Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Son Christopher - Part 7

by Harriet Martineau

SON CHRISTOPHER.

AN HISTORIETTE. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

CHAPTER IX. A PORTENTOUS SUMMER NIGHT.

The setting sun was shining full upon the glorious west front of Winchester Cathedral when Madam Lisle and a young lady came slowly up the ascent from the Matrons’ College, where they had been visiting some of the inmates. Most of the clergymen’s widows who had found an asylum there knew the Lady Alice very well, though she was not of their communion. The whole city know her, as these ladies did, by her conduct nearly twenty years before, when she had remained to nurse the sick in the plague, after the other gentry had gone away. Few places had suffered so much as Winchester; and some people said that nobody would have been left alive but for Lady Alice. They were never tired of telling what things she did, and how she did them; and children, whose parents were children when the thing happened, knew as much as if they had seen that terrible summer. Whenever she passed through the streets, on her way to the Matrons’ College, or elsewhere, the youngest brat, playing in the gutter, made his reverence,—the girls ran right in front to drop their curtseys; and their parents came to their doors on this bright summer evening to see the beloved old lady go by.

In passing through the Cathedral close, the ladies met several of the clergymen, or saw them standing at their own doors. Those clergymen stood at their doors in order to pay their respects to Madam Lisle: and every one of them took off his hat as she approached. They could not call her “Lady Alice,” because her husband had been one of Cromwell’s lords; and they thought it a thousand pities that such a woman should prefer the snuffling prayers and ranting discourses of Roundhead ministers to the services of their church: but she was not one of the hateful crew of sectaries whom it was a clergyman’s duty to oppose, tooth and nail. When those sectaries had been instituting the calfs-head dinner of the 30th of January, she had been weeping bitter tears over the death of the martyred King Charles, and praying Heaven for pardon for his murderers, instead of exalting them as heroes of the Reformation. So the cathedral clergy, including the Bishop himself, uncovered before Madam Lisle, as often as they saw her.

She had no less observance from the country gentlemen of the neighbourhood. The loyal squires had heard from their fathers how Madam Lisle had aided many an honest cavalier in his extremity, in the days when her party was uppermost. When the pursuit became too hot after fugitives in hiding in the New Forest, their best chance was in being sent by night, or in disguise, to Madam Lisle, who took them in if she could, and never betrayed them if she could not. It was so long ago that she had forgotten much that the Hampshire gentry remembered of her acts of dangerous hospitality. Through all subsequent changes, the stories were kept fresh in the households which had owed to her the life of father, brother, or son; and when she and her companion now emerged from the Close, and turned homewards, one after another of the mounted gentlemen who met or passed them checked their horses, uncovered their heads, and bent to their saddle-bows.

All this delighted Elizabeth; for the younger lady was the beloved niece Elizabeth. She was here because, however resolute to be brave, she found it rather more than she could bear to remain with her brother, and hear of all his official duties against the insurgents, and all the prophecies which were afloat of ruin to the insurgent cause, and vituperation of the Pretender and all his adherents. Her brother looked black upon the proposal that she should go to Lyme. The place was disloyal,—Monmouth had landed there,—and, though the Battiscombes,—or the Squire himself,—had not joined Monmouth, all the world knew that the whole family would fain see Monmouth king.

“That is the opinion of his worship the Mayor, I suppose,” Elizabeth had said. “If you desire it, I believe I can tell you what the Squire really does wish.”

“No,—do not tell me anything,—do not say a word,” insisted the High Sheriff. “I will say only one thing to you; and I beg you to communicate nothing to me.—You are wrong as to Alford. He tells me that the Battiscombes are true crop-eared knaves——Now, hear me before you fire up in that way. He says that father and son are taking different sides—”

“But, brother, that is not true.”

“Well: I should rather say, are pursuing a different course, that their house may not be ruined. Now, I do not believe this.”

“You do not?—Thank Heaven you don’t!”

“It is an old story, Elizabeth,—always told in every civil strife,—and usually with too much truth. But I do not believe it in this case; and so I told his worship. Still, I cannot allow you to go to them at present.—No, I will not ask you to stay here. Why not go to Aunt Alice?”

“Right, brother! I will go to Aunt Alice. She must be settled at home by this time; and if not, I shall not be unwelcome.”

Here, accordingly, she was,—welcome, as always, and sure of natural sympathy as to what was going on in Somersetshire.

The last tidings that arrived in a trustworthy way were of the check to Lord Feversham’s forces, and the gallant conduct of Monmouth in the fight. A vague rumour of subsequent disaster had floated over Winchester the day before; but, as no further news had arrived, it was concluded false. The city had looked so tranquil this evening that Madam Lisle and Elizabeth reached home in good spirits, and sat down on a garden-seat, to enjoy the open air a little longer, and watch the last sunlight disappear from the cathedral tower.

The footman in attendance had left them at the gate, carrying in his lady’s long staff by the back-way. He now appeared again, the staff still in his hand as he ran. Madame Lisle, by long training awake to signs of alarm, desired Elizabeth to go and take a turn in the flower-garden, and not come in till she was called.

