the public, he asserts, 'they shall not be sought for in public councils, nor sit high in the congregation. They cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where dark parables are spoken.' Yet, Sir, these are the men who, in our disastrous times, have menaced and governed the popular branch of our legislature, till they have drawn away all but their own partizans, and denied their King the rights of conscience, while they claim for themselves unbounded licence. These men are now virtually our rulers; nor will they be content with dethroning the King and annihilating the nobles, for they will not rest till they have levelled every gentleman who pretends to hereditary distinctions of rank, fortune, or privilege, and torn down every symbol of greatness which offends their ambitious littleness. So then, every one who has any thing valuable to lose, ought, in policy, as well as in conscience, to support the throne, with whose rights his own are inseparably blended."

Sir William answered, that though, from the great mildness of his temper, he seldom expressed himself with warmth, he always acted with decision. He had that morning issued orders to raise a regiment among his own tenantry.

"And you will march them to join the King?" said Eustace.

"A very fine precipitate youth!" returned the Baronet, smiling; "no, brave young man, your good uncle has taught me another lesson, and I trust you will also allow him to restrain your ardour. He has himself set us the example of staying at his post in the hour of danger. The peace of our own county is of the first consequence. I shall therefore train my force, and keep it ready to call out, in case any disturbance should arise in our own neighbourhood."

"Aye," replied Eustace, "protect Waverly Park; 'twere a pity it should be despoiled and plundered."

"No good could accrue to the King from the ruin of a loyal subject," said Sir William.

"But," observed Eustace, "you have a son who has just attained full majority, do you not find it difficult to keep him out of action? Surely his heart beats high to join the noble Stanley, to whom the King has intrusted the whole County Palatine."

"You know not," returned Sir William, "how you distress me by this inquiry. Heaven forbid I should insinuate any thing against so brave a gentleman and so loyal a subject as the Earl of Derby; but he has lived so little with his equals that he knows not how to treat his inferiors; and, unhappily, the stateliness of his manners has so indisposed this county, that people of no name, and contemned interest, have snatched it out of his hands, the disaffected being moved, not so much by dislike to the King or favour to Parliament, as by impatience of the Earl's humour, and a resolution not to be subject to his commands."

Sir William then expatiated on the impolicy of oppressive haughty demeanor in people in eminent stations, especially when the times were so big with peril. His remarks had been wise and instructive, had he not tried to illustrate them by the popularity and liberality of his own conduct; yet, as it may be said he was the only evidence of his own urbanity, which must have been lost to posterity had he not recorded it, he now pleaded it in extenuation of the blameable sensibility of his son, who, educated in these liberal notions, had felt so hurt by the negligence of the Earl of Derby at Preston fair, that he had been provoked by it to offer his services to Parliament, from whom he had received a commission, and was now serving in the army of Lord Essex.

Mrs. Mellicent, who saw in this ostensibly-lamented defection a scheme to secure Waverly-hall and its dependencies, whichever party finally predominated, remarked that it was a very prudent arrangement.

"So my friends suggest," returned Sir William, "to console me; but my regret, that any of the name of Waverly should be seen, in what severe people will call actual rebellion, is too acute for such soothing consolation. I have only to take care that the rectitude of my own behaviour shall refute every suspicion that I am conniving at, or even apologizing for Henry's errors. And though I know the poor fellow's feelings were too keen for his peace, and though, in my own exquisite susceptibility of kindness, I could find motives to mitigate his fault, I will leave his conduct to the mercy of candid people. I will now end my perhaps tedious visit, lamenting that my corps was not raised when Dr. Beaumont's library was destroyed by that infuriate rabble. I extremely regret the loss of the precious museum and valuable manuscripts, which his taste, learning, science, and piety had collected, and with a request that you will consider me as your friend and protector, should any further disturbances arise, I sincerely bid you farewell."

"I trust," said Eustace, after he was gone, "my uncle will never apply to that man for redress; he is no better than a rebel in his heart."

"Not so," replied Mrs. Mellicent, "and for the best of reasons--he has no heart at all."

"You forget," observed the Doctor, "that when he was the admirer of our beloved Isabel, he shewed by his warmth and assiduity, that he was capable of loving something beside himself."

"And never," said Mrs. Mellicent, "brother, had I so much cause to think meanly of my own judgment, and own the superiority of dear Isabel's penetration, as when she rejected my advice, and refused that vacillating time-server; shewing that she needed not the light of prosperity to discover the deserving."

Her eye glanced on Evellin, who, overpowered by these allusions to his beloved wife, left the room without listening to the compliment paid to himself. His impetuous son stormed with fury, that such a man should even pretend to have felt the power of his mother's charms. "Had he been my father," said he, "I would have fled my country, and disowned my name. But why did you not, dear uncle, convince him it is not loyalty but self-preservation which makes him arm his tenants."

"And why do you not convert that cricket-ball, which you are pressing with so much vehemence, into a pure and solid gem? I never attempt impossibilities. One reason why admonitions are so little attended to, is, that mentors think too little of the dispositions of those they reprove, and so seek to work a miracle, not to perform a cure. Talk to a selfish person about being disinterested, and he will utter a few fine sentences till you fancy his heart is enlarged, when, in fact, he is but more wedded to the idol he worships, by recollecting that he has spoken liberally: but shew him 'honesty is the best policy,' and that he is most likely to succeed by keeping straight courses, and he will quit his crooked paths through policy, which is something gained on the side of integrity; and perhaps acting right, may, in time, induce him to change his motives too. I have looked on all sorts of offenders, and there is no violator of scriptural holiness of whom I have so little hope as the self-idolator, for so I deem him who is not only wise in his own conceit, but who sees no other object worthy the favour or attention of God or man. Such a one considers misfortune not as a chastisement but as a wrong; nor can he be grateful for mercies, because he esteems the greatest to be merely his due. Yet of all men he is the most pitiable, for his overflowing vanity makes him betray his self-conceit; so that though he is surrounded by flatterers, he has no friend; no one dare tell him of his faults, but all seek to profit by his follies. I am no pretender to prophecy; I know my own house totters in this storm, and I have more need to prop and secure it than to concern myself as to what will befall my neighbours. Sir William Waverly and I have chosen two different methods of steering our barks; probably both may end in shipwreck, but my eyes are fixed on the pole-star in the heavens, while he has attended to deceitful charts and treacherous pilots. We will now close the subject of his faults with inferences for our own improvement. Let us be careful not to think too much of ourselves, and too little of others. It is an excellent way of subduing the acute sense of affliction, to employ our minds in assuaging the miseries of our fellow-creatures; and prosperity is never so well enjoyed as when we call in the stranger and the destitute, as well as our friends and kindred, to share in its blessings. Let us ever consider ourselves as responsible servants in one large family, and we shall never grow vain or self-devoted."

"My dear uncle," said Eustace, "can you think it possible we should any of us become the creature we so abhor?"

"Remember Hazael's answer to Elisha," replied the Doctor; "nor think it is needless vigilance to make a strict inquiry how you approximate to the vices you seem most to detest. I have heard you say Eustace, that for a thousand worlds you would not grieve your father. Yet you have just said, were you young Waverly, you would renounce parental authority, and abjure your name. This shews that there is an innate principle in your composition at enmity with filial obedience; touch but the chord that moves it, and duty is exposed to instant danger."

"My father," answered Eustace, "will never suffer me to despise him. His honour, his afflictions, are alike my security. If tempted to disobedience I will recall to my mind his woe-worn majestic form, and ere I dare to grave another furrow on his brow, or whiten one more hair, the dying injunctions of my mother will rush to my mind, and I shall remember that when she could no longer minister relief to his afflictions, she consigned him to my care."

[1] This and many of the following extracts are from Lord Clarendon.

CHAP. VIII.

Out of your proof you speak; we, poor, unfledg'd, Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know What air's from home. Haply this life is best, If quiet life be best; sweeter to you, That have a sharper known: to us it is A cell of ignorance.

Shakspeare.

Dr. Beaumont's admonitions to Eustace were not uttered at random. Evellin was determined immediately to put in force the commission he had received, by joining the Marquis of Newcastle. His Majesty was very desirous of securing the northern coast to facilitate the introduction of the succours he expected from Holland with the Queen. Ever since the arrival of arms and accoutrements, the passion of Eustace for military fame had become more decided and uncontrolable; he poised his father's sword, put on his helmet, and talked of the best method of killing all the rebel generals. The plans he laid for terminating the contest appeared so feasible to Constantia, that at length (though not without tears) she consented that he should enter on the Herculean labour of destroying the many-headed monster, Rebellion. Isabel thought that her father and uncle were likely to know what was best to be done, but as often as she ventured to hint that he might be too sanguine, Eustace reminded her, that girls knew nothing about war and politics, and directed his observations to Constantia, who had at least the feminine merit of acquiescing in his opinions.

The evening previous to Colonel Evellin's departure was destined to the severe task of bending Eustace to obedience. The father began by putting into his son's hands the miniature of his mother, commanding him constantly to wear it, and part with it only with his life. Eustace wept, pressed it to his lips, and asked if that was the only mark of devoted affection which he could shew to her memory. The Colonel pointed to Isabel. "She lives in your sister," said he; "duty calls me from her; you must be her protector." "Oh, my father!" replied Eustace, throwing himself at his feet; "how better can I protect my sister, than by combating her enemies."

The Colonel answered,--"My age, my experience, my expertness in military studies and exercises, impose that task on me. The King, whom I served in my youth, was a gracious master, and I feel confident that I can render him assistance. My duty to him, and I will add to you too, required the tender of my services. They have been accepted; I set out for York to-morrow, to be employed as my immediate commander, the Marquis of Newcastle, shall determine."

"And when shall I follow you," inquired Eustace, who read in his father's eye a prohibition which restrained him from urging his wish to accompany him.

"As soon," replied Evellin, "as your services can either benefit the King or yourself."

"I know," said Eustace, "you do not doubt my courage or fidelity; it must therefore be from the opinion you have formed of my inability, that you insist upon my spending more of my life in what must now be called shameful inactivity. I look three years older than I am, and my strength and ability are as premature as my appearance. Ever since the war broke out I have been studying histories of battles and sieges, and I can ride, fence, and fire at a target with dexterity. If at first I were to commit some mistakes, actual service would improve me. Oh, best and kindest of fathers, blast not the dearest hopes of your only boy. Fix no stigma upon him, as if he were a tall puppet fit only to trifle, nor let him be regarded as a coward, glad to use any excuse that shall purchase safety. My dying mother bade me supply her place to you. How better can I obey her than by shielding your head in the day of battle, smoothing your pillow when you retire to your tent, participating in all your dangers and sorrows, relieving your anxieties, and lightening your labours. If I may not go with you, or speedily to follow you, the life your kindness would preserve from the sword will be consumed by grief."

The Colonel turned away his face to conceal the emotion which his son's eagerness for action occasioned. "I have promised," said he, "that I will send for you as soon as you can serve the King or yourself. You have mentioned your mother--resemble her in this; she never attempted to shake my settled purposes, but conformed to the opinion which she doubted not was founded on full deliberation. As a boy, you are all I wish; but there must be much improvement to realise a fond father's hopes of you as a man. Employ the years of probation wisely. Submit to your excellent uncle as to the representative of both your parents; form yourself by his instructions, and when you are called into action I shall glory in you."

"But you have named years of probation; must I for years be confined to Ribblesdale? Will no zeal, no diligence on my part shorten this period, and enable me to rejoin you?"

"In these disturbed times," said the Colonel, "we can form no guesses of the future. When we shall meet, or whether ever more in this world, are chances on which I cannot calculate. Bear in mind this parting interview; and if you sometimes, in your heart, accuse me of harshness, soften your opposition to my will by reflecting, that I may have motives for my determination which cannot now be disclosed to you, and that a dutiful obedience will render you worthy the entire confidence of one who has seen too much of man to confide in mere professions of desert and ability."

