"Consider then," returned Isabel, "this place lies in a frequented road. Some busy courtier will be eager to beat the covert and start the noble quarry, which the King desires to hunt down. If indeed His Highness's mind is so obscured by anger, as to combine a rash expression and a deliberate plan of murder in the same degree of guilt; to condemn you unheard for one crime, and by implication make you accessary to another, can there be safety or honour in being his servant? Surely, my Allan's loyalty once arrayed his Prince with visionary excellence; or Walter acted like one of those unskilful surgeons, who convert a slight wound into a deep gangrene."
The tone of displeasure, in which Evellin checked every suggestion against the integrity or discretion of his friend, had no other effect on Isabel's mind, than to convince her of her husband's unbounded confidence. Walter's own letters furnished her with many reasons for suspicion; there was in them a studied air of plausibility, a nice arrangement of minutiæ, and a wary shifting from important points, which seemed to her strong but artless mind, more like the drapery of design, than the frank simplicity of truth. They were seldom replies to Evellin's statements or requests. The kindness they contained had the flourish of sentiment; there was much ostentatious display of trivial offices of goodwill, and of those every-day assistances, which affection wants memory to record. If Evellin seemed determined to risk all, by a bold appeal to the laws, better prospects were held out, which precipitation would blast; and larger remittances were forwarded. If he affected to be reconciled to obscurity, Walter, by gently censuring, actually confirmed the wise moderation of his choice, describing himself as tired of the court, and reluctantly chained to it by the rooted attachment of Lady Eleanor, who sparkled in the Queen's train, eclipsing all in splendor, and all but her royal mistress in beauty. He subjoined to these complaints of the unsatisfactoriness of a life of pleasure, lamentable statements of the misrule of the King, and the oppression of his government, the arbitrary punishments of the Star-chamber, the illegal fines, loans and projects, by which the royal coffers were filled, and concluded with affirming, that they only were safe and happy, whose contracted wants, and mortified desires, asked but the primeval simplicity of nature. All this time, though the honours of the house of Neville lay in abeyance, the rents were received by De Vallance, and Isabel wondered that so mortified a spirit should encumber itself with the dross which it affected to despise.
Meantime Evellin, partially blinded by a fatal security, and in part deprived of the use of his judgement by his acute feelings, at one time scorned to impute treachery to the friend of his youth; at another fear to trust even himself. One master stroke of policy still remained. Walter wrote to him in great alarm; their correspondence was discovered to the King, and reported to be of a factious tendency. He was in the most imminent danger of being sacrificed to their mutual enemies. He conjured Evellin to fly to some more remote retreat instantly, but first to give up to the confidential agent, whom he named, all their correspondence, that he might instantly destroy it, lest it should fall into the hands of those who would construe it into a disclosure of the King's counsels. The credulous Evellin fell into the snare. He returned all Walter's letters, and retired with his family to a freehold of Isabel's, situated among the mountainous parts of Lancashire, and in his anxiety for Walter's safety, forgot for a time his own troubles. But though their correspondence ceased, the voice of fame was not silent, and its echoes reached even to the Fourness Fells, telling that Walter De Vallance was created Earl of Bellingham, and that all the possessions of the ancient house of Neville were bestowed on Lady Eleanor.
The ocean beats at the bottom of a cliff for ages, and imperceptibly wears its rugged projections to smoothness; but an earthquake overthrows it in an instant. The mind of Evellin, which for a period of seven years had contended with hope and fear, sometimes almost suspecting, and at other times rejecting distrust, was by this proof of his friend's treachery, bereft of all fortitude and patience. Wounded by the neglect of the world, his confidence in Walter had been his preservative from misanthropy; and when vexed at the recollection of his own imprudent frankness and folly, in provoking the resentment of powerful foes, he soothed his galled spirit by considering, that the guileless simplicity of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved false, his sister unnatural, his King a tyrant. So different were these objects from what he once believed them, that he doubted whether life afforded any realities. Did his Isabel really choose him for his own merit, or was latent ambition the spur to her affection? Did the village-pastor seek out and console a stranger from motives of Christian benevolence, or had he discovered his rank and hopes, and on them formed expectation of advancement?
