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L IBRAHY

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UNIVERSITY

Of ILLINOIS

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S T R A T TON HILL,

A TALE OF

THE CIVIL WARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"LETTERS FROM THE EAST."

TALES OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND, &c &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II.

LONDON : HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

1829.

$23

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STRATTON HILL.

CHAPTER I.

" Pale cheek and eye subdued, of her whose mind Was to the world and all its hopes resign'd ; Her easy form, in rustic neatness clad, Was pleasing still — but she for ever sad !"

Crabbe.

In the narrow dell of Combe, that led down to the sea, the primroses were already fading, and the beech trees beginning to put forth their bud : the sea pink, one of the constant adorn- ments of this coast, covered with its purple hue the banks of the dell.

The hamlet, that was so desolately situated beneath the wintry winds, now wore a cheerful

VOL. II. B

2 STRATTON HILL.

appearance, and presented a picture of quiet industry and content, as its few dwellings stood humbly at the foot of the verdant slope, and the stream ran silently before their doors. Such is many a hidden and neglected valley in Cornwall, whose wild and romantic vales, open- ing on the deep, and inclosed by lofty steeps on either side, not often meet the eye of the stranger, that wanders wearily over a wide ex- tent of cheerless and neglected ground above. A lonely, but not a stranger's footstep now came down the glen ; it was that of a young and fair woman, who looked anxiously around, and seemed, by the disquiet of her air, to have come less for the loveliness of the walk and scene, than for relief from some painful feeling.

She sat down beside the remain of the small hermitage, that had once sheltered some monas- tic recluse, whose abode had been now a long time desolate ; the rivulet ran at the foot of the broken walls.

It was Elizabeth, the widowed daughter of mine hostess of the Ivy Bush, and the stillness of the place seemed to bring her sorrows back upon her mind with fresh power, or rather, if

STRATTON HILL. 3

woman's mind could always be read by the aspect, there was a warmer remembrance, a fresher tenderness in the look, than what is often cherished at such an age for a long lost partner. No colour varied the deadly paleness of her countenance ; the walk of several miles, the freshness of the air, that seemed winged with health, had not called forth one ruddy spot on her cheek or brow ; it suited well, how- ever, with her delicate form, and with the gen- tle character of her mind.

Ere an hour had elapsed, another foot came down the declivity, but with greater swiftness and elasticity ; she was agitated as she observed the eager approach of a well-made young man, whose eye sparkled with pleasure as he drew nigh, and whose free and bold bearing proved him to be the same adventurer that had passed the evening at the village inn a few months be- fore, and taken so prominent a part in the con- versation. The ardour of the look with which he regarded her, could not hide his disquietude. " You have come, as you promised, Eliza- beth, n he said ; " have you been long here ?

I have some remembrance of this place, — the B 2

4 STRATTON HILL.

stream, and the hamlet there, — and well I may, 'twas here my mother dwelt long since, and I first saw the light."

" ' Tis a sweet spot," she replied, " and was a favourite one of mine before I married ; but I have seldom been here since. — ' Twas on the beach below," she continued sadly, " where I parted from my husband, and I cannot bear to visit it again."

" You are for ever dwelling on by-gone sor- rows," the young man replied. " Js a form like that, and, still more, the warm and kind heart within, intended for nothing but to gloom over the past? It can't be recalled, Betsy, and it's long since it happened now."

"That's true, Stephen, but I'm a fated woman, — at least, I often fancy so, — so early, so suddenly bereaved. I saw William, the very evening he was washed overboard, pass along the chamber, as I sat by the bedside, thinking of him ; and Sarah Gray told me, ' twas a sign he was to be my last husband ; — no, I shall never marry again "

" You will keep your vows like most maids and widows have done : ' tis the third year now,

STRATTON HILL. O

and that's long enough to cry over any man, if he was the handsomest and boldest fellow in the neighbourhood ."

" He was not handsome," the widow said : " I never cared for beauty in a man ; but I liked him, for he was my first liking and that goes a great way at the age I was then."

" What you then were, I know not," said the adventurer warmly ; " but I love that sadness and seriousness better than all the gaiety in the world. I have seen women of the burning countries of the South ; but there 's something in that melancholy eye, and sweet still features, that has laid hold of my heart. And now tell me, Elizabeth, and tell me truly — "

" I have been to blame, Nicholas, to meet you here ; and more to blame, it may be, not to have told you sooner on this matter. But 'tis so long that I have loved stillness and peace, that I hated to have them broken in upon by any bitterness or strife. It is little encourage- ment you have had from me ; have I given any to your passion, any promise or hope ?"

" Not that — not exactly that ; but you have listened to me, and I have thought you listened

D STRATTON HILL.

with pleasure : often your look and words seem- ed to me kind, like those of affection— they were so near to it."

" Alas ! if I listened with pleasure," she re- plied,— " and I fear that there were moments when I did so, — it was because words of affection had long been strange to my ears, and they came back to me again like a dream. It was, in truth, a short-lived dream, my wedded life. He was so young, and his heart so tender, that it seemed, when you spoke, I heard my husbands voice again ; the sound too was like his."

" This is mockery to my feelings," he said earnestly. " Then, when I poured them fresh from my heart, and sat beside you, your thoughts were on another— on the dead, you will say. Look at this hermitage, its broken walls over- grown with grass, that was once, they say, worshipped in. Such are you, you mournful woman, — your heart growing desolate, and grief preying on your comeliness."

" You are too agitated, Stephen ; be more calm, I intreat you."

" A man cannot be calm, Elizabeth, when

STRATTON HILL. 7

his dearest hope hangs, as it were, on a thread. Consent but to be my wife, and I will be calm as the soft scene around us, and will tame the hot blood that has long swept through my veins. For your sake, I will go to my native place, that rude parish of Saint Just. I will love the old dwelling and the green lanes, as your mother counselled me. I have done deeds that need repentance ; and sweet it will be to repent when you talk to me of better and holier things, as you have done ere now."