The swelling heart of Eustace ill brooked these restrictions. He flew to his confidante, Constantia, to complain of the cruelty of his father's injunctions. In the warmth of his expostulations, he uttered something expressive of distaste for the life he led, which moved the gentle girl to lament, that what made them so happy should make him wretched. "If you loved us," said she, "as we do you, it would reconcile your mind to passing your whole life with us." Eustace smiled on the lovely moderator, and answered, "I think it is impossible you can love me as much as I do you, but you must agree, that a life of inactivity is now disgraceful; and even my pretty Constance would despise me, if she saw me loitering about, idling away my best days, when all the kingdom is in arms." "I never can despise a dutiful son," answered she; and Eustace found in that avowal such an unanswerable argument on the side of filial obedience, that he was able, not only to see the Colonel depart without impatience, but also to support his weeping sister.

It was some weeks before his repugnance to a life of inactivity returned; but as the fiery ardour of his character was only smothered, not quenched, it burst out again at the time that Dr. Beaumont took his daughter and sister with him to Lancaster assizes, whither he went to obtain redress for his injuries. He had diligently employed the time since Evellin's departure in confirming his authority over his young charge. Isabel was all cheerful duty and smiling diligence. Eustace was occasionally impetuous and refractory, but overflowing with sensibility, and more apt to repent than to offend. The Doctor judged it would not be inexpedient to try the temper of his pupils by leaving them a little time to themselves.

Eustace resolved to employ this period of liberty in executing a project he had formed, and in which he meant Isabel should be his coadjutrix. He began with observing, "he feared their dear Constance was not quite happy. She so often regrets her father's library," said he, "that I know she will never be easy till it is restored. I have examined the ruins, and calculated what repairs it will want; there are stones and timber lying about, and I can work it up myself if you will help me." As far as her strength could go Isabel was perfectly willing, and Eustace promised her the light jobs, reminding her that she fixed up the pewter-shelves in their own cottage very well under his directions.

"But," said Isabel, "of what use will the room be when the books are all destroyed?"--"I have thought of that too," answered Eustace, "and have contrived accordingly. You know we left three hampers of books in the mountains; they are safe enough I dare say, because those we gave them to, as keep-sakes, cannot read, and I dare say will let us have them back if we say we want them. Now if we work very hard, we shall have two nights and a day to spare, and I can trot the poney with the market cart over the fells, and fetch them. To be sure they may not be just the books my uncle lost, but books are books you know, and I am sure Constance will look so happy when she sees the shelves filled again, and all in order."

Isabel was delighted with the project, and promised to assist, though at the peril of incurring her aunt's displeasure, for not finishing, ere she returned, a representation of the garden of Eden in satin-stitch, according to her order. Eustace looked at the plan, and finding it would save time, they agreed that plain grass would look as well on a firescreen, as all the crocodiles and elephants which with literal deference to natural history Mrs. Mellicent had drawn up rank and file, on each side Adam and Eve. The young architects anticipated the departure of their friends with eagerness, and set about their scheme the moment the calash drove off. The business was got through with great alacrity, and though there were a few mistakes, and certainly no nice finish as a whole, it was creditable to their mechanical skill, as well as to their kind intentions.

Determining that the poney knew the road, and hoping to get a little sleep in the cart, Eustace set off immediately on his mountain-expedition, and Isabel busied herself in putting all things in order, and preparing plumb-porridge, and sack-posset, as a festive regale to celebrate the re-assembling of the family-party, who, she determined, should sup merrily in the new library.

Eustace arrived first, in high spirits, but with his cloaths torn, and his face bloody. Isabel was alarmed. "Nothing but a few scratches," answered he, "which I can cure with vinegar while you mend my coat. I will tell you how I got them presently; but do you unpack the books, while I take care of the poney. Stop a moment; there is something in the cart you must not meddle with." Isabel inquired what it was. "Women are so inquisitive," continued Eustace. "Well then, it is a lute; Constance's own lute, which she lost the night of the fire." Isabel inquired how he recovered it. "Fought for it," answered he; "I see you will not be easy, so I must tell you all about it."

"The people of Fourness were very glad to see me, calling me Mr. Random, and a great many more kind names; so we packed up the books, and they sent some cheese for my uncle, and apples for Constance." "And nothing for me?" said Isabel. "Pshaw," returned Eustace, "how you interrupt me; I believe the apples are for you. So I came driving back very merrily, and within a few miles of this village, I met a fellow carrying a box, which I could perceive held a lute. I had plenty of money, for the mountaineers would not let me spend it; so I thought if I can get this lute, Constance will like the new library as well as she did the old one, and I very civilly told the man I would buy it, and give him all he asked for it.--But in your life you never saw such a sharp bad visage as the fellow's, and he put himself into the most ridiculous posture, rolling his goggle eyes, and smiting his breast, and at last roared out, 'O vain youth, covet not musical devices, but tune thy heart to praise, and thy lips to spiritual songs.'--'Tune thy own lips to civility,' said I; 'and you shall too before you pass.' 'I can use the arm of flesh as well as the sword of the spirit,' said he; so to it we fell, and he scratched and pulled my hair, and tore my coat, just as you girls do, but I gave him enough to teach him good manners, and at last made him own he took the lute from my uncle's, the night of the fire, and that Squire Morgan was to have it. So I threw him a shilling just to mend his broken head, and have brought the lute to its own home again."

Isabel could not but rejoice that the affray ended in a victory, but expressed her fears that he might be accused of taking the spoil by violence. "Who stole it first?" said Eustace; "we may take our own wherever we find it. And to own the truth of my heart, I am glad of this opportunity of mortifying Squire Morgan, for if there is a person I hate in the world, it is he."

"There," said Isabel, "you are both indiscreet and ungrateful, for you know he and Sir William Waverly have promised to assist my uncle in his cause."

"I would not give a rush for the friendship of either," returned Eustace. "A good victory on the King's side is the only way of fixing Sir William, and as to Morgan, I know it is not love for my uncle brings him to the rectory. I see that fellow's heart; and I could scarce keep myself from pushing him out of the room, when he kissed Constance the other day, and called her his little wife; but she looked so distressed at the instant, that I thought I had better not seem to observe it."

"I have heard you call her little wife a hundred times," said Isabel, "and it never seems to affront her."

"One may take liberties with one's relations," replied Eustace, "but I tell you, young girls should never let men call them wife, especially such an old, ugly, foolish, fat, vulgar, round-head, as Morgan; and I had rather my uncle had no restitution, than owe any favour to him."

Anxious to draw her brother from a topic, on which he always was ungovernable, Isabel begged him to describe the present state of their mountain-residence. "Is our garden quite destroyed?" said she, "Are the primroses I planted on the south bank in blow?"--"I observed something more interesting," answered, he; "my mother's grave is kept quite neat by the villagers, and the roses we set there are twined all over it. Nay, Isabel, if you weep so, I cannot repeat to you the verses I made yesterday, just as I caught sight of our old cottage." Isabel promised to be composed, and Eustace proceeded--

The sun has roll'd round Skiddaw's breast Of floating clouds a golden veil, The heath-cock has forsook his nest, And mounted on the morning gale; While bursting on my raptured eyes, Lakes, hills, and woods, distinctly rise.

And there in mountain-privacy My father's rustic cot appears, The haunts of happy infancy, The fields my childish sport endears; Where victor of each game I stood, And climb'd the tree, or stemm'd the flood:

And there, beside the village-spire, My mother's honour'd ashes sleep, Who bade my noble hopes aspire, Who also taught me first to weep, When, with a kiss so cold and mild, She whisper'd, 'I must die, my child.'

Oh! fitted for a world more pure, Sweet spirit, who would wish thy stay, To witness woes thou could'st not cure, And dimm'd with clouds thy evening ray; To see thy ardent boy denied To combat by his father's side?

Yet, what is death? As seen in thee, 'Twas a mild summons to the grave; 'Tis the sure zeal of loyalty And honour's guerdon to the brave. How are the soldier's requiems kept! By glory sung, by beauty wept.

"My dearest Eustace," said Isabel, "I wish I could send these lines to my father, yet perhaps they would overcome him as they have done me." She twined her arms around the neck of Eustace, sobbed for some moments, and then observed, "I know what suggested the last stanza; it was Constantia's weeping for the fate of brave Lord Lindsay."

Eustace blushed. "You are a Lancashire witch in more senses than one, Isabel; but, hush! the calash has just drove up. Say not a word of my verses to my uncle." "Why?" "I do not wish he would know I am unhappy." "Keep your own counsel," returned Isabel, "and I am sure your looks will never betray you."

The return of the party relieved Eustace from all fear of owing an obligation to Morgan. An ordinance from Parliament had interrupted the regular returns of public justice, and notwithstanding the King's command, that there should be no suspension of judicial proceedings, with respect either to criminal or civil causes, and his grant of safe-conduct through his quarters to all persons attending the courts of law, the Parliament had forbidden the judges to appoint their circuits. In one instance a troop of horse tore a judge from the bench, who had ventured to disobey their edicts. Except therefore in the few places that were at the King's devotion, all legal proceedings of importance were suspended, and the little business which was transacted was managed by a cabal devoted to the predominant party. From such men Dr. Beaumont could look for no favour. Ample indemnification was indeed promised, but it was upon a condition that he could not brook, namely, subscription to the covenant. As to his two friends, Sir William Waverly and Morgan, the former was detained at home by an apprehension that he might take cold; and the latter, though he argued on the justice and policy of remuneration, by which the party would gain credit, yet on being questioned about his pastor's principles, confessed he thought him a malignant of the deepest die, and positively refused to be responsible for his peaceable behaviour.

Dr. Beaumont had formed no hopes of redress, therefore felt no disappointment. He was now so accustomed to the temper of the times, that he was only slightly hurt at being thought capable of compromising his conscience, by subscribing an instrument he had ever denounced as illegal, treasonable, and wicked. The dutiful attentions of his nephew and niece soon changed vexation into pleasure. Mrs. Mellicent' overlooked the omissions of her crocodiles and elephants, and Constance touched the strings of her beloved instrument with a smile, sweet as the strain she drew from its according wires, till Eustace forgot all his labours and bruises in exulting transport.

CHAP. IX.

These things, indeed, you have articulated, Proclaim'd at market-tables, read at churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbows at the news Of hurly burly innovation; And never yet did Insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause.

Shakspeare.

The summer of 1643 opened with favourable omens to the royal cause. Evellin sent intelligence to Ribblesdale of the successes of the Marquis of Newcastle against Fairfax, the safe arrival of the Queen with military stores, and his own expectation of being joined to her escort, which would enable him to have an interview with the King at Oxford. This intelligence, added to that of the advantages gained over Sir William Waller in the west, revived the drooping hopes of the loyalists, and terrified the enthusiastic Eustace with apprehensions lest the contest should be decided before he could measure swords with one round-head.

Dr. Beaumont took a more comprehensive view; he saw how little had been done, and how much loyal blood had been shed. The King's cause was supported by the death or ruin of his best friends, but his victories, instead of intimidating, hardened his opponents. They were bound together by a dread of danger, and a belief that they had sinned beyond all hopes of pardon, and therefore must depend for safety entirely on the success of the rebellion they had fomented.

To insure that success, the Parliament had long since employed the most potent stimulant of human action, religion; and, by embodying their favourite teachers under the title of the Assembly of Divines, contrived to give that species of state-establishment to their own theological scheme which they had objected to, as one of the crying sins of episcopacy. This memorable body of auxiliaries was created at the time of their beginning to levy war upon the King, by seizing his military resources, and refusing him admission into his own garrison. A fact which may serve to convince the reflecting mind of the close union which subsists between monarchical and episcopal principles is, that their next step to that of employing the forces and revenues of the crown against the person of the Sovereign, was a declaration "that they intended a necessary and due reformation of the Liturgy and government of the church, and that they would consult godly and learned divines, and use their utmost endeavours to establish learned and preaching ministers, with a good and sufficient maintenance throughout the whole kingdom, where many dark corners were miserably destitute of the means of salvation, and many poor ministers wanted necessary provision."

Though wise men saw the design of this carefully-worded declaration, yet indolent, or quiet men, who were willing to hope, caught at its designing moderation, believed that Parliament only meant to reform abuses, and that its designs were not so very bad. This very declaration, which a year before would have terrified the people, in whom there was then a general submission to the church-government, and a singular reverence of the Liturgy, now when there was a general expectation of a total subversion of the one, and abolition of the other, they thought only removing what was offensive, unnecessary, or burthensome, an easy composition. Thus the well-meaning were, by degrees, prevailed on, towards ends they extremely abhorred, and what, at first, seemed prophane and impious to them, in a little time appeared only inconvenient.

