“I know, is generally condemned; yet be there texts which make it imperative, and I think I foresee that the occasion for giving them forth is at hand. All means in their power they will try; yes, though James of York has been but four days a king, he had already made perquisition for such as may be useful to him, not in settling the crown upon his head, but in carrying off this people and kingdom, a bound sacrifice to the blind idol which he worshippeth at Rome. You know not the history of that man; no, nor of my son. Alas! that a mother’s lips should utter such words about her own flesh and blood! The one of them I tell you is a bigot, a pursuer, a persecutor—the other a sensualist, a Gallio, a tool. For many years he has never beheld his mother’s face; he married in his youth; he injured, deserted, yea, he killed his wife—not with his own hand or with the dagger, but by the surer weapons of hatred, neglect, unkindness. And she died. He has but one child; that child was left in charge of my honoured and loving daughter, the Lady Pevensey of Notts, and hath been brought up in a Christian manner; but now, he—this man of Belial—wishes to get this infant in his own hands; nay, he boldly has made a demand of her custody both on me and Pevensey, my daughter. We will not surrender her; he is now great and powerful. The king will back his efforts with all the weight of the crown; and we have considered, if we could confide the persecuted dove to the hands of some assured friend—some true son of our holy church—some steady, firm-hearted, strong-nerved man, who in such cause would set lord and king at defiance”——
Here she paused, and looked upon me with her eyes dilated, and her nostrils panting with some great thought which was within her; and I availed myself of the pause to say—
“Oh, my lady! if you did mean me for such charge, I confess my deficiency for such a lofty office; for I do feel in me no stirrings of an ambitious spirit. Sufficient is it for me to take care of the innocent flock committed to my care, in the performance of which charge I have the approbation of my own heart, and also, I make bold to hope it, of your ladyship, seeing that I have instructed them in the true principles both of faith and practice; and although there are shortcomings in them all, by reason the answers in the Catechism are not adapted to the capacities of the younger ones, especially of Charles, (who, notwithstanding, has abilities and apprehensions above his years,) yet are they all embued with faithful doctrine, from Alice Snowton, which is the most advanced in stature, to the honourable Master Fitzoswald, which is somewhat deficient in growth, being only three inches taller than my little Charles.”
The great lady looked at me while I spoke, and made no answer for long time. At last she said with a sort of smile, which at the same time was not hilarious or jocular in its nature—
“Perhaps ’tis better as it is. There is a providence in all things, and our plans and proposals are all overruled for the best—for which may God be praised! Therefore I will press you no more on the subject of the guardianship of my grandchild. But Mallerden will move heaven and earth to get her into his power—yes, though he has neglected her so long, never caring to see her since her childhood; yet now, when he sees ’twill gain him the treasurership of the royal household to sell the greatest heiress and noblest blood in England to the Papists, he will make traffic of his own child, and marry her to some prayer-mumbler to a wooden doll. Let us save her, good sir—but I forgot. No—I will save her myself. I, that have steered her through so many quicksands, will not let her make shipwreck at last. I will guard her like the apple of my eye, and possess my soul in patience until this tyranny be overpast.” And so ended the interview, during which my heart was tossed to and fro with the utmost agitation, and my whole frame so troubled that I various times lost all mastery of myself, and only saw before me a great black gulf of ruin, into which some invisible power was pushing me and all my little ones. Great, therefore, was my delight, and sweet the relief to my soul, when the great lady left me unconnected with her quarrels. For, in the crash of such contending powers, there was no chance of escape for such a weak instrument as I was; and fervent were my hopes, and deep my prayers, that the perils and evils prognosticated by the religious fears of my great protectress might be turned aside, and all good subject and sincere churchmen left each under his own vine and his own fig-tree, with nobody to make them afraid. But vain are the hopes of men. We read in no long time in all men’s looks the fate we were condemned to; for it seemed as if a great cloud, filled with God’s wrath, was spread