VOLUME III. (continued 2)

"My good Sir," returned the kind physician, "we must debate this point a little. In the first place, let me assure you the lots were fairly cast. I do not justify, indeed I severely reprobate the cruel policy which required the sacrifice of three victims; but it was resolved on in full council, the blame therefore is divided among all the officers. I also know that Lord Bellingham committed his own safety by endeavouring to preserve the life of Eustace."

An overwhelming load of infamy seemed, at this assurance, removed from the oppressed De Vallance. "Speak it again, dear worthy man, again repeat that my father would have saved him. You know he would? You can swear to the fact? But soft—was not he supreme commander? What, then, prevented him from signing his pardon?"

Dr. Lloyd replied—"The limited power which a general possesses over troops, who, in obeying him, have cancelled the previous obligations of duty and conscience. He who accepts the command of a revolutionary army is ever fearful of being sacrificed by his own soldiers. His office makes him the ostensible champion of liberty; but his army claim a greater licence than consists with the requisite exercise of discipline and authority. His subordinate officers envy his supremacy; for the chain of prescriptive gradation is dissolved by the pretext of preferring merit; and what soldier of fortune is there who does not think himself equal to the highest posts which his machinations and enterprize can procure. We Loyalists (for such, Sir, I now in confidence own myself to be) have often said that Lord Bellingham was only half wicked. He retained too much of the gentleman to practise extortion, or to connive at the rapacity by which his subalterns tried to make the most of their brief authority. He enforced discipline without condescending to that familiarity and occasional indulgence which make severity palatable. He was an agent of the new system, trying to introduce the manners of the old. He saw his own danger when it was too late. He discovered that he served villains who, despising honest praise, renounced every honourable bond of amity, to whom treachery and cruelty were become habitual; and that he commanded desperadoes, who, setting no value on their own lives, kept his in their power. Such, Sir, was the state of your father's army, and such the secret hostility of those for whom he fought. You may condemn his embarking in their cause, his timidity, his irresolution, his fluctuating variableness, but not his deliberate cruelty or private malice. After Eustace had drawn the lot of death, the power of the general could not save him from an army lost to every generous feeling, and thirsting for revenge."

To know that his father had rather been guilty of the transgressions of frail man than of the horrible enormities of a demon, was an invaluable consolation to De Vallance. But still Eustace had fallen under the sentence of Bellingham, and himself consequently been banished from Isabel. Dr. Lloyd interrupted his mournful reverie by inquiring what were his future views.

"When you described Eustace going to execution," returned he, "you appealed to the sympathy of a heart eternally separated from the object of a pure, cherished affection. Read that letter. Conceive it written by a woman whose beauty is her smallest praise, and then advise me how to bestow the unvalued remnant of a life which must be spent in exile from her."

Dr. Lloyd perused Isabel's farewel, and inquired if her brother's death was the only obstacle to their union.

"Yes," replied De Vallance. "I had renounced the principles in which I was educated, abjured the aggrandizement and affluence which my parents' crimes had purchased; I had her promise, sanctioned by her father's full consent, as a reward for services I was so fortunate as to render them. We were to have fled to Holland, rich in the possession of domestic happiness and decent competence, when that fatal intelligence——"

"Come, young gentleman," interrupted Dr. Lloyd, "you meditate too deeply. I see you want society. The hardships you have undergone have overwhelmed you. I must remove you to my own cottage. I keep a cordial there which I never trust out of my own custody. I see your disease, and know my remedy will complete your cure."

"Sir," returned De Vallance, "we are talking of something infinitely more important than life. I know my disease is at present trifling, the effect of anxiety acting too forcibly on a fatigued body. I could say it consoles me, as a proof that my constitution will not be always invincible to the attacks of these mental agonies; and you answer the communications which your sympathy has extorted from me on the soul-piercing subjects of my honour and my love, by telling me you have a nostrum that will relieve my head-aches, and ease my frame of this debilitating languor."

Dr. Lloyd rose, and examined the apartment to see that there were no witnesses; he then drew his chair close to De Vallance, and gazed on his emotion with the delight of a healing angel commissioned to alleviate the woes of virtue, and, grasping his hand, told him "he should see Eustace—the living Eustace," continued he. Seeing Arthur look incredulous, "Eustace Evellin is alive, and resides with me. Hush! suppress that burst of ecstacy; all our lives are at stake. Not even honest Jobson must know he lives, lest his intemperate rapture should betray him."

De Vallance was rapt in pious exultation. Exonerated from such a load of paternal guilt, he seemed to pray with more assured confidence of Divine protection. His gratitude to the worthy physician exceeded the powers of language. Enfeebled by indisposition, he sunk upon his bosom, called him a second father, and thanked him for a renewed and valuable existence.

Dr. Lloyd then briefly related the circumstances of Eustace's preservation. Either his magnanimity intimidated the executioners, or his gallantry and beauty inspired compassion. He refused to have his face covered, saying he feared not to look on death. The power of the human eye, in such circumstances, has been owned to be invincible. The volley was fired with unsteady aim. His fellow-sufferers fell dead. He stood unwounded; but a momentary impulse induced him to drop beside them, and to lie apparently lifeless, bathed in their blood. At the same instant his faithful spaniel rushed forward, licked his extended hand, and, with dreadful howlings, seemed to guard his remains; and the mutiny, excited by the agitators, broke out among the soldiers, who were drawn up to witness the horrid spectacle. While they clamorously accused the General of depriving them of their lawful right, the plunder of the town of Pembroke, and attempting to save the cavaliers, Lloyd heroically and adroitly took advantage of the tumult; and, though he had no other design than giving his corse decent internment, he had the transport to be instrumental in preserving the life of his friend. He took every wise precaution that his miraculous escape should be a profound secret. Endeared to each other by these extraordinary circumstances, they agreed never to separate; and Dr. Lloyd removed to a spot where he was unknown, supported by the income of a small inheritance, and declining the practice of medicine, except gratuitously among the indigent. Eustace cut off his redundant hair, stained his complexion, and otherwise disguised his appearance; and he passed as the son of a gentleman, who, being afflicted with mental derangement, was obliged to be kept in close retirement. Dr. Lloyd rented a neat secluded cottage; and the friends lived in decent privacy, waiting for happier times.

De Vallance now required an explanation of Fido's being seen at Worcester; and Dr. Lloyd owned that, finding it impossible to restrain the loyal impetuosity of Eustace, he went to that city to learn the situation of the King, since, if there were any hopes of a prosperous issue, he had consented that they should both join the royal standard. The Doctor further added, that he feared their present comforts could not long continue. The surrender of the Earl of Derby's Castles had introduced the rebel troops into the neighbourhood; and he dreaded lest Eustace should be discovered and recognized. They therefore meditated a voyage to Virginia; and the plan was now suspended by the anxiety of Eustace to hear some tidings from his kindred, and to acquaint them with his situation. The impossibility of sending intelligence of such importance by a public conveyance, in times when the letters and actions of royalists were subjected to the most vigilant scrutiny; and the hazard and difficulty of forwarding it by a private hand had long prevented him from having any correspondence with his family; nor did he know the anguish his supposed murder had cost them. In those times of civil contention the dearest relatives were often long ignorant of each other's fate. So numerous were the instances of cruelty, so multiplied the tales of wo, that they wearied and confused the reciter. Many parents believed their sons safe in a foreign country, who, at last they found, had long since perished in some obscure skirmish, where valour bled unshaded by its deserved laurels. Others, who had lamented the death of their dearest relations, received them back at the King's restoration, as if they had risen from their tombs. The necessity of extreme caution, the frequency of assumed names and personal disguises, and the insecurity and infrequency of written communications, obliterated the traces of identity. Among the less evils of civil war, dividing the ties and preventing the connecting intercourse of social life must be enumerated; and what opinion must those who rejoice in the conversation of a present friend, or open, with trembling delight, a letter from an absent one, form of a nation convulsed by furious discord, when the privation of these blessings is ranked only among its smaller calamities!

De Vallance had, that evening, the infinite transport of folding Eustace to his heart, in the comfortable asylum where the worthy Doctor Lloyd concealed the hope of an illustrious house, the noble victim of adverse fortune. The generous youths pledged the vows of mutual and perpetual friendship. Conversing with all the confidence of brothers, Arthur acquainted Eustace with the early history of their family, and his own determination never to reap the fruits of his parents' misdeeds. He told him how Isabel had preserved his life; related the gradual change of his political principles—their mutual attachment—her heroical devotedness to her proscribed father—the meek magnanimity and active piety of Dr. Beaumont—the arrival of Jobson—the agony of Colonel Evellin—and the deep anguish of Constantia; concluding with his own banishment from Ribblesdale, and the apparent extinction of his dearest hopes. To know that his youthful errors were not only pardoned, but that he was so dear and constant an object of regret to those he fondly adored, gave the heart of Eustace those alternations of exquisite delight and painful anxiety which distinguish generous and exalted minds from the cold equanimity of selfish apathy. Misery had often made him wish to be forgotten by all he loved; but no sooner did his misfortunes wear a less sombre hue, than his expanding heart cherished the hope that others beside himself rejoiced in the suspension of his misfortunes. He could not endure the thought of suffering these beloved objects to languish in despair on his account; and he determined to trust to his disguise, and immediately pay a visit to Lancashire. But Dr. Lloyd was too chary of the treasure he had so faithfully preserved, to intrust him to his own keeping. De Vallance and Eustace were both obnoxious to the ruling powers by having borne arms for the King; and he insisted on their continuing concealed in his Welsh cottage, while himself went to consult Dr. Beaumont upon their future measures. Emigration to America was a favourite project with all. It was hoped means might be found to remove Colonel Evellin; and the lovers allowed their imagination to form a transatlantic paradise, where, with their Constantia and Isabel, they might enjoy the halcyon blessings of domestic happiness, after having been so cruelly harassed by the storms of war. De Vallance did not now think it impossible to be reconciled to his father, or unlawful to use his mother's interest with Cromwell to procure a pardon for Colonel Evellin, whose incurable infirmities prevented his being an object of terror. Sometimes, with the sanguine confidence of a mind raised from absolute despair, he fancied a family-reconciliation might be effected; but he submitted to the prudence of Dr. Lloyd's advice, that every step must be taken with extreme caution, and dispositions sounded before discoveries should be hazarded.