But infinite is the danger of tampering with national feeling in its most important point. The mildly-worded decree above cited, cherished those principles of mutability, which overthrew the church of England, while new forms of doctrine sprang from every portion of her ruins, all contending for mastery, and each insisting on the individual right of choosing, and the uncontrolable liberty of exercising what they pleased to term religion. The first of these tenets is as inadmissible in argument, as it is desperate in practice, for if every man has a right to choose, it must follow that he has an equal right to abstain from choosing, and thus universal atheism is sanctioned by the over-strained indulgence of civil liberty, confounding what our perverse natures will do with what they properly may. And if we found this opinion on the ground of human free-will, it may be asserted that a man has a right to choose whether he will be veracious, temperate, chaste, and conscientious; whether he will be a good father, husband, citizen, or the reverse; and thus every moral offence of which human laws do not take cognizance, may be justified by the same plea, that in this land of liberty people have a right to act as they think proper. By these means that finer system of morals, which extends virtue and goodness to points which the mere letter of the law cannot reach, is at once annihilated; and the peculiar excellence, of the Gospel, as a religion of motives, is superseded by the licence allowed to rebellious wills, and the darkness of perverse understandings.

The proposition of the Parliament to consult "godly and learned divines" was exemplified, by their ordering the individuals of which the House of Commons was now composed, to name such men as they thought fit for their purpose. Every known friend to the King had been already banished, either by the clamour of the London mobs, or their own votes. "Of one hundred and twenty, who composed the assembly of Divines, though by the recommendation of some members of the Commons, whom they were not willing to displease, and by the authority of the Lords, some very reverend and worthy names were inserted, there were not above twenty, who were not declared and avowed enemies of the church, some of them very infamous in their lives and conversations, most of them of very mean parts in learning, if not of scandalous ignorance, and of no other reputation than malice to the church of England."

Of this ignorance and incapacity for every thing but the work of destruction, their own party made the most angry complaints. Yet were those men the fittest to act as Spiritual prompters to an aspiring faction, bent on overturning existing institutions, and establishing their own power. The general ground of quarrel of all the sects with the establishment, was its retaining ceremonies, prayers, and a mode of discipline, which, though bearing close affinity to the apostolical age, were rejected by violent reformers, because our church received them through that of Rome. The answer of Bishop Ridley to the Papists, "That he would be willing to admit any trifling ceremony or thing indifferent for the sake of peace," suited not the taste of those who saw Anti-christ in a square cap or a surplice, and in a written creed or doxology (though agreeing in substance with their own opinions) an infringement of the liberty of a true Protestant. Such as these cared not what confusion or infidelity prevailed, nor how Popery itself triumphed, while they were busy in overthrowing the strongest bulwark that human wisdom had erected against it. The people were inflamed against the court and the church by the charge of jesuitical designs, the palaces of the deposed bishops were converted into prisons, crowded with the champions of the protestant cause; the truly "pious, godly, and learned ministry" were driven from the flocks to which they had been appointed by their spiritual superiors, and supplanted by these champions of the rights of private judgment and unbounded liberty, who made their respective congregations not only judges of theological points, but teachers of every opinion, except those which derived support from sound learning, constitutional authority, beneficial experience, general acceptation among Christians, or a clear consistent view of the word of God. Men sought celebrity by inventing modes of faith; and sacred truths were not established by an appeal to antiquity, but by the singular ordeal of novelty, as if, after a lapse of seventeen ages, it was reserved for ignorance and fanaticism to make fresh discoveries in the sacred writings.

The ordinance of sequestration, which annihilated all church-dignitaries, and exposed every parochial minister to the malice of any informer who should report him for his loyalty, passed in the year 1643, and was justified by complaints of the supposed scandalous lives of the episcopal clergy. Doubtless, in a numerous body, some might be found guilty of gross vices, secular in their pursuits, negligent of their high duties, and looking more to the "scramble at the shearers' feast," than to feeding and guiding the flock through the wilderness. No true lover of the church will defend clerical debauchees or canonical worldlings, especially when she appears beleaguered round with enemies, and when her surest earthly supports are the zeal, the learning, and the pious simplicity of her officials. Persuaded that our national establishment grows from that root which can never decay, we may always, when a very general corruption of the clergy is apparent, expect a fearful tempest to arise, which will clear the tree of its unsound branches, and enable it to put forth vigorous and healthy shoots. But while that rottenness is not total but partial, while some green boughs are still seen to extend a lovely and refreshing shade, what impious hand shall dare to assail the venerable queen of the forest, whose magnitude defends the saplings, which, ambitiously springing under its protection, require the room it occupies? At the time of the great rebellion, the Church of England boasted an unusual number of, not merely learned, but apostolical men, especially among the bishops and the royal chaplains, whose pious labours have excited the gratitude and admiration of posterity, as much as their lives and sufferings did the wonder and commiseration of their own times. Beside those who have been thus immortalized, there were vast numbers who "took their silent way along the humble vale of life," unknown to fame either for their virtues or their hardships, yet still living in the memory of their descendants. These submitted in silence to poverty, reproach, and injustice; and, like Bishop Sanderson, "blessed God that he had not withdrawn food or raiment from them and their poor families, nor suffered them, in time of trial, to violate their conscience." The long-continued persecution of the ruling powers proves that such men formed the majority of the episcopal clergy. Their place was occupied by those who were willing to receive wages from the hand of usurpation, and to see the lawful owner in extremest need, while they enjoyed ill-acquired affluence. These men soon won over the populace by the most false and dangerous views of religion, stating, "that men might be religious first, and then just and merciful; that they might sell their conscience, and yet have something worth keeping; and that they might be sure they were elected, though their lives were visibly scandalous; that to be cunning was to be wise; that to be rich was to be happy; and that to speak evil of governments was no sin[1]." Plain, instructive, practical discourses, sound and temperate explanations of the great mysteries of Christianity, connected views of the whole body of gospel doctrines and precepts, were cast aside as legal formalities. Extemporary harangues, immethodical and tautological at best, sometimes profane, often absurd and perplexing, never instructive, became universal. One of the worst features of these sermons was their tendency to torture scripture to the purposes of faction, and represent the Almighty as personally concerned in the success of rebels. "The Lord was invited to take a chair and sit among the House of Peers," whenever that House opposed the furious proceedings of the Commons; and if the King gained a victory, the preacher expostulated in these irreverent terms: "Lord, thou hast said he is worse than an infidel that provides not for his own family. Give us not reason to say this of thee, for we are thine own family, and have lately been scurvily provided for."

In a work intended to familiarize the conduct and principles of loyalists to the general reader, this vindication of the episcopal clergy, and appeal to their literary remains, and to the doctrines delivered by their opponents on public occasions, cannot be deemed irrelative. I now proceed with my narrative.

Dr. Beaumont was not long permitted to repose at Ribblesdale after his enemies were armed with power for his expulsion. A visit from Morgan was the signal of bad tidings. He required a private interview. The Doctor silently besought Heaven to give him fortitude, and admitted him.

He began with enumerating his own kind offices, and anxiety to preserve him in his cure, believing him to be very well-meaning, though mistaken in his politics. He reminded him that he had ever recommended temperate counsels, and lamented that, in the present disturbed state of things, he or his family should, by any indiscreet act, give occasion to his enemies to precipitate his ruin. He then pulled out a long string of charges against the Doctor, the first of which was his affording shelter to, and corresponding with, one Allan Evellin, calling himself Colonel Evellin, by virtue of a pretended commission from the King, a most dangerous delinquent and malignant, now in arms against Parliament, and seen, in the late attack on Sir Thomas Fairfax's army, to make a desperate charge, and murder many valiant troopers who were asserting the good old cause. Dr. Beaumont acknowledged that he had afforded his brother-in-law the rights of hospitality; and he put Morgan upon proof that the King's commission was not a sufficient justification of the alleged murders, which, he presumed, were not committed basely, or in cold blood, but in the heat and contention of battle, and might therefore be justified by the rule of self-defence, as well as by the King's authority.

Morgan said the ordinance of Parliament made it treason to fight for the King; but this assertion sounded so oddly, that he hurried to the next count, which was, his dissuading Ralph Jobson from taking the Covenant.

The Doctor acknowledged this fact, alledging also, that as he considered the Covenant to be sinful, he was bound in duty, as the spiritual guide of Jobson, to advise him not to bind his soul by any ill-understood, ensnaring obligation, being already bound, by his baptismal and eucharistical oaths, to all that was required of Christians in an humble station.

To Dr. Beaumont's vindication of himself from these and similar crimes, Morgan could only answer that the ordinances of Parliament made them offences. In these unhappy times those decrees were not supplemental to, but abrogatory of, law and gospel. But there was another charge founded on the violation of the grand outlines of morality, which could be brought home to one of the Doctor's household. Morgan drew up triumphantly, as he read the accusation, namely, "That Eustace Evellin, son of the above malignant cavalier, did, on the 17th day of March last past, assault and wound Hold-thy-Faith Priggins, and by force take from his possession a box containing his property, and that he did carry off the same, leaving the said Priggins bleeding on the high road." The Doctor was startled; he knew this was the time of his nephew's mountain-expedition, but was entirely ignorant of its being signalized by any act of Quixotic chivalry. He disclaimed all knowledge of the business, and begged to know who Hold-thy-Faith Priggins was. "I know," said he, "a John Priggins, a fellow of most infamous and depraved conduct, but this other is quite a new name in this neighbourhood."

Morgan denied all personal acquaintance with the man, previous to the day when he came to lodge his complaint against Eustace, and at the same time announced his design of exercising the gift of preaching, to which he just discovered he had a call. He however admitted that he believed this same Priggins was the Doctor's old acquaintance, he having acknowledged that previous to his conversion he had been guilty of every sin except murder.

Dr. Beaumont imagined such a confession would justify a magistrate in refusing to permit even the meanest part of the sacerdotal functions to be assumed by one who mistook glorying in his iniquities for regeneration; but Morgan replied, that it would be contrary to those principles of civil liberty which his conscience and office required him to support, to make any investigation into the past, or to require any pledge for the future conduct of the convert.

Dr. Beaumont could not help observing that, in kindness to his friend Davies, Morgan should have been careful of opening the mouth of one who might perhaps introduce schism into the new-founded congregation.

Morgan smiled. "I perceive, my good Doctor," said he, "you are quite in the dark in these matters; you must know, the Parliament's ordinance has been acted upon in many parishes, and the sequestrators have taken such note of your life and conversation as to resolve to eject you from your living, and institute Master Davies in your place; though my influence has hitherto suspended the actual execution of this design. Now, as I hate all monopolies, and think every person's talents should have fair play, during your ministry I countenanced Davies against you, and if Davies is put in your place I shall sit under Priggins rather than Davies, for that is the best way of keeping him sharp to his duty, and one gets at truth best by hearing from all preachers what they have to say for themselves."

Dr. Beaumont answered, that though assured the exercise of his sacerdotal functions depended on his pleasure, he could not, while he was permitted to perform it, so far desert his duty as to allow one of his parishioners to utter wrong opinions without respectfully shewing their fallacy. He was proceeding to the undoubtedly-fruitless labour of trying to correct determined error, when Morgan stopped his argument by shewing him the order he had received to eject him from his rectory.

Dr. Beaumont answered, that being humbly persuaded his ministry had been beneficial, he wished to be allowed to continue in the quiet exercise of his spiritual functions. His office was not bestowed upon him either by Parliament or by the assembly of Divines, neither could the votes of the one, nor the opinion of the other, lawfully degrade him from it.

Morgan replied, that whatever fancies he might entertain respecting the durability of his right to the rectory, and the unalienable nature of ordination, he must know, from numerous instances, that they had a way now of cutting this sort of disputes very short, by expelling those who would not walk out of doors quietly. Some indeed suffered their prudence to get the better of their obstinacy, and were comfortably re-settled in their benefices. One method of reconciliation which he would advise Dr. Beaumont to attend to, was, to volunteer his subscription to the engagement which had just been taken by Parliament and the City of London, on the discovery of a most horrid plot formed by papists and malignants, to put the King in possession of the Tower; to admit the popish army into the city; to seize the godly Parliament, and put an end to all those hopes of reformation which the nation now entertained. He shewed the Doctor a copy of the oath, and remarked, that as nothing was said in it about ecclesiastical changes, he could not object to swearing to preserve the true Protestant religion against the influence of a popish party, headed by the Queen, whom the House in its wisdom had impeached of high-treason.

