“I fear me, no!” answered Bernard. “But be of good cheer, fair mistress. I have brought thee a pass to visit thy father.”
And, with another cheering smile, he drew forth the letter which he had received from Lord Burleigh, and placed it in her hands.
As Evaline accepted the letter, her small white hands, though they clasped closely over it, quivered like aspens. Drawing the letter to her heaving bosom, she raised her eyes towards heaven, and burst into tears.
CHAPTER VII.
The darkness is often greatest just before morning. At the moment that all hope seems to be lost, the course of events, rolling providently on, takes a new turn, and opens a brighter and more cheering prospect. The worst, with all its tissue of terrors, is frequently followed close by the better; and the wave which we expect to engulf and overwhelm us, leaves us high and dry on the shore.
The most trying crisis is not without some assurance of amelioration or relief. If all else fail, the nobleness of man’s own heart, bearing him up against the tide, is a resource and comforter. In that he is provided against all evils, and armed against every calamity. If he properly exercise his own innate resources, affliction can never subdue him, but will rather serve, by its searching and varied influences, to enlarge his intellect, and unveil the treasures of his heart.
Sir Edgar de Neville had now been a whole week a close prisoner in Newgate. The man who had inherited from his ancestors thousands of broad acres, teeming with produce, had no other habitation than a small room, some dozen feet square. The bare stone walls, black with age, were broken only by the door and window, the latter of which was far above his reach, and, as if that precaution were not sufficient, was defended by several iron bars. A pallet-bed, with a table, and two settles, or chairs, embraced the whole furniture of the room, and served but to render its nakedness more apparent.
He was a prisoner! As he paced the narrow limits of his cell, and found himself, after a few brief strides, brought abruptly to a halt, he felt as though he could tear down the stone walls with his hands, and thus sally forth. The window aforenamed, though small, admitted a free current of air; yet, whenever he thought of his situation, he felt as if he were stifling, and could not draw his breath. If he sat down, he became eager for action; if he sought relief in exercise, his humour changed; and while he had yet, in obedience to one prompture, taken but a turn or two round the chamber, his restlessness forced him to his seat again.