Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845

by Various

THE MIDNIGHT WATCH.

Chapter I.

"For the watch to babble and talk, Is most tolerable, and not to be endured." Much Ado about Nothing.

About the period when the civil wars between the Republican and Royalist parties in England had terminated, after the execution of the unfortunate Charles I., in the utter defeat of his son at the battle of Worcester, and the dispersion of all the adherents to the royal cause, a small castellated mansion, not far from the eastern coast of England, was garrisoned by a party of the Parliamentary troops.

This mansion, which had belonged to a Royalist family who had fled the land, having been seized upon and confiscated by the Parliamentary commissioners employed in sequestrating the property of confirmed enemies of the commonwealth, had been converted into a sort of fortress or stronghold, the natural defences and isolated position of which, rendered it peculiarly adapted as a place of confinement for prisoners of war. Its situation, at the same time, so near the coast, gave it an additional advantage as a post of observation, whence measures might be taken for the interception of such Royalists, who, proscribed as obstinate malignants, might be led to this part of the country in their attempts to seek the means of escape.

Flanked on one side by the waters of the river, this isolated house was cut off on the other three by a broad ditch or moat, being thus entirely surrounded by water, except at one point the most remote from the river, where it communicated by a wooden bridge with a causeway, lined by an avenue of trees, which served as an approach, and traversed at some length a low level tract of land before it reached the higher and more hilly country. A similar tract of level, but of a more marshy and swampy description, stretched along the opposite bank of the river, terminating at some distance by a line of low well-wooded hills. Not far from the house, which stood thus alone, like a solitary bittern in a Dutch landscape, the river widened suddenly into a large expanse of water, called in this part of England a "broad," which was itself only separated from the sea by a narrow strip of low sand-banks, and sandy downs or deanes, as they are there termed, and extended thus along the shore to some distance, when again assuming the form of a river, it poured its waters into the German Ocean.

Of the more ancient part of this mansion, which boasted (it was never well known upon what authority) a Roman origin, only a large circular tower was left, which was attached somewhat awkwardly, like an ill-adjusted headpiece, on to the more modern building. Although constructed in the comparatively peaceful times of Henry VII.'s reign, the more modern house had been evidently built with some ideas of strength and defence, and in a demi-castellated form, various smaller additions having been made to it at subsequent and different periods, without any great observance of order or style.

Behind the main body of the house thus irregularly constructed, was a species of small inner-court or garden, enclosed between the old tower and the walls that connected it with the mansion on one side, and a wing of the building which extended to the side of the stream on the other; whilst opposite to the back of the house, which was now wholly unoccupied, and almost in a ruinous state, a strong and thick parapet skirted the river, and completed the parallelogram.—Formerly an opening in the centre of this parapet had evidently conducted by several steps to the water's edge, in order to facilitate the communications with boats on the river; but it had now been blocked up by a fresh mass of heavy brickwork and masonry, as if for the purpose of adding security to the place; and at the time we write, two culverins, mounted so as to be on a level with the top of the parapet, contributed to give to the spot the look of a fortified stronghold. The forms of flower-beds of prim shapes, the former decorations of the spot, might still be traced here and there in the now almost level and sandy surface of the coast, giving evidence that some pains had probably been originally bestowed upon this interior enclosure. But beyond these faint traces of flower-beds, nothing now remained of its better days but a few evergreens and other bushes, which, growing close by the parapet wall, had equally escaped the rude trampling of the unheeding soldiers, or the wanton devastations of some of the over-zealous of the day; men who looked upon all adornment of whatever kind, all appearance of gratification of a refined taste, however innocent, as sinful and condemnable. A vaulted passage traversed the wing of the building mentioned as stretching to the water's edge, and formed the usual and more direct communication between this sort of court and other parts of the establishment.

Late on a fine autumn afternoon of the year 1652, some little time after the battle of Worcester, a young man, musket on arm, paced up and down this inner court as sentinel. His dress, which partook of the military uniform of the times, without precisely belonging to any particular regiment, and the finer cloth of some parts of his attire, which was of a far finer texture than was customary upon the person of a common soldier, proved that he was one of the many volunteers who had enrolled themselves among the troops of the Parliamentary army, and probably of gentler birth than might be generally found employed in such humble military functions. Loose boots of so great a size towards their upper part, that each might have been imagined to contain, at least, half a calf-skin, mounted towards his large hose of plain but good material. A tuck or rapier of some length was girded round his loins; a corselet, with bandoleer slung around it, covered the front of his buff-coat; and a morion, destitute of all feather or ornament, concealed for the greater part his hair, closely clipped in compliance with the puritanical fashions of the times, the colour of which, however, might be divined by the fairness of the young mustache that curled lovingly about his upper lip.

Sometimes, as he paced backwards and forwards upon his lonesome watch, the eye of the young man rested for a while upon the dull swampy landscape, the chief beauty of which, at the moment, was a slight haze that hovered over stream and marsh, and stunted willow and distant hill, tinged with a golden hue from the slanting rays of the sun; the only living sights and sounds of which, were busy flights of gnats whirling up and down with drowsy hum; an occasional frog, that splashed from the opposite shore into the water with an uneasy croak; and one solitary fisherman, who, after having drawn up his boat among the rushes on the river's bank, near the opening upon the "broad," and left his line to float along the lazy stream, seemed to have lain down in his broad flat-bottomed punt, to sleep at his ease. Sometimes he paused to scrutinize more earnestly the heavy pile of the old tower, to guard all egress from which might be supposed, from his periodical examinations of its walls, to be the peculiar duty of his post. Sometimes again he gazed listlessly upon the marks of devastation, where the carved armorial bearings of the family to whom the mansion had belonged, had been hacked away from the walls of the building, and other symbols of nobility or religion had been wantonly mutilated or destroyed; and at such moments, an almost unconscious sigh would escape him, ill according with the tenets of the party which he evidently served. But most generally his attention was directed towards a low window in the first floor of the projecting wing, not very many feet above the level of the ground, in front of which a small wooden balcony, filled with flowers, showed that the occupant of the chamber to which it belonged was probably of the gentler sex, and of an age when such matters are still objects of tender and careful solicitude. At these times, evidences of impatience, almost amounting to pettishness, would appear in his uneasy gestures; and after a scrutiny of some duration, he would again turn away to resume his pacing, with a look of trouble and annoyance upon his brow. The handsome features of that fine face, however, were not formed to express grief, nor that clear bright eye sorrowful thought; yet, such were the circumstances of the times, that whenever disengaging them from associations connected with the balconied window, as his reflections reverted to himself and his own position, his countenance would fall, and his eye cloud over with an expression of sadness.

Gerald Clynton was of old family and noble birth. His father, Lord Clynton, had doated upon his wife with the fondest and most exclusive affection; and the birth of Gerald, his second son, having been the occasion of her death in childbed, the agonized husband, who was inconsolable for her loss, had never been able to look upon the child, and, in its infant years, had banished it altogether from his sight. The time arrived, however, when it became necessary to remove the little boy from the sole care of menials, and to commence the rudiments of his education; and at that period Mr Lyle, the brother of the deceased Lady Clynton, finding the aversion of the father towards the poor innocent cause of the mother's death still more strongly rooted by time, and his whole paternal affections centred and lavished upon his eldest born, had taken the child to his home, and, being himself childless, had treated, and as it were adopted, the boy as his own son.

Time crept on. The boy grew into the youth; the youth approached to the man; but still Lord Clynton evinced no interest in his young son—gave no demonstration of awakening affection. With time also crept on the angry and troubled clouds that arose upon the political horizon of the land. The storm at length burst forth. The fatal struggle commenced between the unfortunate Charles and his Parliament; and the civil wars broke out. A stanch Royalist, Lord Clynton joined with enthusiasm the cause of the monarch; while Mr Lyle, whose tenets were of the Presbyterian persuasion, and whose political opinions were entirely of that party, found himself enrolled in the ranks of the Parliamentary army, in which his name and fortune and his active, but stern, cold courage, gave him much influence.

Entirely deprived of the affections of a father, whom he never remembered to have seen, and on whom, with the usual levity of boyhood, he seldom or never bestowed a passing thought, Gerald Clynton, or Gerald Lyle, as he was constantly called after his uncle—and most people knew not that he bore any other name—naturally imbibed the opinions and sentiments of his protector; and, when the civil war was openly declared, followed him to the camp. The reflection never crossed him, that the unknown author of his being might be engaged in the ranks of the enemy; that his uncle and his father might chance to meet face to face upon the battle-field; that either his real parent, or the parent of his affections, might fall by the hand of the other. To do justice to the feelings of the youth, no idea of the kind had ever been suggested to him by his uncle, not a word mentioned of the political sentiments of his father. Colonel Lyle—for such became his rank in the Parliamentary army—was a man of firm adherence to his principles; and although a cold, hard man, in all things but his affection for his adopted son, too earnest and eager a supporter of the party for which he battled, to allow such a proselyte to what he considered the just and upright cause—such a follower in his own footsteps as his nephew—to escape him on account of any family considerations, which he stigmatized as "prejudices to be despised and set at nought in so holy a matter."

Enrolled as a volunteer in his uncle's regiment, Gerald had, in some of the scanty moments of peace and repose snatched between the quickly following phases of the struggle, found opportunities to cultivate the acquaintance of an old friend of his uncle's—an officer in the same regiment—or rather, it ought to be owned without reserve, the acquaintance of the fair daughter of that friend. In these troubled but precious moments it was, that Gerald's young heart first awakened to love; and when, upon the death of his uncle Colonel Lyle, who never recovered the wounds he had received upon the field of Naseby, old Lazarus Seaman received the command of the regiment, it was again the bright eyes of pretty Mistress Mildred that served as a loadstone to attach him to it, and to attract him to follow the troop which garrisoned the lone mansion upon the eastern coast of England; for Colonel Lazarus Seaman was the governor or commander of this impromptu sort of fortress; and Colonel Lazarus Seaman's daughter, his only and motherless child, quitted her father's side as little as possible. She it was who was the tenant of the room appertaining to that balconied window, and those bright and carefully-tended flowers, to which the eyes of Gerald now so often strayed, as he paced up and down the dull court, to perform the duties of sentinel.