Dr. Beaumont said, the crime laid to Her Majesty's charge, which had induced the Parliament to take that extraordinary step, was the bringing arms and ammunition into the kingdom to assist her Sovereign and husband, and not her being a Catholic, nor any plot or contrivance to murder and imprison true Protestants. In the vow tendered to him, he saw himself required to attest various matters which he disbelieved. He knew of no Popish army raised and countenanced by the King; he knew of no treacherous and horrid design to surprise the Parliament and the city of London. He could not give God thanks for the discovery of what he really believed was one of those fabrications intended to strengthen the ruling party, which always follow a detected conspiracy. He denied that the armies raised by the two Houses were for their just defence, or for the liberty of the subject; and he would never promise to oppose those who assisted the King, nor bind himself in a league with his enemies.

"My sacred function," continued the Doctor, "is that of a minister of peace. I will never have recourse to arms except to guard my own family from assassins; nor will I ever engage not to assist my King with my purse or my counsels, or shut my gates on any loyal refugee who seeks the shelter of my roof. I have few personal reasons for being attached to Ribblesdale, but I hold myself bound to it by a spiritual contract, and will abide here till I am forced from it, diligently, conscientiously, and meekly doing my duty among ye, without partiality or respect of persons. My counsel, my assistance, my purse, my prayers, are at the service of all my parishioners; if, therefore, the residence of a quiet man, who, though he will not sacrifice his own conscience, imposes no restraints on others, be not inconsistent with the duty you say you owe to these new authorities, suffer me to die in my parish. I am ready to promise that I will never engage in plots or conspiracies for your destruction; and since the scale of war is still suspended, and we know not who will be the ascending party, I will also promise, that in case the royal cause ultimately triumphs, I will use my influence with the King in favour of my neighbours."

"You speak like a man of sense and moderation," answered Morgan. "Why should hatred and animosity prevail between us? Why should we not imitate the liberality of Sir William Waverly? General Waverly has just been to see him. The worthy Baronet at first rated him a little, telling him he had made a most unhappy choice; but they were friends in a few minutes, and he asked Master Davies and me to dine with them; wished the King better advisers; drank prosperity to the Parliament; and paid his weekly assessment cheerfully. I think it is the best plan for all parties to hold neighbourly intercourse with each other, and even to form alliances which may some time turn to account; and this leads me to my other proposition. I believe I may persuade the honourable sequestrators that you are not a dangerous delinquent, nor wholly unprofitable in the ministry; but this must be on condition that you suffer justice to take its course with your nephew, and ally yourself to some person of staunch principles by marriage."

Dr. Beaumont answered, he was very willing that the charge against Eustace should be investigated, but as to intermarriage with any family, he had long since devoted the remainder of his life to widowhood.

"But you have ladies in your house," said Morgan, drawing his chair closer to the Doctor, and pursing his features into an enamoured grin. The idea of a quondam scrivener making love to Mrs. Mellicent (for on this occasion he thought only of her), and the contrast between her dignity and Morgan's square figure and vulgar coarseness, provoked a smile, notwithstanding the seriousness of his own situation: Morgan thought this a good omen, and went on.

"You see me here, Master Doctor, a hale man, under fifty, pretty warm and comfortable in circumstances; I once said I never would encumber myself with a wife and family, but things are now going on so well, that all will be settled before my children are grown up; and I do not see why I should not try to make my old age comfortable, now I have done so much for the public.--That's a very pretty, modest, well-behaved daughter of yours, and I think would make me a good wife; a little too young, perhaps, but she will mend of that fault every day."

Dr. Beaumont was struck dumb with surprise. Morgan continued--"And if the young maid is willing, I shall not mind shewing favour to that hot-headed cousin of hers, for her sake. He wants to be a soldier I find; I could get him a commission under Lord Essex, who is a fine spirited commander, and will give him fighting enough. You know it will be doing just as the Waverly family do. Come, I see you hesitate--suppose we call in the young people, and hear what they say?"

"Eustace shall immediately answer to the charge laid against him," said the Doctor, rising to summon him. "And let Mrs. Constantia come too; I wish that business decided first," continued Morgan.

"That business is already determined," answered the Doctor. "Eustace, I have called you to answer to a charge laid against you, of assaulting a peaceable passenger whom you met in your return from the mountains, and taking from him a box which was his property. Did you or did you not commit this outrage?"

"Aye!--answer without fear or evasion, young man," said Morgan.

"I know neither fear nor evasion," replied Eustace, darting on the Justice a look which could not have been more contemptuous had he heard of his offer to Constantia;--"I certainly did beat a saucy knave who insulted me."

"And stole his goods!" said Morgan.

"I took from him something;--let him name what."

"A box or case, his property, are the words of his affidavit."

"Again," said Eustace, "I require him to state what was in that box?"

Morgan coloured--"The forms of law," said he, "must be adhered to. He only swears to a box or case, as his property. Did you or did you not take it from him?"

"I did."

Dr. Beaumont turned on his nephew a look of angry expostulation, which stung him to the soul. He threw himself on the ground, and clasped his knees in anguish. "My dearest uncle," said he, "I can bear any thing but your displeasure. I took a box containing stolen goods from a thief, who was carrying it to an accomplice."

Morgan was thunder-struck; for, in describing the assault, Priggins had omitted mentioning that he had been cuffed into a full discovery of his theft, and had owned that Morgan had agreed to accept a part of Dr. Beaumont's spoil as a reward for giving indemnity to the rioters. He tried to recollect himself, and told Eustace, better language to a magistrate would become his situation.

"Who touches the hem of your magisterial robe?" said the fiery boy. "Have I said that the villain who stole my cousin's lute, was carrying it to you when I took it from him, and restored it to the right owner. My dear and worthy protector, the only fault I have committed, was in saying I found it, when you asked me how it was recovered. Let him who accuses me of the theft be brought face to face, and I will soon make him own who are the knaves in this business."

Morgan's confusion at being drawn into an implied self-accusation prevented him from pressing the business further. He endeavoured to be civil, said that Priggins must have mistaken the person of Eustace, or have given him a false account. He believed him to be a worthless liar, and holding out his hand to Eustace, hoped it would cause no ill blood between them.

"No," said the latter, holding up his arm in a posture of defiance; "there may be a concert between thieves and the receivers of stolen goods; but we know too much of each other to shake hands, and so remember Master Morgan I hate dissimulation, and now think of you just as I used to do."

When they were alone the Doctor reproved Eustace for his peremptory behaviour, and required an impartial statement of the whole affair. The interview ended with full pardon for his past precipitation, and an earnest admonition, as he tendered the preservation of them all, to be guarded in future. Eustace could not but perceive that he had increased his uncle's difficulties, and promised great prudence, with a full intention of keeping his word.

Dr. Beaumont then proceeded to consult the faithful partner of all his former trials on his present situation. It was to Mrs. Mellicent only that he disclosed all that had passed in his interview with Morgan, who, making the same misapplication of Morgan's amorous tender, drew up her stiff figure into full stateliness. "Leave the knave to me, brother," said she; "I desire no better jest than to hear him make me a proposal; I that have had a serjeant at law in his coif, and the sheriff of the county in his coach and six, come to make love to me, to be at last thought of by the son of a shoe-maker!"

Her brother here interposing, relieved her mind from the terrifying idea of having the laurels of her early days blasted by this degrading conquest, but he only changed indignation into distress. "What! our lovely, dutiful, modest, ingenuous Constantia, to marry that lump of sedition; that bag of cozening vulgarity; that rolling tumbril, laden with all the off-scourings of his own detestable party!--Brother, take my advice, and send the dear creature instantly to the King's quarters; there is no safety for her within Morgan's reach.--These republicans stop at nothing; I question whether my years and prudence will protect me, but I will run all risks, and remain with you at Ribblesdale. But let the young people be immediately removed, under the care of Williams.--Morgan will never pardon the affront he received from Eustace. The hint he gave about Essex, makes me apprehend that a project will be laid to entrap the boy. I know he would sooner die than accept any terms from traitors; let me therefore intreat you to send them all to York, and place them under the Earl of Bellingham's protection."

Dr. Beaumont approved the plan, but cautioned her how she spoke of the Earl of Bellingham. Mrs. Mellicent assured him she was very wary. "But," said she, "as we are forced to hear and say so much that is painful, let us in our privacies indulge ourselves with anticipating brighter scenes. I am fully persuaded that the children will outlive these sorrows. I had a most consoling dream last night.--I saw Eustace in Castle-Bellingham, just as I have heard Williams describe it in the old Earl's days, attended by a train of gallant gentlemen, knights, esquires, chaplains, pages, and all the proper retinue of nobility. I saw Constance too, our own sweet Constance, dressed in black-velvet covered with jewels; and she was smiling upon Eustace, and giving orders just as a countess ought to do in the open gallery, as the servants were going about from the hall to the buttery; I see it all now before my eyes, and I tell you, brother, whatever you learned men may say about it, dreams often are true prognostics, and warnings too. In one point, I believe we are both agreed, Constance shall marry none but Eustace."

"It is more necessary," replied Dr. Beaumont, "to preserve the children from present violence, than to lay plans for their future aggrandisement. Prepare then with all possible speed for their removal, and I will advise them of its absolute necessity."

This precaution was indeed truly prudent. The rancorous heart of Morgan could not forgive the insinuated accusation of Eustace, nor the cold hauteur with which the Doctor hurried over his offer of an alliance, which, in the proposer's estimation, promised safety, wealth, and honour. He immediately sent information to an officer, who was recruiting for the Parliament, of a young desperate malignant, whom he wished to have pressed into the service, as a mild punishment for contumacy and outrage, and he did not doubt that the appearance of the sequestrators, armed with full powers for immediate dispossession, would terrify Constantia into acquiescence with his wishes, on condition that he would protect her father.

The young party left Ribblesdale at midnight, under the escort of Williams. The separation was marked with many tears and many anxious wishes, that they might soon be followed by their faithful guardians. The young ladies felt all the alarm and anxiety of leaving their quiet homes, which is incident to their sex and years; they were terrified at the thought of sleeping at an inn, and seeing none but strangers; "if they should discover who we are," said Constantia, "and deliver us into the power of Morgan!"--Eustace begged her not to be frightened, for he would die sooner than see her exposed to any insult. "You are always so ready to die!" observed Isabel; "what good would it do us to have you killed? But indeed I have no fear of being discovered, for we are so muffled up in our camlet riding-hoods, that we shall pass for country-girls going to market. Courage! dear Constance. Come, whip your horse on with spirit, and talk to me about eggs and poultry."

"Your brown face and red arms will pass well enough," said Eustace; "but they must be blind idiots, who mistake our pretty Constance for a market girl." "I will bind up my face as if I had the tooth-ache," said she; "and talk broad Lancashire, till I come to the Marquis's quarters." Williams observed that their danger would then begin.

The girls started, saying, they hoped they should then be in safety. "You know not, my dear mistresses," said Williams, "the habits of camps, nor the licence of gay, dissipated cavaliers, conscious of conferring obligations on their King, and claiming from their occasional hardships a right to indulgence. It is a bad situation for handsome young women, but I have it in charge, in case I cannot deliver you into the care of my old master, to take you on to Oxford, and place you with an old college-friend of Dr. Beaumont's."

Eustace, whose heart had exulted at the idea of being fixed in the scene of action, and of being permitted to endeavour to remove the prohibition of his taking arms, strenuously opposed the plan of an Oxford residence, as still more improper for young ladies, protesting that the flatteries of a court and a university were more dangerous than the free licence of military manners. He then began to caution Constantia, assuring her she must not believe all that would be told her about the power of her eyes to make men miserable, and about Venus and Hebe, and a great many more nonsensical comparisons. "If I do," returned she, "it will do me no harm. A woman is not more beloved for being handsome. There is our dear aunt Mellicent; her face, you know, is the colour of a cowslip, and all seamed and puckered, yet we could not love her better than we do, if she were ever so beautiful."

