The voice of fame, alike busy in circulating good and evil tidings, soon informed the family of the public censure which Lord Hopton cast on that unfortunate fugitive, and Monthault would have gained great credit with the Beaumonts for not having been the first to disclose it, had not his own conduct been implicated in the same accusation. Isabel eagerly clung to the visible proofs of his loyalty as an implicit evidence that her brother had been most basely aspersed. "The misery of these times," said she, "is surely sufficient; we need not aggravate the misfortunes of our fellow-sufferers, or the cruelty of our enemies, by crediting the calumnies of malice, or the unfounded fabrications of busy tatlers. Our dear Eustace is accused of treason, and his friend and constant associate is involved in the same charge. Yet if imprisonment and forfeiture of his estates are not testimonials of loyalty, where shall we seek more certain attestations? After having fought and bled for his King, he breaks from captivity and seeks an asylum among us at Oxford. Equally inconsistent is the charge aimed at my gallant brother. Dearest Constantia, surely you cannot believe Eustace to be a traitor; yet your cold looks and marked indifference to poor Monthault, and the care with which you avoid your lover's name, lest his friend should attempt his exculpation, indicate, that either you suffer this futile charge to dwell too much upon your mind, or that you mistook the mere attachment of kindred for devoted affection."
"Isabel," returned Constantia, with a look of mild expostulation, "I know not how far to trust rumour, but this I know, that the tongue of Monthault will corrode the fame of Eustace, either in censuring or commending him. Do not imagine there is any change in me, or that I mistook the nature of my own feelings. Whether Eustace deserves reproach or renown, my heart will never own another possessor. It is either wedded to his deserts, or so estranged by his faults, that love may as well light his fire on a monumental tablet as make me again admire in man, that fair semblance of generous integrity, by which Eustace won me to select him as the partner of my future life. Him I shall ever love, or ever mourn. But were he proved guilty of every base crime laid to his charge, this extortioner, this debauchee, this refractory soldier, nay, even this traitor, must not be placed by the side of Monthault, unless it be right to compare the guilt of frail man with the impious desperation of Satan. My greatest grief and torment proceed from a fact which I cannot dispute: true, as you say, Eustace selected Monthault for his constant associate and particular friend."
These remarks of Constance will disprove the rumour which had reached the ears of her fugitive lover, and prove that Monthault did not succeed in one of the designs which brought him to Oxford; with regard to the other, his intended services to the Parliament during the siege were frustrated by an order extorted from the captive King, requiring that his garrisons should be immediately surrendered to the ruling party. Oxford therefore admitted a detachment of the rebel army, but for some time a spirit of moderation was visible in the treatment bestowed on this honourable asylum of loyalty and learning. The covenant and other oaths were indeed sent down, but as they were not enforced, the conscientious possessors of ecclesiastical and collegiate situations were not ejected for contumacy. The captivity of the King imposed the most scrupulous moderation and quiet submission on all his adherents, and many persons hoped, from this apparent calm, that the national wounds would speedily be healed.
But the suspended fury of two powerful contending parties, concentrating their terrors, and perfecting their deep designs to crush each other before they entirely annihilate a fallen foe, bears no more resemblance to the wise lenity of a regular government towards the refractory subjects it has subdued, than the fearful stillness which is the precursor of a thunder-storm does to the serene tranquillity of a summer's day. No sooner were the Presbyterian republicans subdued by the fanatics, who had gained the entire command of the army, than the murder of the King, and the vindictive persecution of loyalty and episcopacy, plainly shewed that, in the nomenclature of these men, forbearance and liberty meant self-aggrandizement and most merciless oppression of all who dissented from their opinions.
Major Monthault had sufficient political versatility and natural baseness to be a busy actor in these scenes of perfidy and depravity; but his talents were too limited to acquire distinction among men of deep penetration, profoundly skilled in the art of fomenting and managing the malignant passions; besides, the open scandal of his profligate manners ill suited the decorous exterior of seeming saints. His treachery to the Royal cause, therefore, only purchased him the liberty of compounding for his estate at a less fine than was extorted from persons of untarnished fidelity; and he was laid by as an instrument equally mean and vile, incapable of further use. A bad heart can never taste the pleasures which belong to tranquillity; and inaction is torture to those who must shun reflection. Monthault had no resource but in the indulgence of his brutal appetites. The beauty of Constantia excited desire, while the avowed contempt with which she treated him convinced him that the blandishments of flattery and persevering assiduity would never remove the impressions which she had conceived to his disadvantage. The licence of these disorderly times was favourable to deeds of violence. Monthault formed the project of carrying off his mistress by force, and securing her in his parental castle; and disbanded soldiers were easily found, alike daring and lawless, to execute such an atrocious design.