Gerald's thoughts, however, as already intimated, were not placid, nor were they exclusively occupied by the object of his affections. They dwelt, from time to time, with grief upon his uncle, whose death had excited in him so many bitter regrets; and those sad recollections, in their turn, called forth in him other reflections of a new and painful nature. He recalled to mind how, in his dying moments, the self-elected father of his youth had summoned him to his side, and talked to him of that other father whom he had never known; how he had spoken, in broken accents, and with much remorse, of the possible hatred engendered between father and son; of his own regrets, now first clearly awakened in him, that he himself might have been the cause of such a consummation; and how then, with his last breath, he in vain endeavoured to murmur expressions of bitter repentance for some cruel wrong done, the nature of which no longer met the ear of the anxious listener, and was soon left for ever unexplained in the silence of death. These sad remembrances led to a train of thought of a most painful and harassing description. His position as a voluntary supporter of a cause repugnant to the principles of a father, whom, although unknown to him, it was his duty to honour and obey, and as affianced to the daughter of a man whose Republican principles were so decided, appeared to him involved with the most perplexing difficulties. New and conflicting feelings had arisen in the young man's breast. There was already within him a bitter struggle between love and duty—between long inculcated opinions and newly awakened emotions. As the one or the other feeling predominated, Gerald walked backwards and forwards with gloomy face, or turned to gaze upon the window, the closed casement of which seemed then to call forth from him gestures and words of a somewhat testy impatience.

"She knows that this is my hour for mounting guard, and yet she comes not to the window. She shows no sign of the least thought or care for me," he muttered angrily to himself, stamping more firmly and sharply as he recommenced his pacing, after a pause, in which he had eyed the window with bent brow and bitten lip. "But she does not love me," he added bitterly. "She has never loved me. She has never done otherwise than trifle with my affections—seeking for demonstrations of my love to feed her vanity, and then flinging them aside with the sick stomach of an over-pampered child. I am a fool to let myself be thus dragged at her skirts, in such tinselled leading-strings. No; I will loose myself from this thraldom. But what if she love another? More than once I have thought she looked with much complacency upon that young recruit—the new volunteer—that Maywood, I think they call him. Were it true, 'sdeath! I would slit his ears for him. God forgive me the oath!" Gerald asked no forgiveness for the revengeful thought.

He was still continuing his half-muttered soliloquy of jealousy and spite, when the click of a casement-hasp caught his lover's ear. In a moment, the angry expression of his brow was cleared away like a mist before the sun—a bright gleam of satisfaction illumed his countenance, as he looked eagerly and hastily towards the window of Mistress Mildred's chamber. The casement opened, and first appeared a fair hand, which, with a long tapering jug of blue and white Dutch porcelain, was bestrewing water upon the flowers in the little wooden balcony. Then there stood at the open window a youthful female form; but the head was bent down so low over the flowers—the damsel was so absorbed in her gentle occupation—she was of course so completely unaware of the presence of any person in the court below who might expect a greeting from her, that it was difficult at first to distinguish the features. A pure white, pinched, and plaited cap covered the bended head, but not, however, so entirely, as fully to contain or hide a profusion of dark brown hair, which perhaps, according to the fashion of the times, it should have done. Through the flowers, also, that partially obscured the long low window, might be distinguished part of a sad-coloured gown, the simplicity of which, in its make, could not conceal, as perhaps it ought to have done, the rounded outlines of a full but graceful form; while, at the same time, its dull hue was charmingly relieved—of course without any intention of coquetry—by a ruff and gorget of the most glittering purity, and, at the end of the long sleeves, by two small, delicate, white cuffs, which seemed to be playing a game of rivalry with the little hands for the palm of fairness.

As Gerald hemmed, and coughed, and shuffled with his feet impatiently, he imagined, for a moment, that one hasty glance of the eyes which bent over the flowers was directed into the court, and then averted with the quickness of lightning, but he was no doubt mistaken; for when the task of watering the plants was at an end, the head was only raised to watch the clouds for a very short space of time—sufficient time, however, to show two dark pencilled eyebrows placed over a pair of bright dark eyes, in that peculiar arch which gives a look of tormenting espièglerie to the expression, and in the blooming cheeks, full, but not too full for grace, two laughter-loving dimples, which imparted to a lovely countenance a joyous and fascinating character—and then was again withdrawn. The fair white hand again already rested upon the hasp of the casement, as if to close it, when Gerald, who had waited with renewed feelings of vexation the greeting of his lady-love, called in a low, but almost angry tone of voice, "Mildred!—Mistress Mildred!"

"Master Gerald Lyle, is it you? Who would have thought that you were there?" said pretty Mistress Mildred, again showing at the window her arch countenance, the expression of which seemed to be at most wicked variance with her prim attire.

"Methinks a friendly greeting were not ill bestowed upon an old acquaintance," muttered the young man in the same tone of testy impatience.

"Know you not," responded the damsel, with something of the canting whine adopted at the time, and in a semi-serious tone, to the genuineness of which her dimples very naughtily gave a direct lie—whatever their mistress might have intended—"Know you not, that such bowings of the head, and kissings of the hand, are but vain and worldly symbols and delusions."

"Trifle not with me, I beseech you, Mildred," said the vexed lover, "for my heart is sad and my mind is harassed. During the weary hours of my watch, I have longed for a smile from that sweet face—a glance from those bright eyes, as my only solace; and yet the hours passed by and you came not to your window, although I had let you know that it was my duty to keep this watch; and when you did come, you would have left again without a single word to me. This was unkind. And now you are there, you bend your brow upon me with an angry look. What have I done to offend you, Mildred? You cannot doubt my love, my truth."

"And what is there in my conduct or in my words that can justify Master Lyle in thus treating me as a trifler?" answered Mildred with a pouting air, avoiding any direct answer to all his other remarks. "Methinks I have every right to be offended at so unjust an accusation." But in spite of the gross offence, Mistress Mildred now seemed to have no thought of punishing it, by withdrawing from the window.

"I offend you! you know I would give the whole world, were it mine, to spare you one painful feeling," cried the young man. "It is you who wrong me, it is you who are unjust, and even now you seek to quarrel with me. But perhaps you wish to break the troth you have given me—perhaps your light heart has already offered its affections to another!"

"As you will, sir. Perhaps my light heart, as you are pleased to call it, would do well to seek some less morose and tetchy guardian," said the young lady, tossing up her head, and preparing again to close the windows.

But as her eye fell upon the despairing look and gestures of her lover, the arched eyebrow was unknit, and raised with an expression of comic vexation; a smile lurked for a moment in the dimples and corners of the pouting mouth; and then at last broke out into a fit of decided laughter.

After indulging a moment in her mirth, Mildred looked at the young man fondly and said, "Go to, Gerald! you show not the patient spirit of a Christian man; and even now your face wears such a frown, as methinks must have wrinkled the brow of the jealous blackamoor in those wicked stage-plays, of which my poor mother told me, before my father chid her for it, and bid her cease to speak of such vanities—fie now! out upon you! shall I throw you down my little mirror that you may see that face? Well! I am a naughty froward child. See there! I am sitting on the stool of penance, and I ask thee pardon."

"Forgive me also," cried Gerald, springing forward, his heart melting before the arch look of fondness that beamed down upon him. "Forgive me my pettish impatience with you, Mildred."

"Forgiveness of injuries is ordained unto us as our first of duties," rejoined Mildred with another demure look—which was all the wickeder for its demureness.

"But why came you not before, my Mildred?" said the lover, with a slight lingering tone of expostulation; "you know not the bitterness of those countless minutes of anxiety, and doubt, and eager waiting."

"I could not leave my father," replied Mildred more seriously; "although he knows and approves our attachment; he would have chid me had he been aware that I come to have speech of you from my window; and as it is, I have done wrong to come. Besides, he was weary, and bade me read to him, and I sat by his side, and read to him the Bible, until, in the midst of an exhortation to watch and pray, I heard a sound that he himself might have called an uplifting of the horn of Sion, and behold he was snoring in his chair; and then, in the naughtiness of my heart, I stole from his presence to come to my room—and—and—tend my flowers," she added with an arch smile.

"You thought of me then, and came, though late, to see me?" said Gerald eagerly.

"You? Did I not say my flowers, Master Gerald?" asked Mildred still laughing.

"Oh! mock me no longer, cruel girl! You know not all I have suffered during this tedious watch—all the doubts and fears with which my poor mind has been tortured. Did you know, you would console, not mock me, and one word would console all. Tell me you love me still."

"One word, you say—what shall it be?" said Mildred, raising her eyebrows as if to seek the word; and then, looking down upon him kindly, she added, "Ever."

"And you love none but me? you have no thought for any other?" continued the lover with an evident spice of jealousy still lurking in his mind.

"What! two words now?" said the laughing girl. "Are all lovers such arrant beggars? give them a penny and they ask a groat. Well! well! but one other, and that shall be the last. None"—and as Mildred spoke, she bent herself over the balcony to smile on Gerald, and rested one tiny hand, of course unconsciously, on the outer framework.

"Thanks, thanks, my dear, my pretty, my darling Mildred!" exclaimed the young man, and as he spoke, he sprang, musket on arm, upon a stone bench, which stood out from the wall immediately under Mistress Mildred's window, and endeavoured to snatch the white hand that just peeped so invitingly over the edge of the low wooden balcony.