Eustace allowed that she was a very good woman, though he could well spare her putting him to rights, as she called it, quite so often. He fancied, too, he knew some people more agreeable.--Isabel thought when women were young, they always liked to be called handsome, and recollected she often heard her aunt say, that before she had the small-pox, she was thought very comely, and had many lovers. Eustace burst into a loud laugh, and said so many provoking things on the misfortune of old maids being reduced to record their own victories, that his companions protested they would be very angry, and not speak to him till he sung them a song of his own composition, by way of penance. He submitted cheerfully to the punishment, and caroled the following canzonet, as they proceeded in safety to the borders of Yorkshire:--

Once Beauty bade the God of Wit Appease her anger with his songs; Love thought the sacrifice unfit, And cried, "The task to me belongs."

Light flow'd the strain of wayward smiles. Of blushes and of tears he sung, Of mournful swains arrang'd in files, And hearts on eye-shot arrows hung.

But Beauty frown'd; "This lay from thee! Proud rebel, dost thou break thy chain? Wit may devise a sportive glee, But Love should languish and complain."

To whom the God: "When you disguise Your charms with spleen's fantastic shade, Insulted Love to Wit applies, And goes like you in masquerade."

[1] Life of Bishop Sanderson.

CHAP. X.

The noble mind stands a siege against adversity, while the little spirit capitulates at once.

Murphy's Tacitus.

On the morning after he had wisely sent away his precious charge, Dr. Beaumont was visited by Dame Humphreys, who was now grown sincerely penitent for all the insolent demeanour of herself and family, and desirous to make what reparation was in her power. A revolution had also taken place in her husband's mind. He had espoused the parliamentary cause, in the hope of being his own master, and of paying no more taxes; but he now found that the power assumed by the commissioners, to whom the Parliament had committed the execution of the ordinance, respecting the array of the different counties, was far more insupportable (as being the tyranny of many) than the feudal rights and aristocratic superiority heretofore exercised by the noble family of Stanley. Those new men, exercising the powers granted them by the conservators of public freedom, had, on his refusing voluntary contribution, seized his best cart-horse, three of his fat bullocks, and the silver-tankard he won at a wrestling-match, for which (after entering them at half their original value) they gave him a memorandum, certifying that he was a public creditor, "to be repaid at such a time, and in such a manner as Parliament should agree." Besides this, the tax-gatherers, a race of beings whom he abominated, took their circular range to collect the weekly assessment, which Humphreys found would amount to nearly five times the original sum required by the King to defray the expences of government, though the insupportable burden of his demands was urged as the greatest public grievance. The obstinate temper of Humphreys would not indeed permit him to make so frank a confession of his errors as his wife did, but he charged her to say, that, when turned out of his own house, Dr. Beaumont should be welcome to the use of his, as long as the King and the taxing-men left him one to live in.

Dame Humphreys had another motive for her visit. Like all the villagers, she was passionately fond of Eustace: she had seen a recruiting party enter the town, and heard them inquire for the young man whom the Justice meant to impress. In her eagerness to defend him, she excited a mob of women to scold and insult the party, while she flew to the rectory to give him notice to escape. But for the precautions taken during the night, her kindness would have been ineffectual; for the soldiers speedily dispersed their feeble assailants, and drew themselves up in order before the rectory. The lieutenant who commanded them, required to speak with Dr. Beaumont; and, in a tone of authorised insolence, bade him give up the son of the delinquent, whom he harboured.

The Doctor had spent the night in devotion, and came from his oratory clad in that celestial panoply which is proof against the terrors of military array. Calm as a Christian hero who felt himself called to sustain the character of a soldier of truth, he answered, "The youth you inquire for is my nephew, left in my care by his father, and I should certainly protect him with my life if he were now in my house, but he has left it."

"On what errand? which road?" Dr. Beaumont was silent. It was proposed by some of the party to break into the house.

"That will be unnecessary," returned the lieutenant. "Their Honours, the sequestrators, will speedily be here. Draw up round the house, and see that none escape. Our duty further extends to taking away all the horses, arms, and ammunition, of which I now require an account."

Dr. Beaumont pointed to his old gelding. "He has served me well," said he, "and if you take him from me, I trust you will use him kindly. Arms and ammunition I have none. I lived in this parish as a parent among his children, obeying the laws of my country, and fearing no violence."

At this instant the sequestrators arrived, headed by Morgan. He lamented that the painful duty had fallen upon him, but assured the Doctor that he had delayed it as long as his own safety would permit, and that all possible gentleness should be used. They then shewed their authority, and required admission. The door was immediately opened, and they proceeded from room to room, accompanied by Dr. Beaumont, who, with unruffled fortitude, saw them take an inventory of his property, even to the most minute article, his wearing apparel being exempted as a mark of especial mercy[1]. Morgan, who at every turn expected to discover Constantia fainting with terror, or shrieking for mercy, was disappointed at only encountering the steady heroism of her father, and the iron rigidity and proud contempt of her aunt, whose regret at seeing the hoarded treasures of her industry, and the idols of her cleanly notability, exposed to the hands and eyes of the profane vulgar, was subdued by her detestation of the meanness and baseness of those from whom her revered brother suffered this indignity and spoliation.

"And where," said Morgan, "are the pretty maids? Hid in some corner, I doubt not. Poor lambs! they are innocent, and have no cause to fear anything. I am sure they shall be welcome to an asylum in my house; and you too, Madam Mellicent, if you would condescend----"

"They are gone, Morgan," said she, suddenly restored to the use of her speech by the supreme pleasure of reproving a villain; "they are gone with Eustace to the Marquis of Newcastle, out of thy power or that of thy wicked masters, and their unjust ordinances."

Morgan (as in his altercation with Eustace) perceived that the more he personally interfered, the greater hazard he ran of exposure. He therefore slightly lamented that such harmless children should apprehend any danger from him, and withdrew, while the sequestrators proceeded to sell the goods by public auction. Not a bidder stepped forward. The parishioners were dissolved in tears, and every article exposed to sale excited some associated recollections of the goodness of the owner or his family; they saw the chairs on which they had sat while he mildly pointed out their best interests; the tables at which they had been liberally, though plainly, regaled; the beds which had afforded repose to the traveller; the vessels which had fed the hungry and refreshed the weary; the wheels which produced clothing for the naked; the chemical apparatus which had provided medicine for the sick, and consolation for the afflicted. No bidders appearing to purchase the articles in detail, the whole was put up in one lot. Dame Humphreys presented herself as a purchaser; no one opposed her; and she was declared to be the possessor of the Doctor's property.

The sequestrators then demanded an account of all rents and sums due to the late Rector, and having noted them down for the observation of parliament, they informed Dr. Beaumont that, as a new and godly ministry was to be substituted for an old and unprofitable one, they now expelled him from the cure of souls and all temporalities thereto belonging, and instituted and inducted Joab Davies into his rectory. His conduct had, they said, been so refractory as would justify arresting and sending him prisoner to London, where multitudes of proud high-priests were now confined, either on board hulks in the river, or in the palaces, as they were disloyally named, of the deposed anti-christian bishops; but so merciful were their tempers, that they would allow him to depart and shift for himself, only remembering that he was a marked character, and on his next offence must expect some severe punishment.

Dr. Beaumont answered, that the testimony of a clear conscience had enabled many to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; and he doubted not he should experience similar consolation. He then required a pass for himself and his sister. The sequestrators granted one, and left him.

Their place was immediately supplied by Davies, to whom they had given possession, and who said he was moved by bowels of mercy to comfort a backsliding brother in his tribulation, and to exhort him to consider his ways, and examine wherein he had offended the Lord, who, by a visible and affecting providence, had thus mightily punished him.

Dr. Beaumont, meantime, was endeavouring to collect his thoughts for a parting address to his parishioners. He remembered that impertinent comforters constituted one of the trials of Job; and he entreated Heaven to enable him also to sustain meekly this further conflict. "Master Davies," said he, "I learned from the book in which I studied my ministerial duties, that afflictions are not only judgments and corrections to offenders, but awakening conflicts and purifying trials to those whom the Father of the universe loves, and considers as his dear children. Far be it from me to justify myself in the sight of Him who sees impurity in the heavens, and imperfection in the best deeds of his most exalted creatures; but it is a manifest consolation to me, in this day of my calamity, that my conscience does not reproach me with any wilful violation of my holy function, and therefore, though my pastoral staff is taken from me, and my flock given to one who has leaped into the fold, I see in all this, rather the hand of Providence smiting a guilty nation for its provocations, than a judgment pointed peculiarly at me, further than as a sinner who adds to the general burden of transgressions. The powers to whom you pay obedience I never did acknowledge to be my lawful rulers. On the contrary, I have ever strove against them in defence of those who, I think, were unjustly deprived of their hereditary right. When a strong arm forces me out of my heritage, resistance would only endanger my life. I yield, therefore, possession to you, not willingly, nor from respect to your claim as a just one, but by constraint and with a solemn protest against the hard measure I have met with. By taking on yourself the office of which I am unjustly deprived, you have, in my judgment, committed a great sin. Use the power you are allowed to exercise with such temperance as may mitigate the awful inquisition which will one day be made into the means by which you acquired it. While you act as a pastor to this parish, remember you are not a shepherd to your own party and a wolf to mine. Deny not the blessed sacraments instituted by our common Saviour, to those whose only crime it is to reject the ordinances and covenants which a faction in one branch of the legislature attempt to impose, notwithstanding the protests they have made against what they call human institutions, though sanctioned by all the legal authorities in the kingdom. Endeavour to allay the ferment of men's minds instead of making the pulpit a seditious tribune, and the Bible a trumpet calling aloud to battle. Remember, the latter is a rule of conduct to Christians in all ages and all conditions of the world, and that its prophecies are not of private interpretation, nor its texts designed to be bandied about as the watch-words of party, to inflame disagreement into enmity, or to smite down our opponents with the spiritual staff of misapplied scripture. A docile mind alone is wanting to such an understanding of the sacred volume as will make us wise unto salvation; but many are the gifts which a Christian teacher requires, and diligent should be his labour before he attempts to guide others, especially when controversy pushes morality from the pulpit, and the auditory are made judges of metaphysical theology, not hearers of the commandments."

Davies, who was at first silenced by his astonishment at perceiving Dr. Beaumont's native dignity and superiority in no wise abated by misfortunes, soon recalled his natural allies, ignorance and insolence, to interrupt these admonitions, plainly telling him, that since he did not know his offences, he would inform him that he had too much neglected the duty of preaching, giving but one sermon on the Sabbath, and starving his flock by the formalities of written prayers and verbal catechisms. He had also in his sermons confined himself to legal preaching, not sufficiently attending to the inner man, and sometimes not telling how we were to be saved. Moreover, he had spoken too favourably of the Papists, contenting himself with calling them erring brethren, whereas he ought, as a good Protestant, to have delivered all the bloody race to Tophet, whose children they were. He further held gross errors, such as that salvation was offered to all mankind, that it was possible for the elect to sin, and that we were not mere machines acted on by grace, but possessed the liberty of free-will, by which we might resist or co-operate with the Spirit.