The affectionate heart of Eustace would not allow that any one should suffer the misery of suspense on his account; and he pleaded so earnestly that Jobson might be allowed to see him, that Dr. Lloyd yielded, on the condition that the honest trooper should go with him to Lancashire, knowing that his exuberant transport might not be trusted in the neighbourhood where Eustace was concealed. The terror of Jobson at De Vallance's removing to the house of the supposed indefatigable anatomist was hardly relieved by seeing him return, next morning, looking well and happy. But an invitation from the Doctor to visit his cottage and see his curiosities absolutely petrified him; and he vowed he had rather see Old Noll charge at the head of Hazlerig's lobsters than dead men rattling their own bones, or poor innocent children swimming in pickle like witches in a pond. Winking on De Vallance with a look of significance, he said, "You do not know so much of this Doctor as I do; for though the whole country talks of his cures, they own he shuts himself up as if he dealt with the devil, and walks about with a melancholy gentleman who is haunted with a familiar spirit." Arthur engaged him in conversation till they imperceptibly approached the Doctor's cottage, when he first assured him of the actual existence of Fido, whom he was to be permitted to take to Constantia; and then changed incredulous astonishment to frantic joy, by pointing out the living Eustace advancing to embrace him. Jobson screamed, capered, tossed his cap into the air, clung round his former master's neck, then dropped on his knees, prayed, sobbed, and laughed, almost in the same instant. His gratitude and affection for Dr. Lloyd was somewhat allayed by his envying him the happiness of preserving Eustace, whom, he acknowledged, he loved the best of all his masters, begging De Vallance to pardon him for saying so. Yet his regard for the amiable physician was mingled with some degree of terror; and it was not till he was assured that he did not travel with any stuffed monsters, or relics from a gibbet, that he could heartily rejoice at the prospect of telling Mrs. Isabel that her lover and brother were sworn friends, of drying the tears of pretty Mrs. Constance, and of seeing the old Colonel without being hated as the bearer of ill news. But on carefully examining the wallet which Dr. Lloyd prepared for the journey, and ascertaining that, instead of astrological calculations and scalping knives, it contained only comforts and necessaries, Jobson, with renewed courage and joyous expectations, set out to accompany him on a delightful errand to Ribblesdale.

CHAP. XXII.

Those that would serve God sincerely in affluence have infinitely greater advantages and opportunities for it in adverse fortune; therefore let us set vigorously to the task that lies before us, supplying in the abundance of inward beauty what is wanting to the outward lustre of the church; and we shall not fail to find that the grots and caves lie as open to the celestial influences as the fairest and most beautiful temples.

Dr. Henry Hammond's Letters.

A painter, who is solicitous to give just representations of nature, must blend his lights and shades, and contrast vivid colours with sombre hues. The correct imitator of human life must also alternately introduce joys and sorrows. Is it the langour of unwarrantable depression, the indulged caprice of fastidious sensibility, or a more intimate acquaintance with the dark colourings of disappointment than with the sunshine of prosperity, which induces the conclusion, that the likeness to reality will be more faithfully preserved if a sombre tinge predominates in the fictitious narrative that paints the trials of highly honourable and susceptible minds? The refinement which inspires liberal desires and generous motives exposes its possessor to a more lively feeling of the injuries inflicted by envy, selfishness, and duplicity. The golden dreams of ingenuous candour and conscious ability are rarely realized, and acute perception and high-minded integrity, though most propitious to the growth of every virtue, seem to be the choice fruits of heaven which, in the austere climate of this lower world, require shelter and protection.

It is not murmuring against the wisdom or justice of Providence to admit, that in a probationary state the most perfect characters are they who have been purified by "much tribulation, and through faith and patience inherit the promises." The instrument used in this ordeal is generally our brother-man. Yet, while with hope and confidence, we look forward to a glorious issue of temporal affliction in eternal glory, let us beware of unfitting ourselves for the future recompence by extreme resentment against those who are the agents that Almighty Wisdom uses to improve us. Let us not attribute to malice and cruelty what may be referred to less criminal motives. Do we not often afflict others undesignedly, and, from mere carelessness, neglect to relieve distress? Our own concerns, interests, and wishes engross our thoughts. Nothing is so important to us as forwarding our own aims; and our fellow-creatures are too often but inconvenient lumber if they stand in our way, or merely useful implements if they forward our designs. It is from a want of attention to the feelings of others, from a neglect of the golden rule of putting ourselves in their place, and not from innate malice or a diabolical delight in giving pain, that the sorrows caused by domestic tyrants and puny oppressors chiefly proceed. Were self-love reduced within proper bounds, earth would resemble heaven. Let those, then, who deeply feel those "wrongs which patient merit of the unworthy takes," temper their aspirations after a state where universal good-will is the source and cement of bliss, by cultivating that excellent preparative for its fruition, a spirit of active, enlarged, and considerate benevolence.

These reflections will not unaptly precede the return of Lady Bellingham from her northern expedition. It never was the practice of Cromwell to render any one disrespect while his services could be useful, or till he was prepared to prevent the effects of his enmity. While the success of the King remained doubtful, he wished not to make himself any more enemies; and at the same time that he restrained and mulcted the Presbyterians, he endeavoured to persuade them to make common cause with the fanatics. He received Lady Bellingham (who was the avowed patroness of the latter) with much apparent respect, and at the same time he wrote kindly to her Lord, promising that his party should be admitted to a share in the government as soon as he could let the dove out of the ark to fetch the olive branch, which could not be the case as long as the floods of ungodliness covered the earth. He styled himself the servant of the Commonwealth, and the assured friend of Lord Bellingham; but nothing was further from Cromwell's heart than an intention of realizing these promises. His only aim was to pacify and amuse his opponents till he gained leisure to play his own game. He loaded Lady Bellingham with flattering expressions, selected her to stand by his side, when, as he called it, he rose in the congregation of the saints to give the word of exhortation, and appealed to her as the judge and expounder of his spiritual gifts. These, he observed, were all the refreshing attentions which the necessity of pursuing the host of Sisera allowed him to pay to the Deborah of the English Israel, except permitting her to reside in Bellingham-Castle, and to plead his friendship and protection.

The victory at Worcester was of that decided nature, which enabled Cromwell to throw off the mask, to dissolve that pantomime of a Parliament in whose name he had hitherto governed, and to assume the title of "Protector of the liberties of England." He now exercised a more despotic tyranny than this nation suffered either from her Danish or Norman conquerors. He confined the elective franchise to himself, creating what he called Parliaments for the sole purpose of making them ridiculous, and then turning out his mock-legislators with contempt. He alternately punished and provoked every party; even his own agents and creatures could not escape his apprehensive suspicions, which, by indulgence, engendered an insatiable thirst of blood. Yet, combining great qualities with the meanest vices—the policy of an Augustus and the enterprize of a Trajan with the dissimulation of Tiberius and the cruelty of Domitian, he at once awed and dazzled surrounding nations, and while he subjugated, exalted his own. Never was England more respected than when unlimited power, undaunted courage, and persevering activity placed all her resources in the hands of a man who, scarcely ranked by birth in the patrician order, could make every European sovereign tremble on his throne. Yet still, like the mystical sun in the Apocalypse, tormenting others while he was himself tormented, the era of his assuming power was the consummation of his extreme misery. He waded through seas of blood; he broke every divine and human obligation; he made the name of liberty a terror, and that of religion contemptible, to become himself a more pitiable object than the veriest wretches whom he inhumed in his prisons. They had some who sympathized in their sufferings, some who wished them God speed; but though the civilized world trembled at the name of Cromwell, he knew he had spies, creatures, and parasites, but not one friend.

Yet amidst this secret wretchedness and universal odium, the distant reflex of his name and authority was respected by all. Lady Bellingham found her reception very different, as the Protector's friend, in her return through England, than when she fled to Scotland an alarmed fugitive. Conscious of former remissness, Morgan met her at Lancaster, and earnestly entreated she would repose some days at Saint's-Rest after the fatigue of her journey. The alarm and mortification she had endured in that neighbourhood made her recollect the village with disgust; but there were some mysteries which she wished him to explain. Nursery tales affirm, that Puss, when converted into a fine lady, retained her old propensity of catching mice; and though Lady Bellingham was transformed from a fine lady into a devotee, the renovating spirit of true religion had not altered her temper or inclinations; there was the same waywardness in the former, the same cold selfishness in the latter. While she raved at formal and legal Christians, she was herself the true formalist, presuming on superior merit from the length of her devotional exercises, her rigid austerities, and the sums she expended in spreading her peculiar notions. But she came out of her closet to make her inmates and dependants wretched; her fasting-days were unsanctified through moroseness, and beside that, her gifts were too much confined to party-purposes to be entitled to the praise of charity; ostentation blew the trumpet before her alms, and she had the reward she sought, in the praise of men.

