Springall, with the quickness of feeling that passes from kind heart to kind heart, without the aid of words, sprang towards him, and catching his arm, exclaimed,
"Your mother's body! it is safe, safe, Robin, under the dark tree, by the cairn stones. Surely I would not let it be so destroyed."
Cromwell's veneration for his own mother was one of the most beautiful traits in his character; from that instant the Protector of England took the boy Springall unto his heart: there was something in common between them—out of such slight events are destinies moulded.
"Your Highness," said Walter, whom we must now distinguish as Walter Cecil, "will pardon one who is indebted to you, not only for a restored fortune, but for his hopes of happiness. Your Highness will, I trust, pardon me for so soon becoming a suitor:—that boy——"
"Shall be cared for—it pleased the Almighty that Major Wellmore encountered more than one brave heart and trusty hand in this same Isle of Shepey. After a time we trust to show you and your cousin-bride, when she visits her god-mother, how highly we esteem your friendship; and we trust, moreover, that the awful lesson of retributive justice, it has graciously pleased the Lord to write in palpable letters of fire, will be remembered by all those who hear of Hugh Dalton and the Fire-fly. Great as is the power given into our keeping, we would not have dared to execute such awful judgment as that which has fallen upon the man of many sins. And behold, also, by the hands of the ungodly righteous punishment has been dealt unto the sticks and stones that have long given to rapine most unworthy shelter. The wheat, too, mark ye, young sir!—the wheat has been divided—glory be to God! for it is his doing. The wheat has been divided from the tares—and from amid the lawless and the guilty have come forth some who may yet take seats among the faithful in Israel."
CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
Twelve years—twelve eventful years—had passed, and, ere our work is done, we must entreat our readers to visit with us, once again, the old Isle of Shepey. The thoughtless, good-tempered, dissipated, extravagant, ungrateful, unprincipled Charles, had been called by the sedate, thinking, and moral people of England to reign over them. But with English whim, or English wisdom, we have at present nought to do; we leave abler and stronger heads to determine, when reviewing the page of history, whether we are or are not a most change-loving people—lovers of change for the sake of change.
Our business is with an aged man, seated, on a pleasant evening of the year 1668, under a noble oak, whose spreading branches shadowed a brook that babbled at his feet.
The beams of the setting sun were deepening the yellow tints of yet early autumn, and many of the trees looked as if steeped in liquid gold. In the distance, the ocean, quiet, calm, unruffled, was sleeping beneath the sober sky, and not a breeze wafted its murmurs to the little streamlet by the side of which that old man sat. He was but one of a group; four healthy and handsome children crowded around him, watching, with all the intense hope and anxiety of that happy age, the progress of his work. He was occupied, as grandfathers often are, in constructing a toy for his grandchildren. The prettiest of the party was a dark-eyed rosy girl of about four, perhaps five—for her countenance had more intelligence than generally belongs to either age, while her figure was slight and small, small enough for a child not numbering more than three years: she, too, was employed—stitching, with a long awkward needle, something which looked very like the sail of a baby-boat. A boy, somewhat older than herself, was twisting tow into cordage, while the eldest, the man of the family, issued his directions, or rather his commands, to both, in the customary style of lads when overlooking their juniors. The next to him was probably grandpapa's especial pet, for he knelt at the old man's knee, watching patiently, and taking good note, how he secured the principal mast steadily in the centre of the mimic vessel, it had been his kind task to frame for the youngsters' amusement.