The young woman raised her eyes to his, with an earnest and hesitating expression, and saw there the certainty, so dear in sorrow and bereavement, as well as in pride and prosperity — that of being sincerely loved : — she turned them away, with a deep sigh.

" It is of no use," she said, " to think of these things ; I never knew your liking was so warm, or your mind fixed so earnestly upon me ; for you had often talked of loving many women in those far countries ; and that when tired of one, you sought for another : so I thought it might be just such a passing love as that, and that it would die of its own accord. And now there is

° STRATTON HILL.

no help for it — for, don't look so fierce at me, for — it is too late — I can't give you my love in return."

" And why not ? tell me, I demand of you ; why do you colour so ? there is no one else you are attached to — there cannot be "

" How can you think such a thing," she an- swered, in an agitated voice ; " I never told of it ; but suppose there should be one — yes, it is given to another."

" You have deceived me,'' he said sternly, after a short silence,^-" you that I thought so sincere, so good. But who has stolen that love, that would else, I know, have been mine ? he shall not enjoy it. I will know him, and will find him, by my hope of Heaven, wherever may be his path or his home ! The cold, calm villain! to snatch from me the prize that I would have swept the whole ocean in tempest to make my own I" and he laid hold on her trembling arm with a strong grasp.

" He did not steal it," she answered, " and you must not harm him. He never sought it ; but it is not the less fixed on him. Abuse my

STRATTON HILL. 9

weakness, despise it if you will, but lay no in- jury on his head ; — it was Carries."

" Games,* he replied, as his hand passed from the hilt of his poniard, and he turned from her, while the curse died on his lips : — " I cannot harm him, for he has been day and night be- neath my father's roof, and been to me as a friend. I looked not for this: the revenge that I reckoned on so surely, cannot be ; that cup is dashed from iny lips."

" Do not say so," the young woman replied. " Revenge, such as you purpose, is a deadly sin; and even to feel it in the heart requires repent- ance."

" Woman ! talk not to me of religion now ; keep it for the quiet moments by the chimney- side, where it came sweetly from your lips, and I have liked to listen to it. In your own words, can you bind up the heart you have broken ? can good counsel sooth a devouring passion ? But you are faint, Betsy ; my words are too strong for your weak frame." So saying, the generous sailor stooped to the stream that ran by, and brought the water to her lips, looking B 5

10 STRATTON HILL.

earnestly and in silence on her pallid counte- nance.

" You are kind, Stephen, and would to Heaven I could better repay your kindness ! But who know their own heart, or can tell its way- wardness ? I thought] that love was buried in my husband's grave ; but it came again for one that did not seek it, and, it may be, did not de- sire it. But I am refreshed now, and will leave you : the walk home will revive my scattered strength and spirits."

" Farewell !" replied her companion, after a pause, in which he struggled hard with his feelings : " you will perhaps see me no more. I shall depart, and that instantly, to join the Parliament's forces, and fight for my country. They are not far off by this time, and I shall soon see their standard."

" 'Tis a sudden resolve," she answered sadly, " and you never spoke of it before. Why will you mix in this fierce strife ? Above all, why will you go against the King ?"

" Had my suit been successful," he said, " much as I like action, I'd have left these hardy spirits to fight it out themselves. But

STRATTON HILL. 11

now, the quiet hearth is no place for me ; and that of your mother's house — my foot must not cross it again. No, I have cleaved to it too long : many a sweet evening hour, Betsy — you remember — but now — no, I shall never sit there again."

" But why, if you must go," asked the other, " don't you join his Lordship's forces, and not those that are come to invade our own country and put down the King ?"

" It matters little to me which I join," said the adventurer : " the rebels, as they call them, are raw recruits mostly, and will be glad to have men of action. More than that, IVe a grudge against his Lordship : I offered him my services when I first landed ; but he rejected them, as if I had been a man of no mark, though IVe seen hard service, and have faced

war in many a land. He used slighting words too : and I'll join the rebels, and march against his standard ; maybe, he shall pay for his

scorn."

" I know you cannot be turned from your

purpose," she replied, " be it dark or fair : you

can at times be stern and hardened, as well as

V& STRATTON HILL.

gentle as the lamb. — Farewell, then ; I will not say, to meet no more."

" God bless you V said the young man, deep- ly moved. " My head may lie low, and my hand be eold, ere to-morrow's eve. But do not forget me, Elizabeth.""

He saw her depart without a Avord of up- braiding, and sat down on the bank she had left, beside the broken wall : the trembling of the fingers that supported his brow, and the suppressed muttering of his lips, showed the agony of his feelings, and how hard it is to bear, in any rank of life, a blasted affection. He had reason to complain, he thought, as being more hardly treated than he had merited or expected ; and this was borne the less calmly, as in his affairs of love, wherever he had roved, he had rarely till now known disappointment. The latter too was more than a short-lived one; for, pleased with the life of quiet be had lately led, so different from his former habits, he had resolved to quit them for ever, and pass to that of a contented habitant of his native parish. It was now an absolute relief to rush into the approaching contest, and a wild excitement was

STRATTON HILL. 13

in his look as he turned it on the still scene around him — the green banks, the straggling trees, and the cattle that grazed beside. " Such a place would have been my lot," he said con- temptuously. . " I should have tilled the ground, driven my cattle to pasture, and fattened them for the market, and then come home weary at

night ; and how long would this have lasted

but I should have come home to her !" He could bear with his thoughts, or the stillness of the place, no longer; but giving one eager glance up the narrow dell, where no footstep was now visible, he rose from the bank, and hastily pur- sued his way. With a better and more timely example than he had met with, this adventurer had been capable of higher things than his pre- sent purpose promised. He was the son of a re- spectable farmer, in the distant parish of Saint Just, and had followed contentedly the pursuits of his father's farm; remarked for his personal strength and comeliness, in a district where such gifts are by no means rare. In the con- tests in the ring, in hurling the broad-stone, and others, he was often a successful candidate, and was proud of his success. His home stood at