Right glad was the anxious girl to be summoned to the house within a few minutes, and to find her aunt discoursing with the gardener’s wife on the advantages and disadvantages of late broods of chicks, like those hatched to-day, and then giving directions to defer airing the malthouse till she should send orders for it to be done.

“I do not think I will run away again, when a servant comes to you for orders,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “For above ten minutes, I am sure, my heart was in my mouth, Aunt Alice. I shall stay, next time.”

“Better not, my love! You must consider it one condition of your being here that you are to be at my disposal as to any little mysteries that may arise. Nine times out of ten there may be no secret when somebody comes running to me; but the tenth time may be of consequence; and I have to look to your safety, my dear child!”

Supper-time passed as usual. Then it was dark enough to justify the closing of the shutters. That done, and the servant having set the chairs for the evening worship, and put the great Bible on the table, Madam Lisle told Elizabeth that they were to be favoured that night with the services of a wayfaring divine of great mark, who would sanctify the dwelling by a prayer before he went on his way.

There was a secret, then: and before the service was over, Elizabeth had learned something more.

She had heard so much from the Battiscombes of their honoured pastor, John Hickes, that she became assured, before he had expounded more than three or four verses, that this was he. There was another stranger in the room whose presence confirmed her conjecture. Seated among the servants, in a rough and well-worn woodman’s dress, was one who was certainly no member of the household. He covered his face, as if in devoutness, so that it was some time before she obtained any view of his countenance: and when she did, she could only ask herself whether she had not seen it before. By degrees light broke in upon her memory; and she was satisfied that this rough woodman, with the air and movements of a gentleman, was a lawyer of Lyme whom she had seen as a guest at the Battiscombes’.

This was sufficiently alarming; but a far greater terror was caused in her by the exposition and the prayer which followed. The preacher had been advised to keep his voice in check, for fear of listeners outside, and he did not forget the precaution: but he seemed disposed to make up in length for his self-denial in loudness; and every fresh text that he took in hand, and every new start in his prayer, deepened Elizabeth’s consternation. Besides the ordinary appeals against the oppressor, and denunciation of Antichrist, there were such mournings over the triumph of the enemy, such remonstrances against the turning away of God’s face, such piteous descriptions of the perils of the wilderness, and of the humiliation of the deserted under chastisement, and especially of princes whose sceptre is broken, and their crown brought to the dust, that it was impossible to doubt that Monmouth and his followers were in bitter adversity, and the Protestant King himself a fugitive. When Elizabeth rose from her knees, her face was as white as her dress.

Madam Lisle glanced at her, whispered to her that she would return in a few moments, and seated the trembling girl in her own chair. Presently the confidential servant who had been in attendance on them brought her wine—by his lady’s orders as he said. Without the wine, however, Elizabeth rallied her forces. When her aunt returned, she was rearranging the flowers in the beanpot on the mantelpiece, and with no trembling hand. Her aunt’s long kiss was an acknowledgment of her self-command. Elizabeth had more than once been told, by this long-trained and well-disciplined old disciple of the Reformation, that she—the young Prelatist by education—was evidently a predestined Puritan. She seemed to have by nature the strength as well as the graces which were commonly supposed to be a special and Divine endowment of the Puritans in the age of the strife of the Churches. She did not feel it necessary to explain even to Aunt Alice how she came by such fortitude as she had; but she said, in all sincerity, that she needed all that grace could give her in aid of her human weakness.

“There is bad news, I am sure,” she said. “What is it?”

“A lost battle,—a fatal defeat.”

“And all is over? It is nothing less, or John Hickes would not be so far from the battle-field.”

“You are right, my child! I fear that all is lost.”

“But why did those fugitives come here, Aunt? Did they come . . .? Did they bring . . .? Have they seen any one?”

“They bring no news of any of the Battiscombes, as far as I yet know. I will at once inquire, however; for now I remember it was a servant of Christopher Battiscombe who guided him hither—one Coad, Reuben Coad. My love, what is the matter?”

“Reuben is a traitor! Oh, Aunt Alice, do not let Reuben cross your threshold! He tried to shoot the Duke for the reward. Christopher was there. It was at Taunton, and Christopher has been looking for the man ever since.”

“I think there must be some mistake, my love.”

“Oh no! There is no mistake about Reuben being a traitor. He will destroy you all—Hickes, and Mr. Nelthorpe. (O yes, I know Mr. Nelthorpe under his disguise.) Where is he—the wretch? Let him be shut up till Christopher tells us what ought to be done with him.”

“My love, he is not here. When these guests of ours were perplexed where to turn, Reuben, as a devoted hearer and catechumen of John Hickes, told him where he might be safe—sent him to me. This does not look like the act of a traitor. It is natural——”

Elizabeth held up her hand with a start. There was a gentle tap at the window which the duller ear of the old lady had not heard.

“More fugitives!” was the thought of them both. They had no fear when the safety of good men and friends might be in question. With her aunt’s permission, Elizabeth put the candles into a large closet in the room, and then unbarred the shutter, feeling safer in the dark. It was not dark outside, however. The moon shone full on a face at the window, and the face was Christopher’s.