"Out upon you, Master Sentinel," said the young lady, putting back her hand. "Is it thus you keep your watch? Another such step and I shall sound the alarm, and denounce you as a deserter to your post. Look ye! your prisoner will escape."

Gerald instinctively turned his head to the old tower behind him, as he stepped down again from the stone bench, with somewhat of that tail-between-the-legs look, which a spaniel wears when repulsed from his mistress's lap. But there was no one stirring. He shook his head reproachfully at the laughing girl.

"Nay! I did but remind you of your duty," said Mildred; "and you know my father sets much store by the capture of this prisoner, whom he supposes to be some one of rank and note; a fugitive from the dispersed army of the malignants; perhaps a friend of the young King of Scots, and, as such, aware of his retreat."

"I saw him as they brought him hither, after capturing him in an attempt to gain the coast," replied the young soldier. "He is an old cavalier, of a stately and goodly presence, although cast down by his ill fortune. But enough of this. Tell me, Mildred"—But here the ears of the young couple caught the sound of a distant bell as it came booming over the water of the broad.

"Hush! It is the curfew from the town," said Mildred. "The watch will now be changed. Back! back! They will be here directly. I must away."

"Already," cried Gerald with vexation. "But another word, Mildred—but one—some token of your love until we meet again."

"Impossible!" replied the fair girl. "How can you ask me for a token? It were very wrong in me to give you such. You ask too much." Then, as she was about to close the window, she exclaimed again, "This poor rose wants trimming sadly. Alack! these early frosts destroy all my poor plants;" and taking up her scissors, which hung from her girdle, she snipped at a withered leaf. Perhaps Mildred's pretty little hand trembled, for of course it was an accident—the unfortunate scissors, instead of cutting the withered leaf; closed upon the very prettiest rose upon the little tree—that rose happened to hang over the edge of the balcony, and so it came to pass that it fell at Gerald's feet.

Gerald seized it and pressed it, like all true lovers from time immemorial, to his lips.

"Thanks! darling girl," he cried.

"Thanks! for what?" rejoined Mistress Mildred, putting on a very lamentable air. "Now, don't suppose I have done this purposely. My poor rose! how you crush it and tumble it in your hand. How could I be so awkward!" and with these words the window was wholly closed.

Gerald still stood with his eyes fixed upon the window, when a noise, as if a sharp rustling among leaves, startled him. Immediately upon the alert, he looked cautiously around; but there was no one in the court. He walked hastily to the parapet wall and bent over it—all was still except the boat of the fisherman, which he had before observed. It had apparently been rowed to another part of the river about the mansion, as a better place for fishing, without having been observed by the inattentive sentinel, for it was now floating down the stream towards the opening into the broad. The fisherman again lay motionless at the bottom of the boat. Suddenly a thought seemed to cross the young soldier's brain, for he sprang to the bushes still left growing near the parapet wall, and searched hastily among the leaves. From the ground beneath their thick shelter he raised a small packet. His musket was already jerked into his right arm to fire an alarm, in order that the fisherman might be pursued, as suspected of attempting to establish a communication with the prisoner, when his eye fell upon the superscription of the packet. He stared for one moment with surprise; and then his colour changed, and he grew deadly pale. His eye hurried rapidly to the tower—an exclamation of bitter grief burst from his lips—and he stood aghast. At this moment the steps of the soldiers coming to relieve guard resounded along the vaulted passage communicating between the court and other parts of the mansion. At the sound the blood rushed back into Gerald's face, until it covered forehead and temples. He hastily replaced the packet in the hiding-place where he had discovered it, and stood with musket in arm, and in a state of ill-repressed agitation, awaiting the corporal and guard.

The young soldier who was now brought to relieve him from his post, was the same Mark Maywood of whom he had expressed his jealous doubts.

The usual ceremony of relieving guard was gone through; but although the words of order were few, these few words were communicated by Gerald in a brief angry tone, and received by the other young soldier with a cold frowning air. Between the two young men there appeared to exist feelings of an instinctive repulsion.

As he turned to leave the court, Gerald gave another anxious, eager look at the old tower, and glanced askance at the leafy hiding-place of the packet. Another troubled sigh burst from his heart; but whatever thoughts occupied him before passing under the vaulted passage, he raised his eyes to the well-known chamber casement, which was close by. He could evidently perceive Mildred's graceful form partly ensconced behind a hanging to her window. Was she watching his departure? No. It seemed to him as if her eyes were turned in the direction of the handsome young recruit—that detested Maywood. And he? Gerald looked round once more. He felt convinced that the young sentinel's eyes were fixed upon pretty Mistress Mildred's window. It was in a high state of agitation—a new fit of raging jealousy mingling with other painful and harassing emotions, that Gerald followed the corporal and soldiers from the court.

Chapter II.

"O, 'tis your son! I know him not. I'll be no father to so vile a son." Rowley, (Woman Never Vexed.)

"Yet I have comfort, if by any means I get a blessing from my father's hands." Idem.

Gerald sat with a troubled and moody air upon one of the stone benches of the low hall, which, formerly intended, perhaps, as a sort of waiting-room for the domestics of the establishment, was now used as the guard-room. Although his thoughts were not upon the objects around him, he seemed to be assiduously employed in cleaning and arranging his accoutrements—for in spite of his birth and the fortune bequeathed to him by his uncle, he was still left to fulfil the very humblest and most irksome duties of a military life.

It had been part of the severe Colonel Lyle's system of education to inure his adopted son to every toil and privation that might give health and hardihood to mind as well as body; and upon the same principle, when he had enrolled the boy as a volunteer in his own troop, he had compelled him to serve as a common soldier. The colonel's strict and somewhat overwrought sense of justice, as well as his peculiar political opinions, had led him, moreover, to declare, that whatever the artificial position of his adopted son in the supposed scale of society, it should be by merit only that the young volunteer should rise from the ranks through the various grades of military distinction; and upon his deathbed he had urged his friend Seaman to pursue the same system, as long as Gerald should feel disposed to follow under him the career of arms. Although received, therefore, with certain reservations, upon an equality of footing into the family of Colonel Seaman, and in some measure looked upon as the accepted lover and future husband of the colonel's fair daughter, young Gerald found himself condemned to go through all the inferior duties and occupations of a common soldier.

Long accustomed, however, by his uncle's strict and unbending system of training, to hardships little regarded by a roughly-nurtured youth of his years, he never thought of murmuring against this harsh probation; and if, now, he pursued his occupation with a troubled brow, it was far other thoughts that caused that look of doubt and uneasiness.

The vaguest suspicions of his mistress's fickleness were sufficient to excite the jealous temperament of a youth like Gerald, whose naturally ardent and passionate disposition, whose hot Clynton blood had been only subdued, not quenched, by the strict education of his severe, cold uncle Lyle. But there were thoughts and feelings of a far more momentous and harassing nature which now assailed him. The packet which he had discovered among the bushes growing close upon the parapet wall, and which had evidently been conveyed by stealth within the precincts of the fortress, had borne the following superscription:—"For the Lord Clynton—these."

It was Lord Clynton, then—it was his own father, who was a prisoner within those walls.

Under sad auspices were his filial affections now first awakened. He was aware of the danger that must attend his unhappy parent should he be discovered to be, as was probably the case, one of those obstinate malignants, as they were termed, who, after having made reluctant submission when the fate of arms proved fatal to Charles I., had again joined the royalist troops when the standard was raised for the young prince, and fought in his cause, until the final overthrow at Worcester forced them into flight from the country. It was in an attempt of this kind that the prisoner had been taken. Gerald knew how almost certain would be the old cavalier's condemnation under such circumstances. But there were evidently hopes of saving him. Communications, it was clear, had been established with the prisoner by persons outside the walls of the fortress. It was known probably, that, by permission of the commander, the prisoner was allowed to take the air for a certain time daily, in the small court beneath the walls of the tower in which he was confined; and this opportunity was watched, it would seem, for the conveyance of the communication into the hand of the prisoner.

The conflicting struggle which had arisen in Gerald's mind, now gave place to one overpowering feeling. He was determined at all risks, and at whatever sacrifice to himself, to save his father. The breach of trust—the dereliction from his honour—the probability of being obliged to renounce the hand of the girl he loved, if detected in assisting in a plot to favour the evasion of the old cavalier—all faded away before his sight, and appeared as naught when compared with the hope of rescuing his father from his cruel situation. What the nature of the scheme was which Lord Clynton's friends seemed to be devising, in order to effect his escape, or how far he could assist in such a project, he was unable to divine. But the one thought was there, and mastered all—the thought that, on opening the way of escape before his father, he should be able to say, "Father, bless thy long-estranged son; it is he who saves thee." The rest was doubt, confusion, and darkness.