To return from the description to the illustration of this not uncommon character. It happened one evening, as the Countess was anticipating the joys of Heaven, by an analogy drawn from the delights which Bellingham-Castle afforded, and which she supposed would there be increased in an infinite ratio, that her humble companion ventured to recall her imagination to this world, by producing what she thought a very pretty poem on the subject of love, which she found in their chamber at the miserable old delinquent's at Ribblesdale. Lady Bellingham shook her head at the name of love, commanded Mrs. Abigail to avoid the sinful subject, and to expiate the offence by reading fifty pages of "a popular fanatical treatise."

As the waiting-gentlewoman retired to perform the penance, Lady Bellingham commanded her to leave the paper that she might destroy it. But though the word Love was dangerous to a tyro in Antinomianism, the situation of the initiated is very different; to the former all things are sinful, but the latter being free from the law, and above ordinances, have a large licence. Valuing herself now only on her spiritual graces, Lady Bellingham opened the profane legend, which, she expected, described personal attractions; and to her astonishment recognized the writing of her son, of whom she had heard no certain tidings since the battle of Preston, but who was supposed, both by Cromwell and herself, to be in the north of Ireland, where an officer of the same name had gained celebrity. The date proved that he had been a resident in Dr. Beaumont's family; no name was prefixed, but the lines breathed a permanent attachment, to which, after some resistance, he had entirely surrendered his heart.

Ruminating on these lines, and recollecting the mild dutiful behaviour of Constantia, she could not help supposing that melancholy beauty to be the object of her son's attachment. She had sufficiently interested her to inquire the reason of her mournful appearance, and learned that she had lost her lover in the civil wars. Could that lover have been her son? Could the figures she had seen sitting among the ruins, and which she was persuaded were not human, be sent as supernatural omens to indicate Sedley's death. It was happy for her unsettling reason, that at the moment when this terrific thought shot across her brain, she recollected, whatever her early misdemeanors might have been, she was now in a safe state, and had wiped off all offences to her brother, even supposing any had been committed. Yet she grew uneasy to hear of her son, and wished she had been more particular in her inquiries as to the certainty of his being in Ireland. I have already stated that maternal affection had no part in her character. The manner in which she treated Arthur prevented frequent intercourse. Hearing that a Colonel Sedley was distinguished by his cruelty to the Catholics at the taking of Fredagh and Drogheda, she had trusted that it was her son now become warm in the good cause to which she had devoted him. The date of this poem shewed that he was in Lancashire, indulging very different sentiments at the time of those bloody victories, and it was her perplexity on this point which made her give Morgan an affable reception.

She soon discovered, that though he had lately forborn persecuting the Beaumonts, he retained the most inveterate enmity to the whole family. She drew from him all the information it was in his power to give respecting her son's residence at Ribblesdale; the assistance he received from the Beaumonts when at the point of death, and his sudden disappearance. Morgan was unacquainted with his change of sentiments and attachment to Isabel, who, having been long secreted with her father, was believed to be dead, and had been too insignificant and humble to draw the attention of so important a personage as Morgan. His communications confirmed Lady Bellingham in the belief that she had seen an apparition of her brother, indicative of her son's death, and that Constantia, who mourned a widowed love, had been the object of his ill-placed affections.

Full of apprehension, destitute alike of delicacy, gratitude, and candour, and disposed, from her political feelings, to ascribe every bad passion and action to the royalists, a thought struck her that poverty might have tempted the old delinquent to murder her son; and the suspicion grew to certainty, when the most minute inquiries could give no information of him subsequent to his receiving a large remittance from his tenants the week before he was last seen at Ribblesdale. Her humble attendants, on hearing her opinion, protested that nothing was ever more probable. The chaplain expatiated on the vices of the episcopal clergy, and cited the words of that-then-popular writer, Martin Mar-prelate, to prove them guilty of the greatest offences, not excepting even theft and murder. The gentleman-usher found damning proofs of extreme poverty in all the arrangements of the Beaumonts, and the waiting-gentlewoman could no otherwise account for the deep melancholy of Constantia, than by supposing her lover had been murdered by her father, whose pale care-worn features bore, in her opinion, the character of an assassin.

Having wrought her mind to this conclusion, Lady Bellingham sent again for her confidant Morgan, who, beside his aversion to one whom he had long felt to be a troublesome neighbour, had now particular reasons for appearing zealously inclined to serve the Protector and his friends. He advised Lady Bellingham to state the loss of her son to His Highness, and procure his order for the Doctor's arrest, adding, that even if innocent of this accusation, the imprisonment of one, who as an irreclaimable royalist, deserved punishment, was no breach of justice. He assured Her Ladyship, that her son's long residence in a disaffected family, had not occasioned the smallest change in his opinions, but that he showed his zeal for the good old cause, by informing him of all the proceedings and councils of the delinquents that came to his knowledge; and he feared, as he was missing a little time before Charles Stewart's attempt on Scotland, his having penetrated into that design precipitated their bloody purposes. His communications shaped the fluctuating purposes of Lady Bellingham into a most determinate and diabolical resolve, and she returned to London with the heart of an "Atè hot from hell," and the aspect of a Niobe.

She now presented herself before the Protector and his council, as a distracted mother, ignorant of the fate of her only son, and praying for a minute investigation of the mysterious business. A request from the patroness of the fanatics imperatively demanded attention. Several of their leaders were her devoted friends, and the fine qualities of young Sedley had really attracted Cromwell's notice, who, though he was incapable of loving virtue and honour, ever wished to engage them in his service. It is but justice to the Usurper's administration to say, that, except when his government or personal security were concerned, he was an impartial and vigorous administrator of the criminal laws, never sparing rank, or shielding greatness. But though justice thus beamed on those who had not made themselves conspicuous by their principles, a known royalist could not expect her smiles, a warrant was therefore dispatched to apprehend Dr. Beaumont, and Morgan was charged with its execution.

About this time that unhappy family were reduced to the last stage of pecuniary distress. Their good friend Barton was still in confinement, persecuted with the most inveterate hatred by Lady Bellingham's party, and as his revenue was sequestered, no remittances could come from that quarter. At the death of Farmer Humphreys, the church-land he had occupied was taken from his widow, who was now fallen into decay, and unable to assist the necessitous pastor she so truly revered. The provision which the revolutionary government pretended to make to the ejected ministers, was at best irregularly supplied, and often totally withheld. The infirmities of Colonel Evellin engrossing the whole time of Isabel, no fund could be raised from her industry, and with prompt though perhaps imprudent loyalty Dr. Beaumont had sent the sum left by De Vallance to the King's assistance when he made the last unsuccessful effort to obtain his crown. Want, therefore, appeared before their eyes in all its horrors; the produce of their cow and their garden, added to the kind attentions of the villagers, were their sole support.

It was impossible to conceal their difficulties from Evellin, who now earnestly prayed that death would relieve his generous friend from the burden of his support. The firm and patient Isabel could no longer divert him from these sad exclamations. She could not modulate her voice to a song, nor attempt to engage his attention by reciting a tale of other times. She threw her eyes upon the ground in silence, as if wishing to measure out his grave, and one where she might sleep in peace beside him.

They were roused from the passive depression of poverty by the awakening call of imminent danger to the person of him who, in all their former trials, had acted as their guardian angel to avert or mitigate calamity. Morgan delivered, without any ceremony, to Dr. Beaumont an order to attend the council of state in London, as a prisoner. The Doctor declared himself ready to pay a quick obedience to the existing government in all lawful cases, but stated his extreme penury and the utter destitution of his family. The rigid frugality of their habits was known; and Morgan, now assuming an inquisitorial air, demanded what became of the moiety of the fifth allowed to the expelled ministers, which he had last received. Dr. Beaumont was taken by surprize, and before he could parry the impertinence of the question, was charged by Morgan with sending pecuniary aid to Charles Stewart. This was now a crime against the state, for which many suffered. Dr. Beaumont asked if this was the business on which he was summoned to London, and Morgan, knowing that it was determined to take him by surprize respecting the charge of assassinating De Vallance, answered sternly, that for this and various other misdemeanors he must be examined before the council.

No heart that had not been steeled by malevolence against all the better feelings of humanity, could have resisted the cries and supplications of Constantia, intreating that she might accompany her father; but Morgan, recollecting that she in the pride of beauty had disdainfully rejected his offer of marriage, took a savage pleasure in witnessing her affliction. To see the sorrows of his darling child excite derision instead of pity and respect, consummated Dr. Beaumont's anguish. Taking Constantia aside, he gave her his parting blessing, with a fervour that recalled his own firmness, and imparted consolation to her. He reminded her how much her aunt, Evellin, and Isabel, must now depend upon her exertions. He doubted not but commiseration for his misfortunes would increase the benevolence of the villagers, and he intreated her to recollect, that as her lamentations were unavailing, fortitude and patient endurance were the only means to subdue the malice of their enemies. He recurred to his favourite argument, that an oppressor is merely an instrument of chastisement in the hand of Almighty goodness, whose ultimate purposes are all mercy and wisdom. A tyrant's wrath cannot pass its prescribed bounds; no earthly power can take us out of the omnipotent hands of our Creator; nor will He ever fail those who firmly trust in His care, and sincerely obey His precepts. "Courage, my child," said he, as he kissed her pale cold cheek, "I have committed no crimes either against the state or any individual: I shall soon be allowed to return. This affliction is the trial of your faith, not the punishment of my guilt."