14 STRATTON HILL.

the foot of a long slope, and on the bank of a red copper stream, that ran through a rocky defile into the ocean below. A clump of trees (there was one other only in the whole parish) stood before the sunless walls of the dwelling : beyond this Stephen Nicholas seldom felt his desires roam, till the spirit of adventure against the Spaniards found its way also into this remote district, when he, with many other young men joined the noted Owen Phippen, whose monument still stands in Truro church, and whose exploits were among the foremost of this adventurous age. With this man he made many voyages to the Levant, and afterwards to the coast of America, on which their daring enterprises were on some occasions rewarded with ample spoil, and on others attended with defeat and disaster. The spirit of Nicholas grew bold and hardened in such a career, for which his courage and activity well fitted him : he was soon a favourite with his commander, and the farmer's son was ere long lost in the rising and prosperous adventurer. He had too much of his native Cornish feeling to contract the love of cruelty, that mingled in so many of the hardy

STRATTON HILL. 15

deeds of these unprincipled men : often a flash of generosity and kindness would appear, even when the golden metal awaited at the end of a bloody path.

But, as he said, he had done many a deed that needed repentance ; and he returned, after many years, to his own coast, with a compe- tence for the rest of his life, and a conscience far less quiet than when he parted. He brought with him too, from that golden shore, a guest that his success had dearly purchased — the love of revenge, that he had contracted by his long residence among the Spaniards, and the unli- mited indulgence that he had ever seen given to it.

This feeling mixed up strangely with the still surviving frankness and openness of his character. Doubtless he had been so long his own master, so long had no law but what his sword or poniard bade him take, that it had crept into his heart like a subtle snake, and was fostered there almost unconsciously. A proof of its influence was visible in his resolve to be revenged of the Lord of Stowe, for the slight he had put on 'his offers of service, at the same

16 STRATTON HILL.

moment that he refrained to do injury to a rival who had wounded him in the dearest passion of his heart, because they had passed a few days together on terms of friendliness.

The whole of the time nearly since his landing had been spent in the village of Kilk- ampton, of whose neighbourhood he had an early recollection ; and the comfortable quarters he had found at the Ivy Bush, had induced him to make it his resting-place ; save one short and welcome visit he had paid to his rude parish and industrious home. On whatever side he now took his part in the contest, he seemed to be an instrument capable of working good or ill in no slight degree. He pursued his way on foot, at a rapid pace, avoiding the straggling parties he met with bound for the Royal Standard. On the third day he came in sight of the rebel army at a distance, slowly marching, more like people bade to traverse the county at their leisure, from east to west, than a force that was soon to meet an exasperated enemy in the teeth. Nicholas hovered at a distance for some hours, till he saw them halt for the night ; and then drew nigh the camp, that was pitched on an

STRATTON HILL. 17

open common, through which crept two or three rills of water, and a few wretched hovels, with their dark roofs of turf, stood beside. Over this extensive surface the forces began to scatter themselves, with little order ; for the stern dis- cipline soon after introduced by Cromwell and others, was as yet a stranger among these re- publicans. A band was seen in one part gathered tumultuously round the walls of a hovel, whose terrified inmates had issued wildly forth, and the roof was quickly pulled down to make fires on the damp sod without, or in the interior of the low walls. Others, wearied with their march, threw themselves on the banks of the sluggish stream, and quenched their thirst, as a few of the more zealous among them were heard to say, like Gideon's soldiers, who were the cho- sen out of the host. The comparison might be good, as to the number of these select people; since the puritan principles had as yet found their way very partially into the ranks ; to which circumstance their advocates attri- buted the frequent dishonour that attended the republican arms in this province. The most timid, however, dreamed not of dishonour now ;

18 STRATTON HILL.

the most zealous spoke not of the necessity of any peculiar interposition in favour of the good cause, when they cast their eyes round on the formidable array that covered the heath. There was some portion of the force better disciplined, and officered by men of some experience : these preserved good order, piled their arms beside their resting-places for the night, and placed sentinels on the outskirts of the camp.

Amidst the excellent disorder that pervaded great part of the camp, Nicholas approached the largest tent of the few that had been as yet pitched, and desired of the guard to be conducted to the General ; and the man, after looking at him earnestly for a moment, led the way within. There was little appearance in the interior of the tent, of the simple and self-denying habits the republicans affected : the floor was carpeted ; and in the middle was placed a light moveable table, on which signs of an approaching repast already appeared, in sundry flasks of wine, and several vessels of silver. The drapery of the tent was of silk ; there was too much of luxury about the whole to be in character with the nature of the war,

STRATTON HILL. 19

or of the enemy against whom the march was directed.

A few of the chief officers were seated in the tent, among whose countenances, no stern and fanatic feature could be distinguished, nor any marks of the deep anxiety which men should feel at the head of an invading force to dethrone their King. The security of success was evi- dent in their light and careless bearing and con- versation, particularly in that of the General, who, richly habited, with a gilded cuirass over a costly buff coat, the other parts of his armour being laid aside, was seated at the table : his officers stood or sat beside him. The Earl of Stamford, a tall and slender personage, had nei- ther the air nor make of one of those iron men who " hewed down both throne and altar, as things of nought" — a man of courts and revels, rather than the tented field : his previous campaign in Cornwall had brought him little honour, and he was now come, in the fulness of his expectation, with an overpowering force, to redeem every laurel that he had lost. Near him were two knights, well known in the county, who had es- poused the Parliamentary interest, — Sir Richard

I

20 STRATTON HILL.

Buller, and Sir Alexander Carew ; and who, before they had recourse to arms, had adopted the pacific measure of attaching Hopton and his associates at the county sessions as " certain persons unknown, who had come with an armed force, against the statutes." On the right of the General, and the most silent there, sat the only officer of much experience, as well as the most martial figure in the party. It was Ruth- ven, the Governor of Plymouth, whose defeat on Bradock Down seemed still to have left gloom and disquietude on his countenance : he was a man of conduct and courage, and in whom the Commons placed much confidence. He burned with desire to revenge the disaster he had experienced a few months before, in which his whole force was destroyed and dis- persed ; and had counselled more active and energetic operations, on this present advance, but his advice was overruled. Into this com- pany Nicholas was ushered, and he regarded them with a calm and unabashed brow. On being questioned what his purpose was, or whe- ther he had brought any intelligence of the enemy, he replied that he came from the neigh-

STRATTON HILL. 21

bourhood of their army, and that he had dwelt of late within a short distance of Stowe. The interest of his enquirers was immediately excited at this name ; and they questioned him respecting the late proceedings there, as well as of the other leaders, and their probable force in the town of Launceston. With the former he was intimately acquainted ; and the intelligence he had gathered the preceding evening but one, while passing at no great distance from the royal garrison, enabled him to speak of the latter : he ended his detail by a brief offer of his own services in the good cause, and hint- ing broadly at the various service he had seen abroad. He was rather handsomely accoutred ; for he did not spare his hard-gotten gains in set- ting off what was in reality a goodly presence.