Again and again did he turn over in his mind a thousand projects by which to aid in the evasion of the prisoner. Again and again did he endeavour to conjecture what might have been already purposed. All appeared to him to be impracticable on the one hand, and a mystery on the other. Already the consciousness of his secret induced him to look upon every one with suspicious eyes, as an enemy or a spy upon his conduct. But most of all, with that prejudice which pointed him out his supposed rival as the object of peculiar hatred, did he look upon Mark Maywood as his enemy in this matter—that Mark Maywood, whose violent party feelings, and fierce Republican abhorrence of royalty and the adherents of the fallen royalty of England, had already manifested themselves in such frequent outbreaks since his arrival as a fresh recruit in the troop—that Mark Maywood, who, in case of the evasion of one of the detested cavaliers, would be foremost to hunt him to the death—that Mark Maywood, who, even now, kept watch over his father's prison, and might, if he discovered the packet which was intended for the old man's hand, thwart for ever the only means of the unfortunate prisoner's escape. And as this thought came across him, Gerald counted, in an agony of mind, all the possibilities by which the packet might meet the sentinel's eye. With beating heart he reviewed, in imagination, every leaf which hid it, every overhanging branch which might add to its concealment. Bitterly did he reproach himself in his heart, that he had thrown it back to its hiding-place so hastily and carelessly upon hearing the approach of the guard. It seemed to him that if the packet were discovered, it would have been he who had delivered up his father, who had betrayed the secret on which depended his father's safety. The thought, however, that the evening was closing in, somewhat consoled him. Eternally long seemed the time spent in this mute agony of doubt. At length the hour sounded for the relief of the guard, and Gerald's heart beat painfully. Now he might learn whether Maywood had made the dreaded discovery. He placed himself as if by chance in the passage through which the guard had to pass with the report to the governor, and gazed with scrutinizing look into the face of the young soldier as he went by, as if he could read an answer to his dreaded doubts in those dark eyes. Mark Maywood's face, to which, in spite of its beauty, the closely clipped dark hair in Roundhead fashion, contrasting with the thick mustache, gave a harsh and hard look, was stern, frowning, and expressive of that sullen severity which was usually put on by the enthusiasts of the day. In such a face Gerald could read nothing to dissipate his doubts, but every thing to strengthen them. Anxiously did he await the return of the relieved sentinel to the guard-room. But when Mark Maywood came at last, he interchanged but a few sentences with the older and sterner of his comrades, said not a word to Gerald, and, taking a well worn Bible in his hand, flung himself on a bench, and soon seemed lost in serious devotion. Once, in truth, Gerald fancied that he raised his eye to scan him, as if with scorn, and then indeed he first remarked that Maywood twisted between his fingers a rose. For a moment his aversion to the young soldier as an enemy to be dreaded for his father's sake, was absorbed in his hatred to him as a suspected rival. That rose? how had he obtained it? Could Mildred be so base as to encourage the handsome young enthusiast, who, in spite of his gloomy character, had evidently, to Gerald's jealous eye, shown himself feelingly alive to the attraction of pretty Mistress Mildred's charms? For a moment the feelings of jealousy so completely overpowered all others, that he started forward to challenge the young man to account for the possession of that rose. But again the thoughts of his father came across him. Such a challenge must necessarily involve him in a quarrel—a quarrel would be followed by an arrest for breach of discipline—a confinement of some hours, during which, he, who might have aided his father's escape, might perhaps have left him to perish; and swallowing with an effort all the bitter feelings that almost choked him—he again turned away and sought his hard couch.

Sleep he could not; or if he dozed, the conflicting feelings of doubt, apprehension for his father, and burning jealousy, still flitted through his mind like a troubled and tormenting nightmare; and the next day Gerald arose with the earliest dawn, in a state of mind the uneasiness of which seemed intolerable.

The morning broke—the day advanced—and as no new measures seemed to be taken with respect to the prisoner, Gerald's mind began by degrees to be relieved from its trembling apprehensions as to the discovery of the packet; eagerly did he await the hour of his own guard, which, in the course of the morning, was announced to him to be at noon, and as usual in the small inner court. His heart beat with impatience to see whether the secret communication still remained in its hiding-place, and to facilitate, if possible, the means of its falling into his father's hands.

At length the hour arrived—Accompanied by the corporal and the other soldiers of the guard, he was taken to relieve his predecessor on the post, and after an interchange of the usual formalities, was left alone. His first impulse was to examine the bush into which, on the previous evening, had been flung the packet. After looking carefully around him, and, in spite of the absorbing thought which now occupied his attention, casting one glance, accompanied by a troubled sigh, upon Mildred's window, he approached the wall. Before, however, he could put aside the leaves, several heavy steps resounded through the vaulted passage, and Gerald drew back from the wall with all the seeming unconcern he could assume.

The persons who entered the court were the commander, Lazarus Seaman himself, and three soldiers. With a grave salute, and a few words to Gerald, the colonel gave directions that the heavy gate of the prison tower should be opened, and motioning to one of the soldiers who accompanied him to remain behind, he entered the tower with the two others, and was immediately heard mounting the winding stair leading to the room above, in which the prisoner was confined.

Again did Gerald's heart beat thick with apprehension. What could be the purpose of this visit of the governor to his prisoner? Had a report of the previous evening been the cause of this fresh examination? Did it result from the discovery of the secret packet? Gerald trembled—a moment's search among those bushes would convince him of the reality or vanity of his agonizing fears, and yet he did not dare to stir a step to solve his doubts. The eye of the other soldier was upon him. He listened with straining ears to catch the faintest sound that came from the tower, as if it had been possible for him to hear what passed in the chamber of the prisoner; striving, at the same time, to master all expression of his feelings, lest his secret should be read upon his brow by the very anxiety to conceal it. Useless effort; for the soldier who remained behind paid little heed to him, and would have been totally unable to comprehend his motives for uneasiness, had even its expression been visible.

At length the steps of the governor and his party were heard descending the stairs of the tower. As they emerged into the court, Gerald started with a fresh burst of uncontrollable agitation. The old cavalier followed the Roundhead colonel. With a few more words to signify to his prisoner that the time allotted to him to take the air in that court was but short, Lazarus Seaman again retired.

The soldier, already mentioned, remained behind as a sort of extra sentinel, or watch, to prevent all possibility of escape, during the time the prisoner was permitted to promenade the open space.

Gerald was in the presence of his father!

With what overpowering emotion did he now long to throw himself into those arms, and be pressed to his father's heart! And yet the utmost caution was necessary. A word might deprive him of all power to assist the prisoner in his projected escape. It was with the utmost difficulty that he restrained his feelings, and watched the noble form of the old cavalier as he paced slowly and sadly up and down the court.

That, then, was his father!

The dark mourning habit which Lord Clynton wore in imitation of many of the Royalist party, after the execution of their unfortunate master, although soiled and torn, gave him an air of dignity in spite of its look of sadness; and the long grizzled beard, which had evidently remained untrimmed, having been left probably to grow uncultured as a sign of sorrow, bestowed upon him an imposing expression, in spite of its neglected state.

Although cast down and worn out by disappointment and vexation, there was evidently a feverish and testy impatience in the old man's manner, which was perhaps a symptom of the family temperament; and Gerald observed that from time to time he looked sharply at both the sentinels, and then cast a furtive glance at the clump of bushes near the wall. The packet then was supposed by the prisoner to be still there; but yet uneasiness and doubt were visible in his hasty looks. In reflecting upon the position of the barred window of the prisoner's chamber, Gerald remembered that its tenant might have witnessed the approach of the supposed fisherman, and divined his motive, without being able to see what had passed near the bushes themselves.

The old man was consequently still doubtful as to the safety of the communication which was to be the key to his escape, and even more anxious as to the means by which he might reach it. Gerald watched with palpitating heart, how, in his promenade, the old cavalier approached nearer and nearer, as if unconsciously, the parapet wall. Had he been alone, all, he said to himself, would have been well; but there was another witness to observe the prisoner's actions. Gerald in his turn also scrutinized the comrade of his watch, and turned over in his mind schemes to elude his vigilance.

The man employed upon the extra duty of this watch was well known to him by sight and reputation. He was said to have been originally of Dutch extraction; and certainly there was much in his heavy features, sleepy eyes, and phlegmatic temperament, which seemed to attest the truth of such a supposition—a supposition which was still more borne out by the report that he owned the euphonious appellation of Gideon Van Guse. This, however, was but vague hearsay; for, in imitation of the fantastic habit of some of the fanatics of the time, Gideon had adopted a pious cognomen, the softness of which he perhaps fancied to accord well with his own placable and quiet disposition. He went by the name of Godlamb Gideon, except upon those occasions when some of the more wicked of his comrades took advantage of certain drowsy and somniferous points in his indolent character, to bestow upon him the nickname of Go-to-bed Godlamb.

As Gerald cast his scrutinizing look upon him, Master Go-to-bed Godlamb was standing planted against a wall, in the full warmth of an autumnal sun, perched upon one leg, according to a habit which he seemed to have inherited, by a sort of instinct, from the cranes of the country of his fathers, and which he was generally observed to adopt when in a more than usually drowsy disposition. His other leg was twisted round its brother, in somewhat incomprehensible fashion. But in spite of this supposed indication of drowsiness, Gideon's light eyes stared out from under his preposterously high steeple hat with unusual wakefulness and rotundity, and gave to his not very expressive physiognomy the appearance of that of an owl.

Gerald thanked the good fortune that had sent him, at such a moment, a comrade of so drowsy and phlegmatic a nature. But it was in vain that he watched for some further indications of the usual results of Go-to-bed Godlamb's pious meditations. The eyes would still preserve a most provoking rotundity; nay, more, they appeared determined, out of the most obstinate spirit of opposition, to assume at that moment a liveliness they never had been known to assume before, since they had opened on the light of day.

The old cavalier still paced the court, but nearer to the bushes than before. Impatient, also, at the loss of the precious moments as they hurried by, Gerald approached his comrade.

"You seem weary, friend," he said.

"Yea, verily," answered Godlamb Gideon through his nose. "My soul is weary with long watching; but if the flesh be weak, the spirit is still strong."

"Give way, comrade, give way," insinuated Gerald; "I will keep watch for both, and none shall be the wiser."

"Nay, but the labourer is worthy of his hire," snorted Gideon with much unction. "Odds pittikins, man," he blurted out immediately afterwards, in another and more natural tone, "would you have me in arrest again for sleeping on my post? That is to say," continued the Puritan soldier, casting up his eyes, and again resuming his canting whine, "verily and of a truth the hand of the scourger has been heavy upon me; the unjust have prevailed against me; but I will watch, that I fall not again into their toils."