Dr. Beaumont did not venture to visit his concealed friend, but the lamentations of the villagers, who surrounded their departing pastor with tears and blessings, added to the distress of Isabel, soon informed Colonel Evellin that his revered protector was seized by the strong gripe of power. He insisted on accompanying him to London as a fellow-prisoner, protesting he was ready to defy Cromwell, accuse Bellingham, and die. Isabel had sufficient strength to prevent the immediate execution of this rash purpose. "O think," said she, "that by so doing, you will not only sacrifice yourself, but also my uncle. The very act of having concealed you is punishable with death. For the sake of our best and kindest friend, a little longer exercise that fortitude and patience which have been my support through years of apprehension and calamity. Let not my long services within this narrow recess lose at last the desired reward of saving a parent, more dear and precious from his undeserved calamities."

"Shall I perish for want, immured in this gloomy tenement?" said Evellin, wildly. "When my friend is gone, who will provide a covering for this wretched body, or food to sustain it?—Have I not told thee, girl, that De Vallance basks in luxurious state at Bellingham-Castle; and I would sooner perish in a lazar-house than beg my bread of him? Dost thou not know his blood-hounds yet surround these ruins, and that it is Beaumont only who has kept them from my war-worn trunk."

"Dearest father," resumed Isabel, "I can keep off the blood-hounds, and will daily lead you forth to enjoy the warm sun-beams. Fear not; but trust in that Providence who feeds the young ravens. How wonderful was its preservation of our King when hunted from forest to forest by his merciless foes! The wants of nature are few and small. See how your despair makes me weep. Oh, for the sake of my mother's memory, dry the tears of your orphan girl."

In this manner did Isabel try to console the man of many sorrows, but he had taken his resolution, and even when most composed, would not be diverted from his purpose of following Dr. Beaumont to London, that he might be ready to confront his enemies, or to share his fate. Mrs. Mellicent was consulted on the subject, and she thought this determination should not be opposed. It had been already agreed upon, that Constantia should follow her father, and attend him in confinement; and it was now settled, that Isabel and Evellin should privately accompany her. Disguised as beggars, they were removed out of the village, and being joined by Williams and Constantia, proceeded towards London as fast as their destitute condition admitted.

They had left Waverly-Hall some weeks, when Dr. Lloyd and Jobson arrived to communicate tidings which they thought would change the house of mourning to the abode of happiness. But no sound or sight indicated that these lonely ruins now afforded shelter to man. No trace of inhabitants was visible.—No monarch of the feathered brood was heard aloud to crow; no smoke rising from the chimney announced the preparation of the homely, but social meal. Jobson entered at the unresisting door; the furniture, like the family, had disappeared. He ventured into the secret chamber, that too was vacant; nothing remained but the couch on which the noble veteran had stretched his palsied frame, and, magnanimously enduring his own anguish, descanted on the arduous duties of a soldier.

"Ah, worthy Doctor," said the dismayed Jobson, "those confounded Roundheads have caught him at last. Here are some of the tatters of his poor old roque-laure, and the woollen cap Mrs. Isabel used to draw over his head so carefully. Here she used to kneel by his side, say her prayers, and sometimes sing in such a sweet low voice; and then the Colonel would kiss her, and tell her she would kill herself with watching him. But when she crept through that little arch to go away, he would look at her as if his soul was parting from his body. And then she would come back again, and say she had not shaken hands with the honest trooper, (meaning me,) and would whisper me, to keep up his spirits; and so they would trifle away half the night."—"'Serjeant,' the Colonel used to say to me, bless his good heart! though I never was more than a corporal, 'that girl has the courage of a lion.' 'Aye, and as cunning as a fox too,' I used to answer. 'She is beautiful as an angel,' he went on; 'Did you ever see such eyes?'—'Never but my first sweetheart's, Sally Malkins,' said I. But then he turned gruff, and would say, 'Pshaw!' for he never could be pleased with any body praising Mrs. Isabel, but himself and that make-believe good young Lord with a wicked father."

While Dr. Lloyd deliberated how to proceed, an aged woman appeared in sight, with a basket on her arm, seemingly employed in gathering herbs. "St. George be my speed!" exclaimed Jobson; "Can that be Madam Mellicent? Ah, sure enough it is her sharp wrinkled face: I never thought she would bend her stiff joints, or walk in the dirt without her riding-hood." Dr. Lloyd offered to go and accost her. "Not for your life," replied Jobson; "she never would forgive me for letting you catch her thus out of sorts. Stop behind that buttress, and I'll go and tell her there is some company coming, and when she has put on her pinners and facings, she will be very glad to see you."

Mrs. Mellicent's appearance was too indicative of profound dejection for Dr. Lloyd to believe she would require any introductory ceremonials. He ventured to salute her with an abrupt assurance, that he was a warm friend of her family, intrusted with a welcome and important communication. Mrs. Mellicent fixed her eyes upon him with that look of inquisitorial diffidence which those who have long been familiarized with distress and injustice, bestow on the dawn of better days. "I can hardly suspect," said she, "that you are one of those who find amusement in sporting with the feelings of the unhappy. You see in me the forlorn relic of a respectable family, now supported by those who were fed at its gates in the days of my prosperity. Yet as far as I can, I try to be independent; and my knowledge in medicine allows me to alleviate the pains of those who shelter my grey hairs.—My brother, his daughter, and the sole surviving child of a beloved sister, now in Heaven, are at this moment exposed to the dreadful trial of Republican persecution. Poverty chains me to this spot, where I drew my first breath, and where, if those I love are sacrificed, I hope soon to close my eyes on sorrow." "You have," said Dr. Lloyd, "omitted to name another strong tie which should bind you to life. You have a brave and gallant nephew, who loves and honours the maternal aunt, who checked his extravagancies and fostered his virtues."

"Eustace Evellin!" returned the good Lady, while her eyes filled with tears, "Did you know him, Sir?—The murderous insurgents cut him off at Pembroke in cold blood. That is their usual method; they only spare useless logs like myself—a withered blasted tree, stripped of all its branches, fit only to sustain the trophies of their accursed triumph. How long, Lord, how long!" continued she, wringing her hands and looking up to Heaven.

Dr. Lloyd now cautiously informed her of the almost miraculous escape of Eustace, and the lively interest he took in his preservation. He added an account of the dangers of De Vallance, and assured her, that he had left them both in his cottage, as safe and happy as English Loyalists could be, while their country groaned under the yoke of Cromwell. The fortitude, nay even the corporeal strength of Mrs. Mellicent, revived at the recital; her own necessities were forgotten, and she scarcely lamented that she had not now a house to welcome, or even the widow's barley-cake to bestow on, the kind protector of the generous youths whom she so fondly loved. Every regret was lost in the prospect of better times, in the future happiness of Constantia and Isabel, in the restoration of the Neville line, and the adoption of the amiable De Vallance into its unpolluted branch. Only one life appeared to stand in the way of their felicity:—Remove the stern Usurper, a penitent nation, weary of oppression, would joyfully welcome back its exiled Sovereign. What might not the Beaumonts and the Nevilles hope from the justice of a Prince for whom they had bled and suffered! Such agreeable reveries as these supported Mrs. Mellicent's spirits during that long period of suspense, in which (for fiction must not anticipate the slow progress of history) she expected their realization. And if hope invested the enlivening phantom of royal gratitude in too gorgeous colours, may we not bless, rather than censure, the fortunate delusion? We are to consider, that the venerable spinster having passed her days in privacy, was ignorant of the chicanery of courts, and disposed to believe, that honour, gratitude, and sincerity, are the inseparable concomitants of illustrious birth. She herself never forgot either her benefactors or her enemies; and she knew not how early Princes are taught to consider the sacrifice of life and fortune as positive debts due to them from their subjects. She was not aware how often expediency compels them to smile on a potent enemy, and to overlook an inefficient friend; how necessary it is for them to employ, as instruments, the able and enterprising, rather than the amiable; and in fine, how much more apt the great are to shower their favours on those whom they oblige by unexpected munificence, than to discharge the claims of justice; to seek praise for liberality, instead of being contented with the merit resulting from a mere performance of duty.

To return; the account which Mrs. Mellicent gave of the persecution raised by the Oliverian government, determined Dr. Lloyd to prevent either of his young friends from becoming its victim. They both recollected the anxiety of the late King to remove his heir beyond the power of his rebel subjects, as soon as he found it was impossible for himself to escape; and that he even considered the preservation of the Prince as a security for his own life. The event refuted that conclusion; but it was owing to this forecast that the prayers and hopes of Englishmen could still follow the princely fugitive. Whether he was shrouded in the oak at Boscobel-wood, or coldly frowned on by the courts of France and Spain, England saw, in the lineal heir of her monarchy, a pledge of the future restoration of her civil and ecclesiastical constitution, and a guarantee to individuals against sequestrators and informers. The same judicious measures which had preserved the Royal sapling when the parent-tree was felled, should be resorted to for the safety of an illustrious private family; and Dr. Lloyd agreed to hurry back to North Wales, and remove his precious charge to some more auspicious clime, before they heard of the imprisonment of Dr. Beaumont. Virginia was objected to on account of its distance from the scene of action. The power of Cromwell, so resistless in the centre of his government, was somewhat relaxed in its more remote dependencies; and the island of Jersey was pointed out as a spot where Eustace and De Vallance ran less hazard of being recognized by Cromwell's officers.