Whatever the most unalterable and entire affection, acting on a noble mind and an active temper, could do, Isabel performed with cheerful tenderness and never-wearied patience. To assist in supporting her family, she took the farm into her own management, and endeavoured to rouse the attention of her much-altered husband, by pointing out the humble, but secure comforts, which husbandry afforded. She dwelt on every example of unhappy greatness; she reminded him, that to be deceived by specious characters, was the common error of superior understandings, who, lightly valuing the goods of fortune, never suspect that to others they will prove irresistible temptations. Her surprise, she said, was not that the artful should impose upon the honourable, or the mean ensnare the magnanimous; but that the former should have the audacity to attempt to cozen those who were every way above them, because, in so doing, they must depend upon the operation of qualities, which their narrow hearts and warped principles could not allow them to estimate. She once went so far as to say, that it was not superior discernment, which enabled her to suspect the perfidiousness of Walter. She did not view him with the partiality of youthful affections; she was ignorant of the many ties which bound him to a brave and grateful heart. Her anxiety for her Allan kept her attention fixed on one object, the progress which his agent made; and when she saw that the cause did not prosper in his hand, she searched for instances of mismanagement, and combined circumstances to his prejudice, which were not likely to strike an affectionate friend, who was too confident in the actor to scrutinize the action. How could she, who loved a brother with the same unquestioning fidelity as Allan did Walter, condemn the errors of overflowing affection? Evellin listened in gloomy silence. Too deeply wounded to endure even this mild censure of his own folly, in the shape of an apology for his weakness, he sternly enjoined her to avoid that theme.
Undismayed by such rebuffs, Isabel attempted other topics. She often assured him she was now more at her ease, than if seated at the head of the Earl's table, in Castle Bellingham. "I should have been embarrassed," said she, "and might, perhaps, have acted wrong through my solicitude to be very right. Our little household is easily catered for; hence we can devote the more time to our darling babes. Was not the husbandman's life preferred by the wisest, the most favoured of mankind? Does it not afford health and peace? Are not our cares innocent, our enjoyments unenvied? We do not anticipate, with aching hearts, the fall or the death of a rival; neither do we, after having distorted our faces with the hilarity of forced merriment in public, meet, in our privacies, with anger and fear; reproaching each other for some neglect, and commenting on the frowns of royalty. We need not study to be expert in ceremony, or adroit in flattery. When nature calls, we take our simple food, we rest when she requires relaxation, and when rest is satiety, innocent and useful labour improves our mental and corporeal functions. How pitiable are they, whom necessity drags to the banquet of ostentation, who secretly yawn through the lengthened vigil of unenjoyed dissipation; who rise from feverish slumbers to tasteless delights; who feel that their present course of life is a captivity; and yet look on that which would bring them freedom as disgrace. Unmolested by creditors, unvexed by the reproachful glances of those who would attribute their undoing to our extravagance, with no open enemies to insult us, no secret sorrows to afflict us, our desires subdued rather than gratified, our domestic union perfect, our minds informed, and our souls expatiating in a still happier world, O my Allan, let us forget the past, and call our lot rare felicity. These mountains, which shut from your view a deceitful treacherous world are now your towers of defence. These clear lakes which reflect the blue skies, dispose us to serene contemplation. When all my household toils are finished, and suspended care sleeps till the morning, I lead my children to their evening sports; I point to the sublime scenes around us, and remind them that the Almighty mind, that formed these wonders, dictated the book which is their daily study. He piled the grey cliffs on each other, some awfully barren, others cloathed with verdure, to shew that fertility and desolation, like joy and grief, are at his disposal. He, through fringed rocks, hollowed a cavern, whence burst the majestic cataract, whose course no mortal hand shall divert or restrain. So should man submit to the dispensations of Omniscient wisdom. While thus meditating, I despise the insignificance of worldly cares, I become almost spiritualized, and am in danger of losing social affections, as well as earthly desires, till my children, fancifully decked with wild flowers, call aloud to point you out, descending from the cliff, loaded with game, and accompanied by your spaniels and falcon. They rush into your embraces. You return safe, uninjured by your exhilarating sports. If, at such a moment, I can fancy that parental transport predominates over sorrow in your aspect, I lift my hands in transport to Heaven, and ask if a mighty Princess ever was so blessed."
The dejected Evellin sometimes listened in silence to these fond breathings of chaste affection, wrung her hand, and pronounced her worthy of a happier lot, calling her a pledge of divine favour and reconciliation to a much-offending man. He never spoke of his wrongs, and she sometimes entertained a hope that they were fading from his remembrance. At least she knew it was the wisest course to avoid dwelling on sorrows, for which patience was the only cure, and being thoroughly practised in the duty of resignation, she wished to impart its comforts to him, whom she so strongly loved.
My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thoughts engage,
These, my sole oracles, inspire my rage.