Gerald turned away with impatient vexation. At that moment the old cavalier, who had taken advantage of the few words passing between the two sentinels, to approach the bushes unobserved, was bending down to possess himself of the packet. As Gerald turned he again drew back, his purpose unfulfilled.

Standing with his back to the other sentinel, Gerald now made a sign to the old man, with his finger placed upon his lips, to say not a word, but to repose his confidence in him. The prisoner started with surprise, and looked at the young soldier with a mixture of hope and doubt. Before making any further demonstration, Gerald again turned in his walk, to assure himself that Gideon observed nothing of this interchange of looks with the prisoner, and then again turning his back to him, placed his hand upon his heart with a look of fervour and truth, which would have been alone sufficient to inspire confidence in the old cavalier, and passing as near him as he could with prudence, murmured in a low tone, "Trust to me!" The old man again started; but there was more of pleasurable surprise, and less of doubt, in his expression. Gerald's heart beat wildly, as his father's eye beamed upon him for the first time with kindly and grateful feeling.

The young soldier again looked at his comrade. Gideon's eyes were now beginning to close, in the excess of his fervour over the pious page. Walking quietly to the protecting bushes, Gerald bent over the parapet as if to look into the stream, and plunging his arm at the same time into the leaves, felt for the packet. After a moment's fear and doubt, he touched it—he drew it forth. By a movement of his head, he saw the old man watching him with increasing agitation; but, giving him another look to re-assure him, Gerald rose from his posture, and was about to conceal the packet in his bandoleer, when it slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. At the noise of the fall, Gideon's eyes again opened, and were lifted up with owl-like sagacity of expression. Gerald's foot was already upon the packet. Neither he nor the old cavalier dared to interchange a look. Gideon's eyes said, as plainly as eyes could speak, that they were not asleep, and had not been asleep, and never intended to go to sleep—in fact, were wonderfully wakeful. Aware that he could not remain motionless upon the spot where he stood, under the full stare of Gideon's eyes, Gerald let fall his musket, as if by accident, and then kneeling with his back to his fellow-sentinel, contrived adroitly to raise the packet at the same time with his musket, and to conceal it upon his person. The prisoner was following his movements with anxious eagerness.

Possessed of the precious document, Gerald now felt the impossibility of giving it into his father's hands, as long as the eyes of Godlamb Gideon were upon them. There appeared to him to be but one practicable manner of conveying the desired intelligence contained within it to the prisoner—namely, by examining himself the contents, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicions of his comrade, and then communicating them in low and broken sentences to his father.

Placed in such a position as not to be observed by Gideon, he took the packet from his bosom, and making the movement of breaking the fastening, looked imploringly at the old cavalier. The old man comprehended the glance, hesitated for a moment with a look of doubt, and then, clearing his brow with an expression of resolution, as if there were no other means, nodded his head stealthily to the young soldier, and moving to one of the stone benches fixed against the walls of the court, the furthest removed from the spot where Gideon stood, flung himself down upon it, and with his face buried between his hands, seemed absorbed in thought.

From one of the capacious pockets of his full hose, Gerald now produced a book—it was the Bible; for it was the fashion of the times among the Puritanical party to carry the holy book about the person. With a short humble prayer that he might not be thought to desecrate the sacred volume by applying it to a purpose of concealment for his father's sake, he placed upon its open pages the letter, which formed the only contents of the packet, after having first torn away and concealed, unobserved, the envelope, and then resumed his monotonous pacing up and down the court.

Gideon observed his comrade's seeming devotion, and appearing determined to outrival him in excess of zeal, applied himself more sedulously than ever to his book.

"Your friends are on the alert—a lugger lies off the coast ready for your escape," said Gerald in a low tone to the old cavalier, as he passed as near to him in his walk as discretion would permit.

Such was the sense of the commencement of the communication. The old man made a gentle inclination of his head, to show that he understood him, without raising it from between his hands. The young soldier looked at Gideon; Gideon had shifted his legs, and perched himself in an attitude bearing a more direct resemblance to that of a reposing crane than ever. Gerald again cast his eyes upon his open book—

"All is prepared for to-night," he continued to mutter, as he again slowly passed the seat of the prisoner. "Have the bars of your window been cut by the file already conveyed to you?"

The old man again bowed his head with an affirmative movement.

As Gerald turned once more, Go-to-bed Godlamb was nodding his head over his book, as if in very enthusiastic approval of its contents, but unfortunately with so much energy—that he jerked it up again into an upright posture—and immediately began staring straight before him with great vehemence.

Gerald bit his lips with vexation, and continued his walk. His eyes were seemingly employed upon the page before him—

"A boat will be brought without noise under the walls at twelve this night," continued the anxious son, repassing his father, where he sat. "You must descend from your window by your bed-clothes."

Gerald resumed his walk. Gideon was winking and blinking with much energy—

"The only difficulty is to elude the vigilance of the sentinel who shall have the midnight watch"—muttered Gerald, as he again came back past the prisoner.

The old man raised his head, and looked at him anxiously.

Gideon was again nodding, but with a lesser degree of enthusiasm, as Gerald turned himself that way. The young man quickened his step, and was soon once more by his father's side—

"Every means that lie in my power shall be employed to favour your escape," whispered Gerald, with much emotion.

The prisoner gave him an enquiring glance, as if to ask his meaning—Gerald looked round—Godlamb was now snoring, after the fashion of a well-known farm-yard animal—not the one whose name he bore.

"God grant," continued the young man in much agitation, "that the lot fall to me to be the sentry on that watch—then all were well!"

"And who are you, young man," said the cavalier, "who thus interest yourself so warmly in my fate?"

Gerald could no longer command his feelings. He flung himself at the old man's feet.

"Father!" he exclaimed in smothered accents, "give me thy blessing."

"Your father! I!" cried the old cavalier; "you my son! you Gerald Clynton! no—no—Gerald Lyle, I should have said. Tell me not so."

"I am your son Gerald—Gerald Clynton—Oh, call me by that name!" exclaimed the kneeling young man in a choked voice; for the tears were starting into his eyes.

"Thou art no son of mine. I know thee not! Leave me!" said Lord Clynton, springing from his seat in bitter anger.

Go-to-bed Godlamb stirred uneasily upon his post. Gerald rose quickly from his knees, trembling with agitation; for in spite of the violence of his emotion, he had sufficient presence of mind to look cautiously round at his sleeping comrade. Gideon's eyes were still closed over his book, in that profound mystery of devotion which was one of his most remarkable traits.

"My father!" cried Gerald imploringly to the old man, who now stood looking towards him with a harsh and stubborn expression of countenance, although the workings of emotion were faintly perceptible in the lineaments of his face.

Lord Clynton waved him impatiently away, and turned aside his head.

"Oh, repulse me not, my father!" cried Gerald with imploring looks. "Why am I still the proscribed son of your affections? What have I done, to be thus driven from your arms? Am I still—though innocent of all wrong—to pay so cruel a penalty for my unhappy birth?"

"Allude not to your mother!" exclaimed the old man passionately. "Defile not her memory even by a thought, base boy! Were she living still, she also would refuse to acknowledge her degenerate son."

"Great God! what have I done to merit this?" said the unhappy son, forgetting, in the agitation of his mind, the strict principles of the Puritanical party, which forbade as sinful this adjuration of the Deity—"I thought to save you, my father, from your cruel situation—I thought to aid your flight."

"Say rather," said the excited cavalier, giving way to his hot unreasonable temper, "to trample on the prisoner—to scoff at him, and triumph over him—to deliver him up to his enemies. What have I else to expect from the degenerate rebel to the religion of his fathers, his country, and his king. Go, boy—go, play the patriot at thy ease—reverse the tale of the Roman Brutus—and denounce thy father to the block!"

"Unjust! unkind!" said the young man, struggling with his tears, which now began to give place to feelings of indignation in him also. "But you have ever been so. You have driven me, an innocent babe, from your affections and your sight; and when now, first after long years, I beg a father's blessing—stretch forth my arm to earn a father's thanks—you spurn me from your feet, and heap unmerited obloquy upon my head."

"Unmerited!" echoed Lord Clynton. "Do you forget your disobedience? or do the convenient tenets of your hypocritical party permit you to erase the fifth commandment from the decalogue, and teach you that the honouring of your father is an idle observance, not to be weighed in the balance against the cause of the God of Israel and his people—so goes the phrase—does it not?"

"I understand you not," said Gerald. "In what have I refused to honour my father? whose face I see for the first time to-day—at least since I have thought and memory."

"In what?" exclaimed his father, with a bitter laugh, "said I not so? Honour and dishonour are in your new-fangled vocabulary but vain words, that you understand no longer. In what? If I, thy father—since to my shame I must be so—if I have been led by my overwhelming grief for that angel, who has long been at rest, to treat thee with wrong in thy childhood, my conscience has no longer a reproach to offer me; for my son has in return treated me with the bitterest scorn, and refused to come to those loving arms, which at last opened to receive him. In what? I have appealed to thee with the strongest appeal of a father's heart to join me in the true and joint cause of murdered royalty, and I find thee even now before me, with arms in thy hands, to aid the sacrilegious traitors to their king—may be to turn them with parricidal arm against thy father."

"Again I understand you not," repeated Gerald, gazing wistfully in his face. "Oh speak, explain—my father—this is a mystery to me!"