"My Brethren and Friends," said Dr. Beaumont, turning to his parishioners, who listened in ignorant astonishment to these charges, "Dear charge, from whom violence now separates me, but to whom I will hope to be again restored--as ye value your immortal souls, imprint on your minds this solemn truth, 'Not the hearers but the doers of the law shall be justified.' Ye will now probably have your attention fixed on needless, difficult, and unedifying questions, which our limited faculties cannot in this life clearly understand; but remember that in discussing them ye are exposed to those great offences, spiritual pride, and a desire of being wise above what is written. Ye will have many and long sermons, but it is well said, 'prayer is the end of preaching,' An excellent form was established in this kingdom, which made devotion uniform; but now, alas! by using extemporary prayers, even in worshipping God ye must be listeners to your minister, not petitioners for spiritual graces. Avoid consigning those generations who are passed away, to perdition, by supposing these new lights alone can shew you the way to be saved. Ask not if they who differ from you must be accursed. To scrutinize the spiritual estate of others will neither promote your holiness nor your security. Think not the further you go from the church of Rome, the nearer ye approach to God; nor confound the superstitious observances, which she mis-named good works, with the deeds of righteousness that Scripture requires you to perform, not as bestowing a right to eternal life, but as your part of the covenant of grace to which you have been admitted. Be not misled by the quoted opinions of early reformers. They depreciated not acts of piety, integrity, and social kindness, but 'masses, dirges, obsequies, rising at midnight, going barefoot, jubilees, invocation of saints, praying to images, vows of celibacy, pardons, indulgences, founding of abbeys'[2], and other supererogatory performances, by which Popery in effect invalidated the true atonement, and pretended that sinners might merit heaven. Against these vain devices of men our glorious martyrs lifted up their voices; these were the good works they decried; but when ye misapply their just anathemas, to condemn the fruits of faith acting by love, ye belie their memory, and tear asunder those strong pillars of belief and practice which support the Christian doctrine. Lamentable are the effects which schism produces. At the very beginning of our divisions the pious Jewell doubted how to address those who preferred contending for trifles to peace. He could not, he said, 'call them brethren, for then they would agree as brethren; nor Christians, for then they would love as Christians.' And now, when the miseries he saw at a distance have overwhelmed us, how shall our woes be healed? Even by promoting, as far as in us lies, that mild and candid spirit, which, when it becomes universal, will terminate our sorrows. Let us conduct our disputes with the temper of pious Hooker; and when we say to our adversaries, 'you err in your opinions,' add also, 'but be of good comfort, you have to do with a merciful God, who will make the best of that little which you hold well, and not with a captious sophister, who gathers the worst out of every thing in which you are mistaken.' It is this captious sophistry which fans disagreement till it blazes into dissension, which changes the simplicity of gospel-truth into wordy declamation; and, in zeal for the phylacteries of religion, rends its substance, which is peace. Thus is Christendom convulsed with tempests which obscure the Sun of Righteousness, and prevent its beams from warming the cold regions of heathen darkness.

"My Friends, ye are called to times of trial, and your brother Man is the agent whom Providence uses to correct you. Remember that he is only the agent. In the abode of condemned spirits the Almighty permits an uncontrolled mis-rule of diabolical passions, and total misery is the result. In the celestial regions, the will of the Creator is understood and obeyed; and there dwells eternal peace. In this mixed state the best err, from frailty and ignorance; but the wrath of the wicked is over-ruled by Divine mercy, and made to produce the good it labours to prevent. Let us, in the words of the Church, pray that earth may more resemble heaven; and let us also remember that our prayers are precepts, teaching us to promote in our lives what we request in our supplications."

Dr. Beaumont here knelt down, and, with devout energy, repeated several collects from the Liturgy, commending the oppressed church to the mercy of its Divine Founder, and imploring peace and resignation for its suffering members. The wind gently waved his silvered locks, the setting sun cast a beam on his pale countenance, his eyes were occasionally moistened with tears, and his faultering voice discovered how much the man endured; but when he rose to give his parting blessing, the patient and dignified confessor, suffering in a glorious cause, triumphed over the weakness of human sensibility. Each individual seemed to feel that the benediction applied to his own wants, and proved its efficacy by imparting the composure of him who bestowed it.

They now crowded round their departing pastor, earnestly entreating him to shelter with them that night; but Dame Humphreys pleaded a prior engagement. "Think not," said she, as she conducted the Doctor and Mrs. Mellicent to her house, "that I have bought Your Reverence's goods, with a view of turning them to my own profit. They shall all be carefully stored, and not a trencher touched till you come back again. I only wish you safe with the King; for I am sure if he had such honest men always with him, things would never have been brought to this pass. I hope you will tell His Majesty to choose only good men for his ministers, and to hear nothing but truth, and not to suffer landlords to oppress poor farmers, and to have no worldly-minded bishops and clergy, but to make every body charitable and do their duty like you and Madam Mellicent."

The good dame's harangue was interrupted by discovering that, during her absence from home, her maid Susan had neglected her dairy to indulge in a flirtation with the plough-boy, and had been detected in the fact of conveying to him a stolen can of ale. The difficulty of conducting a small household according to the unerring rule of right, diverted Dame Humphreys from proceeding in her plan of reforming state-abuses; and her complaints of the tricks and evasions of servants, furnished Dr. Beaumont with a good opportunity of hinting how impossible it was for Kings to find ability and integrity in all the agents they were compelled to employ.

Early the ensuing morning, Dr. Beaumont and his sister prepared to depart. The former, with his staff in his hand and Bible under his arm, looked like another Hooker setting out on his painful pilgrimage; but the care of Dame Humphreys had secured for him his own calash, and stored it with the most portable and valuable of his goods. The farmer himself fastened to it the sure-footed old horse, which had been for years the faithful companion of their journeys. "They gave him to me yesterday," said Humphreys, "instead of my cart-horse, which they took away. But Jowler was worth twice as much; yet that's neither here nor there. Your Reverence has a right to old Dobbin, and nobody else shall have him. And as to your rents, as you never was a bad landlord in the main, I'll try if I can't now and then send you a trifle; for I don't see that these new people have any right to what they take."

"Hush, hush," said Dame Humphreys, "His Reverence yesterday bade us behave well, and do our duty to every body."

"So I will," returned Humphreys; "but I hate your new laws, and your taxing men, and your arrays and assessments, which take your horses out of your team, and your money out of your pocket, and nobody knows what for. I believe Master Davies is no better than a worldling, for he talked yesterday about raising my rent, and if that's his humour, I'll be even with him; for I'll go and hear Priggins directly."

"Priggins," said one of the by-standers, "is a fine man, with a good voice, and tolerable action; but he is nothing to the serjeant-major of Sir William Brureton's rangers, who preached at the drum-head at Bolton, and made the whole town declare against Lord Derby."

"Tell me of no serjeants-majors nor Prigginses," said Dame Humphreys, "we shall never edify under any body as we did under the good old Doctor."

This conversation passed among the villagers, after the Beaumonts, with dejected but submissive hearts, had taken their silent departure from Ribblesdale.

[1] Many of these circumstances are copied from Bishop Hall's "Hard Measure." He greatly leaned to the Puritans in doctrine; and, in discipline was a noted opposer of Archbishop Laud.

[2] This list is taken out of a much more numerous one cited by Lord Cobham.

CHAP. XI.

O piteous spectacle! O bloody times! Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens, Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.

Shakspeare.

We left Eustace wakening the echoes with his songs, which, while they expressed the exultation of his heart at emerging from confinement and obscurity, and launching into a busy scene of action, were also intended to divert the alarm of his fair companions. Williams recommended caution and silence to no purpose; Eustace was sure they were going on safe. They were still at a great distance from the Parliament's garrison at Halifax, when they were joined by a person in the dress of a countryman, but in reality a scout belonging to the army of Fairfax. He drew the incautious Eustace into conversation, and soon perceived that the affected vulgarity of his language ill accorded with the polished accents he had overheard. Guessing from this circumstance that they belonged to the family of some Loyalist, and were attempting to escape to their friends, he, under pretence of shewing them a nearer way, delivered them into the custody of a foraging party belonging to the garrison.

Eustace discovered that they were betrayed at the moment when retreat was impossible, and resistance of no avail. He now lamented that he had despised the cautions of Williams; and, as he was furnished with arms, determined to sell his life as dear as possible. The shrieks of the ladies in a moment arrested his arm, and also drew the attention of the cornet who commanded the party which had surprised them. He ordered his troop to retire a few paces, and, riding up to Eustace, exclaimed, "Madman, whose life are you going to sacrifice?" Eustace turning, beheld Constantia fainting; and, throwing away his pistols, answered, "One dearer than my own. If republicans can shew mercy, spare her."

"You shall find," returned the officer, "that they have mercy and honour too. Let me conjure the ladies to moderate their terrors. They are indeed my prisoners; but they shall be treated with all the respect which their sex, and, if I guess aright, their quality, deserve."

Isabel, who supported her lifeless cousin, raised her eyes to bless the benevolence which dictated such consolatory expressions, and saw they were uttered by a graceful youth, a little older than her brother, in whose countenance animation was blended with benignity and compassion.

"For Heaven's sake," said she, "if you pity us, let the troopers sheath their broad swords; we will make no resistance; alas! the alarm has killed dear Constantia."

The cornet leaped from his horse, and assisted to raise her. "Her pulses beat," said he, "and she recovers fast. But why, Madam, are you not equally alarmed?"

"I have been used to sorrows and difficulties from my infancy," returned Isabel; "but Constantia has never known any thing but care and tenderness."

"Are you her sister?"

"No; I have only that brother. He is rash, but brave and good. Do not hurt him, for his death would kill my father."

"It shall be in his own power," returned the officer, "to fashion his fortunes. I wish, Sir, not to be thought your enemy otherwise than as my duty enjoins. You see I am in the service of the Parliament. Tell me, frankly, who you are. It is possible I may befriend you; at least I know I can the ladies who are under your care."

Eustace, whose attention was now relieved by seeing Constantia recover, could not resist an invitation to frankness. "I am not," said he, "what my dress imports, but the son of a cavalier and a gentleman; we were going to put ourselves under his protection. Allow us to proceed to Colonel Evellin's quarters, and I will ever esteem you as my friend, even if we should meet on opposite parts, in some bloody conflict."

"I will befriend you," answered the cornet; "but the success of my efforts must depend on their being conducted with secrecy. Colonel Evellin is not now in the north. He was attached to the escort who conducted the Queen to Oxford. Is it your wish to follow him?"

They answered in the affirmative. "I must hold no further intercourse with you," continued he; "be of good courage;" then kissing his hand, with a smile to Isabel, he ordered Williams to follow with them, and rejoined his troopers.

"Surely," observed Isabel, "he cannot be a round-head. I thought they were all like old Morgan; and this is a true gentleman." Constantia acquiesced in this opinion, and supposed he might be a loyalist, taken prisoner, and compelled to join the rebel army. Eustace, in an equal degree unwilling to allow any good qualities to a person who was in arms against the King, declared that he suspected the apparent urbanity of the stranger to be only a prelude to some base design. He resolved, that while they continued prisoners, nothing should separate him from his fair charge; and Williams and he agreed that they would sit up alternately every night, in order to be ready at the first alarm.

"Surely," said Isabel, "you forget my uncle's precept, 'Be moderate.' Just now you were all confidence that the false guide would shew us a road to avoid Halifax; and now you are, without cause, suspecting that this gentleman will use us cruelly."

"Are they not both rebels and republicans?" rejoined Eustace. "The only difference is, that one was an ugly vulgar knave, and this a handsome courtly one." Isabel blushed and gave up the argument, thinking it useless to contend with one who was never subdued by opposition.

On their arrival at Halifax, they were provided with comfortable apartments. A guard was placed at the door; but they were informed that every indulgence should be allowed them, except that of being at liberty. Williams was ordered to attend the council of officers, to be examined as to their name and designs; and the captives waited his return with the impatience natural to those whose fate is about to be decided.

The account which he gave of his examination seemed to confirm the suspicions entertained by Eustace of the sinister designs of the cornet, who had anticipated the deposition of Williams, by describing the party as the children and niece of a cavalier, now an active officer in the popish army, advising that they should be sent, with some other prisoners, to London, there to be kept in safe durance till they could be exchanged for some other party who had fallen into the hands of the Royalists. Williams was not suffered to speak. The proposal was adopted; and orders were given that the escort should set off next morning.

The indignant ravings of Eustace, and the mortification of poor Isabel, who had seen, in the "melting eye of her supposed protector, a soft heart and too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others," in fine, a generous, open, honourable character, very like her dear father, called forth the mediation of Constance, who, recollecting her own father's precepts, recommended candour and patience. "At least," said she, "whatever befals us, let us not lose the consolation of fellowship in affliction. We have yet the comfort of being together; and perhaps we may not find captivity so dreadful, nor our enemies so merciless as we expect. If they do not take you from us, dearest Eustace, we cannot be quite miserable."

They were now joined by an elderly man in the dress of a clergyman, who, though somewhat precise in his habit, and quaint in his address, was venerable and benevolent in his aspect and expressions. "Fair maidens," said he, "I come to inquire if you are content with your present accommodations, and willing to begin your journey towards London to-morrow morning. The governor of this garrison has joined me to your escort; and it will be a duty I shall gladly undertake, to render your travel lightsome, and your perils trivial."

