The Chaplain listened with surprise to the account which Eustace gave of himself, and thought it expedient to return to his lord before his execution. Bellingham had been much struck with the aspect of the brave youth. The unacknowledged yearnings of nature, excited by his resemblance to his father, made him wish to save his life, while the compunctious visitings of mercy were again repressed by terror for his own. While he thus hesitated, Henley returned, and advised the Earl by no means to preserve such a determined profligate, who had rejected his prayers with disdain, refused to give any account of the state of his soul, persisted in a false exposition of the gospel, and gloried in his relationship to notorious malignants. "He is the son of that desperado Colonel Evellin," said Henley—Bellingham trembled as he uttered that name—"and the nephew of Dr. Eusebius Beaumont," continued the Chaplain. The horrors and fears of Bellingham were wrought to a climax by this information. Those apprehensions which the likeness of Eustace to his injured father, and the similitude of their names excited, were now confirmed beyond all doubt, by his claiming kindred with Dr. Beaumont. Allan Neville was therefore still alive, and no other than the famous Colonel Evellin, at whose name he and many other rebels had often turned pale. Bellingham had frequently revolved in his mind the possibility that the brave Loyalist might be his injured brother. He had lost sight of him before the commencement of the civil wars, and hoped he had fallen a victim to insanity in his mountainous retreat. He now knew he was still alive, perhaps preserved to reclaim his inheritance, at least he was the father of a brave interesting youth whom he had just doomed to slaughter, and dared not pardon. Practised as he was in guilt, his heart revolted at the idea of shedding his blood. Hurried out of his accustomed caution, he faintly acknowledged the prisoner was his nephew; but suddenly re-assuming his wonted duplicity, he desired Henley to hurry back, and inquire if he had any more brothers, observing it was a desperate family, and perhaps sparing the life of one might be the means of getting the rest into the power of Parliament.
Henley had caught the inadvertent acknowledgment of kindred, and was prepared to use it to forward the views of Cromwell. Before he returned to Eustace, he took care to inform the agitators that their General's nephew was one among the captive officers assigned by lot to expiate for the loss of their comrades who had perished in the siege, and that Bellingham was now devising measures to save his life. An universal clamour was immediately raised; the soldiers assembled on the parade, and called for impartial justice. The agitators proceeded in a body to the General's quarters, demanding that the prisoners should be instantly executed, and, that no subterfuge or exchange might take place, they would themselves examine their features, and ascertain that they were those who drew the lots of death.
Meanwhile Henley was holding forth hopes of mercy to Eustace, and drew from him a description of the state of his family. He also inquired if he had any friends in Pembroke. A prudent recollection of the danger to which he might expose Dr. Lloyd, prevented Eustace from requesting the comfort of his attendance. The conference was interrupted by the loud clamours of the soldiers. Eustace knew their meaning, endeavoured to compose his thoughts, and submitted to his fate. It was reported that, as he went to execution, he had the melancholy comfort of seeing his friend among those who came to witness his last moments. If so, his perturbed spirit was soothed with the consciousness that there was one who would record his magnanimity, and rescue his cold remains from barbarous indignity or oblivious neglect.
"I know little more, please Your Reverence," said Jobson to Dr. Beaumont, "than that they were all cruelly shot to death. I have heard that poor Fido sat howling on my young master's corpse, and would not let any body touch it till Dr. Lloyd fetched it away to bury it; and that the Doctor keeps the poor dog still, and will never part with it. Ah! the bloody-minded knaves so hated poor Eustace, that they never would have suffered him to have had Christian burial, had not the officers and soldiers mutinied just at that moment. They said that the General had betrayed them, and that the trouble they had to conquer us was all owing to his favouring his friends in the Castle. There is nothing but lies among the Round-heads; for I'll take my life not a soul of us would have had any thing to do with them, and if starving us to death was a way of shewing us favour, I hope never to meet with such friends any more. So, and please Your Reverence, as soon as poor Mr. Eustace fell, the Devil (whom they talk so much about) got among them, and they began quarrelling and fighting; and a pity it is he did not come a little sooner and carry off that cowardly Lord who let his prisoners be shot in cold blood, because he could not beat them when they had arms in their hands. Had it not been for him, the finest young man Lancashire ever bred would have been alive and merry with his noble father at this moment. I don't wonder Your Reverence weeps and wrings your hands. I would have died a thousand times to save him; and if ever I may shew my face in the open day-light again, I'll go to Pembroke and beg Dr. Lloyd to let me take Fido to Mistress Constantia. Poor Fido! Mr. Eustace hid him all through the siege, or the garrison would have eat him. We gave him a morsel out of our own mess, and that was short commons enough. I fancy I see him walking after Mr. Eustace when he went to be shot, and then sitting on his body. I warrant they found the lock of Mrs. Constantia's hair lying on his heart; for he looked at it every day, and swore he never would part with it. O! that I had died instead of him; there is nobody to grieve for Ralph Jobson!"
Thus imitating the artifice, while unable to catch the spirit of the Grecian painter, I describe sorrow as personified in a faithful attendant, and leave the reader's imagination to picture the frantic father and the fainting mistress of Eustace—affliction wearing the form of a ministering angel in Isabel, and that of a mourning patriarch in Dr. Beaumont—all tracing the ruin of their dearest hopes to the same iniquitous source; yet all agreeing that it was better to die with virtue than to live with guilt; to be immolated on the shrine of alarmed ambition, rather than to be the bloody hierarch who dragged the sacrifice to the altar.
[ [1]] In the account of what passed at Pembroke-Castle, the author has not adhered to history or chronology; but the similar barbarity and breach of contract, which took place at Colchester, justifies the narration.
[ [2]] This is copied from what passed at Colchester.
I charge thee, fling away ambition;