"Not understand me!" echoed Lord Clynton with scorn—"convenient phrase! convenient memory! You understood not perhaps those letters I addressed you, those letters in which I implored you to forget the past, and offered you a loving welcome to my heart. But you could dictate a letter to your uncle, in which you could upbraid me for my past unkindness, and refuse to return. You understood not my urgent appeal to you to join the cause of truth and loyalty, and fight by your father's side. But you could dictate a second answer, worded with cold contempt, in which you could assert your rebellious right—degenerate boy!—to follow those principles you dared to my face to qualify as those of justice and religion."

"Letters!" repeated Gerald, astounded. "An appeal! I know of none—until my uncle's death I scarcely was aware I had a father to whom I owed a duty—I never heard that he followed another cause, but that which I was taught to believe the right."

"No letters! No appeal!" said his father, half in scornful mistrust, half in doubt.

"None—I protest to you, my father," replied the agitated youth. "Now—but only now—can I construe rightly the words my uncle uttered on his deathbed, which spoke of wrong he had done me and you."

"Can I believe all this?" said the passionate old cavalier, now evidently wavering in his wrath.

"As God lives," said Gerald; "that God whom I perhaps offend, that I thus call upon his name—that God who has said, 'Swear not at all.'" The old cavalier shrugged his shoulders at this evidence of the Puritanical education of his son. "I swear to you, that I know nothing of those matters."

Lord Clynton was evidently moved, although the rebellious spirit within still resisted the more affectionate promptings of his heart—

"Father, prove me," cried Gerald imploringly. "Let me live henceforth to serve you—let me die for you, if needs must be—let me save you from this prison—let me earn thy blessing—that blessing, which is my dearest treasure upon earth."

Gerald again bent down at the old man's feet. Lord Clynton still struggled with his feelings. There was still a contest in his heart between long-cherished anger, and newly-awakened confidence. Before either could again speak, the trampling of feet was once more heard along the vaulted passage. The agitated son rose quickly to his feet, and strove to repress his emotion. His father gave him one look; and that look he fondly construed into a look of kindness. In another moment the colonel entered the court, followed by two soldiers.

Gideon's poised leg fell to the ground; his eyes opened and stared out wonderfully. That troubled stare told, as if the eyes had had a tongue, that Go-to-bed Godlamb had been sleeping soundly on his post. Fortunately for the somnolent soldier, the sharp looks of Lazarus Seaman were not bent in his direction.

With a formal bow to his prisoner, Colonel Seaman informed him that the time allotted to him for exercise in the open air was past. With another formal inclination of the head, the old cavalier bowed to his jailer, and turned to mount the tower stair. He exchanged not another look with his son: but as he turned away, Gerald tried to read in his face a milder feeling.

"I will save him, or will die!" muttered Gerald to himself, as the party disappeared under the tower gateway. "I will force him to grant me that blessing he has refused me—I will earn it well;" and he determined in his mind that, come what might, he would find means to be appointed to the midnight watch.

Chapter III.

"Trifles light as air Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong, As proofs of holy writ." Othello.

"Honest soldier, Who hath relieved you?— Bernardo hath my place." Hamlet.

Left alone upon his post in the inner court, Gerald resolved in his mind what could best be done for his father. Every thing was already in preparation for the prisoner's escape, but the success or failure of the whole enterprise turned solely upon the connivance or opposition of the sentinel upon duty at the hour when the escape was to be effected. Gerald did not doubt, however, that should he himself not have the good fortune to be chosen for the midnight watch, he would not find much difficulty in persuading the comrade to whom it should fall, to exchange it with him for a more commodious hour. He felt that there could be none who would not gladly accept his offer, and thus be left to enjoy their night's rest, instead of enduring the fatigues of a tedious night watch. Of his own safety, of the dishonour, the punishment that awaited him for abetting in the escape of a prisoner of such importance, he thought not a moment. All such considerations were lost in his hopes of rescuing his father. But still, in the vague uncertainty that hung over the events of that important night, in the impatience of his mind to arrive quickly at that awful hour—that hour which was to decide so much joy or misery for him—Gerald scarcely knew how to conceal his feverish agitation. He was aware, however, how necessary it was to avoid betraying any feelings that might excite the least suspicion; and he determined to appear as cold and as unconcerned as possible.

There was another also, although at this moment a secondary torment, which added to his trouble of mind. He was unable to disengage his thoughts entirely from those feelings of bitter and scorching jealousy, which various little indications of coquetry, displayed by the evidently coquettish little Puritan damsel, and certain marks of desire to seek her presence, and parade under her window, evinced by the hated Maywood, had planted in his heart—and in a jealous and impatient temperament like Gerald's, such seed, once sown, quickly grew up with rank luxuriance, and spread on every side, imbibing sustenance from every element that approached it, living, in want of better nourishment, upon the very air itself. Perhaps the sight of Mistress Mildred for a moment at her window, a passing word, or merely a kind smile, might have poured balm upon the ulcer of jealousy, soothed the pain and closed the wound—at least for the time. But during his long watch Gerald looked at that well-known window in vain. There was not a symptom of the fair girl's presence in her chamber, and Gerald's fertile imagination—the true imagination of the jealous lover—suggested to him a thousand doubts and fears of Mildred's truth, ingeniously invented self-tortures, weapons forged to be turned against himself—all mere vague conjectures, but assuming in his eyes all the solidity and reality of truth. If she were not in her chamber, he argued, where could she be? Perhaps with her father: and her father was dictating a despatch to that Mark Maywood, who served him sometimes as secretary; and Mildred was gazing on him with pleasure; and he was raising his eyes from time to time to hers—or perhaps she was in the other gardens or alleys about the house, and that Maywood was following her at a distance, not unobserved; or perhaps she passed close by him, and he muttered words of admiration or even of love, and she then listened with complacency; or perhaps the handsome young recruit whispered in her ear to ask her when he could see her pretty face again; and she smiled on him and said, that when his watch should be beneath her window she would come. Madness! Gerald would pursue his vision no further. But although the clouds of the vision rolled away, they left a dark chilling mist of suspicion upon his mind that he could not, perhaps did not strive to, shake off.

Relieved from his guard, Gerald returned to the guard-room—his mind in that agony of suspense and dread respecting his father, the disquietudes of which his jealous doubts scarcely diverted for a moment, and only rendered more hard to bear. On his way he again passed the detested Maywood. As he approached he evidently saw the young soldier crumple in his hand a paper he was reading, and hide it hastily about him. This was no fancy, he repeated to himself; this was reality. He had seen the look of confusion and trouble upon Maywood's face, the haste with which he hid that paper at his approach. There was no longer any doubt. His hated rival was in correspondence already with his faithless mistress; and the contents of that written paper, what could they be, if not an acquiescence in some demand, a rendezvous granted, a meeting at her window? With rage in his heart, Gerald again longed to spring upon his rival and tear that paper from his bosom. But again prudence prevailed over passion. He felt that the life of his father depended upon his caution—his father—his father, whom he alone perhaps could save, whose blessing was to be his recompense. Swearing to tear for ever from his heart the vain, coquettish, heartless girl upon whom his affections had been so ill disposed—for thus, in his passion, he qualified his lady-love—he crushed down within him the violence of his angry feelings, and determined to defer his revenge, defer it only, until those few hours should be passed, those hours which should witness his father's escape and ensure his father's safety—and then die willingly, if such should chance to be his fate, in securing his vengeance. Strange mixture of noble feelings and base passions! Where were now the stern, strictly religious principles of his uncle and instructor? The fierce nature of his hot blood prevailed for the time over the better culture of his education.

At length the hour arrived when the soldiers were mustered in the outer court, before the front of the mansion, and the names of those called over who were appointed to the different watches of the night. How anxiously and eagerly did Gerald's heart beat as the midnight watch in the tower-court was named! Was it by a gracious and happy chance upon himself that the lot would fall? The name was pronounced. It was not his own. The sentinel appointed to this post, the man upon whom depended the destiny of his father, was another. But still, in spite of the first pang of disappointment—for disappointment would arise within him, although the chances had been so greatly against him—hope again revived in his heart. The sentinel whose post he coveted, whom he had to seduce into an exchange, whose watch he was to contrive to take from him as a favour, was one of the most easy of the whole troop to deal with, the lazy, phlegmatic, somnolent Godlamb Gideon, he whose very nickname was an augury and a warrant of success, the wight yclept Go-to-bed Godlamb.

After waiting till the assembled soldiers had dispersed, and a proper time had elapsed before seeking Gideon, Gerald again returned to the outer court before the house, where he knew it was the habit of the indolent soldier to bask and doze upon a certain sheltered bench, in the last rays of the setting sun, absorbed, he himself would declare, in his devotions. And there, in truth, he found the man he sought. But, confusion! there was another by his side, and that other was the man who, among all, he would have the most avoided. It was Mark Maywood. He stood by the side of Gideon's reclining form, and was speaking with much earnestness to the phlegmatic soldier, whose widely-opened eyes seemed to express more animation than of wont. No time, however, was to be lost. The night was approaching, and it was necessary to come at once to an arrangement with the allotted sentinel of the midnight watch.

Overcoming his repugnance, and fully determined to act with caution, Gerald assumed an air of unconcern, and sauntered to the spot where sat Godlamb Gideon. After greeting sulkily the handsome young recruit, to whom Gerald's presence seemed in nowise pleasing, he commenced with affected indifference his attack upon the heavy soldier.

"You are ever zealous, friend, in the good work," he said.

"Yea, and of a truth these crumbs of comfort have a blessed and pleasant savour in my nostrils," replied Godlamb Gideon, pressing his book between his hands, turning up the whites of his eyes, and snuffing through his nose, as though that member were stuffed up by the pleasant savour of which he spoke.

"But have a care that your zeal be not overmuch," continued Gerald, "and that you faint not by the way from the heaviness of your burden. Methinks your cheek is already pale from exceeding watching and prayer."