He could not stay so much as an hour. He had rather not enter the house, lest harm should come of it to Lady Alice. His horse was baiting at a stable near. Elizabeth would come out and hear what he had to say. For the sake of all time to come, she would not refuse him this, nor would Madam Lisle for her.

“I will come,” said Elizabeth.

“You must go,” said her aunt. “God be with you, my child! But Elizabeth, you will not fly with him; I must have your word not to pass the gate.”

“She shall come in very soon,” Christopher promised impatiently. “There is no time to lose! it is our last chance.”

Madam Lisle threw her own shawl over Elizabeth’s head and shoulders, and let her out through the glass door into the flower-garden; and there Christopher met her. They sat down in the summerhouse, as the safest place.

“Where is Reuben?” was Elizabeth’s first question.

Christopher would have been glad to know,—any day from his last sight of the man at Taunton, to the present; but all search for him had been in vain. Christopher was painfully struck by the news that Reuben had been following John Hickes, and that Hickes was here. He feared a snare.

“But how is it that you are here?” asked Elizabeth. And this brought out the dreary story.

All was over. Christopher and Florien had been going to Lyme, to get on board one of the Duke’s vessels there, when his comrade and old tutor saw how it was breaking his heart to depart without seeing Elizabeth. While they supposed she was with her brother, a meeting seemed wholly out of the question; but a Dorchester man assured them that she was not at home, but with Lady Lisle. Then it was settled that Christopher should take the place of Monmouth’s guide to the New Forest, should make a quick ride to Winchester, and be back in time to reach the vessel from Lyme, or from some other of the points of the coast which he knew so well.

“The Duke’s guide!” repeated Elizabeth, in perplexity and dismay.

“All is over, as I said; and the Duke is a fugitive like the rest of us. We entreated him to go into Wales, his mother’s country. He would have been safer there. But his passionate desire is to get back to Brussels; and he would not go out of the way of the Channel ships. The only chance in this direction is that he may hide for a time in the forest. The deer-stealers may be bribed to take care of him.”

“And you were his guide? Where is he, then? But perhaps I ought not to ask.”

“I could not tell you, if I would. I brought him and Lord Grey to a place where they thought proper to turn their tired horses loose. I offered the Duke mine, of course; but they believed themselves safer on foot. Then I could not help them further, and by staying should only have hindered them. But we will not speak of them further.”

“Only this,” said Elizabeth, raising her head from his shoulder, and looking wistfully in his face, in the dusk of the summer-night—“Can you tell me that you do not repent what you have done?”

“I can,” he answered, meeting her gaze with a smile which gave her unspeakable comfort. “There has been much to disappoint every true man. The fault, I suppose, is with those who over-persuaded Monmouth. I hoped much from our first successes,—that they would open and elevate his heart: but he cannot stand discouragement. He quailed under a heavy rain, which thinned our force by a half in one night. The Taunton people sent a deputation to beg him not to go there again; and when I saw how his countenance fell——. But let us not speak of him. Do not suppose we broke up without a struggle. I cannot tell you of it now. On some happier day, in some future year, I may tell you about the battle on Sedgemoor.”

“Oh! say that again!” she cried, with a convulsive clasp of his neck. “I thought this was our last——”

“O no, no!” he said. “I must go abroad for the present: but it cannot be for long. Consider, love! Do you believe that Protestant England will endure a Popish King? We must wait, as patiently as we can, for a time. The King is old, and then——”

“O! what then?”

“A Protestant Queen will come; and I shall come in her train. We can bear to wait, love!”

“O yes: if you carry an easy mind—if you do not repent.”

“There can be no repentance when we have devoted ourselves in the cause of the true Church. I may have erred in judgment: but I should have done worse if I had been a dumb dog, shrinking from danger when others were rushing out to drive the Romish wolf from the fold. You, Elizabeth—you would rather see me as I am now, than in a hypocritical prosperity. You had rather wait till the next reign than marry me to-morrow, with an ignominious secret to be kept between us.”

“No matter about me!” she said, “If only I can know that you have an easy mind——”

“Never doubt it, love! We must suffer. The Lord’s people have to suffer in the latter days of the prosperity of the wicked. The only thing is to be willing. But,” he added, cheerfully, “though I carry an easy mind, I cannot exactly say so of my body.” And he gently raised her, to relieve the pressure on his arm.

“You are wounded!” exclaimed Elizabeth, starting to her feet.

“I am; but not perilously,” he answered, drawing her down to sit on the other side of him.

At this moment Madam Lisle appeared, bringing food and wine. The flask was for his pocket: but he must drink now also; and so must Elizabeth.

“He is wounded!” said Elizabeth, tearfully.

“What can we do?” said Madam Lisle. “Cannot you stay? It may be of consequence that you should rest. There may be fever——”

She broke off, understanding but too well that his only chance lay in getting down to the coast at once. He readily promised to take care of his wound as soon as he should be on board-ship.

“Farewell then!” said his old friend. “Elizabeth will tell me your news. Take with you the blessing of an aged disciple of the true Lord, who honours the zeal of such as you.”

Christopher received the blessing standing, with bowed and uncovered head.

“Have you money?” asked Madam Lisle, returning.