" And you say," said Stamford anxiously, " they are got to so strong a head — I could not have thought it — in so short a space of time ?"

" They have those among them, my Lord," said Carew, " who count little of time, when mischief is to be brought to a head ; and, I doubt not, they have raised every vassal and fol- lower they could command."

22 STRATTON HILL.

" Young man," said the General, " have you seen these forces of whom you speak so posi- tively ? What are their condition and array; and in what spirit do they seem to be, now they have heard of the strong army that follow us ?"

" If I may judge, my Lord," said Nicholas, " of the array and temper of their army by the detached bodies I have seen, I never beheld men whose spirits were strung to a more deadly note, or who followed their banner with greater joy. I have seen men rush on, like fiends, when they thirsted for gold and silver; but these levies crowd to the field as to one of their own wild and drunken wakes."

" Your words are strong, fellow," said Carew, " and smack something of a cavalier's retainer. But as to the mettle of these recruits, Ruthven there, my Lord, can give you the most satis- factory account, though he had not long to remark upon it."

Ruthven's face coloured to the brow at this taunt; for, on account of his country, he was not all popular among the Cornish leaders, who were displeased that he should have been sent, a second time, with a chief command among

STRATTON HILL. 23

them; but ere he could reply, the adventurer resumed.

" If I may be so bold," he said, " that gen- tleman has never, I deem, seen a foughten field, or he would not sneer at one that was so gallantly contested."

This bold remark cut deeper than the speaker was aware of, since the two knights had re- treated with their forces, only a few months before, from the strong fortress of Launceston, at Hopton's approach, who very quietly took possession of it. Carew stared with astonish- ment at being thus addressed, and Ruthven smiled in his turn.

" I will give this stranger some command in my troop, with your will, my Lord," he said. " He seems to have seen service, and to have a spirit suited to the times. — You say you are but now come," he continued, 4< from the vici- nity of the enemy. Are the defences of the town and castle well kept, and well provisioned? Do they intend to strengthen themselves there, or will they dare to sally forth from their hold, and put their sinking cause on a cast ?"

" There is no doubt of that," Nicholas replied,

24 STRATTON HILL.

u for they may not choose. Their provisions are failing fast ; and they are well aware, 'tis said, that the whole land is open to this army, who may march to its bounds without a sword being drawn, except by their hands. They watch day and night to see your standards."

At these words the officers looked significantly at each other.

" You see, Ruthven," said Stamford, " if this man's words are true, which there is no doubt of, I was right in preferring a slow ad- vance. Our game is sure ; the provisions in the town will be every day consuming fast, and a force so crowded must soon be reduced to dis- tress ; while, by avoiding a precipitate march, we give them no advantage to attack ; and they dare not venture to confront us without some chance of position, which their better knowledge of the country may give them.'"

" My Lord," said the other drily, " there is no doubt but they will confront us, and at all hazards, on hill or down ; for they are despe- rate men, and their condition allows of no choice."

" Ruthven/' replied the nobleman, " your

STRATTON HILL. 25

memory is clearer than your judgment ; no, no, downs are ominous; we will avoid them with all wariness. But with the gallant and numerous army I command, gentlemen, it is mere madness to think Hopton, with his inferior force, will give battle. Should he indeed be driven to such a desperate measure, it will be best, perhaps, to deprive them, as I said before, of any advan- tage they may find, in hanging on our march through their territory. We had better choose, therefore, a strong position, and encamp ; thus, Stanton, in your own words," addressing a Puritan officer, " they will be given us for a prey.5''

This counsel was approved by some of the officers ; while others, in paticular the two knights, desired an immediate advance into the heart of the province, as, being men of some influence and large possessions, they wished to increase the number of their adherents, as well as intimidate the many and powerful supporters of the adverse cause, several of whom were their personal enemies. All, however, looked on their present force as irresistible, being of the same sentiments as their masters, the Commons, who

VOL. II. C

26 STRATTON HILL.

considered this armament as sure to put the finishing stroke to the contest. " I would fain not counsel any thing," said Ruthven, thought- fully, " that might in any way injure the glory that your Lordship's expedition will, doubtless, bring ; but it may be best, perhaps, to encamp ; we have artillery wherewith to make our posi- tion invulnerable, and we can choose to march onward on any occasion and at any hour that we think fitting."

" Then it shall be so," said the General ; " to-morrow we will move forwards ; a fine po- sition cannot be wanting amidst so many hills and commanding sites ; nature surely intended this country for a 'debateable land,' and would the Commons make me a free gift of all I shall subdue for them, by St. Petroc, the saint of the county, I'd shake off the dust of my feet, and hie me from such dreary wastes ; but, gen- tlemen, enough of debate ; good cheer makes a desert glad, and ours has been over long wait- ing. Young man," addressing Nicholas, " you may retire."

