"Ha!" cried Barecolt; "ha, Master Dry! But I feel marvellous faint--very faint: I will sit down;" and, resuming his seat, he leaned back, while his face became as pale as ashes and the pistol fell from his hands.
[CHAPTER XLV.]
The attempt upon Hull had been abandoned; and, mortified and desponding, Charles I. had quitted Beverley and pursued his march through the land. The Earl of Essex lay in force at Northampton; but no show of energy announced at this time the successes which the parliamentary armies were ultimately to obtain. The mightier spirits had not yet risen from the depth; and the ostensible engines with which faction worked were, as usual, the cunning artifice, the well-told lie, the exaggerated grievance, the suppressed truth, the dark insinuation, by which large classes, if not whole nations, may be stirred up either for good or evil. There was activity in all the small and petty arts of agitation; there was activity in those courses which prepare the way for greater things; but in that which was to decide all--arms--tardiness, if not sloth, was alone apparent.
It is strange, in reviewing all great political convulsions, to remark how petty are the events and how small are really the men by which great success is obtained, though insignificant incidents swell into importance by their mass, and mean characters gain a reflected sublimity from the vastness of the results by which their deeds are followed. Even individual vices and weaknesses acquire a certain grandeur under the magnifying power of important epochs, and from the uses to which they are turned; and the hypocrisy of Cromwell, and the bombast of Napoleon, which would have excited little but contempt in less prominent persons, appear in a degree sublime by being displayed on a wider stage, and employed as means to a mightier end. We are too apt to judge of efforts by results, as of people by their success, noticing but little, in the appreciation of men's characters, one of the chief elements which distinguish the great from the little--the objects which they propose to themselves--and, in our judgment of their skill, taking into small account the difficulties that opposed and the facilities that favoured the accomplishment of their designs; and it is curious to remark, that the revolutions which have carried great usurpers into power have always raised the ambitious, and left the patriotic behind, as if human selfishness were the only motive which can ensure that continuity of effort and unity of purpose which alone can command success amongst the struggles of diverse factions, and the development of infinitely varied opinions.
The Earl of Essex was a higher-minded man than Cromwell, but he had doubts and hesitations which Cromwell's ambition would not entertain; and there can be but little doubt that he was unwilling to strike the first irrevocable blow against an army commanded by his sovereign in person. Doubtless he fancied, as many did, that the small force collected tardily by a monarch without supplies would speedily melt away, and leave Charles, from sheer necessity, to accept any terms that the parliament chose to dictate; but whatever was the cause, the king was permitted to march to Shrewsbury unopposed, while the parliamentary forces lay inactive at Northampton. The reception given to the monarch in the town was such as to encourage high hopes in all; and as Wales was rising in his favour, it was judged expedient that Charles should visit the principality in person, while the army recruited itself on the banks of the Severn, and every effort was made to obtain a supply of arms and money. Provisions, indeed, were abundant; the royalist troops were regularly paid; greater order and more perfect discipline were maintained than had ever before been observed in the army; and a state of calm and cheerful enjoyment reigned in the good old town, which is but too seldom known in civil wars.
Such was the state of things when, one evening, a little before sunset, just after the king had left Shrewsbury for Wales, two persons, a gentleman and a lady, wandered along through the fields on the banks of the river, once more full of happy dreams and hopes of bright hours to come. Lord Beverley gazed down into his fair companion's eyes as she lifted her sunny look towards his fine expressive face, and he saw in those two wells of light the deep, pure love of which he had so often dreamed; while Annie Walton, in the countenance of him who regarded her with such fond thoughtfulness, read the intense and passionate tenderness which alone can satisfy the heart, and teach the spirit of woman to repose with calm security on the love of her future husband. It is too late in the tale either to paint the feelings which were in the bosom of each at that moment or to tell the words of dear affection that they spoke: the thrill of mutual attachment; the trembling flutter of the heart as she thought of the near-approaching hour; the glad eagerness of his to make her his own beyond the power of fate; the visions of future joy, and the long vistas of happy years which the warm imagination of each presented--not the less bright and sparkling because, on her side as on his, though from different causes, vague clouds and indistinct shadows hung over parts of the scene which fancy painted. Come what might, in a few days they were to be united; and that was enough for the hour.
They had been long talking over their plans and prospects; the old house of Longnar Hall was to be their abode for the next three weeks; their marriage was to be as private and quiet as even Annie Walton's heart could desire; and the circumstances of the times gave fair excuse for cutting off all ceremonies and casting away all formal delays. Of three weeks they thought themselves secure, and within that little space was bounded all the real lifetime of their hopes. Beyond!--what was beyond? Who could say? And yet they dreamed of days long after, and Fancy looked over the prison-walls of the present, and told them of fair scenes and glowing landscapes, which only her eye could descry.
"I could have wished," said Annie Walton, after a pause, "that Charles could have been married on the same day."
The earl smiled. "Then you see it now, beloved?" he replied.
"Nay, Francis, who could help seeing it?" asked Miss Walton. "Arrah herself must see and know it; and yet she seems not so happy, not so cheerful, as I should have thought such knowledge would make her, for I am very sure that she has loved him long, and at one time I feared for and pitied her."