Loyalty was at this time a bond of endearment which united apparent strangers; Mrs. Mellicent had an intimacy, in her early days, with a lady who was now wife to one of the most respectable merchants at St. Helier. He was one who, though faithful to the King, had preserved such an ostensible moderation in his conduct as to avoid offending his enemies; consequently, he had it in his power to assist those braver spirits that had withstood the storm, and now required shelter. A friendly intimation of remembrance, and an offer of aid had been transmitted by this Lady to Mrs. Mellicent, and she advised Dr. Lloyd to fix his abode in that island, under the character of a medical gentleman, travelling with two pupils, who were to study physic at Leyden, but were required, by their infirm constitutions, to establish their health in a salubrious climate, before they encountered the morasses and fogs of Holland.

Dr. Lloyd was not a friend by halves; he was willing to devote the remainder of his life and fortune to the service of these interesting and deserving young men. He wrote a brief account of the preservation of Eustace and the safety of De Vallance, and Jobson was sent with the welcome communication to London, to lighten the woes of their affectionate and unhappy friends. Dr. Lloyd returned to Wales with the utmost celerity. He avoided explaining the distressed state of the family, contenting himself with assuring Eustace and De Vallance that Colonel Evellin was alive, and that Isabel and Constance were faithful to their vows. The plan of emigration to America must, he said, be abandoned, as it was impossible for the family to remove; but as the preservation of their lives, in some degree depended on the concealment of Eustace, it became necessary they should avoid the rigid scrutiny which Cromwell was now making after obnoxious Loyalists, by removing to a retreat where, though the royal banner was not permitted to fly, the inhabitants were allowed to remain in a sort of peaceable neutrality.

CHAP. XXIII.

When the sword is drawn, and the power of the strongest is to decide, you talk in vain of equity and moderation; those virtues always belong to the conquerors. Thus it has happened to the Cheruscans: they were formerly called just and upright; at present they are called fools and knaves. Victory has transferred every virtue to their masters; and oppression takes the name of wisdom.

Murphy's Tacitus.

It was not the practice of Cromwell to bring to a speedy trial those state-prisoners against whom he could produce no positive proof of the offence with which they were charged. Though the palaces of the degraded bishops and exiled nobility were, during this reign of terror in England, converted into places of confinement, the prisons continued crowded with victims. Judges and juries were too slow and uncertain in their proceedings to be permitted to decide on the fate of those whom the Protector of the liberties of England had pre-ordained to death or captivity. High courts of justice were occasionally erected, and summary modes of trial resorted to, which the ancient laws of the realm reprobated or disavowed. By these the Tyrant freed himself from those more obnoxious enemies who had taken arms against his authority; but the objects of his suspicious fear, whose enmity he knew, and whose ability he dreaded, still remained in close confinement. The crime of some was having concealed Loyalists; many were shut up for sending remittances to the King abroad, or for having shown him some mark of respect and allegiance while he was in England. The presbyterians suffered for lamenting the fall of the Long-parliament, and inveighing against the present tyranny; the Fifth-Monarchy-men, for expecting the reign of King Jesus; the Levellers, for requiring Agrarian laws and the equalization of property. The conduct of Cromwell had disgusted the whole body of sectaries as well as the stanch Republicans. "Anabaptists, Independents, and Quakers conceived an implacable hatred against him; and, whilst they contrived how to raise a power to contend with him, they likewise entered into plots for his assassination." These plots, and the libellous writings by which they excited insurrection, continually agitated the mind of Cromwell; for as his new enemies were not restrained by those principles which prevented most of his old ones from resorting to indirect modes of warfare, cutting off one daring villain added nothing to his security, but rather stimulated that faction to vengeance. He had now humbled and disappointed all parties, and could no longer play one against another. No one was attached to him; even those who had gone equal lengths in guilt only clung to him as a pledge for their own security. Mercy and lenity had no effect on those with whom he now contended. Lilburn, who may be considered as an epitome of the fanatical opponents of Cromwell, "had wrought himself to a marvellous inclination and appetite to suffer in the defence, or for the vindication of any oppressed truth." To men who courted persecution, who gloried in personal suffering, and to whom, connecting their cause with that of the Almighty, all measures seemed allowable which their humours suggested—the axe and the gallows displayed no terrors; and it was as impossible to oblige as it was to intimidate them. They despised temporal possessions, and braced their iron-nerves with misapplications of the texts and examples of Scripture, believing that, in performing the actions of banditti, they were proving themselves to be chosen captains of the host of the Lord.

As the labours of the itinerant preachers already described had converted thousands of the lower orders into ignorant and desperate, and, it might be added, insane, enthusiasts, a mind less indefatigable than Cromwell's would have been wholly engrossed in securing his person and government from their violence and hostile machinations; but his fear of his new enemies did not make him forget his hatred of his old ones. The fanatical conspirators and insurgents being more inimical to the general good sense of the nation, he often submitted them to the ordinary courts of justice, contenting himself (as in the case of Lilburn) with making acquittal issue in more rigorous imprisonment, when a jury had the presumption to decide in favour of a prisoner whom the Protector had resolved to punish. Desirous of conciliating the good opinion of well-informed people, he preserved the fountain of justice uncontaminated. The judges who presided in the several courts were in general an honour to their country; and many of them (especially the immortal Hale) accepted the office, in order to be better able to restrain oppression, "knowing that in every form of government justice must be administered between man and man, and offenders against the universal laws of society punished." By such judges, a Gerrard, a Hewet, a Hyde, and other illustrious Loyalists, would not have been condemned. Against such persons, therefore, Cromwell was compelled to rearrange his pantomimic High Court of Justice, that contemptible but bloody engine, by which he had destroyed the King and the nobles, and to whose authority, as anomalous to the constitution, his victims generally refused to submit, and were thus condemned without any public discussion.

Had Cromwell determined to try Dr. Beaumont for sending pecuniary assistance to the King (an offence which he had the means of proving), he would have immediately collected his creatures and erected one of these executive courts; but if the suspicion of assassinating an officer, who bore a parliamentary commission, could be supported by stronger proofs than the accusation of Lady Bellingham, and the probabilities suggested by Morgan, he need not fear permitting justice to mount her regular seat, and hold her balance in the public eye. No charge of cruelty or persecution could then be brought against him; and the public odium would be transferred to the episcopalians and Loyalists. He attended the first examination of the Doctor before the Council of State, on the ostensible accusation of assisting the King, and saw, in his behaviour, an enlightened opposer of tyranny, and a conscientious adherent to the old government. Such a man, he resolved, should either be cut off, or prevented from doing him any injury. The best policy, therefore, was to defer his trial, and to send down some active emissaries to Ribblesdale to examine minutely into his past conversation, and discover whether any ground of accusation existed against him. At least to ascertain that Sedley had really been cut off, and that Dr. Beaumont had no evidence to disprove his being concerned in the transaction.

Dr. Beaumont was therefore remanded into close confinement. His family had gathered round him, and were supported by the generous contributions of those Loyalists who had hitherto escaped persecution, but made a common cause with their suffering brethren, and liberally ministered to their distresses. Colonel Evellin was concealed in an obscure lodging near the Marshalsea, where Dr. Beaumont was imprisoned. Constantia and Isabel, with patient fortitude, ministered to their respective fathers, while Williams carried on a confidential intercourse with the noble and worthy friends by whom they were supported. Some of these were in the confidence of Lord Falconberg, the accepted lover of one of Cromwell's daughters, and who was thought by many to have sought that alliance with the view of mediating for the persecuted victims to a cause which himself and his family had ever decidedly espoused.

Affairs were in this situation when Jobson arrived in London, and produced Dr. Lloyd's letter, which, confirmed by his own testimony, fully verified the existence of Eustace, the safety of De Vallance, and their welfare and comparative happiness. What a weight of anguish was removed from these amiable victims of tyranny by the intelligence! Imprisonment, poverty, dependence, personal infirmity, were all supportable evils. But for a complete exemplification of the extreme limit of human misery, we must look to the oppressor, not to the oppressed; to Cromwell, galled by the armour worn under his robes of state to defend his person from the expected dagger of a murderer, and not to Dr. Beaumont, languishing for want of the common blessings which freedom bestows, or to Evellin, an aged cripple in the lonely confined chamber of poverty. Cromwell had no daughter who revered his virtues, and cheered his pensive contemplations with the assurance that the righteous sufferer was under the peculiar protection of Heaven. Most of his daughters were strongly attached to the royal cause. The wife of Fleetwood (his eldest) was a furious Republican; Desborough, his brother-in-law, was a Leveller; and his eldest son was incompetent to receive that weight of usurped greatness which he wished to bequeath him. Such was the domestic situation of the man at whose frown Europe trembled. Ever in dread of assassins and conspirators, vexed by family-broils, his nearest connexions hostile to his views, without solace from public care, or sympathy in private distress.