To this scene instantly succeeded a more so- cial and inspiring one. On the table were placed

STRATTON HILL. 27

many choice viands, whose appearances as well as flavour attested the hand of a foreign cook, without whom Stamford's campaigns were sel- dom made. It seemed that the materials of the repast must have accompanied the march, as the wild on which the tent was pitched afforded little to satisfy even the solitary pilgrim's hun- ger.

u. Your own glens and hills cannot be more savage, Ruthven," said the Commander, " but they abound in game of the choicest kind ; while here a man might as well plough on its rocks, or make woods wave on its sands, as hope for a fine buck at a pinch.1'

,; True, but my own land may not be thus traversed," the other replied ; " its noble moun- tains and straths require a hardy footstep and a rude appetite. Seldom have I seen a banquet like this spread in its wilderness ; 'twould put scorn on the fierce and changing warfare that the people love, where the chief and the clans- man sleep side by side on the heathery steep. One might as well," casting a glance on the viands, " plant a garden on the top of Benledi as hope for such a repast there." c 2

28 STRATTON HILL.

" You are a lawless race," said the Earl, slightly colouring, " in those highland re- treats, and know little of the refinements of life. You have the advantage of them, Carew, for I'm told there are some fair parks and mansions farther to the west. Have you veni- son in them, or do you live on the gifts of Providence, — what the sea casts up, or what the wandering barks on the coast offer to your longing eyes ?"

" My Lord," replied the Knight, " you are pleased to be severe. When your arms, as I trust will speedily be the case, advance on- wards, you will judge for yourself if we have not spots of redeeming beauty and richness, dwellings whose antiquity may vie with any in the land. We've a narrow slip of soil, but then 'tis more easily defended ; and as to the sea, the fine turbot your Lordship pays so much devotion to, is but a few hours out of the water."

" 'Tis a noble fish, and of rare flavour," said the General, accompanying it with a glass of white hermitage ; " you will pledge me, Sir Alexander, in the best vintage that ever crossed

STRATTON HILL, 29

the Tamar, ' Speedy success to the good cause, and may all its enemies perish by the sword or scaffold!'"

Carew filled his glass, but suffered it to stand idly before him. " 'Tis strange, my Lord," he said, " the reluctance I feel to pledge that toast ; but I may not drink it. I have friends on the other side of the question, the royal side ; the times are too changeable, and the prospect too doubtful. I will not wish that the fountain of any man's life shall be stopped, or its silver cord loosed, before its time, perchance. I am sworn to the good cause, and trust to see it come out of this trial bright and conquering ; but what the end may be no one knoweth.1'

" I doubt," said Ruthven, after a pause, in which he had bent his broad eye fixedly on the speaker, " that this war, Sir Alexander, will not be like a mortal struggle of rival clans, but of a more deadly, cold and treacherous charac- ter; the Puritan, believe me, will soon care little for his friend, or the brother for the brother ; many a shroud will soon be spread in more peaceful places than the field of battle."

" You were surely intended for a seer," ob-

30 STRATTON HILL.

served the General, " and such raven croak- ings as these suit better the failing fortunes of the Stuart than the banner with which victory marches. To-morrow's sun will see the downs covered with our gallant forces ; 'tis the last enterprise, I have assured the Commons, they will need to undertake, and have pledged myself it shall prosper. Gentlemen, fill your glasses, and instead of dreaming of shrouds, let it be of glory."

" 'Tis a splendid dream," said Ruthven, with a cold and derisive smile, which, however, met not the Earl's eye, " and may the waking be equally bright."

" Doubtless it will be so," said Carew, ear- nestly, " and then shall tranquillity soon be restored in the west, however long and fiercely it may be carried on in other parts of the king- dom : the party of the King, however, gives ground apace ; he is too obstinate himself, un- happily, to come to terms, and has thrust his people on these violent measures for redress."

The feelings of this unfortunate gentleman, warred even now, probably, with the principles he had adopted as to the contest, into which he

STRATTON HILL. 31

certainly had not entered with heart and hand, strung to meet every extremity, much more to meet the doom that soon after came upon him. Unable to conquer his secret attachment to the King, and seeing that all the schemes of the Parliament, whom he served, tended to anarchy and bloodshed, he entered into a correspondence to serve his Majesty's cause to the utmost of his power. This being discovered, he was seiz- ed by the Parliament's soldiers, sent to London, and sentenced to lose his head, on a charge of treason. Clarendon has maligned both his cha- racter and motives, and treated with great in- justice a man, whose tragical end and latest words on the scaffold, might have atoned for many failings. " The greatest enemy against me, under the sun," he said, " can lay but the suspicion of the fact against me. I have be- sought pardon for my pride and stout-hearted- ness. The last words that ever my mother spake, when she died, were, ' Lord, though thou killest me, yet will I put my trust in thee,1 so they are mine — then put me to what tortures you please."

When Nicholas quitted the tent, he turned

32 STRATTON HILL.

his footsteps carelessly through the camp, that had, by degrees, assumed the appearance of a little more order and discipline. The cavalry, a numerous and well-appointed body, were seen to the right, where the verdure was more rank, and presented a dense and moveless mass to the eye ; a few straggling piquets continued to ride over the wide downs beyond, to guard against surprise in so defenceless a spot. This vigilance appeared more a matter of form than neces- sity ; since the only enemy that could inspire any alarm, was known to be safe within the walls of the venerable capital. The only ele- vations in the dreary scene, were the few miser- able huts beside the marshy rivulets, and the tents that rose in small and lonely clusters, over whose white drapery wandered the bickering of many a watch-fire, kindled before their door. Several groups of officers were gathered round the latter ; stern republican faces, whose expres- sion proved, that they had already known the sweetness of war, and loved it. Neither the coarse fare of which they were partaking, the lowering sky above them, or the gusts of wind that swept strongly by, and wafted the light

STRATTON HILL. 33

embers of the fire over the withered and scanty grass of the common, abated in the least the satisfaction they evidently felt, or broke for a moment the animated conversation. From be- hind, and more remotely, the loud and earnest sounds of devotional exercise rose on the wind, that added to their strength, though it might mar their melody — where a few excited groups had assembled, and like the host of Israel, to which they sometimes likened themselves, heed- ed not, while they joined their deep and eager voices, that the wilderness was around them, that the tempest uttered its voice, and that the temples of men's hands were not nigh.