“I have. I have everything needful:” and Madam Lisle was gone.

“O! is there nothing that I can do for you?” exclaimed Elizabeth, as she saw that the moment of parting had come.

“Much,—much that we can do for each other,” he answered. “We can confide in each other,—cheerfully—gaily: and what boon that one can give to another can compare with this? And you will cheer my mother,—you will cheer the whole household. I must find my love her own bright self when I come back, and not moulded over with melancholy.”

“You shall,” she whispered.

“And I,” he pursued, “will make myself such a student as my love will be proud of when I come back to be a great lawyer, under our Protestant Queen,—or King, as may be. Now I must be gone.”

“But O! if they are watching for you!—O! if they should catch you!—if you should not reach the coast! what would become of us?”

“Then we shall meet again very soon,” he answered cheerfully. “If I should go to prison, you will come and see me.”

He was now supporting her to the door, where Madam Lisle was looking out into the twilight. He stopped for a moment, saying:

“It grieves my soul to leave you in this woe. Shall I—? Tell me what I shall do.”

“O go! go!” and she disengaged herself from him. “Remember” (and her voice was the very cordial that he needed)—“remember that I do not pray the less because I am one of a bishop’s flock. I will pray till we meet again,—pray that I may be what you think me;—and thank God for my lot.”

“My own treasure!” he cried, joyfully. “My brave wife!”

“Yes; call me wife! I had rather have a share in your lot, Christopher, than the choice of any other destiny under God’s providence.”

Thus they were not unhappy when Elizabeth was given into her aunt’s arms. They stood listening for the last sound of his steps, and then quietly closed the garden-door, set the candles on the table, and knew that it was time to retire to their chambers. But Elizabeth was so deadly pale that her aunt dared not venture to summon any servant till the poor girl was safe in her own room.

Her own devotions were prolonged that night. She was thankful for the great mercy of the young people’s hopefulness; and yet more for their willingness to suffer.

“But they do not know what it is,” thought she. “They do not conceive that they had better be among the ravening beasts of the wilderness, than at the mercy of such enemies as ours.”

 

CHAPTER X. CONSPIRACY IN DESPAIR.

Whatever else Christopher did to secure his passage to the coast, he soon found that he must avoid Ringwood. First, Grey was taken; next, two strangers lurking in the forest were taken; and the popular story was that one of them must certainly be King Monmouth. Some were quick, and some slow, to believe this; but when it was reported as an odd incident that a broad blue ribbon with something of jewelry upon it had been found in the pocket of the one who had a grizzled beard, the matter became puzzling. There was no misunderstanding the blue ribbon: but it could not be Monmouth—the young, handsome, gallant Monmouth—who showed a grey beard. Besides, the man had in the same pocket some raw peas—grey peas; and it was inconceivable that King Monmouth could ever have eaten raw peas. It must have been some confidential servant, charged with the care of his jewels.

Many, however, insisted that it was Monmouth. They had seen him formerly, again and again, in his hunting-trips. He was sorely changed,—muddy from the ditch in which he was found, shrunk, grey, and scared-looking; but it was the man himself. If he denied it, there were witnesses by the score who would take their oath of it. The five thousand pounds were won; and it was surprising how much interest and time the country-people had to spare for the question how the money would be divided. Were the folk who caught Lord Grey the day before to have a share,—his presence being a sure sign that Monmouth was not far off? There were more disputes every hour, as fresh claimants insisted that they had had something to do with the capture. The one point about which no controversy arose was that Goody Lobb’s fortune was made in her old age. She had seen two men peeping through the hedge from the cover twenty times in the course of the evening before: and this made her look out at night, when she saw somebody moving about among her beans and peas. She trotted off down the Ringwood road in the morning, kept her business to herself till she saw a magistrate on horseback, and then offered to show where two men were lurking. She was hoisted on a pillion at the next farmhouse; and she led the search. There was some difficulty in keeping her quiet when the dogs were brought to the spot,—her notion being that she should lose her chance of the reward, if she did not seize the Duke with her own hands. She had no chance in the struggle, however; and she was wringing her hands over her ill-usage when Monmouth and his German comrade, an adventurer, who now saw plainly enough that he had no business here, were led forth before her face.

Monmouth, struck by her lamentations, which made him suppose her a friend to his cause, looked at her as he passed. Goody eagerly seized the opportunity of pouring out her story, and told him her fears of missing her due. He turned even paler than before, and observed, as to himself,—

“So I am betrayed by a woman at last! Many will say that I was betrayed by a woman at first. But for a woman I should not have been here. Perhaps it is what women are formed to do: yet, with the same end, how differently they work! This brutal old spy! and—O Henrietta!”

He was conveyed to a country-house of the Bishop’s at Ringwood; and while waiting for his apartment being made secure, he found himself in the same room with Lord Grey. They had parted less than forty-eight hours before; yet each was amazed at the appearance of the other.

“Your Grace will rally speedily,” said Grey, “after the refreshment of good meat and sleep.”

“And you, my Lord, look as if you had had no further fatigues of late than a sportsman’s ride through the forest. You look years younger than when we spoke together last.”