"Verily I have fought the good fight, and I have run the good race, and peradventure the flesh faileth me," snorted the Puritan soldier.

"Your allotted post, then, falls heavy upon you" said Gerald, with an air of kind concern, "for you have the midnight watch, methinks. Indeed, I pity you, my good friend. Hear me. I will perform the duties of your part, and you shall rest this night from your labours; my mind is troubled, and I heed not the watching through the night. You will rise from your couch ready for new outpourings of spiritual thought, and refreshed"——

"As a giant refreshed with wine," interrupted Gideon with another snort: "yea, and so shall it be." Gerald's heart beat at what he considered an acceptance of his proposal; but Godlamb Gideon continued—"Thou art kind, and I thank thee no less that I refuse thy offer. Verily it would seem to be a gracious and an especial vouchsafing in my favour. For, behold, another hath released me from my task."

"Another!" cried Gerald with a tone of consternation that overcame his caution.

"Yea, this good youth hath proffered to relieve me of my heavy burden." Gideon pointed to Mark Maywood.

Gerald started with angry surprise. Maywood bit his lip, and turned his head aside.

"He has taken thy post!" said Gerald choking with rage.

Gideon nodded his heavy head.

The blood boiled in Gerald's veins and rushed into his cheek. He felt for a moment nearly suffocated with the violence of his passion. Since the young recruit had been anxious to obtain Gideon's weary post, there could be no doubt what was his purpose. There, and in the silence of the night, he would be able, under Mildred's window, to pour into her ear those words of love which he dared not openly profess. It was true, then, that Mildred had bid him try to obtain the post of sentinel in the inner court. That was their hour of rendezvous. Furious jealousy, joined to rage at losing that post, on which his father's whole fate depended, contributed to torture his mind. Not only would his detested rival find a favourable opportunity of holding converse with that faithless girl, but he would be there to prevent his father's escape—he, of all others—he, that fierce and violent Republican, that determined enemy of all adherents to the royal cause. If the vision of Maywood interchanging soft words with Mildred at her window tormented the unhappy lover, far more agonizing were the feelings that represented to him the stern young sentinel raising his musket upon his shoulder to arrest the escape of the old man—shooting him, perhaps, in his descent from the tower-window—bringing him bleeding to the earth. Horror! Convulsed with these accumulated feelings, he stood for a time speechless, struggling with his passions. When he looked again upon Maywood's face, that hated individual's eyes were bent on him with a stern but enquiring glance, and in evident discomposure. This very look was sufficient to confirm all the young lover's suspicions, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could control his passion. He mastered himself, however, sufficiently to meet the glance of Maywood without giving vent to his wrath, and, turning to Gideon, he called him aside.

The indolent soldier evidently rose unwillingly, but he followed Gerald to a little distance, grumbling something about an "interruption to the inward outpourings of the spirit."

"Hark ye, Master Gideon," said Gerald, when they had got to some distance from Mark, "you must not do me wrong in this. I own that my request is not wholly disinterested. You know that I love our colonel's daughter, that I am affianced to her. Her chamber looks into that court, and at midnight"——

"Now, out on thee, Master Lyle," drawled Godlamb, with an hypocritical upturning of his eyes. "Wouldst thou make my watch a pretext for ungodly chambering and profane love passages?"

"How now, fellow!" exclaimed the young man in wrath. "What mean you by this insolence?" and he grasped Gideon's collar with violence. But immediately afterwards repenting of his excitement, he continued with a calm tone although still in some irritation, "This is mere fooling, Gideon. I know you as you are—I know you to be a thorough hypocrite."

"Nay, but of a truth"—exclaimed the pacific Godlamb very sulkily.

"Hear me," interrupted Gerald. "It is not as you think—that Maywood loves her too. He also would keep the watch at midnight, in the hope to see her at the window—by chance, man, by chance—no otherwise; but I would hinder this, and"——

"Nay, but Master Maywood hath my word," again began Gideon.

"Nay, but Master Gideon slept whilom upon his post," continued Gerald, mimicking him. "And if Master Gideon be reported to his colonel, Master Gideon will have a week's arrest upon bread and water; but Master Gideon may do what he listeth."

"For the love of heaven," exclaimed Gideon, forgetting his Puritanical mask in his alarm; "you would not report me, comrade? S'wounds, you would not serve a poor fellow so scurvy a trick?"

"Upon one condition, then," replied Gerald. "Retract your word to that man; give me up your post at midnight; and I will be as silent as the grave."

"Lord have mercy upon us! Thou art as the cruel taskmasters of the children of Israel; and thy heart is hardened even as was Pharaoh's," whined Godlamb, again resuming his canting tone. "But be it even as thou wilt."

Gerald triumphed; the midnight watch was his; and with it his father's safety and his father's blessing.

They returned to the spot where Maywood still stood observing them, Gideon following in the rear, muttering something about "the hand of the ungodly being upon him."

"Speak, Gideon," said Gerald as they approached, "and thank your comrade here for his kindly proffered barter of hours; since it is I who take your post, you will not need his well-meant and disinterested civilities."

There was something of a sneer on Gerald's lip as he pronounced these words, which probably augmented the feelings of anger that now evidently flushed the usually cold face of Maywood and darkened his brow; for the latter appeared to tremble with suppressed passion as he advanced upon his rival with the words—

"How now, you, Master what's-your-name? What warrants you to interfere thus ill advisedly in my concerns? If this man has given up to me, at the midnight hour, the watch over that offshoot of a rotten and corrupted stem of tyranny, is it for you to stand between me and my purpose?"

"Your purpose is doubtless of the best, and truest, and worthiest," replied Gerald, with another flickering sneer upon his lip. "But this watch is mine now, by Master Gideon's consent, and these hours of the night I intend to devote to the watching of those whose security may need my care."

Mark Maywood bit his lip, and clenched his hands together in a vain effort to suppress his violent irritation.

"Hoity toity! Here's a coil about an old inveterate Amalekite!" said Gideon, in a mixture of his natural and assumed phraseology, prudently withdrawing at the same time to some distance from the angry young men, as if afraid lest an appeal to himself should involve him in the quarrel.

"Hark ye, sirrah," cried Maywood angrily, "I am not about to resign the right this man has yielded to me at the caprice of the first foolish fellow who chooses to cross my path, without making him repent his uncalled-for interference. What is it to me, this post? but browbeaten by a bullying boy, I never will be."

"Nor will I yield to a base and treacherous hypocrite like thee, Mark Maywood," exclaimed his angry antagonist.

The hands of both the young men were instantly upon their rapiers.

"By the mass, what are ye about?" exclaimed Gideon in alarm. "Trifle not with the carnal weapon! Would ye have us all in arrest before we can look about us? Forbear, men of wrath!"

But the phlegmatic Gideon kept at a prudent distance.

At these words other considerations appeared suddenly to strike both the young men. In spite of their passion, both paused irresolute.

Gerald reflected that were he involved in a quarrel he would necessarily be prevented in any case, whether victorious over his adversary and then consigned to prison, or himself disabled, from forwarding his father's escape. His rival appeared actuated also by prudential motives, perhaps by the conscientious scruples of the party to which he belonged, perhaps by the thought of Mildred.

"This is truly ruffling and bawling like tavern hunters and drunkards," stammered Gerald, as if seeking an excuse for withdrawing from the fray. "But the time will come, Mark Maywood, when you shall not escape me."

"So be it, comrade," replied the other, again sheathing his half-drawn rapier. "I know you not; and can but barely divine your cause of enmity. But I will not fail you at the night-time. Till then let this suffice. The midnight watch is mine—mine by the first assent of yonder soldier to my proposal of exchange."

"No! Mine," again urged Gerald, "mine by his retractation of his prior consent, if such he gave."

"Come hither, comrade," cried Maywood to Gideon, who was suddenly absorbed once more in his devotions.

"Hear ye, Master Godlamb," said the other. But Go-to-bed Godlamb stirred not. He shrank from the appeal to himself.

"It is to me your post has been consigned, is it not so?" enquired the one.

"It is I who take it off your hands—speak," cried Gerald. "Remember, Gideon," he added with upraised finger.

"Speak, who is it?" said both at once. Gideon shuffled with his feet, and looked heavier and more embarrassed than ever; but as he caught sight of the warning finger, he absolutely shut his eyes in utter despair, and pointing at Gerald, with the words, "Verily, and of a truth, thou art the man," he hastened away as fast as his indolent nature would permit, "before he should fall into the toils of the angry Philistines," as he expressed it.

Gerald could not suppress a look of triumph. Whatever were Mark Maywood's feelings, he only expressed them by a dark scowl of disappointment, and then turned away without another word.

Chapter IV.

"'What hour now?' 'I think it lacks of twelve,' 'No, it is struck—' 'Indeed I heard it not.'" Hamlet.

The night had closed in—that night of so vital importance to his father's destiny—and Gerald sat alone in a small lower room, his heart beating high with hope, that he should contribute to his father's rescue.

He was lost in thought, when a firm hand laid on his shoulder roused him from his abstracted state. He turned his head, and saw, to his surprise, Mark Maywood by his side. The young man wore a calmer, clearer brow, although his usual cold, stern, almost determined expression still pervaded it.

"Comrade," said Maywood with much appearance of frankness in his manner, "I have spoken roughly without cause; I crave your pardon."

Gerald heard this unexpected address with great astonishment; and, before he answered, paused in much embarrassment.

"Let us be frank," continued Mark. "Had we been so before, much ill will and evil blood might have been spared. I have only divined your feelings from my own. You have not seen the pretty daughter of our colonel with admiration. Nor have I."

Gerald started with again rising wrath, but his rival interrupted him.