In one spot, a circle of attentive hearers had drawn round one of the hovels, against whose blackened wall stood a military enthusiast, wav- ing his hands wildly, as if the broad sword was in them, and the neck of his enemy was under his feet, while he painted in vivid colours the times that were now drawing nigh, when the reign of righteousness should be established on the earth.

The looks of some of his auditors were calm and happy ; but in those of others, there was c 5

34 STRATTON HILL.

an ardent and inflamed expression, like that of men who longed for the morning, when their enemies were to be given into their hand. Be- side the door of the hut was a small group, con- sisting of the affrighted dwellers, who saw war, for the first time, cover their barren soil ; the glare thrown from a portion of their burning roof, piled on the earth beside, fell on their wan faces and half-clad forms, as nestling closely together, they looked with anguish on the ruin of their miserable home.

Nicholas could not help being struck with so strange a scene, the wildness of which was increased by the extensive solitude that spread on every side. Into this he now bent his steps, partly to brood over his disappointment, as well as to wait the return of day, ere he mingled with any of the parties in the camp, to all of whom he was an entire stranger, both in per- son and principles, points of equal importance at this period. As he looked back, from a short distance, on the place he had left, it was surprising how the straggling tents, and the numerous bodies of men, faded into littleness. His eye had been used to the vast plains of

STRATTON HILL. 35

South America ; and here, though on a scene far more confined, he thought nature never seemed so powerful, or man so feeble, as when ploughing his way over a boundless surface, or seeking a resting place for a while in its bosom. He had passed, on the evening before, the hill and castle of Launceston, and seen the banners wave, and heard the martial sounds come im- posingly down the steep ; but here the colours of the Parliament rose poorly and shrunkenly, like those of a solitary vessel on a shoreless sea, and the trumpet sound, that called the troops to their repose, passed deadened over the waste, that circled coldly and unbrokenly round the diminished host.

STRATTON HILL.

CHAPTER II.

" Fought for the land his soul ador'd, His only talisman— the sword."

Moore.

The day had scarcely broke on the town and fortress of Launceston, when the unusual bustle that prevailed both among the inhabitants and soldiery denoted an event of some importance to be at hand. Not a soul in the place that had not risen from its slumbers, old and young, rich, fair, or abject. The preparations for bat- tle were loud and quick on the height ; and low earnest voices, with here and there a mourning one, ran along the narrow and crowded streets. Many of the more curious had climbed the declivities and gloomy walls, and bent their

STRATTON HILL. 37

looks earnestly towards the hill of Stratton, where the rebel army was posted ; but the dis- tance was too great for the keenest eye to dis- cern any thing. Advancing by slow marches, beyond the heath, where we have seen his force encamped, the Earl of Stamford had chosen a position on a lofty eminence, that commanded the whole of the surrounding country, and from its nature seemed to be secure from any attack. With this confidence of security in his position, was mingled a thorough contempt of his enemy, when a fortnight had passed away, and they showed no disposition to leave their defences. He knew that the want of provisions impelled them to issue forth, at the same time that the thinness of their numbers must render a con- test in the open field, almost desperate. Such was not the thought, however, of the leaders of the royalists ; who, long prepared for this extre- mity, were now rejoiced rather than daunted to look it in the face. Necessity of the sternest kind urged them to do this without delay ; as during many days past, each officer as well as man in the garrison had been reduced to an allowance of a biscuit a day. It was resolved

38 STRATTON HILL.

therefore, after a brief consultation, to quit the town, and fight under any disadvantage.

It being now the middle of May, the morning was serene and beautiful, and the sun rose with- out a cloud on the dark mass of the fortress, the hill, and the small and anxious town at its feet. The troops waited impatiently the signal to march. A small number, that could ill be spared, was left to man the walls, and the rest instantly set forward. As band after band moved down the steep into the town, the exciting sight drew the admiration of the crowded people.

Men going forth, with a devoted purpose, to fight against fearful odds, cannot fail to raise the strong sympathy of the peaceful spectator ; and this was manifested as the files moved by, in many an earnest prayer for their success, from the old and infirm, and many a tear and parting word from lips and eyes, whose bloom and power the ills of life had not yet withered. The lofty archway rang with the ceaseless beat of their footsteps, as infantry and cavalry left behind them the fortress that had so long con- fined them inactive within its walls. Hopton

STRATTON HILL. 39

led the way on foot, as were all the other leaders ; his countenance little ruffled by the excitement of the hour, and it required, doubt- less, all the glow of battle to animate it ; for those who saw him at this moment would have deemed him rather the counsellor than the leader of a determined host. His high forehead, composed features, and thoughtful air, gave little assurance of the exploits which soon after raised him to the peerage. But he was nobly seconded. The division that followed was led by Trevanion and Slanning; the former clad in a suit of armour, of polished steel, that sat well on his tall and finely-proportioned figure : it was his first field ; and, like many a tasteful spirit, on a less perilous career, he seemed resolved to enter on it in the fairest ar- ray. Last, with the most numerous division, came Sir Beville Granville, in the midst of his adhe- rents, and his dismounted regiment of horse ; the latter were all young men, who had fol- lowed the King in his expedition against the Scotch, two years before. The leader, carrying his helmet in his hand, conversed occasionally

40 STRATTON HILL.

with the few gentlemen around him, who were nearest allied, and dropped many a brief and animating word to the soldiers, as they marched along. He had just that kind of word and look that go to the soldier's heart. His long light brown hair fell in profusion on his shoulders, after the fashion of many cavaliers of the times ; his resolute and manly features were full of benevolence, and were set off by a remarkably large and bright eye, that reflected, quick as lightning, every feeling and passion of his soul. His form was above the middle size, and without being stout, was built, particularly the limbs, in the strongest mould ; and was clad, but not heavily, in a suit of Spanish armour, that had been the spoil of his grandfather, Sir Richard, in one of his naval successes ; and had hung peacefully in the hall, among other tro- phies, till now, when its fine workmanship, and excellent proof, induced his gallant successor, gladly to avail himself of it. Not far from his master, and carrying the standard, was the ve- teran Andrews, his stalwart frame still bear- ing, resolutely, the load of years : his step seemed more firm beneath the burden he up-

STRATTON HILL. 41

held, and the look more haughty that he cast around ; for every time-worn feature was full of the conscious pride and importance of the charge entrusted to him. He had begged, as the richest boon with which he could be blessed, to bear to the field the colours of the house he had served so long.

