“Have you seen the Parliament men, my lord, Walpole, Harley, and the rest?”
“Yes; and quite against their several inclinations,” he replied. “They felt it to be highly indiscreet to receive one who was out of favour. As for lending their assistance, I can assure you, child, that they know their business better.”
“How monstrous of them!” I broke out; “set of water-blooded wretches, who will not help their friends!”
“Ah, but we are not their friends now; we are out of favour.” The ancient courtier said this lightly, but I knew that his heart was groaning. He had passed his gay years bathed in the sunshine of applause and popularity; it was bitter that his end should be a dark night of contumely and neglect. Nothing could be more cruel or more wounding to this polished and successful man of fashion. Yet it amazed me to see how finely he took these rebuffs of fortune. His courage sat on him like a shining suit of mail. It filled my heart with tears to witness such cheerful bravery in the aged and the infirm.
“Well, papa,” says I, turning to speech as a remedy against the weakness that strove to so insidiously reduce me, “I have sworn to save young Anthony, and never yet have I proved unequal to my word.”
“’Tis never too late to create a precedent,” says the Earl, “nor to enjoy a new experience. I have lived many years, but it is not until to-day that I have tasted the coldness of the world.”
“I have always averred, you know,” says I, with misfortune spurring me to my customary petulance; “that these sauer-kraut chewing boors from Hanover have no more breeding than a certain native beastliness that enables them to become like pigs, offensive to creatures of a nicer mind. But, after all, wit is the superior of power; and if I cannot find a means whereby to thwart ’em, I must be content to lose the only husband I ever can accept. I will start for town to-morrow morning.”
“No, don’t do that,” says his lordship, hastily; “I am sure it will be very ill advised. Pray wait until this cloud is over blown. You are too much of a butterfly, my pretty lady, not to discover the shade exceeding cruel to endure. You will find London very blighting, I assure you.”
But I was unheedful, and the more particularly when I was told that poor Anthony had undergone his trial already, and that at that hour he lay in Newgate under extreme sentence, which awaited execution on the 24th of May.
It was now the 2nd of that month. It will thus be seen how little time there was to lose. Three weeks and a day were left in which to procure his deliverance; not by any means too adequate a period in which to accomplish so involved a deed, even had I had the ghost of an idea as to the manner of its consummation.