"Bear with me for a while," he continued, "and hear me out. You have been here long. I am but a new-comer. You have the prior claim. Perhaps she returns your love. Had I known of this before—and as it is I have but guessed it, on witnessing your anxiety to hold this watch in the court, beneath her window—I had withdrawn, as is my duty. And now, comrade, I return to offer you the sacrifice of my newborn admiration, and at the same time my friendship."

"What you say seems fair and straightforward, Master Maywood," said Gerald, overcome by the frank manner of the young soldier, "and I thank you for this generosity and truth. My suspicions, then, did not deceive me? You love her, and you sought to see her to-night?"

"I did," said Maywood.

"And she, did she return your love? Did she herself accede to this meeting?"

Mark shook his head with a faint, doubtful smile, but gave no answer. Gerald's brow again grew gloomy, and he sank his head between his hands.

"Come! come! no more of this," pursued the other young soldier, with a cordiality of manner which Gerald had never before witnessed in his dark, stern aspect. "Let all be forgiven and forgotten. Come, pledge me in this one cup. These drinkings of toasts, as it is called, these pledgings over liquor are considered unseemly, and even ungodly by many; I know it well, but you cannot refuse to drink one cup with me, as earnest of our kindly feeling for the future."

For the first time Gerald now observed that Maywood bore under his arm a flagon of ale, and held in his left hand two cups of horn.

"I reject not your kindly feeling," answered Gerald; "but I am not wont to drink,"—and he repelled the cup which Maywood now filled for him.

"Nay! nay!" said Mark, sitting down by the table on which Gerald leant. "You wrong me by refusing this first offer of reconciliation. Come, comrade, this one."

Gerald took the cup of ale unwillingly, and only raised it to his lips. But Maywood shook his head at him—and Gerald, in compliance with his newly made friend's request, at last swallowed the contents.

"I am not used to these strong drinks," said Gerald, setting down the horn with evident distaste. "I like them not; but I have done this to show my willingness to meet you on friendly ground."

Maywood raised, in turn, his cup, but at the same moment calling to a dog that had followed him into the room, he said, "Down, Roger, down," and stooped to repulse it; immediately afterwards he raised the horn, and seemed to drain the ale to the last drop.

"One more, and then I will not urge you again," said Mark to Gerald, eyeing him with a sharp, enquiring look.

"No, no, not one," replied the young man with disgust. "Already this unusual drink has confused my head. I am accustomed to water only—such was my uncle's mode of educating me. It is strange how my brain turns with this fermented liquor. I have done wrong to drink it," and Gerald rubbed his heavy forehead, and strained his eyes. His powers of vision became more and more confused, and it was with difficulty that he could now see before him the face of Maywood, which to his intellect, disordered by the liquor, seemed to wear a strange expression of cunning, and triumphant contempt. He made an effort, however, to shake off this feeling and raise his sinking head, but in vain. A sensation of overpowering drowsiness crept over him more and more. The thought of his watch, however, was still uppermost in his mind, and he had yet power sufficient to reflect that there was still some time to midnight, and that a little slumber might restore him; and giving way to the oppressive sleep which came over him, he laid his head on the table, and was immediately lost to all sense of what was passing around him.

At first Gerald's sleep was heavy and complete. How long it remained so, he had no power to tell. At length, however, it became lighter, and grew more troubled and confused. Wild dreams began to course each other through his brain—at first of an undefinable and fantastic nature—then they assumed a more definite shape. He dreamed of his father—that old, greyheaded cavalier, with his long white beard—and before him stood Lazarus Seaman, who accused him of absurd and imaginary crimes. And now they brought him into that open court—a file of soldiers were drawn up—their muskets were levelled at that old man's heart—Gerald struggled, and sought to spring between those deadly instruments and his doomed father, but his feet clove to the ground—he struggled in vain—the muskets were discharged, and his father fell weltering in his blood. With the last struggle of a convulsive nightmare, he started up, uttering a loud scream. It was but a frightful dream. And yet the noise of those fearful muskets—that discharge of artillery—still rang in his ears. As he opened his eyes, all was dark around him—the darkness of deep night. It was long before he could sufficiently recover his senses to remember what had passed; and when slowly the events of the day forced themselves upon his mind, his intellects seemed still confused and troubled. How strangely real now appeared the impression of that dream! It was with difficulty he could persuade himself that the firing had been imaginary; and even now there seemed a strange confusion of noise and voices around him; but that, surely, was the ringing in his head from the unusual draught he had taken.

Slowly his whole memory returned to him, and he recalled to himself that it was necessary for him to be ready to answer for Godlamb Gideon when that worthy's name was to be called over for the midnight watch. He staggered up unto his feet, and with difficulty found his way into the open air. As he gazed, with somewhat troubled brain, on the bright starlit sky, two or three soldiers hurried past them.

"Hark ye, comrade," he said to one, "how long is it yet to midnight?"

"Midnight! where have you been hiding yourself, comrade?" answered the man. "Midnight is long since past."

"Long since past!" screamed Gerald with frantic violence. "No! no! it is impossible—my post was at midnight in the tower court."

"Then you have escaped by wonderful interposition, friend, from the consequences of your absence; for I was there when the names were called, and 'present' was answered for the sentinel at the tower court."

"Father of mercy!" cried Gerald in despair. "What, then, has happened?"

"Happened!" echoed the soldier; "why, the prisoner has tried to escape! But didn't you hear the shots? They brought the old reprobate to the earth, of a surety."

Gerald uttered a loud groan and fell against the wall of the house; but in another moment he recovered himself by a desperate effort from a feeling of sickness and death, and repulsing violently the soldier who had come to his assistance, he rushed round the mansion with whirling brain and clenched teeth towards the tower court. His father had been killed—killed by his own folly. Rage, despair, contrition, self-horror, at having been so weak as to accept Maywood's proposal to drink that fatal drink which caused his deadly sleep, all tortured his heart, and drove him almost to madness. He could not doubt that it was that hated Maywood who had deceived him, drugged his liquour, cheated him into a sleep, in order to be present undisturbed at his rendezvous with Mildred; and now it was by his hand, by the hand of that villain, that his father had fallen.

All was commotion in the fortress. Gerald, as he rushed forward, heard the noise of voices and boats upon the water—the voice of Lazarus Seaman—now the men calling to each other. Horror-stricken, overwhelmed with despair, convulsed with rage, he bounded through the vaulted passage. In the moonlit court stood now but one figure alone—the sentinel, who was bending over the parapet, and seemed to be watching with interest the movement of the boats upon the water. With the rage of a tiger Gerald sprang upon him, and seized him by the collar with frenzied gripe. It was, indeed, Maywood—pale, agitated, and excited.

"Villain! traitor! assassin!" screamed Gerald madly, frantic with passion and despair, "you have betrayed that greyheaded old man; you have murdered him; but I will have revenge! He was my father, and it is you have killed him."

"Your father!" exclaimed the young sentinel in a voice choked by emotion. "He was mine, and I have saved him."

Gerald released his hold and staggered back.

For a moment the young men stared at each other in bewildered surprise. Then all at once the truth flashed across them.

"Brother! brother!" burst simultaneously from their lips. "Gerald! Everard!" they exclaimed again; and Everard Clynton, flinging himself into his brother's arms, gave way to his suppressed agitation, and burst into a flood of tears. At this moment a distant sound of a gun came across the water; Everard sprang up and grasped his brother's arm.

"Hush!" he said, "three shots from the sea are the signal to me that he has escaped in safety to the vessel that awaits him."

Another boomed faintly across the broad. A pause of fearful interest followed, and then another. Once more the brothers fell into each others' arms.

In a few words Everard Clynton explained to his brother, how, after his father's capture, he had enlisted in the troop quartered in the fortress, in order to save him. How he had known from their friends without the means provided to effect his father's escape; how he, too, had sought, with desperation, the midnight watch upon which depended his father's delivery; and, finding himself overcome by his supposed rival, he had administered to him a sleeping draught in order to secure the post; how his pretended admiration for Mistress Mildred had been assumed in order to forward his views and colour his designs, by giving a pretext to his desire to obtain the post of sentry in the court; how Mildred had never given him any encouragement, Gerald's unreasonable jealousy having supplied the rest.

He had assisted his father to escape, and only long after his flight had given the alarm, and fired upon the water, pretending to call for a sudden pursuit.

Mark Maywood, however, was tried by a court-martial for negligence upon duty on the night of the prisoner's escape; but the constantly exhibited violence of the Republican principles which he had affected, as well as his zeal and exemplary good conduct since he had joined the troop, saved him in the colonel's eyes. He was acquitted. Shortly afterwards he disappeared altogether from the fortress, after an affectionate farewell to Gerald Clynton, who had the good fortune to receive, in due time, the assurance of his brother's safe escape to join his father in Flanders.

Not long afterwards, the death of Colonel Lazarus Seaman leaving his daughter an orphan, Gerald Clynton married pretty little Mistress Mildred, and, quitting the service, retired to Lyle-Court, the estate bequeathed to him by his uncle.

There is no doubt that pretty little Mistress Mildred's eyes were given to be coquettish in spite of themselves; but yet, notwithstanding sundry little symptoms of jealousy exhibited by Gerald, there is every reason to believe that he was as absurd and misled in his jealousy after as he was before his marriage, and that she made him a most excellent wife.

During the more peaceful times of the Protectorate, Gerald received news from time to time of the welfare of his father and his brother; and, upon the Restoration, he had the happiness of welcoming them to the English shores once more.

Although Lord Clynton always preserved a predilection for his elder son, yet he had somehow found out that Gerald bore an extraordinary resemblance to his deceased mother, and always treated him with the utmost love. He never forgot, also, the deep affection Gerald had displayed in his efforts to save him during that never-to-be-forgotten Midnight Watch.

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