The march continued for several hours till the castle faded in the distance. The way was over many an eminence and tract of moorland, whose treeless surface afforded no shade from the increasing heat of the day ; but the hand of war had not marked the way. The fields and cultivated patches of soil gave their crops of corn uninjured and flourishing to the eye, and the tenants of the scattered hamlets came to their door-way and looked earnestly on the martial array as it swept by, as on a passing show.

The day was closing when the royal force arrived within a mile of the Hill of Stratton, but for several hours preceding, their eyes had found little employment, save to gaze on the array of their formidable enemy.

The Earl had chosen his position well : the

42 STRATTON HILL.

hill, the broad summit of which was covered with his forces, was exceedingly lofty, and the ascent was steep on every side. Neither rock nor tree appeared on the side of the declivity in face of the royalists — no sudden risings of the ground to shelter the assailant, or interrupt the minutest view of an armament whose disposi- tion was enough to strike a chill into the bold- est heart. The infantry, to the number of five thousand four hundred, were drawn up in the best disposition on the brink and the interior of the broad summit, and an artillery of thirteen brass ordnance and a mortar were ready to open on whatever side the daring assault should be made. The cavalry, a fine body of fourteen hundred men, had fortunately been despatched to Bodmin the preceding day to surprise the sheriff and principal gentlemen of the county, who were then assembled there. The knowledge of this circumstance had determined Sir Ralph Hopton to advance immediately.

The trumpets of the enemy were heard to play distinctly, as if to invite the small force beneath to come on : their very voices, in the

STRATTON HILL. 43

calmness of the evening, reached the spot where the latter stood.

This was a small unsheltered spot, covered with rank and useless grass, and broken into numerous undulations or hollows, that offered a partial protection from the enemy's artillery, should they be disposed to make speedy use of it. From this, however, they forbore, and did not fire a shot, leaving the hostile force in quiet possession of their barren resting-place, which a few discharges of the mortar must quickly have made untenable. Perhaps it was because they deemed themselves secure of their prey on the morrow ; yet Stamford, when he looked on the determined body of men beneath, scanty as their number was, and still more diminished by the distance, could not help casting a wistful look towards Bodmin, where, in the confidence of security, he had so lately sent a large por- tion of the flower of his force, Instead of the sheriff with many of the richest royalists in his train, arriving prisoners in his camp, an event that he had expected about this hour, he had seen afar off the gradual march of

44 STRATTON HILL.

the enemy, sometimes breasting the rugged emi- nence, then sinking into some deep bottom that intersected their path, and reappearing to his anxious view, their thin files seeming more like a pageant, than the deadly passage of men who came to scatter his proud array like the dust. He had little reason, however, to envy the royalists their present position, in a spot open to the enemy's fire at their will, almost wholly without food, and compelled, after a fa- tiguing march, to stand to their arms all night. They had brought no tent or baggage with them, which in such a situation must have been useless : but in this state of destitution, and want of every comfort, there was no reason to complain of the night that now fast shrouded them from view, or of the heaven that spread its canopy above their heads ; — the one was mild and warm, and no dark clouds or pitiless rains gathered on the other. Trevanion, as he stood on the thankless soil on which no prepa- ration either for repose or refreshment was visi- ble, could not help giving a thought to the luxuries of his own noble dwelling at Carhayes. Slanning, more inured to hardship, having

STRATTON HILL. 45

weathered a close and bitter siege, looked on the present scene with a careless eye, nor recked for a moment the privations to which it exposed him. "Would to heaven the morning were come!" he said, as he stood idly gazing on the summit of the hill, at whose feet almost the troops were advanced; "those fellows have the time of it above, and seem to enjoy themselves to their hearts' content ; I wish the crop ears had given me as fair a shot from Pendennis castle, as they may now have at us ; not a mouth of that spark of fine artillery but should send the sand and grass about our ears." The hardy natives, who had but lately left their huts and cabins, accustomed to danger and adventure on their rugged coasts, stood calmly on their arms, fix- ing their looks on the hill, with the same im- patient expression as if they had watched at a short distance one of those frequent explosions that, blowing into the air some enormous rock, • gave them an easy entrance to a rich mineral in the bowels of the earth. As the ground was so unequal by reason of the frequent hollows, the forces were necessarily broken in many parts, and hidden from each other. During the night

46 STRATTON HILL.

the watch-word passed loudly from one body to the other throughout the small host, and each ear at times was bent painfully to listen if the distant tread of hoofs came on the silence of the night, for the return of the enemy's cavalry could not but be fatal ! From the same expectation, probably, repose seemed to be a stranger to the enemy's camp above ; confused sounds were heard at intervals, and a frequent commotion was visible, more of precaution than of fear, for the General was resolved to leave nothing neglected to ensure an entire conquest. On the right of the royal force, and at no great distance, spread a sandy common, and over its surface twice or thrice during the night, the dark forms of a horseman and steed were seen to speed at full gallop, and passed on in the direction of the distant town : they were sent from the few cavalry the commander had retained, to hasten the return of the ab- sent squadron. These solitary scouts were in- stantly followed through the gloom by some of Colonel Digby's horse, that stood in the rear of the infantry, and after a hot pursuit over moor and field were overtaken by one or other

STRATTON HILL. 47

of their pursuers, and sabred on the spot, for fear and rage combined at this moment to allow no quarter.

