Marriage bells.
Benefits of a more substantial sort were conferred on Lawrence Lee; and the estate of Nether Hall was widened by many a broad acre, so that Farmer Lee came to be accounted one of the wealthiest landowners of the shire, and the marvel of it was, that few begrudged him this worldly good fortune; though it would be too much to say none envied his lot, when one fine morning a year or two later, old Stanstead Church bells rang a joyous peal, as he led his wife Ruth along the flower-strewn way to her new home.
Something, nay very much of the old content shines again, now at last in Ruth's face; though its placid light-hearted look is gone for ever, and the shadow of past griefs will linger on it, till, herself an aged woman, they will lay her to her rest, to wait the time when all shadows flee away.
Patriots and plotters.
Still, very bright and blessed was Ruth's future, with the love of Madam Lee, warm and deep as own mother's love could be; and the devotion of her husband, and the music of small voices that by and by began to ring about the old house, and the mysterious alleys of the hornbeam maze; but no happiness could ever efface for her the memory of her father's fate.
Stern and implacable, yielding only to the gentler side of his nature, to stifle it down again, he had deeply loved Ruth, and been loved by her with a child's heart-felt affection. Honest in his convictions, loyal to his leader the famous Argyle, bravely as he had lived, Richard Rumbold, maimed and tortured by his captors, died an ignominious death at the Market Cross at Edinburgh, two years after the exposure of the Rye House Plot.
Cruel as these tidings of his end were, it was rendered ten times crueller by the thought of all those noble hearts that perished for the cause which had exasperated more desperate, and less disciplined minds to devise the hideous lengths of bloodshed and assassination; bringing all alike to the scaffold; patriot and lofty spirits like Sydney and Russel, grovelling, revengeful self-seekers like so many of the plotters. Few escaping with their lives, excepting such scum as those who turned king's evidence like Richard Rumsey, and bought their evil breath at the price of their old hand-in-glove comrades' death.
Upon all this, Ruth in the coming years would oftentimes sit and ponder. Ardent, unshaken little Stuart royalist as she remained to her latest day, and as Master Lawrence under her good guidance came to be, it is doubtful whether either was ever brought to declare with good Madam Lee, that "the king could do no wrong." That question, however, they left uncontested, and, content with trying to do as little of it as possible themselves, did so much good as to call down upon their heads in life and in death the blessings of all the country side.
Good company.
The grandfather's part which the roll of time brought into request at Nether Hall, was excellently represented by good old bachelor Master Alworth, who was its frequent guest, and of the many tales he used to tell the little ones, they liked very much that one of the brave, dear, real grandfather who died fighting for the king on Worcester field.