out over this realm of England, and the faces of all men grew dark. We heard the name of Jeffreys whispered in corners, and trembled as if it had been a witch’s spell to make our blood into water. The great lady kept herself much in solitude in the ancient Court, and saw not even her favourite companion, my daughter Waller, for many months; but did ever write affectionate letters to her, and sent presents of rich fruits, and other delectations in which the young take pleasure. There was much riding to and fro of couriers, but whither, or whence, she did never tell, and it was not my province to enquire; but at last an order came for me to send up my Waller and her friend to the mansion. And at evening they were conveyed on horseback as before; but on this occasion their escort was not Master Wilkinson the under butler, but no less a person than my lady’s kinsman, the senior brother of my honourable pupil, the honourable Master Fitzoswald of Yorkshire, a stately young cavalier as could be seen, strong and tall, and his style and title was the Lord Viscount Lessingholm—being the eldest son and heir to that ancient earldom. He was an amiable and pleasant gentleman, full of courtesies and kindness, and particularly pleased with the newfangled fashion of a handsome cap which formed the headpiece of my excellent wife. He said also many handsome things about the brightness of my Waller’s eyes, and assured my excellent wife that he saw so promising an outsprout of talent in my Charles, that he doubted not to see him one of the judges of the realm, if so be he applied his intellectuals to the bar. He was also extreme civil to Alice Snowton, which answered his civilities in like manner; and seldom in so short a space as half an hour has any person made so favourable an impression as he did, particularly on his brother, by reason of his bestowing on him a large Spanish doubloon, and promising him a delicate coloured maneged horse immediately on his return to Yorkshire. It is a pleasant sight to see (and reflected some credit on my ministration of the moralities in this particular instance) the disinterested love of brethren, one towards another, and I failed not to ascertain that the Lord Lessingholm had been boarded in the house of an exemplary divine, to wit, Mr Savage of Corpus Christi College, Oxford—a fact which I think it proper to mention to the honour of that eloquent member of our church—inasmuch as any man might be proud of having had the training up in the way he should go, of so excellent and praiseworthy a youth.
It was many days before my young ones came back, (I would be understood to include in this Alice Snowton, whom I looked upon with the tenderness of a father and the pride of a teacher all in one;) and when they returned to me, I thought I perceived that they were both more sorrowful than of wont. Alice (and my Waller also) looked oppressed with some secret that weight upon their hearts, and I was fearful the great lady had made them partakers of her cares in the matter of her son and her grandchild. Yet did I not think such a thing possible as that either of them should have been taken into her confidence on so high and momentous a concernment, by reason of my Waller being so young, though thoughtful and considerate, and also fuller grown than persons much more advanced in life; and Alice Snowton was of so playful and gentle a disposition, that she seemed unfitted for the depository of any secret, unless those more strictly appertaining to her youth and sex, and moreover was a stranger to this part of the country, being of a respectable family, as I have observed, in Wilts—namely, a brother of Mr Snowton, my kind patron and friend. I called them into my study, after my labours were over with the other pupils, and I said to them—
“Dear children, ill would it become me to pry into the secrets of my honoured lady, the Lady Mallerden; yet may there arise occasions wherein it is needful for one in my situation, (parent to the one of you, and in loco parentis to the other,) to make perquisition into matters of weight and importance to your well-being, even at the risk of appearing inquisitive into other peoples’ affairs. Answer me, therefore, Alice, my dear child, has the Lady Mallerden instructed you in any portion of her family story?”
“She has in some degree, Sir,” said Alice Snowton, “but not deeply.”
“You know of her disagreement on certain weighty points with her son, the Lord Viscount, and how that he is a wicked man, seeking to break into the pasture of the Lord, and tear down the hedges and destroy the boundaries thereof; and that in this view he is minded to get his daughter into his power, to use her as an instrument towards his temporal elevation?”
“Something of all this we have heard, but not much,” said Alice Snowton.