The only difficulty attendant on this undertaking seemed to consist in wresting her from the protection of her friends; for though courts of law no longer afforded relief to injured loyalists, a police was still preserved, and the precincts of a college could not be violated with impunity, or indeed with a prospect of success. He resorted, therefore, to stratagem, invented a tale of distress, and disguised a female accomplice to pass as the widow of a soldier who had fallen at Naseby. A story of sick children perishing for want was likely to operate on the feelings of humane young women. Constantia and Isabel were soon drawn beyond the walls of Oxford, and conducted along the banks of the Charwell, in search of this scene of misery. When they were at such a distance from the city as to preclude the chance of assistance, several men, masked and disguised, rushed out of an inclosure, seized their fainting prey, and bore her from her shrieking companion to a carriage which waited to receive her. The horses set off at full speed, and Isabel, in an agony of despair, ran after it till it was out of sight, invoking the interposition of Heaven, and casting many a vain look around to see if any human succour was at hand. Tired and exhausted, she at last recollected, that to return to the city and relate the event, describing to the municipal officers the road the fugitives had taken, would afford the most probable means of rescue; and, though it would be unspeakable agony to meet her bereaved uncle and aunt, she yet considered that her being with them would afford them some consolation, beside the advantage of her testimony for the recovery of her dear companion.
When Constantia revived from the state of insensibility into which the suddenness of the assault had hurried her weak spirits, she found herself in a chaise with Monthault, who watched the return of her senses to pour out some passionate encomiums on her beauty, and protestations of his insurmountable, though hopeless love. "I will speak this once," said she, "and then for ever be silent. Hear, abandoned man and perfidious friend! I would sooner die than yield to your wishes; and I know my father would weep less over my corpse, than if he saw me contaminated by your embraces. Restore me to him; nay, only give me liberty to fly back to his dear arms, and I will never disclose that you were the ravisher; but if you persist in your cruelty, it will be of no other avail than to plunge your soul in additional guilt."
Alarmed by the determined firmness of her manner, Monthault changed his tone. He protested she misunderstood his expressions; for that, though he never should cease to adore her, he had merely engaged in this enterprize as the agent of Eustace, to whom he was going to carry her. Hopeless of obtaining her father's consent (since he knew his disgrace had reached Oxford), and incapable of living without her, they had projected this scheme; and he besought her to be calm, as a few hours would bring her to her plighted love. "Surely, beautiful Constantia," said he, "you would not wish to escape from your faithful, though dishonoured Eustace." "The Eustace I knew and loved," returned she, "was faithful and honourable. Base seducer, and slanderer of unsuspecting innocence, this subterfuge cannot deceive me a moment; and I once more warn you to let me go, or dread my desperation."
A disposition like Monthault's is rarely threatened out of its deliberate purpose; but, happily for Constantia, the skill of the driver was not proportioned to the expedition he was commanded to use, and he overturned the carriage at the entrance of a small village. Constantia's cries soon drew several people to her assistance, who, supposing her distress proceeded from her alarm at the accident, assured her that the gentleman who lay senseless on the ground was only stunned by the fall, and that the blood which streamed from her own face was caused by a very slight wound. "It is from him," said she, "that I entreat to be preserved; only hide me from him. Let him suppose I escaped in the moment of confusion, and every kind office I can do you in the course of my life will be too little to shew my gratitude. Beside my own prayers, I will promise you those of my dear father, the worthiest and best of men; these he will daily offer to Heaven for the preservers of his only child."
The rustic witnesses of this scene listened with stupid surprise to this address. The women busied themselves in binding up the deep gash in Constantia's forehead; the men, in raising Monthault, and lifting up the carriage. By this time the out-riders were come up, who, faithful to their commission, prepared to place Constantia on one of the horses, when her loud shrieks, the bustle, and crowd, attracted the attention of two gentlemen who were travelling on the road, to whose inquiries of what was the matter, one of Monthault's gang brutally answered, a carriage had been overturned and a gentleman much hurt. "But he is quiet enough," said he; "whereas his wife, who is only a little scratched, screams as if she would raise the dead."