The preservation of his son seemed to bestow on Colonel Evellin a new existence. He was never weary of listening to the particulars of his escape. Again and again he required Jobson to repeat the assurance, that he had actually held in his arms the living Eustace; the determined martyr to loyalty and truth; the brave, conspicuous, honourable soldier; his own dear son, not a traitor to his King or his love, but all that he could wish a true Neville to be, except in his misfortunes. It seemed a double resurrection to life, and to unclouded fame. And was it possible he might again see him at his feet craving his blessing? Should his hand rest upon his head, while, with a prophetic ardour, he predicted a race of worthies that should spring from him—future heroes, patriots, and faithful subjects, alike tenacious of their Sovereign's rights and of the claims of their countrymen. What were privations, infirmities, and restraints to a mind animated with these glorious hopes? He limped on his staff round his narrow room, lest his limbs should grow too contracted to visit every apartment in Bellingham-Castle. He partook of his frugal meal, and talked of the joyous regales he would provide for his tenantry. He was no longer the existing root of a tree that had been hewn down; one fatal shot had not smitten his Eustace, and doomed his Isabel to remain a vestal mourner over her brother's grave. De Vallance and Eustace were now cementing that bond of virtuous friendship which would distinguish them in happier times; and those times would soon return. The generous feelings of English nobles would not long endure the national degradation. They had taught the Norman Conqueror to venerate their ancient rights. They had resisted every attempt of the princely house of Plantagenet to sink subjects into vassals. The First Edward, great in council and in arms, found his people alike invincible in the field, whether they followed his banner under an Asian or a Northern sky, or opposed his violation of their chartered rights! Could a nation, which would only pay a constitutional obedience to a Beauclerk or a Cœur de Lion, which served, not submitted to, the heroes of Cressy and of Agincourt, long writhe under the scorpion-lash of despotism wielded by a low Usurper, whose manners and sentiments were inimical to the general tone of the English character—a man pre-eminent in fraud and hypocrisy, and ignorant of the lively yearnings of humanity.

"My girl," Evellin would often say to Isabel, "the King must be re-instated on his throne, or England will fall from her rank among the nations. The standard of public morals must be reduced, the mode of thinking be changed, the very aspect of Englishmen undergo a revolution before the race of this upstart Despot can take root in this island. We have been accustomed to look up to our governors as great and good; at least they were surrounded by a blaze of ancestry and dignity of manners congenial to our feelings of the prescriptive claims of hereditary rights. We must be all mercenary soldiers, wild fanatics, pensioned informers, or feudal serfs toiling for daily bread, ere we can patiently endure this revolting system of jealousy and suspicion—this cold, selfish scheme of trick and expedient. Astonishment and terror may awhile paralyze the national spirit; the remembered miseries of civil war may render the phantom of peace so alluring as to induce many to call a deleterious intoxication felicity. But unless Cromwell can obliterate every record of what Englishmen were in past ages—unless he can make us forget the education, opinions, and hopes of our youth—the labours, sorrows, and wrongs of our riper years—his meanness and his crimes;—never—never can the British lion crouch at an Usurper's form, or the red-cross banner wave graceful over a traitor's head."

Colonel Evellin was roused from these agreeable reveries by a painful communication from Williams. The means of access which the royalists now had to Cromwell's councils enabled them to discover that the vigilance of Morgan had brought together so many charges against Dr. Beaumont, that there seeming no chance of his escaping condemnation, it was resolved to bring him to trial. Williams could not distinctly make out the crimes with which he was charged, except that he assisted the late and present King with money; that he used the Liturgy and Church ceremonies with such slight alterations as did not prevent their continuing to be that "form of words" and "will-worship" which were forbidden to saints; added to this, he prayed for Charles Stewart; and further, there were secret counsels and mysterious contrivances in the family. A private chamber had also been found, which, it was evident, had been used for the purpose of concealing malignants. The safety of the state required that these practices should be searched into, and that Dr. Beaumont should be tried for contumacy to the government.

This was all Williams could discover; but beside this open attack, there was a mine ready to be sprung for the Doctor's destruction. Lord Bellingham had now lain several years in confinement. His party was believed to be subdued, and his own reputation was so tarnished that he was become quite innoxious. Overtures were now made to him, that he should be restored to liberty, and to a part of his possessions; but it was hinted at the same time that it would show his acquiescence with the existing government if he would take an active part against an atrocious royalist. The sudden and mysterious disappearance of his son (of whom he had heard no tidings since the battle of Preston) was mentioned; and it was soon understood that it was expected he should bring the charge of assassination against Dr. Beaumont, and thus remove all odium from Cromwell. Solitude and confinement had wrought no salutary change on this wretched man's disposition. His prison-hours were occupied by regrets for the past, distaste at the present, and fears for the future. His affections clung fondly to the wealth and title he had lost; nor could his guilty soul disrobe itself "of those lendings" which vitiated its spiritual essence. If he were again placed in Bellingham-Castle he would repent. He would then devote a large proportion of his dearly-purchased estate to charitable purposes; he would seek for Allan Neville and his daughter; were they alive, he would make them happy, or at least place them in affluence; he would erect a monument to the gallant Eustace; he would employ his future life in pious duties; in fine, if restored to the enjoyment of the unrighteous Mammon, he would use it in securing an everlasting inheritance. No angel whispered, "Begin the mighty labour now;" no renovating change took place in his desires. The hour of contrition and repentance was deferred with procrastinating insincerity. Can we then wonder that the man who, in his youth, sacrificed honour and friendship to purchase worldly grandeur, should, in his age, again impawn his conscience for liberty and ease? or that, though he had indeed often deplored the supposed necessity of murdering Eustace Evellin, he should basely yield to become a Tyrant's instrument to cut off that Eustace's uncle on a charge, which, from what he knew of the Doctor's conduct, bore improbability and ingratitude in its aspect. Let those who condemn Lord Bellingham beware how they yield to the first temptations of guilt. The emulation of an aspiring mind, unchecked by principle, degenerated into envy, hatred, malice, injustice, falsehood, and cruelty. Love for a beautiful woman was polluted by an insatiable craving to rise to the same sphere of life in which she moved; and as it was her exterior loveliness, not her inward graces, that inflamed his desires, he scrupled not to become the instrument of her bad passion; that "love might revel on the couch of state," he performed actions which stamped ignominy on his name, and destroyed his peace for ever; and now, in the decline of life, though satiety had taught him the little value of all temporal enjoyments, his imagination clung to the dispersing shadows which even experience would not convince him were only phantoms of happiness. Even while he wept the offences he had committed, he yielded to the first temptation to repeat his crimes.

On the morning fixed for his trial, Dr. Beaumont exhibited an illustration of the scriptural precept, by combining the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove. Serene, mild, thoughtful, acute, and penetrating, he was capable of using every fair occasion to elude his enemies, and was able also to submit to the will of Heaven, provided their malice should be permitted to triumph. He prepared Constantia for the worst, by assuring her that so many had unjustly suffered in these perturbed times that condemnation was no longer considered as an evidence of guilt. All the disgrace of a public death was removed by the justice of the cause to which he was ready to fall a martyr; and the mere circumstance of his dying as a malefactor ought not to distress her, since, in the article of pain, he should endure much less; and the awakening trial of imprisonment had afforded him leisure to re-consider his ways, and make his peace with God. This singular blessing had supplied the best uses of sickness, without its frequent attendant, bodily incapacity. He reminded her of his declining years. "My enemies," said he, "can only rob me of the dregs of life. Death hath sent many of his forerunners by the hand of time to inform me that my days are drawing to a close. It was my wish to be useful as long as I lived. The new government have done me the honour to think me dangerous. When they immured me in a prison, I considered the loss of liberty as a quietus from my heavenly King, dismissing me from active employments; and I have since endeavoured to improve myself in the practice of those passive virtues which are never enough prized by the world, and which are often painful rather than pleasant. I have endeavoured after the perfection of patience, humility, and submission; but, my Constantia, I have only endeavoured, and have discovered so many unsubdued weaknesses, such a lingering fondness for what I must renounce, that I fear nothing but the cold chill of death will benumb those ardent affections which have often led me to lament (but, I trust, not to repine) that I was born in these unhappy times. To the last I must bemoan the degradation, and crimes of my country, that beloved England, whom, in the humble sphere of a village-rector, I laboured to serve, by making all whom my counsels and example could influence, faithful servants of their God and their King. I feel too the destitution of my family (here he faultered and turned aside his face)—principally thee, poor mourner, tenderly fostered in thine infancy, and, since then, the child of sorrow. Encourage me by thy firmness, now I am on the eve of the most awful occurence of my life. Imitate the cheerful magnanimity of Isabel. Let me not shudder at the thought of leaving thee a weak, heart-broken burden on those who can only pity thy distress; but let me have the comfort of hoping that thou wilt behave like a resigned Christian, who, art not so depressed by a sense of thy own grief, as to be incapable of ministering to the woes of others. Allow me to think of thee as one whose views are not bounded by the grave, and then I shall have no overwhelming terrors to distract my attention, or unfit me for improving every fair opportunity for my deliverance. But, should the worst happen, remember, Constantia, I shall continue to exist. Putting on the garment of immortality does not destroy identity. We shall still continue members of that large family of whom God is the head, the angels being his more exalted servants, and the infernal spirits potent rebels, who in vain labour to defeat his purposes. No event can remove us from the superintendance of Providence; no distance of time or country, no difference of station or fortune, can hinder the glorified spirits of the faithful from meeting in the same paradise, and hearing the same joyful sentence of eternal beatitude. Whether the disembodied souls left their bodies in the north or in the south, they will all rejoice in the society of each other. The spirits of the patriarchs of old, as well as of those who die to-day in the Lord, will meet in one large community. Console thyself, therefore, with the thought of a future, joyful, and eternal re-union; and let that consolation be also an active precept, teaching thee so to order thy daily conversation as to complete thy fitness for that re-union."

