And rank me with the barb'rous multitudes.
Shakspeare.
About the commencement of the reign of King Charles the First, a stranger came to reside in a populous village in Lancashire, under circumstances of considerable interest and mystery. He was young, and elegant in his person; his language not only evinced the cultivated chasteness of education, but the nicer polish of refined society. When drawn into conversation (to which he seemed averse), he discovered classical learning enlivened by brilliant wit, and seasoned by deep reflection. He was versed in the history of foreign courts; and if he forbore to speak of our own, it seemed more from caution than from ignorance. He excelled in fashionable exercises, rode the great horse with a military air, and alarmed the rustics by his skill in fencing, as much as he delighted them by the till then unheard tones which he drew from the viola-de-gamba. It was impossible that, with these accomplishments, a sad-coloured cloak and plain beaver could conceal the gentleman. In vain did he report himself to be a Blackwell-hall factor, whom an unfortunate venture had reduced to ruin.—Every one discovered that his manners did not correspond with this description, and they would have at once determined him to be some gay gallant, whose wantonness of expense had outstripped his ability, had not his purse contained good store of broad pieces, which his hand liberally bestowed, as often as poverty appealed to his benevolence.
A Lancashire gentleman in those times had less intercourse with the metropolis of the British empire, than one of the present day, has with Canton. No London correspondent, therefore, could whisper the sudden disappearance of a sparkling blade, who, after blazing awhile at Whitehall, had unaccountably vanished like a meteor from its horizon; nor had the depredation of swindlers, or the frequent intrusion of impertinent hangers-on compelled the owners of manorial houses to shut their doors on uninvited guests. The jovial coarse hospitality of those times delighted in a crowded board; the extensive household daily required ample provision, and refinement was too little advanced from its earliest stage to make nice arrangement or rare delicacies necessary to an esquire's table. Such a guest therefore as Evellin, was eagerly sought and warmly welcomed. He joined with the joyous hunters in the morning, he relieved the sameness of their repasts with his diversified information; and in the evening he was equally gratifying to the ladies, who being then generally confined to the uniform routine of domestic privacy, loved to hear of what was passing in the great world. He could describe the jewels which bound the hair of the Queen of Bohemia, and he had seen the hood in which Anne of Austria ensnared the aspiring heart of the Duke of Buckingham; beside, he led off the dance with matchless grace, and to their native hornpipe enabled them to add the travelled accomplishments of the galliard and saraband. What a concentration of agreeable qualities! It must be owing to the invincible pressure of secret uneasiness, and not to a suspicion of the cordiality with which his entertainers welcomed him, if Evellin ever passed a day in solitude.
Yet he came into society with the air of one who sought it as a temporary relief from anxiety, rather than as a source of real enjoyment. A visible dissatisfaction, constraint, and unsubdued aversion to the present, arising from regret at the past, sometimes interrupted his graceful courtesy, and oftener made him indifferent to the passing scene, or unconscious of it. This humour increased whenever he received a dispatch from London, and at one time the mortification which his letters excited, threw him into such a mental agony, that the cottagers with whom he lodged, recurring to what was then deemed a specific for troubled minds, called in the aid of Dr. Eusebius Beaumont to give him ghostly consolation. I am not going to bring a mortified Franciscan friar on the scene: his reverence was the village pastor, happy and respectable as a husband and father, and largely endowed with those which have signalized the Church of England, whenever she has been called to any conspicuous trial. Learning and piety were in him two neighbouring stars that reflected radiance on each other, and were rather brightened than obscured by his humility. His manners and habits of life retained the simplicity of the primitive ages, yet were they so blended with courtesy, nobleness of mind, and superiority to every mean selfish consideration, that the most travelled cavalier of the times could not more winningly display the true gentleman. His example shewed that the superiority which distinguishes that character consists not in adopting the reigning mode (that poor ambition of a copyist), but in the refined suavity which defies imitation, and is an inborn sentiment, rather than an assumed costume. The most powerful peer in England had not a more independent mind than Dr. Beaumont. His fortune was sufficiently ample to supply his modest wants and large benevolence; they who envied his popularity knew not how to weaken it except by imitating the virtues in which it originated. Placed in that respectable mediocrity which was the wish of Agar—too exalted to fear an oppressor or to invite insult; too humble to make ambition look like virtue, or to fall into that forgetfulness of his Maker, which is often the damning sin of prosperity; accustomed to those habits of wise self-control that fit the mind and body for their respective functions; and perfectly possessed with a most conscientious resignation and confidence respecting future events—he was free from those cares which corrode the temper and contract the understanding. Next to his church, his study was his earthly paradise; but the same calm principle of self-discipline attended him there, and regulated his enjoyment of lettered ease. He left his beloved authors without a sigh, as often as active duty called him to attend the sick cottager, to heal contention between his parishioners, to admonish the backsliding, or to defend the cause of the oppressed.
Such was the man who presented himself to the agonized Evellin; nor was the latter surprized at the visit, or at the serious admonition which he received. Parochial care was not then regarded as a novelty, when it extended beyond the altar or the pulpit; and the graceful stranger felt himself reproved by one who had a right to exercise the functions of spiritual authority. He bowed to the pastor's instructions, with a respect which characterized those times, when the power of the church was supported by superior holiness, and acknowledged even by those who in their lives disobeyed her precepts. His subsequent behaviour made Dr. Beaumont not only pardon the infirmities of a wounded spirit, but also apply the balm of friendship to them, by giving the stranger a most cordial invitation to the glebe-house, where he promised him a friendly welcome as often as he was disposed to relish the quiet habits of his family.