“It is from relief of mind,” Lord Grey explained. “Suspense being over, I have found repose. Since I set foot on these shores, I had not relished one meal, nor enjoyed one unbroken night. Last night I slept ten hours.”

The words were not lost. From one Puritan abode to another, Lord Grey’s words of self-pity were scornfully repeated. The Lord’s people had been accustomed to spend many of their nights in worship, and had thought it no hardship, but an honour and a blessing. They had increased their fasts also, in proportion to the increase of wickedness in the land. They now saw what they had done in committing the cause of the Lord and his people more or less into the hands of a leader who mourned for the fleshpots and the melons and cucumbers of Egypt, and shrank from watching and prayer, while charged with leading up the children of the Covenant out of their bondage.

These, however, were not the words which dwelt on Monmouth’s ear and sank into his heart.

“The suspense over!” he repeated, wistfully looking into Grey’s composed countenance.

“Surely your Grace can have no doubt of that!” said Lord Grey, returning the gaze. “What room can there be for doubt?”

Monmouth started up and paced the room, wringing his hands.

“I will write to the King,” he exclaimed. “He is my uncle. He cannot refuse me safety, if I pledge myself to go abroad, never to return. He cannot refuse me, when he knows all.”

“What remains for him to learn?” said Lord Grey.

“I will tell him how I have been tempted—how I have been urged—how I have been betrayed—how I have repented a thousand times.”

“How has your Grace been betrayed, may I ask?”

“Never was man so betrayed! You assured me, Lord Grey, that the whole Whig gentry waited only for me,—waited to rise as soon as I should land; and they have avoided me,—to a man! I have found none but ploughmen and miners and tradesmen, a mere rabble; and I am to suffer for them!”

“And I too, your Grace must remember. My head is the pledge of my sincerity.”

“You are my murderer—you, my Lord!” cried Monmouth, struggling with his tears. “When I might have escaped, might have been at home at Brussels by this time, you would not let me go.”

Lord Grey turned away with a shake of the head, which Monmouth understood. He was silent while Lord Grey called for paper and ink, and arranged the writing-materials on the table.

“Write to the King,” he said, placing a chair. “Cast what blame on me you will. Save yourself if you can. If any use of my name can save you, use it. Nay, you owe me no thanks for saying this. My doom is sure; and I shall not gainsay anything your Grace may allege.”

“Without implicating you, my Lord, I can plead many things. Many things I could say, when I can compose myself to write,” said Monmouth, throwing down the pen which his trembling hand could not guide, and bursting into tears.

At the moment the door opened, and one of his guards announced that a lady had arrived who desired to see him, and would not be put off from entering instantly. Monmouth dashed away his tears; and his flush and smile made him look like himself again, in spite of his sordid dress and his grey hair.

“I knew she would come!” he exclaimed. “I was not allowed to go to her; but I knew she would come to me! But stay!” he exclaimed, detaining the guard. “My Lord, this will not put her in danger, will it? If I thought it would—”

And again he looked wistfully at his fellow-prisoner; and now Lord Grey returned the gaze more kindly, as he said:

“Surely not! There can be no proof against Lady Henrietta, except” (and here he lowered his voice to a whisper) “in your Grace’s own breast.”

“Do you believe that I could say a word? No, you cannot think it!”

“I do not,” Lord Grey replied. Before he could say more the door opened, and Monmouth rushed forward with open arms as a lady entered. Her veil was down, but he hesitated; for the lady was short of stature, and her air was not that which he knew so well.

“I am your wife, Monmouth,” said she, throwing herself on his neck. “I have trusted that you would return to me, but O! not in such an extremity as this! Do not throw me off now,” she exclaimed. “I am your wife—I have a right to be with you; the King has said it—the King enjoined me to come.”

“The King!” said Monmouth. “Why—why did he send you? Is it a sign? Is it a promise of favour?”

Lord Grey had dismissed the guard and closed the door; and as he could not leave the room, be sat down with his back to the pair, and seemed occupied in writing. But he could not avoid hearing all that was said. Monmouth did not disguise his desire to use his wife’s influence to save his life; but he said no word that Lady Henrietta herself could have complained of as infidelity. The poor wife felt this at her heart’s core. She did not remind him by the remotest hint that to her he owed fortune, title, and position; and she made no reference to the woman who had supplanted her. It was evident that she clung to the hope of recovering her husband’s affection by saving him from his apparent doom. She spoke of his gallantry in the field with pride. She mourned over the uncertainty about his birth, which had so naturally led him to claim the throne. She thought no human heart could resist such claims for mercy as he could urge; and she would urge them day and night till he should arrive in London to petition the King himself.

“Will the King see me?” cried Monmouth, eagerly.

“He must, he shall see you!” she replied. “I will not leave him till I have his promise.”

“I will do anything, I will go anywhere,” protested Monmouth, in a voice growing hoarser every moment. “I will be the most loyal of all his subjects, and I could tell him now many things—”

Lord Grey turned in his seat. Monmouth heard it, though he did not see; and he stopped, covering his face with his hands.