"May we," answered Isabel, "request to know to whom we shall be so obliged?"

"You may call me Mr. Barton," replied he, "a minister of the church by the laying on the hands of the presbytery. My immediate call among these men in arms, arises from my being tutor to the young officer, to whom you are surrendered prisoners."

"And did you," said the indignant Eustace, among other things, "teach him craft and falsehood."

"I have still to learn those Satanical arts," returned Barton, "and therefore could not teach them."

"Were they then," resumed Eustace, "innate properties in his mind? Though little more than my own age, he is a master in the science of dissimulation. He practised upon my fears; I mean, my fears for these dear girls, and wormed from my confiding folly a disclosure of my parentage, and my wishes. He promised to serve us. I trusted to his word; and he performs it by rivetting our chains beyond hope of liberation."

"While life endures," returned Barton, "hope and fear successively eclipse each other. Yet a wise man should remember both are casualties, which may give colour to his future fortunes. We must allow the enraged lion to chafe, but lest his roarings should terrify these tender lambs, and drive them out among beasts of prey, an old watch-dog will crouch beside them, and assuage their alarms. I fancy, pretty maids, you never were in company with a real round-head before; come, tell me truly, is he as terrible a creature as your fears pictured."

"I am half inclined to think you do not mean to injure us," said Isabel.

"Beware," cried Eustace, lifting up his finger; "remember your past confidence."

"But this is an old gentleman," resumed Isabel, and pressed Barton's offered hand between both hers; "perhaps he is a father, and feels for two terrified girls, who never were among strangers before. Or, perhaps," returning the benevolent smile of Barton with one of playful archness, "he may find us such a troublesome charge, that he will be glad to get rid of us before we reach London."

"My pretty Eve," returned Barton; "I am proof to temptation. What I have undertaken to do I will perform."

"Yet possibly," said she, "you would just allow me to speak once more to that officer, your pupil. I only wish to remind him of his past promises."

"Rather," replied Barton, "to move him to make more, or perchance make him your prisoner. No, fair lady, I see too much of your puissance, to trust my noble pupil in your presence. Yet I would have you think as well of him as the cloudy aspect of present appearances will admit, for man oweth man candour; it is the current coin of social life, and they who do not traffic with it, must not expect a supply for their own wants."

Eustace fretted at this _badinage_, and thought Barton a miserable jester. He caught at the epithet "Noble," and asked if any one, lawfully entitled to it, would be so degenerate as to rebel against his King.

"I am one of those stern teachers," said Barton, "who see nobility only in virtuous actions and high attainments, but even in your sense of the word, my pupil has a right to the name, being lineally descended from those mighty Barons, who in early times enforced Kings to yield, and gave us the right we now enjoy of sitting under our own vine and eating the fruit of our own fig-tree. And remember, young cavalier, that all men's minds are not shaped in one mould, nor have corresponding habits cherished in them the same associations. We have all two characters; our friends look at the white side, and see our virtues; our foes at the black, and discern nothing but our faults. The same action of the King's may be so coloured by report, as to justify my pupil's enmity and your passionate loyalty. You have been trained to deem passive obedience a duty, while he has learned to think that an English nobleman ought to resist arbitrary power. We thought many of the King's proceedings were contrary to the laws of the realm; and, therefore, joined those who sought to abridge his prerogative. And now that we have buckled on armour, retreat is difficult; it is dangerous too; party is a high-mettled steed, when we are mounted we must hold out the whole race it pleases to run. But before we part for the night, I will propose one toast; it is your brave and virtuous Lord Falkland's, and in fact the prayer of every honest man among us--Peace, peace on any terms, rather than see England blushing with blood and with crimes!"

Isabel received a very favourable impression of the integrity and benevolence of Barton from this conversation, and formed a sort of undefined hope, respecting the result of their captivity, which induced her strenuously to reject all the plans which Eustace repeatedly formed for their emancipation. The most disheartening circumstance was, that they saw no more of Williams. They sometimes flattered themselves that he had regained his liberty, and would carry an account of their situation to Colonel Evellin. They observed, that Barton took no notice of his absence, and hoping that in the confusion which commonly occurs in conveying a multitude of prisoners he had been overlooked, they forbore to make any inquiries that might endanger his safety.

The country through which they passed in their journey toward London, afforded them a full view of the miseries and crimes incident to civil war. The fields, in many places, were without any trace of culture; in others, the harvest had been prematurely seized or purposely wasted, to cut off the enemy's resources. They saw beautiful woods wantonly felled; towns and villages partially burnt; the youthful part of the population either enrolled in one or other of the hostile armies, or secreting themselves to avoid being pressed into military service. The few labourers to be seen in the fields consisted of the aged, the sick, or those who were disabled; and these no longer exhibited the cheerful aspect of happy industry, but shewed sorrow in their faces, and wretchedness in their garb. In towns, the more respectable inhabitants were dressed in mourning, thus announcing, that the death of some relation gave them a deep private interest in the public sorrow. The unemployed manufacturers crowded the streets, eagerly perusing libellous pamphlets, or diurnal chronicles, disputing furiously on points which none could clearly explain or indeed comprehend, asking for news as if it were bread, and shewing by the lean ferocity of their faces, and the squalid negligence of their attire, that from unpitied poverty sprung all the virulent passions of rage, envy, revenge, and disobedience. By such as these, the detachment that escorted the prisoners were received with transport as friends and deliverers, who, when their glorious toils were completed, would transform the present season of woe into a golden age of luxurious enjoyment and unvaried ease; and as the rebel troops were well furnished with money, and supplied with every necessary out of the royal magazines, which were seized in the beginning of the contest, they were enabled to pay for all the articles of subsistence, and thus acquired a popularity which the strict discipline preserved by their officers tended to increase. Hence at every town they passed through, they were not only hailed with acclamations, but received an augmentation of force by the recruits who joined them, under a certainty of receiving pay and cloathing.

Beside the mortification of thus viewing the strength of a party whom they hoped to find weak, disjointed, and inefficient, our young captives had the misery of hearing the royal cause every where vilified, and the Sovereign's personal character traduced. Among the King's misfortunes his inability to pay his army, or to supply it with necessaries, was most injurious to his success. His forces were chiefly raised and kept together by the private fortunes and influence of loyal noblemen and gentry, many of whom, even members of the house of Peers, served as privates, receiving neither honour nor reward, except the generous satisfaction of conscious duty. The situation of those who ranged themselves on this side without funds for their own support, was most precarious, the King being compelled to tax the few places which preserved their allegiance with their entire maintenance. The weekly assessment laid upon the nation by the house of Commons being granted by the constitutional purse-bearer, took the name of a lawful impost; but every demand of His Majesty might be construed into an exaction. Fearful to indispose the minds of subjects, pecuniary levies were cautiously resorted to; hence the officers were compelled to connive at plunder, and the destitute soldier often had no other means to supply his imperious wants. For the same reasons discipline was relaxed; every man who had largely contributed to the King's cause felt himself independent of his authority. Obliged beyond all probable power of remuneration, the Prince saw himself surrounded by men who had forfeited their estates, renounced their comforts, and risked their lives to support a tottering throne. Yet still they were subject to human passions, and liable to have those passions heightened by the free manners of camps, while the unhappy circumstances of the cause for which they fought exonerated them from those strict restraints that are so peculiarly necessary in an army, where right must always be less respected than power, and where severe privations, and the frail tenure by which life is held, are ever urged as motives to a licentious enjoyment of the present hour. While from these causes such relaxed discipline prevailed in a royal garrison, as generally to indispose the neighbourhood to its politics, the parliamentary officers felt bound to each other by the common fears of guilt, knowing that success alone could preserve them from the penalties of treason. Their soldiers being well supplied with every thing, had no excuse for plundering; and all acts of violence were punished with severity by those who, though of small consideration in their original situations compared with the King's officers, yet still held a natural command over the lowest vulgar, of whom the parliamentary rank and file were composed.

To return to the woes which our young captives witnessed in their melancholy tour through the seat of civil war.--The houses of the nobility and gentry were either abandoned or converted into places of strength, fortified for the defence of the inhabitants. Occasionally they passed over what had recently been a field of battle. The newly-formed hillocks pointed out the number of the slain; broken weapons and torn habiliments still more indubitably identified the mournful history; or flocks of ravens and other carrion birds hovering over the slightly-covered relics of a noble war-horse, which had been unearthed by foxes, presented a more savage picture of carnage. Sometimes a pale wounded soldier, whose inability to serve prevented his being secured as a prisoner, or removed by his friends, was seen lingering upon the spot that had proved fatal to his hopes of glory, sustained by the compassion of the neighbourhood or asking alms of the traveller with whom he crept over the graves of his comrades, shewing where the charge was first made, pointing to the spot where the leader fell, and telling what decided the fortune of the day.

Scenes very different, yet equally revolting to the feelings of Eustace and his companions, were frequently exhibited by the fury of fanatic mobs, employed in what they called reforming the churches and cleansing them from idolatry. The exquisite remains of antient art, the paintings, carvings, and other splendid decorations with which our ancestors adorned the structures consecrated to the worship of God, were broken and torn away with such unrelenting fury and blind rage of destruction, as in many instances to threaten the safety of the edifice they beautified. The Satanical spirit of fanaticism rioted uncontrolled; and to use the words of a venerable Bishop[1], who saw his own cathedral defaced, "it is no other than tragical to relate the carriage of that furious sacrilege, whereof our eyes and ears were the sad witnesses, under the authority and presence of the sheriff. Lord! what work was here--what clattering of glasses--what beating down of walls--what tearing up of monuments--what pulling up of seats--what wresting out of iron and brass from the windows and graves--what defacing of arms--what demolishing of curious stone-work, that had not any representation in the world but only of the cast of the founder, and the skill of the mason--what tooting and piping upon the destroyed organ-pipes, and what a hideous triumph on the market-day before all the country, when, in a kind of sacrilegious and profane procession, all the organ-pipes, vestments, copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had been newly sawn down from over the green-yard pulpit, and the service-books and singing-books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the public marketplace; a lewd wretch walking along in the train in his cope, trailing in the dirt, with his service-book in his hand, imitating in impious scorn the time, and usurping the words of the Litany used formerly in the church. Near the public cross all these monuments of idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire, not without much ostentation of a zealous joy in discharging ordnance, to the cost of some who professed how much they longed to see that day. Neither was it any news upon this guild-day to have the cathedral, now open on all sides, to be filled with musketeers, waiting for the mayor's return, drinking and tobaccoing as freely as if it had turned ale-house."

At these sad spectacles (of which almost every ornamented church they passed supplied an instance), Isabel contemplated with pleasure the character of Barton[2], who displayed that moderation and liberality which justified her predilection for him, and her hopes for themselves. He reproved the conduct of the mob with severity, and even hazarded his own safety by opposing their outrages. He exhorted the police to prevent what he termed an Anti-christian triumph over good taste, good manners, and good sense. He represented how grossly indecent it was that magistrates should seem, by their presence, to sanction the violation of authority, and the reverence due to antiquity, and he sometimes prevailed upon them to order the rabble to disperse, whom they had previously invited to the task of spoliation. He spoke to the better-informed, of the degradation which England would suffer in the eyes of surrounding nations, by thus wantonly "sweeping the land with the besom of destruction," and annihilating all those records of her own pre-eminence, which other countries, had they possessed them, would have been so solicitous to preserve. He distinguished between excitements to devotion and objects of worship, and he read from his little pocket-bible a description of the decorations bestowed on the first and second temples, and remarked, that when the Saviour of the world predicted the ruin of the latter, he threw no censure on the munificence of those who had adorned it. He shewed, that the plainness and poverty which of necessity attached to an afflicted church in its infancy, destined to make its way, not by the usual assistances of worldly wisdom, but in opposition to principalities and powers, were no rule for her government in future ages, when she was to be brought to her heavenly spouse "in glorious attire, with joy and gladness," and instead of wandering among caves and deserts, was to "enter into Kings' palaces." "If," said he, "you maintain that the overthrow of episcopacy is to involve the ruin of every thing rich, venerable, and beautiful, you furnish its defenders with the best of arguments. How are curious craftsmen to flourish, if there are no purchasers of their handy-works; and if we admit these into our houses, why not into the places where we hold our religious assemblies? Are paintings and carvings less likely to carnalize our hearts in our halls and banqueting-rooms than in our chapels? Is a golden cup on the Lord's table the accursed spoil of Achan; and doth it become purified by being removed to the buttery and used in a private carousal?"