He then entreated her to remember the inestimable consolation she possessed, in knowing that Eustace lived and was worthy of her affections, faithful to his vows, to his King, and his God. He advised her, if possible, to remove with her aunt, Isabel, and Colonel Evellin, and to place themselves under his protection. If his situation permitted, he advised her to marry him as the best way of being safe and respectable, to endeavour to procure an honest livelihood by following some humble occupation, and to forget the station to which their birth entitled them to aspire. He was almost hopeless of a speedy change of times. He feared the spirit of the nation was so broken that it would submit to the establishment of the usurping family. Policy would teach Cromwell to soften the terrors of his administration as soon as he could found his government on the safer principles of expedience and prescription. He had already adopted many popular measures; and, in making the power of England formidable abroad, he had gratified the public-feeling. Though the persecution of individuals, and actions of glaring oppression and injustice, soon excited discord in peaceable times, and under the government of a legitimate King, they were so congenial to the nature of tyranny, that people were more apt to rejoice in their own escape than to animadvert on the sufferings of their neighbours. Nor would an accumulation of such deeds rouse to arms a nation, that had recently bled so copiously from the multiplied wounds of civil war. Dreadful calamities had stupified the finer feelings, while self-interest and a mean anxiety for personal safety absorbed their sensibility for the distressed. Above all, he regretted to say that an unfavourable impression of the young monarch's personal qualities had gone abroad; and though the disadvantageous reports might be aggravated by ill-will, it would be inferred that the person on whom they fastened was by no means blameless. For all these reasons, Dr. Beaumont feared that the present ostensible form of a republican government would imperceptibly slide into the restoration of what the laws, institutions, habits, and character of England required, a limited monarchy in the person of one of Cromwell's family, should such a one arise, who, without being stained by the atrocious guilt of his progenitor, should display qualities that would eclipse the legitimate prince. Much, he said, depended on the personal character of a King of England, who was not, like an Eastern sovereign, shown from a distant eminence to be worshipped with prostrations, or, like a Grand Monarque, to be flattered and implicitly obeyed. He ruled over a nation of freemen; he lived in the observation of his subjects, not as a despot coercing slaves and parasites, but as the administrator of public justice, and the conservator of the national rights. He could not put up a more salutary prayer for his country, than that each future Prince (especially in times of great political turbulence) would remember that he is set like a city upon a hill, and that his whole conduct is canvassed by a free, inquisitive, and, generally speaking, an intelligent and high-minded nation, attached to hereditary rule, but indignant at the contamination of the blood-royal. It was impossible for persons eminent for birth to sin in secret; and one bad action of theirs, divulged to the public, did more injury than the machinations of the most subtile traitor. Woe would it be to England, if her liberties were thus made to depend on the mercy and prudence of those who grasped her sceptre in despite of law, while its rightful owner discovered such base propensities as made it safer even in an Usurper's hands than in his, who less prized the inheritance of three kingdoms than the praise of debauchees and the indulgence of depraved appetites.

Thus fortifying his daughter's mind with the best principles, and then gradually withdrawing it from the agonizing present to circumstances connected with her future fortunes, Dr. Beaumont consoled and instructed Constantia. "I am firm and patient, my dearest father," said she. "Your voice, like that of the angel to Hagar, has pointed out springs of comfort in a frightful desert. One request I must make. Let me stand by your side at your trial. Perhaps my appearance may influence your judges. Men who seem to have renounced every feeling of humanity have been induced to pity orphan wretchedness. Some circumstances may escape your observation that my quick-sighted fears will seize on; at least I may serve as your notary. These times of woe have often witnessed female heroism claiming its affinity to the proscribed victims of injustice, and glorying in partaking their dangers. Thus let me triumph, and, to the last, exult in having such a father." Dr. Beaumont gazed on her with affection, and acceded to her desires. Like his royal Master, he had at first resolved to object to the legality of these high courts of justice; but further consideration made him doubt if the plea was admissible by a Christian, who was required to submit to the powers that are; and its inexpediency was apparent, by the immediate condemnation of all who urged it, since, whatever degree of proof their offences admitted, they were infallibly condemned for contumacy. Being asked, therefore, if he acknowledged the authority of the court, he lifted up the cap which covered his thin silvered locks, and declared that he submitted to be tried by the laws of God and his country, though, as he had not been furnished with a copy of the charges brought against him, he came with no other means of defence than a general consciousness of inoffensive behaviour.

As Dr. Beaumont spoke he withdrew his arm from the feeble support of his trembling daughter. A sun-beam fell upon his pale countenance, and irradiated its expression of piety and resignation, while his clasped hands, and eyes elevated to heaven, bespoke him engrossed by the fervour of mental devotion. Constantia, silent, trembling, and almost fearing to breathe, contrasted, by her apprehensiveness, beauty, and elegance, the awful solemnity of her father's aspect. He was invested with the insignia of his academical honours, and attired in his sacerdotal habit, which, in its decay, seemed emblematical of the ruined Church for whom he was a confessor. Meek but dignified, patient but courageous, he looked like one of the pillars of episcopacy, who, though the beauty of holiness was defaced, and the visible cherubim removed from the sanctuary, continued to support the tottering edifice, deeming the ruins of Zion a better station than the gorgeous temple of Baal. Nor did the celebrated classical example of Antigone more forcibly illustrate the persevering fortitude of passive heroism and enduring love in woman's gentle bosom, than did the interesting, lovely Constantia. Like the renowned daughter of Sir Thomas More, "she seemed to have forgotten herself, being ravished with the entire love of her dear father," and fearful of danger only as it pointed at him. She turned her eyes upon the court with a boldness unusual to their general expression, to see if in any of their faces she could trace the lineaments of justice or compassion; but they were soon arrested by recognising, in the president, the well-remembered face of Major Monthault. The brims of his hat were of more than ordinary dimensions; his hair was notched into the exact shape prescribed by the highest standard of puritanical orthodoxy; his band was crimped, and his robes folded with prim decorum; while his hands demurely rested on the cushion before him, holding a small edition of the sacred volume, on which he seemed to be meditating in the intervals between the exercise of his professional duties. But neither the starched sobriety of his aspect, nor his newly assumed name of Mephibosheth could obliterate her recollection of the daring libertine who had seduced her Eustace, and attempted her honour. She pointed him out to her father, inquiring if he might not be challenged as a personal enemy; but Dr. Beaumont wisely thought it more prudent to avoid a recognition, which would only confirm his enmity by exposing his former conduct; and, reminding Constantia that as no exceptions of theirs would be attended to, they must know Monthault only in his present character, he entreated, as her alarm was so visible, that she would retire, and leave him to the care of Williams.

Dissembling his knowledge of the prisoner, the President showed, by his address to the Court, that he had adopted the language as well as the habit of a fanatic. He observed that the malignants could hardly be bound by any specific terms, being full of evasions and subtleties of expression, by which they ensnared the simplicity of the faithful. He then called on Eusebius Beaumont to say, unequivocally, whether he did so truly and bona fide submit to the authority of this Court, as to acknowledge it was legally assembled by the supreme power in the Commonwealth, namely, His Highness Oliver Cromwell, Protector of the liberties, and General of the armies of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Dr. Beaumont answered, that he did acknowledge the supreme power was now lodged in the Protector; and that, according to the ordinances made by him, the present High Court of Justice possessed a right to try him. He was then asked if he meant to deny his sending assistance to Charles Stewart, and praying for a restoration of the ancient system; to which he answered, he admitted the truth of these accusations; and being in his heart convinced that the former government of church and state was not only most consonant to the constitution, but also to the prosperity of the kingdom, he must ever wish and pray that it might be restored. But yet, abhorring all conspiracies and plots, the only acts of contumacy of which he had been guilty to the existing powers, were the supplications he offered at the Throne of Grace, and the scanty contributions, which the purse of penury could ill spare, given to the necessities of those who espoused the same cause, and whose wants exceeded his own.

The indictment was then read, in which the charges already noticed were dressed out in vituperative language; but the crimes principally insisted on were, that he had secreted several desperate and proscribed delinquents in a ruinous mansion which he inhabited for the purpose; and that by their assistance he had clandestinely conveyed away, destroyed, and murdered, divers good and faithful citizens. Among these was a godly officer of the commonwealth, Arthur De Vallance, commonly called Lord Sedley, son and heir to the Earl of Bellingham, whom he was known to have kept in custody, and who had never been heard of since. To give a tragical effect to this accusation, the Earl and his Countess, attired in deep mourning, presented themselves in a conspicuous gallery, and, as if overpowered by the sudden emotions of parental anguish, wrung their hands and with loud lamentations besought the court to grant them justice.

Dr. Beaumont's astonishment for some moments precluded the possibility of reply, but as his native integrity never deserted him, he soon recovered sufficient presence of mind to determine rather to fall a victim to the malice of his foes, than to make any discovery which should endanger the life of Arthur De Vallance, who having borne arms against Cromwell was become amenable to the penal ordinances, and would be marked by the Usurper's personal hatred as a confidential friend changed into a renegado. He soon answered in a firm tone, that, being unable to divine that such a charge could be brought against him, he must crave a few days grace to form his reply, and produce evidence which should disprove it. He would, however, observe, that at the time of the supposed murder, and his concealment of desperadoes, he was a suspected persecuted man in distressed circumstances, and all his actions were watched with insidious vigilance. To impute to him a power of restraining a man of Lord Sedley's rank was a futile charge, disproved by its impossibility. There was a person in court (looking at Morgan) who knew the hospitality and kindness he had shown to that nobleman; but he was certain the being did not exist, who could fasten on him the slightest suspicion of his having subsequently practised against his life.