“We must go far away,” said the Duchess of Monmouth. “We must bury ourselves in some country where we shall never be heard of more. But we may be happy yet, Monmouth; we may forget the wretched past. You would, would you not?” she asked, in a voice which melted one heart there, if not Monmouth’s.

“I know not, I cannot say, I cannot think. I am so—so confused, so wretched!”

“You are worn out,” she said, tenderly.

“I believe I am,” he answered, piteously.

“I had better go now,” she said.

When no word to the contrary was said, she added:—

“I will go to the King; and as soon as you arrive in London, I will come——”

“You will? Try to save me! It will be good of you, it will be—yes, it will be noble of you to save me, Anne! I know, I feel, that your lot has been hard,—that you have something to forgive.”

“Something!”

“Yes, much to forgive. And I cannot now say—I am not in a condition to promise——”

“To do anything,—to go anywhere,” interposed Lord Grey, in the lowest tone, which yet Monmouth heard.

“Be silent, my Lord,” cried Monmouth. “I cannot be pressed at such a moment as this. I will do what I can; but, Anne, try to save me!”

“Yes, I will try to save you,” she replied, in a manner which smote on her husband’s heart.

When she was gone, he answered to what was in his companion’s mind. Lord Grey had not spoken again, and he now laid down his pen to listen. He did not look round, probably because tears were on his face.

“She is too good to me,” Monmouth said. “But what can I do? We were married so young! It was really no marriage on my part. Henrietta is everything to me.—Ah! that fortune,—that title! I wish Anne had them back again! I wish I had never had them! I wish I were the meanest citizen! Henrietta is everything to me.”

He did not divine Lord Grey’s next thought: “If you had been a humble citizen, the Lady Henrietta would never have been anything to you.”

 

CHAPTER XI. CONSPIRACY IN ITS DEPTHS.

During the rest of that fearful summer, there were two travelling parties in the Western Counties which fixed all eyes, and created fears and hopes unspeakable.

After the Battle of Sedgemoor, Colonel Percy Kirke, an officer fresh from African service, and commanding the First Tangier Regiment, was appointed to govern Bridgewater, and to keep Somersetshire in order. How he did it there is no need to relate; for the story of the barbarities of Kirke and his Lambs is not forgotten, and never will be.

The other traveller, who had a very different following, was the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He had been known by his sternness among the large proportion of the people in his diocese who were Nonconformists. He never ceased to denounce their doctrines; and he had followed up their offences of clandestine worship with all the severity that his office, and the influence that it gave him, enabled him to exercise. When Kirke was recalled, because public indignation at his cruelties was too strong to be braved by a king whose throne had been so lately in danger, the Puritans believed themselves still under special trial, and spoke of Bishop Ken’s visitations of the towns as another sign of the time of tribulation which was to try their souls, in preparation for the approaching triumph of their purified Christianity. From the pulpits in the meeting-houses, to which the people resorted more than ever, there were prayers that the hand of the persecutor might be stayed, and that the proud oppressor who mimicked the shows and assumed the airs of Papistry might be humbled. But day by day perplexing stories spread, which bewildered people’s minds about the Bishop whom they had supposed they knew so well. He had come to convert as many as he could, certainly: but he had also visited the prisons; had rebuked the harshness of jailors; had spoken with the prisoners of their families, and promised to see after them; had supplied the needs of many who were ill-fed and clothed; had caused the separation of the sick and the well, and had done what was possible to have those fearful places made less unwholesome and miserable. There were many who pronounced these deeds to be arts of Satan, designed to lead the elect over into Prelacy, if not Popery: but on others such acts produced their natural effect; and in their minds the idea of Bishop Ken, the persecutor of the Lord’s people, became so altered and confused that their pastors feared that Satan’s devices were not altogether in vain.

On his part, the Bishop had his own perplexities; and some matters which had before appeared to him so plain that only minds blinded by sin could have a doubt about them, now showed a different side, when he went among the Puritans. His own views were unchanged. He had long passed beyond the mental opportunity for change: but he was becoming more or less aware how it was that everybody within his reach did not arrive at seeing things as he saw them. He was so struck with the intelligence with which some of the Nonconformists held and defended their opinions, that he was believed to have some hand in the increase of the emigration from the Southern and Western coasts, by which many hundreds of Roundheads were carried beyond the danger of taking their turn in the prisons, or being consigned, on some pretence about the rebellion, to the gallows. He was extremely severe with them for their deficiency of passiveness in their obedience to the existing Government, whatever it might be, and for the trouble they caused to the Church by leaving it: but when it came to the alternative of going to a new world by emigration, or to another world by the jail and the halter, he helped them in their strait, and told them that they richly deserved the severer fate; and that the reason why he assisted them to avoid it was the hope that their lengthened term of life might be so used as to bring them back within the privileges of loyalty and the pale of the Church. He abhorred William Penn as a sectary of mischievous audacity: and he could not speak with patience of the favour with which the King seemed to regard this great foe of ecclesiastical obedience: but Penn’s colony was a better place than the grave for repentance; and he therefore paid the passage of scores of heretics, compromised in the late rebellion,—some to the region of Sylvania (to which ships were going in rapid succession),—and others to Massachusetts Bay.