On one occasion, by an ingenious device, Barton preserved a splendid representation of the twelve apostles in a chancel window. He arrived just at the moment that a drunken glazier had convinced the mob that they were made saints by the Babylonish harlot, and that therefore their similitudes, as popish rags, ought to be destroyed. After in vain endeavouring to persuade the populace that the Pope had no hand in their canonization, he at length prevailed upon them to have only the heads taken off, remarking that since the decapitated bodies could not provoke the gazer to commit the idolatry forbidden in the second commandment, they might remain without wounding tender consciences. The proposal was executed under his own superintendance; and at a period of less irritation, Mr. Barton, having preserved the heads, had the pleasure of restoring the mutilated figures to their original perfection.

But Barton shewed his conciliatory character in many ways besides protecting the inanimate appendages of the persecuted church. The journey afforded him frequent opportunities of assisting its living members, either by rescuing them from the requisitions of the troopers who escorted the prisoners, or by shielding them from the virulence of their infuriated neighbours. Often in the towns they passed through, was a degraded pastor dragged from the lowly cottage in which he sought to shelter his misfortunes, and compelled (with barbarous exaltation) to behold the rebel colours flying over his captive friends. Wherever this happened, Barton uniformly pressed forward, assured the dejected confessor that every possible attention was paid to the comfort of the prisoners; inquired into his own situation, not with impertinent curiosity but with kindness, and promised his assistance to procure him a regular payment of the pittance which Parliament allowed to ejected incumbents out of their sequestered rents, if (as it too frequently happened) he found it had been embezzled by the commissioners employed in the work of re-modelling the ecclesiastical system.

They had proceeded very far in their journey, when one evening Barton rejoined his charge with much apparent agitation in his manner. "We are forbidden," said he, "to let our left hand know the good deeds our right doth, yet cannot I refrain from telling you, young maidens, that I am this day satisfied with my labours. Among other providences, I have been able to render brotherly kindness to an episcopal minister whom I found in a lamentable state, for he had fallen among thieves, who robbed him of his property and tore his pass for safe conduct. Our van-guard found him by the way-side, and judging by his venerable aspect, and some superfluous decorations in his attire, that he was a deposed bishop flying to the King, they seized him without paying attention to his narrative. When I heard that a person in distress was taken prisoner, I spurred on my horse to see if I could be of use. The placid benignity of the sufferer's aspect moved my commiseration; he stood calm and collected among the musketeers, supporting a woman about his own age, who I trow was his wife. To do her justice she shewed no signs of terror, though she rolled her eyes on those around her with a look of disdain, less suited, methought, to her situation than the dignified patience of her companion. I asked him if he had been a bishop, and he answered, No; but was still a minister of the Christian church. 'Then,' said I, 'perhaps in your affliction you will not refuse the service, or reject the hand of one who calls himself by the same title.' 'Sir,' said he, 'this is no time to dispute the validity of your ordination; let your actions shew that it has had a due efficacy on your heart. As men, if not as clergymen, we are brothers by our common faith and nature. I beg you to listen to the statement of facts, which I have vainly endeavoured to persuade your soldiers to attend to.' He then told me he was travelling from a living in Lancashire, from whence he had been expelled, to Oxford, where he possessed some collegiate endowments; that he had been assaulted by a band of depredators, beat, bound, and plundered."

Constantia here eagerly interupted Barton; "His name!" exclaimed she;--"O, for mercy tell me, could it be my father, Eusebius Beaumont?"

"The same," returned Barton, melting with pity at her filial anguish. "Set thy kind heart at rest; he was not materially hurt; his property has been restored. He is now at liberty, pursuing his journey, and the robbers are secured. But why, dear maid, didst thou conceal thy name? Had I known thou wast his daughter, thou shouldst even now have been in his arms."

"O better, far not; for then he would have been a prisoner. But his companion, my excellent aunt?"

"At liberty too; I handed her into their own calash, and saw them drive off with a pass of safe conduct. But, pretty trembler, if she is so excellent, I will make you her proxy, to give me the reward she refused to my services. I did but ask for the kiss of peace at our parting, when she drew back her head as if she were an empress, and stiffly answered, 'Sir, I am a Loyalist.'"

This faithful description of aunt Mellicent's unswerving decorum diverted the young Evellins, and helped to dissipate Constantia's terrors. Her rapturous acknowledgements of the humane Barton largely repaid him for his services to her father. She listened to a circumstantial detail of the difficulties with which he had contended against the obstinacy and prejudices of the magistrates, to whom he had applied for a fresh passport; of the fortunate combination of circumstances which, had led to the pursuit and detection of the thieves, with the original instrument in their possession, and of their confession, commitment, and discovery of the place where they had deposited their booty. "I parted from your father," continued he, "with many affecting testimonies of mutual good-will, and I think aunt Mellicent, as you call her, would almost have smiled upon me, had not my vain heart indulged in too much joyous self-gratulation at the success of my endeavours, and thus brought on that just rebuke of my presumption. I did not ask your father to shew like mercy, whenever he should find one of us in like affliction, for his eyes told me that his conscience would be a better remembrancer than my tongue. I said, however, that I trusted we should meet in a world, where slight discrepancies of opinion would be no preventatives of friendship, though in this life they kindled the animosities which it was our misfortune to witness and deplore." "Sir," said he, pressing my hand, "let our contest be, who shall most truly serve God and our fellow-creatures, and then we may hope for that pardon, which ensures endless blessedness. On mercy the best of us must depend, though we too often withhold it from our fellow-sinners, by whose side we must one day kneel, and like them place all our confidence in boundless compassion."

"O!" said Constantia, "had not my fears anticipated the fact, those sentiments would have convinced me you had met my father."

"And when you next meet him," said Barton, "tell him that while there is a Carolus in my purse, he never shall feel penury."

"Say," returned she; "shall I ever see him again?"--Barton checked a reply, which a momentary reflection whispered was too prompt, and answered, "I am not a wizard, or diviner of things to come; wait, and see what the morrow will bring forth."

"'Tis impossible," replied Isabel, "to reach London to-morrow; but we might get to Oxford."

"True," said Barton, with a grave air, "but since we now draw near the King's quarters, I must redouble my precautions, and I now recollect 'tis my duty to attend the council of officers."

"At Banbury," continued she, attempting to detain him, "there is a royal garrison."

"To which you would escape," resumed Barton.--"Have I not told you I am proof to temptation, and will faithfully discharge the trust reposed in me by my employer."

The next day seemed to give the death-blow to Isabel's hopes. They now turned out of the direct road, in order that they might avoid the King's quarters, and directed their course, so that they might proceed through the associated counties to London.--With her usual alacrity of accommodation, Isabel endeavoured to reconcile her mind to the privations of captivity. "I know," said she, "I can not only earn my own living, but work also for Constantia. They will soon relax in the care of us girls, and it will be very easy for us to walk from London to Oxford. But, dear Eustace, I do indeed regret that I hindered you from attempting to escape. It was so selfish in me to keep you with us, as I fear they will require you to enlist in their army."

"I will be hewn into a thousand pieces first," returned he. "Have we not seen enough of those vile republicans, to determine an honest man never to purchase his life, by wearing the colours of traitors?"

"Yet, remember Barton's goodness to my father," said Constantia; "and forgive his severity to us."

"I honour Barton," replied Eustace; "I honour him even for that severity. His word has been plighted to his employers, and he must deliver us up prisoners. But what think you of Isabel's gallant officer, that resemblance of the noble, ingenuous Evellin. I will never study physiognomy under you, sister."

Isabel was more pained at this reproach than usual. Eustace perceived her droop. "Come, dear girl," said he, "we will talk of him no more. You shall never want a faithful protector while I live, and ardently as I pant to break these bonds and to be in action, I will make no attempt at freedom, unless I can also liberate you."

They stopped that night at Northampton. Barton was reserved and silent, and at length remarked, that in two days their party would reach London.--"I have never seen London," said Isabel. "Come, describe it to us, and say where shall we be confined. I suppose we shall meet with only warm, steady, common-wealth's men."

"It is the seat of discord," answered Barton; "there are as many factions as there are orators, all striving for mastery; yet all united against the King, by a persuasion of his insincerity, and by apprehensions that he would sacrifice them to his vengeance, in case he were reconciled to the Parliament."

"Can it be supposed," said Eustace, "that after the wrongs and iniquities he has endured, he ever can forgive! Where is the oblivious draught that can drown the recollection of a nation rising in arms against its Sovereign?"

Baron answered--"The nation and the King must both forgive, or war must be eternal. You have seen its aspect; what think you? Is this great quarrel like the mere abstract question which is cooly discussed in the cabinet of Princes, when they talk of risking ten thousand lives for a victory, and laying waste a province to cut off the resources of the enemy? Let us not balance misery against forgiveness. It is childish reasoning to keep ourselves in torment, because we will not forget the injuries we have suffered. Peace only can heal our putrifying wounds, and peace can never be bought too dear, unless the price is conscience or safety."

They now separated for the evening; anxious thoughts kept the captives awake. But after all was silent in the inn, Isabel heard a gentle tap at the chamber-door. In a state of agitation, every sound is alarming. She listened, and heard Barton whisper, "Arise." Before she could open the door, the watchful Eustace had flown to their protection. Barton was closely muffled in his cloak, and inquired if they dared to trust themselves with him. Constantia drew back, and looked alarmed, while Isabel accepted his offered arm. "The night is dark," said Eustace, "and would conceal evil designs."--"Peradventure," replied Barton, "it will also prosper good ones; I speak but three words--speed, silence, liberty."

Encouraged by these animating sounds, Eustace cheered the trembling Constance, and following their guide, they hurried along by the street which led to the castle. As the avenues to the King's quarters were more vigilantly watched, their danger was here most imminent; but Barton had secured a friend, who suffered them to pass through his garden, and by close unfrequented passages they gained the fields. The rising moon now discovered some indefinite objects, concealed among brush-wood. Barton whistled, and the countersign, "Banbury," was returned in a voice which they knew to be that of Williams. He ran for their horses, which were fastened at a little distance, while Barton alternately embraced his young friends, and affectionately bade them God-speed.--"Excellent man," said the ardent Eustace, whose over-flowing gratitude now seemed to exceed his former suspicions, "why did you not tell us your design?"

"Because," replied he, "I saw not in you that property of discretion, which would allow me to trust you with your own safety."

"Yet," resumed Eustace, "if I am rash, I am not base, nor will I accept freedom if it endangers your safety or wounds your conscience."

"I trust," replied Barton, "I shall be back to my quarters before I am missed, and as to my conscience, that sleeps on a soft pillow. I have discharged the trust reposed in me."

"The Cornet then," said Isabel, "is not a villain."

Barton smiled, and replied, "Artless maiden, think not too much of the agent whom Providence employed to send you safely through a tract of country you could not otherwise have passed."

"O, tell me his name," said Eustace, "that I may join it to yours, when I pray for my benefactors."

"I must not compromise his safety," answered Barton; "his generosity, if known, would endanger his life."

"But how shall I know him, as to repay his kindness."

"Think you see him in every unarmed enemy you meet, and deal by them as he has dealt by you."

"But if we should meet him in battle?"

"Even in battle," answered Barton, "if there is time for reflection, remember thy enemy is a man, and thy brother." With these words they parted. Barton regained his quarters undiscovered, and the young people, blessing his goodness, performed the rest of their journey in safety.

[1] Bishop Hall, who cannot be objected to as a favourer of Popery or Arminianism. The inconsistency of the Fanatics was exemplified by their destroying, as a popish relic, Paul's Cross, so celebrated for sounding forth the doctrines of the Reformation.

[2] This portrait of Barton is justified by the conduct of many truly respectable men, whose principles led them, for a time, to countenance the impracticable theories of republicanism. I could name Dr. Owen, General Fairfax, Lord Manchester and others.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.