The counsel for the prosecution answered, that his long confinement had given him sufficient opportunity of recollecting his misdeeds, and therefore no accusation could take him by surprise. There could be no occasion to adjourn the court, or longer suspend justice, which thirsted to seize the sanguinary old hypocrite. The feelings of the bereaved parent should be regarded (here a loud sobbing was heard from Lady Bellingham), and as the culprit had declared that there was a person in court who could prove his innocence, they would yield him the advantage of inverting the general order of the trial, and permit him to call and examine his evidence, before they discovered the dark machination, by which an illustrious pair lost the son of their hopes, the only heir to their magnificent fortune.

Dr. Beaumont's strong confidence in his own innocence prevented him from discovering that the proposal was a snare, intended to give indubitable authority to the evidence of Morgan, who now pressed forward, stretched out his hand with an air of friendship to the prisoner, and seemed to rejoice in the opportunity of befriending him. He took the oath, and answered the questions put to him, by giving a minute and (as far as his coarse mind would permit) a pathetic description of the care and attention which the Beaumont family showed to the young nobleman, and of his voluntary continuance with them after his wounds were healed.

When Morgan's examination was over, the counsel for the prosecution addressed the court. "My Lord President Monthault, and you other My Lords Judges of this honourable tribunal; we all know that the butcher fatteneth the lamb before he leadeth it to the slaughter-house, and therefore the care and hospitality pretended to have been shown to the noble person, whose loss we deplore, establishes nothing positively in the prisoner's favour. I shall prove to you, that Lord Sedley liberally rewarded him for his entertainment, and that notwithstanding all the peaceable professions he has this day made, he took great pains to change that Lord's principles, to make him false to the Commonwealth, and also to engage him in an alliance with his family; failing of which, and also suspecting that he gave information to His Highness of the plots then carrying on for restoring tyranny and superstition; he the prisoner was consenting unto, if not aiding and abetting, the murdering and secreting the aforesaid godly Lord. The time chosen for this business was immediately after his receiving a large remittance. To these facts, together with that of the prisoner's concealing a band of desperate malignants, armed with instruments of destruction, I shall, with leave of the court, proceed to call my evidence."

The payment of several sums of money to Lord Sedley, during his residence at Ribblesdale, and the cessation of all demand for remittances from the period of his quitting it, were proved by his tenants; one of whom particularly specified his having sent him a very considerable sum, raised by mortgage of his principal farm, a few days previous to that fixed on for his disappearance. Morgan was now re-examined, who acted the part of a reluctant witness, with too marked partiality for Dr. Beaumont to deceive any who had not been accustomed to the grossest deceptions of fulsome hypocrisy. Much as he said of his hopes that his good old friend and neighbour would meet with favour, he took care to confirm every circumstance to his prejudice. He dwelt on the steadiness of Lord Sedley's principles; the regular communication he had with him, respecting the views of the royalists; the beauty and allurements of Constantia Beaumont, and the evident consternation of the family, together with her extreme grief at the time of Sedley's disappearing. He now hesitated and begged he might be dismissed; but a few threats of imprisonment restored his volubility, and he anticipated the questions of the counsel by stating, that at the command of His Highness he had minutely searched the late residence of the Beaumonts, and at length found a sliding pannel concealing an arched passage, through an extraordinarily thick wall, which, being excavated in one part, formed a small secret chamber or closet, concealed among the buttresses, so as not to be visible on the out-side, and lighted by a small window in the roof; he found, he said, certain proof of its having been recently inhabited, and on removing the floor he discovered, with several arms and implements, the dress of a parliamentary officer; the same which he had seen Lord Sedley wear. Nor was this the only corroborative proof of his having been assassinated in that dark recess, for, on digging lower, they found several bones, which he feared were part of the remains of that unfortunate gentleman.

The incongruity of finding the dress sufficiently perfect to discover its identity, while the body of Sedley was so dismembered by time, that only a few disjointed bones could be discovered, might have convinced the court, that they could not, without incurring great odium, find Dr. Beaumont guilty of murder. But, indeed, they had not time to reflect on the inadmissibility of such vague circumstances in a criminal charge. Lady Bellingham renewed her screams, to give effect, it was presumed, to the workings of compassion for a fond mother, wounded to agony by such a horrid narration. But her screams continued too long, and were too piercing, to proceed from feigned distress, and the intermingled cries of "He is coming again! Save me!" directed the eyes of all to a figure, who was now perceived slowly making his way through the crowd below the bar. It was the aged Evellin advancing with feeble steps; his majestic form clad in a loose, black, serge gown, and his iron-grey hair and beard waving neglected over his breast and shoulders; his arched brows were still more elevated by disdain, while, glancing his eyes from his screaming sister and her trembling husband, he fixed their unextinguished lustre on the President. "I am an evidence for Eusebius Beaumont," said he; "tender me the oath. My name is Allan Neville, and I require to be confronted with Walter De Vallance, calling himself Earl of Bellingham. Let him not escape," continued he, lifting his staff as it were an ensign of authority. "I accuse him of perfidy, calumny, fraud, usurpation, and murder."

Bellingham had more self-command than his guilty consort. His long acquaintance with the terrors of guilt made him ever on his guard. He knew of the preservation of Allan Neville during the civil wars, but he hoped the death of his son might have terminated his days, or irrecoverably clouded his reason; yet he was ever in apprehension of having his title to greatness disproved by a living claimant, though he knew all written documents to confirm his treachery had been destroyed. He had resolved, if ever this man of many woes should burst upon him, to abide by the criminal's last resource, denial of his identity, and solemn protestations of his own innocence: and though the abode of Neville had been so carefully concealed, that no trace of his residence in London had been discovered, even by the vigilance of Oliverian spies, the terrors to which the wretched Bellingham was a constant prey gave him a degree of adroitness in a moment of surprise. Though a coward, when only in the presence of God and his own conscience, the adhesive habits of a practised courtier, gave him effrontery and address when endeavouring to propitiate mankind in his favour.

"My Lord President," said he, "I must request that this unhappy maniac may be taken into custody. The sight is too dreadful to the weakened spirits of Lady Bellingham. Being a distant kinsman, we long supported him by our bounty; but his disordered imagination has persuaded him that he is the brother of my countess—that unfortunate and guilty man has been long since numbered with the dead."

Neville answered with stern composure, "Stand forth, David Williams; identify thy true Lord, the son of thy old master, to whom thou hast adhered in all his calamities." Williams instantly complied with the requisition, and Neville, then turning his indignant eyes on the horror-struct Bellingham, exclaimed—"I trusted thee with my life, my fortune, and my honour—I supplicated thy aid—I depended on thy integrity, on our alliance in blood, on a friendship formed in our boy-hood, on a thousand instances of kindness which I have shown thee.—Thou stolest from me a pearl, rich as an empire, threwest at me the worthless shell, and then badest thy plundered brother be grateful for thy mercy. Mine, Walter, is not the voice of a raving mendicant, it sounds not in thine ears as the ingratitude of an eleemosynary pensioner, but as the groan of a perturbed spirit, risen from the grave to demand vengeance."

"Hear me," continued he, as Bellingham hid his face with his cloak. "Am not I the friend of thy youth, the brother of thy wife, the owner of thy lands, castles, of all that thou hast, except that wretched body.—Where is my son? My Eustace; condemned by thee in cold blood at Pembroke, for being faithful to the King who ennobled thee, and was then betrayed by thy treasons! Mark, traitor; at the time that thou unpitying sawest the heir of the greatness thou hast long usurped walk to execution, this innocent man, whom thou art now persecuting, preserved the life of thy only child. And dost thou reproach me with the calamities thou hast brought upon me? Remember what I was, before thy avarice and ambition cancelled the ties of blood and gratitude, crushed me to the earth, and plumed thy borrowed pomp with the wings of my lineal greatness. I am now a lame, old, destitute Loyalist; yet, for ten thousand worlds, I would not cease to be the thing I am, if the alternative must be to become what thou art; a meteor, born in the concussion of the elements; a timorous slave of power, scared into the commission of any action which may prolong a life, miserable in its continuance, tremendous in its close."

He now turned to the judges, who were gazing on him in silent consternation. "Are you," said he, "administrators of the new code of criminal justice, or sworn extirpators of inconvenient rectitude. You see in me the bloody malignant, whom Beaumont cherished for years in the secret chamber. Have I physical strength to assassinate a vigorous youth? This arm was rendered useless at the battle of Marston-Moor; these knees were enfeebled by infirmity, resulting from the hardships I endured at the siege of Pontefract-Castle. Thus maimed and disabled, I was removed from a cave where I was hid by my kind comrades on a wain, concealed under rubbish and fed by my daughter, and by that firm friend, first in a sepulchre, and then among the ruins that sheltered his oppressed family. To justify his innocence, I commit my long painfully-preserved life to your clemency. Condemn me for what I have done for the King, to whom my heart is still faithful; bow my hoary locks to the scaffold; cut off the useless trunk which now only serves to bear the unblemished insignia of the true Earls of Bellingham. I suffer worse than death by looking on the traitor you cherish in your bosom. But before you condemn me, mark my words—Young De Vallance lives—he is beyond your power; he is a firm royalist, and ready, like myself, to die for his King. Hear me yet again. If you determine to bring on your cause the odium of deeming an aged cripple dangerous, let my execution be private; for no pomp of death can quail my courage. On the scaffold I shall proclaim my attachment to the Sovereign, who bestowed my birth-right on that viper—the betrayer of us both. But spare Eusebius Beaumont, the minister of good to friend and foe. Keep him alive to be your beadsman, till you cease to provoke heaven by injustice and rebellion."