He was in the midst of his labours at Bridport (for on this occasion he disregarded the boundaries of his diocese), when he received information, in the prison, that the High Sheriff of the county desired to speak with him on urgent business. The official title impressed him, as all signs of established authority always did: and he hastened back to his lodging, where he found the Sheriff,—and with him his sister.

Mr. Bankshope had brought his sister, he said, because he desired that the Bishop should hear from an eyewitness what had befallen a venerable friend of his. From the stern sadness of the Bishop’s countenance as he entered, the Bankshopes supposed that he was aware of the ill news they brought: but if evil tidings were the cause of the gravity, they did not concern Madam Lisle; for what he heard now took him entirely by surprise.

Elizabeth’s story was that, early in the morning of the preceding day, soldiers had surrounded her aunt’s house, and had scarcely allowed the household time to dress before they burst in, to search, as they said, for rebels and sectaries.

“Sectaries,” the Bishop observed, “they would find in every room in the house; but for rebels, no doubt, they must come farther westward.”

“Unhappily,” replied the Sheriff, “there were two fugitives hidden.”

“Hidden! in her house! I pray God this may be a mistake!” exclaimed the Bishop, showing how great were his fears for his old friend.

“Tell us, Elizabeth,” said her brother—“tell us exactly what you yourself saw.”

Elizabeth had seen the soldiers thronging into the house: and she had seen one placed as a guard at the breakfast-room door, where she and her aunt and the maids were assembled, and where soldiers were looking in at the windows. She had heard a fearful shout from the back; and in a few moments, two wretched-looking men, covered with dust and soot, were dragged past the windows and into the room.

“Who were they?”

“One was said to be a Dorsetshire lawyer, named Nelthorpe; the other was called the Reverend John Hickes.”

“No Reverend at all,” observed the Bishop, frowning. “The man is a notorious sectary,—one of the most mischievous of those illicit preachers. I always feared this! I have often warned Madam Lisle of the retribution which would some day befal her, when her good nature would be taken advantage of by these sly, self-seeking hypocrites, who would prey on her substance, and bring her good name into jeopardy. Let us hope that this exposure may be a lesson to her.”

“But we did not come to your Lordship on behalf of the fugitives,” observed the Sheriff.

“O, ho! do the authorities threaten her,—Madam Lisle?”

“They dragged her to prison,” Elizabeth related, with a strong effort to be calm. “And they say that her life is in danger.”

“Is it possible! This is dreadful! But what was the fact about these men?”

“What the soldiers said was that they found John Hickes hidden in the malthouse, and the other in the chimney of one of the bedrooms.”

“And with your aunt’s knowledge?—No matter! Do not answer. I do not desire to know. It is only too certain that she knew them to be proscribed sectaries.”

“If so,” observed the Sheriff, “these are not the first fugitives that Madam Lisle has harboured in their extremity, knowing them to be proscribed.”

“True! quite true!” exclaimed the Bishop, with emotion. “There are loyal gentlemen,—there are faithful churchmen, who could tell that they owe their lives to her. These must be reached and roused on her behalf,” he continued, thoughtfully. “She is not one to keep a register of her good deeds, or we might know whom to seek. It is frightful to think of her being in a jail, for a single day.”

“All Winchester—half Hampshire would do anything to rescue her,” the Sheriff declared. “But I fear it is too true that she must remain in prison till the Assizes, unless some strong and special influence obtains her release. That is why we have come to your Lordship.”

“Alas! what can I do?” the Bishop replied. “I have no power at Court, or in high places. Are you not aware that I laboured day and night, by the death-bed of the late King, to obtain from him the declaration that he died in the faith of our Church, and to induce him to take the sacrament according to its method? How should I be held in any respect by those who were counting the moments till I should cease, to smuggle in a monk, to entangle my old Master in the snares of their Papistry? No; with the Court I can do nothing.—But yet, every friend she has must do something.”

Elizabeth blessed him for saying that. But if, as he thought, there could scarcely be serious danger eventually for so venerable a lady, and one to whom so many of the ruling party owed gratitude and respect, what would become of her in the interval before trial?

“How did she bear herself when arrested?” asked the Bishop. “Calmly, I trust?”

“I have never seen her otherwise than calm,” Elizabeth replied. “But she was cheerful also;—I should say, never more so.”

“That is wonderful, considering the trembling of the spirits at an age like hers.”

“She regards her age as a defence against fear. Being at the verge of life, and in full assurance of what lies beyond, she cannot occupy herself with thoughts of the way in which the verge is to be passed, or of whether it shall be to-morrow, or next month, or next year. Her whole concern was for the men, Hickes and Nelthorpe——”

“Their fate is sure,” observed the Bishop. “I can say nothing on their behalf.”

“And, after their fate,” the Sheriff said, “her care was for her young guest here.”

“Who is no sectary, I trust,” said the Bishop, with a grave gaze in Elizabeth’s face, which had something of compassion in it. Her brother declared that she had been bred in the faith of the Church; and he trusted she would never swerve from it.