It so happened, that after Evellin had twice or thrice passed the little wicket that separated the parson's garden from the village green, he disliked taking any other road. Yet though Mrs. Beaumont's person was of that description which subjects Lancashire ladies to the imputation of witchcraft, (a charge too clearly proved against them to be denied,) it was not the fascination of her eyes which drew the loitering step, fixed the unconscious gaze, and almost charmed to repose the stranger's untold sorrows. The wife of his friend excited only the respect and esteem of this antique courtier; but a young unaffianced Arachne sat spinning by her side, discreet and ingenious as Minerva, rosy and playful as Hebe. This was Isabel, the younger sister of his reverence, who, not inwardly displeased that the family party was enlarged by such an agreeable guest, nor wholly unconscious of the power of her own charms, strove with all the unsuspecting confidence of youth to amuse a visitor whom her honoured brother pronounced worthy of esteem and pity, and willingly exerted her arch vivacity to divert a melancholy of which no one knew the cause. Evellin soon discovered that he interested the fair recluse, and though she was not the first lady who viewed him with favour, he was flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed he, on perceiving an unnoticed tear steal down her cheek, when with unguarded confidence, momentarily excited by the benign manners and calm happiness of his host, he inveighed against the treachery of courts and the weakness of Kings. "Can she love me?" was his next thought; "or why this lively interest in my sorrows?" This doubt, or rather hope, was suggested by hearing Isabel sob aloud while he told Dr. Beaumont not to look for any earthly return for the kindness he shewed him. "Were my fortunes," said he one day to his hospitable friends, "equal to my birth, you should find me a prodigal in my gratitude, but my own folly in 'believing integrity of manners and innocence of life are a guard strong enough to secure any man in his voyage through the world in what company soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he was to pass[[1]],' furnished my enemies with weapons which have been used to my undoing. For this last year I have suffered alternate hopes and fears. Whether my heart is sick of suspence, or the clouds of mischance really thicken around me, I can scarcely ascertain, but my meditations grow more gloomy, and I believe myself doomed to an obscure life of little usefulness to others, and less enjoyment to myself. Among my privations I must rank that of spending my days in unconnected solitude. Who will willingly share the scant portion of bare sufficiency, or interweave their destiny with the tangled web of my intricate fortunes? Would you plant a flourishing eglantine under the blasted oak? Remove it from such a neighbourhood, or the blessed rain passing through the blighted branches, will affect its verdure with pestilent mildew, instead of cherishing it with wholesome shade."
Some short time after this conversation, Mrs. Beaumont observed to her husband that an extraordinary change had taken place in Isabel's manners since Evellin had become a frequent visitor. "She very rarely laughs," said she; "but that I do not wonder at, for the infection of his melancholy has made us all grave; but she often, weeps. Then she is so absent, that she cut out the frieze gowns for the alms-women too short, and spoiled Mrs. Mellicent's eye-water. The tapestry chairs are thrown aside, and she steals from us to the bower in the yew-tree that overlooks the green, where she devotes her mornings to reading Sydney's Arcadia. My dear Eusebius, I see her disease, for I recollect my own behaviour when I was doubtful whether you preferred me; but surely, if a connection with Evellin would involve our dear Isabel in distress, ought I not to warn her of her danger in so disposing of her heart?"
"I fear," replied the Doctor, "if your observations are correct, that the caution would now come too late. Isabel is of an age to judge for herself, and if she prefers a partner in whom high degrees of desert and suffering seem united, ought her friends to interfere? If her own feelings tell her that she considers personal merit as an equipoise to adversity, shall we tell her that outward splendour constitutes intrinsic greatness? I marvel not that Evellin interests my sister; he engages most of my thoughts, and I have employed myself in collecting instances of good men suffering wrongfully, and of the piety, humility, and patience with which they endured chastening. These may be useful to Evellin; if not, they will be so to ourselves whenever sorrow visits our abode, as she is sure some time to do while she is travelling to and fro on the earth."
Mrs. Beaumont acquiesced in her husband's opinion, and determined that love should take its course, but it met with an opponent in the person of Mrs. Mellicent Beaumont, who perhaps was not free from those objections which elder sisters often entertain to the engagements of the younger branches of the family, while they themselves write spinster. She had now, however, a more colourable plea; the beauty of Mrs. Isabel had attracted the notice of Sir William Waverly, and to see her sister the lady of Waverly Park, roused that desire of pre-eminence which, though absolutely foreign to the principles of Dr. Beaumont, was not overlooked by all his family. She thought it became her to lecture Isabel on her preference, and unwittingly confirmed it by exhibiting, in opposition, two men of most dissimilar characters and endowments; the one, brave, generous, enlightened, accomplished, but unhappy; the other, lord of a vast demesne, but selfish, ignorant, scant of courtesy, and proud of wealth. "Tell me not of Waverly Park," said Mrs. Isabel, "I would sooner gather cresses by his lakes as a beggar, than sail over them under a silken awning with him by my side as my companion for life. His language, his ideas, his manners, differ from those of our meanest rustics in no other way than that theirs is the native simplicity which had no means of improvement, and his the wilful grossness which rejected it when offered, resting satisfied in what he received from his ancestors, without adding to it attainments that would properly have been his own. I know not what Evellin has been: clouds and storms hover over his future prospects. I see him only as he is the chief among ten thousand, and one who suffers no diminution even while conversing with our honoured brother; and I should be prouder of allying him to our house than of changing this silken braid for a golden coronet." Mrs. Mellicent, after some remarks on the inconsiderate obstinacy of three and twenty, and the sure repentance of head-strong people, withdrew her opposition, to be renewed when the event should justify her predictions.