“It is marvellous,” the Bishop remarked, “what an influence these ranting schismatics establish within the very shadow of the Church. It is a fatal bribe of Satan. And another is the false strength that they have in themselves,—from pride, no doubt, in part, but also from an enthusiasm which sustains their spirits under all that can be said or done to them. Their constancy is so like that of true martyrs that it is no wonder that the ignorant take them for martyrs. They have been ensnared into believing that they are honoured and distinguished by suffering for the truth during the last term allowed to the enemy; and that the day of salvation for the gospel and gospellers is at hand, when all who shall have endured to the end shall be received into glory.”

“That is indeed their view,” Elizabeth replied, in a low voice.

“What an awful superstition it is,” resumed the Bishop, “to regard in that way the merciful efforts of the Church to bring back the lost sheep of the flock! But the power of superstition was never stronger,—never since the Reformation so strong.”

“And some of their superstitions are so strange!” the Sheriff observed. “The people about here firmly believe that Monmouth will reappear in Eighty-nine.”

“Not only that,” said the Bishop; “but they seem equally happy whether they hold that he never was executed, or show handkerchiefs dipped in his blood. They make sure of their Protestant King, either way.”

“Yes; he is to appear in Eighty-nine, whether he is really dead or not. Your Lordship can satisfy some of them as to the reality of his death.”

“Far from it,” replied the Bishop. “When I tell them what he said before he died (some things,—not all,—God forbid!), and when I testify that I saw him dead, and the people carrying away his blood, they only say that it was somebody very like him, who died in his stead. In the same breath they call him the Protestant martyr and the great Protestant King who has four years to wait for his crown.”

“They have got hold of some saying of Monmouth’s,” said the Sheriff, “about summoning the Baroness Wentworth to make ready to share his majesty and glory.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the Bishop: “I was not aware of that: and it is very strange. Most singular!” he continued, after a pause. “I was considering how the thing could have got abroad. It was not likely that I, or my brother prelates, would have spoken on the subject at all, seeing how vain were all our efforts to bring his Grace to any sense of his duty in regard to that passion.”

“He did say something, then, which might be the ground of this notion?”

“What he said was that the Lady Henrietta would not mourn him long: he had a persuasion that she would quit life soon after him, knowing, as they both did, that heaven would be no heaven to him without her. But I err,” he said, checking himself. “These are not topics for such audience. But you, Mr. Bankshope,—you hare an office also among these unhappy people here in the West, at this unhappy time: and perhaps you can understand me when I say that such is the trial to heart and head,—such the misery that I see every hour, and such the joy and triumph flourished in my face by the very victims of Satan, that my heart and my flesh fail me, and I sometimes shudder to think how nigh such discomposure is to a failure of reason. Yes, you are right. Such feelings are common to all mortal men who know the value of their reason at all. The distemperature passes away; and meantime we know where to find strength.”

“I dread a fresh perplexity,” observed the Sheriff, “from the strange turn the Government is taking in regard to the schismatics. It appears as if, by an unheard-of mutual understanding between the Papists and the Roundheads, the Church might soon be cast out, to shift for herself.”

The topic did not suit the Bishop. The Sheriff held some curious information, which might or might not be in the Bishop’s possession. It was evident that he would not speak at all on the prospects of the Church: and he returned with great fervour to the consideration of what could be done on behalf of Madam Lisle.

“I was hardly aware,” he said, “how I revered her. It is true that I could never prevail with her to share in the services of the Church: but I shall never forget the Christian grace with which she sat down to meat with the poor who dine at the palace twice in the week. I have, many times, found strength and solace in the genial sympathy with which she approved certain hymns and devout poems. . . . But I see now that I have yielded unworthily to the allurement of religious sympathy in a sectary; and to-day, and in this heavy news, I have my punishment.”

“Oh, my lord, say not so!” cried Elizabeth. “I know her thoughts. I have heard some of those hymns. Do not say——”

“Whatever I may think, I will not say more of it,” the Bishop replied. “I will, please God, go to Winchester to-morrow. If I can send good news, I will.”

As Elizabeth left the room, after receiving the Bishop’s benediction, according to his custom, her brother was detained for an instant by a touch on the arm.

“I understood,” said the Bishop—“and I am strongly impressed that I heard it from Madam Lisle herself—that your sister was betrothed to one of the Battiscombes of Lyme—to the young lawyer.”

“It is certainly true,” said the Sheriff; “but I am not without hopes that the impression may pass away by absence, and that I may see her the wife of a good churchman before Battiscombe can venture to return.”

“Do you not know, then, where he is?”

“Not precisely, because he is at sea. He is bound for Amsterdam. He is supposed to have sailed two days since.”

“That is a mistake. He was arrested this morning——”

“Arrested! Where? By whom?”

“In Lyme. The Mayor had information from a creature of his own, who has tracked the young man for weeks past. The people cry ‘shame!’ but there is no help now.”

“What will be the end of it,—tell me, my Lord, I conjure you!”

“The worst, I fear. There is no room for doubt,—no ground for mercy.”

“Is it possible!”

“How could it be otherwise? He was out with Monmouth. Go and comfort your sister.”

“Comfort her! Good Heaven, how? It will break her heart.”

“You shall have my prayers. Go, and do your duty to her.”

 

(To be concluded in our next.)