More than once, as their own scattered horse- men returned from different points, and the hollow tread of their coursers over the waste was heard drawing nigh, the royal troops closed their broken front, the voice of the com- manders ran along the ranks, and each eye strove to pierce the surrounding darkness, in dread that the formidable cavalry of the enemy was at hand. This show of war, if such it might be called, and the movements, observable at intervals, on the summit of the hill, kept alive the interest of the troops, during their weary night-watch, till the streaks of dawn be- came gradually visible in the sky. In the rear of his own household troops as he called them, stood Trenlyon, who had joined them a few days before the march from the town, and being strong of wind and limb, had manfully borne the long and warm march of the day. So weary, however, did he now feel, as well with his armour as with the want of refreshing rest and his usual meal, that had it not been for

48 STRATTON HILL.

the support of his pike, he must have sunk to the ground. His wish to be well defended, had induced him to prefer the heaviest kind of arms, and he felt acutely aware, there was more joy in putting them off, than in the fame or vain glory of wearing them. Many a downward and wistful glance he cast on the rank herbage, on which his eyes would gladly have closed in sweet forgetfulness of the fearful scene around ; and war, that was about to open on him in a few moments more in its most terrific aspect, would for a while have dimly faded from his thoughts. As the clatter of the horses' hoofs rung at times over the waste, and the command to be ready rose on the air, his grey eye was turned wildly from one side to the other, and then, over his shoulder, on the gloomy expanse behind, where the enemy's sabre waited pro- bably for its victim. There was no help in man, he therefore sternly fronted the dreadful hill, whose summit was soon to be a living vol- cano, fixed his regard full on the waving ban- ners on the precipice, and grasping his pike, with an effort that sunk it at least two inches deeper into the sand, waited for the morning

STRATTON HILL. 49

watch. There was another feeling that lent a powerful aid to this burst of resolution — the spirit of rivalry, that has steeled many a loftier mind than his when nobler sentiments have deserted it. In his front, and advanced con- siderably nearer his patron's standard than him- self, were two heads of families, whom he had always considered, in spite of their pretensions, of much less ancient descent, and of blood far inferior in purity to his own, — Trewithick, of Hellanclase, and Pengreep, of Tredavern. It must have been the partial favour of the chief that had distinguished these men thus : it filled his mind with indignation ; and he felt that, ere show the least pusillanimity, or be out- done in demeanour by these individuals, he would rather have died on the spot. Thought after thought, however, as his limbs shook with weariness, and his lips were parched with thirst, fled back to the calm kitchen of the Ivy Bush, so clean and tempting, and its warm and luxurious settle, within which the larum of war came not, thirst and want were never known, neither fearful emotions tore the mind ; and, oh ! above all — and he closed VOL. II. D

50 STRATTON HILL.

his eyes on the array of arms for a moment to hide the weakness that crept to them — where the widow's fair form was to be seen softly bending over her work, and her gentle voice heard at intervals — why did he leave that scene of comfort ? why drag his steps away to mingle in deeds of strife and fury, and turn from a prospect of such solace and tenderness — perhaps for ever?

The day broke at last, and never was its light more welcome than to the united and im- patient body of men beneath the height: no Persian adorer could hail with more ardour the first appearance of the sun, that now shot its levelled beams on each side of the hill, be- hind which its rising splendour was as yet con- cealed ; soon, the sandy common, on the right was clothed in a sheet of yellow light, that gilded the rock and the wave near by, and the many hills in the distance, while the handful of troops beneath were still wrapped in shade. As the sun rose to a level with the summit of the hill, the glowing rays pierced through the files of armed men and the artillery that flank-

STRATTON HILL. 51

ed them, and gave every part of their array distinctly to the view.

It was yet early in the morning when the Royal army quitted their position in order to at- tack that of the enemy. The better to effect this purpose, they were divided into four brigades, that the ascent might be made in four different places at once : this disposition was the only one that could give a chance of success, by dis- tracting the attention of the rebel force, and dividing their overwhelming superiority of num- bers. The first brigade was led by Hopton and Lord Mohun on the south side : the second was commanded by Granville to the left, the third by Slanning and Trevanion, and the re- maining one was directed to the north side by Colonels Bassett and Godolphin : each division consisted of six hundred infantry, and was ac- companied by two pieces of cannon ; which, by great exertion, had been brought in the march from Launceston on the preceding day. The five hundred horse, under Colonel Digby, were stationed on the sandy common before-mention- ed, to the left, with orders to avail themselves D 2

OTtVEftSfT? Or UiftQP U8MR

52 STRATTON HILL.

of any advantage the turns of the battle might present. The brigades advanced at a rapid pace towards the different sides of the hill. The moment they were in motion, the cannon of the enemy began the action : the hollows of the ground made the effect of this cannonade par- tial for a short time, the balls ploughing amidst the rank swells and herbage, and dashing the sand and loose soil in clouds on the columns. But when they approached the foot of the hill, and began to ascend its long, slanting, and ver- dant sides, the aim grew more true and deadly, and the assailants fell fast while yet at a helpless distance. Their only remedy was to ascend at a more rapid pace, in the hope that their near advance on so many points at once might dis- tract the attention of the enemy, and break the force of their fire. The strength and advantage of position, however, were fearfully in favour of the latter, and the Royal leaders struggled hard to counteract them. As the slender columns mounted the hill, each dragging with difficulty its solitary piece of artillery along, and return- ing no fire in answer to the murderous dis- charges from above, that rendered shield and

STRATTON HILL. 53

breast-plate of as little avail in the fight as the thistle at their feet— they seemed like men who are given as a spoil, or who, having devoted themselves, rushed on with joy to the grave. At about half-way up the ascent, the ground afforded a momentary level, where they halted their forces ; and turning their artillery on the summit, while the increasing abruptness of the hill afforded a partial protection, they conti- nued for a short time a sharp and incessant con- test. It was but too unequal ; and Sir Beville Granville, whose position was the most exposed, saw with a bitter pang numbers of his favourite regiment sink to the ground wounded and slain ; several of the miners also, who, for the superior accuracy of their aim, had the direction of the guns, fell on the green bank beside them, clenching their heavy weapons with a dying curse on the foe that struck them thus, without daring to come within reach of their arm. The crest of the hill was soon enveloped in the thin clouds of smoke that, in the breathlessness of a sultry d«y, hung heavy on the Parliament force, and concealed them from the view of the Royalists ; but their shouts of scorn and

54 STRATTON HILL.

laughter came bitterly on the ear. To these sounds were joined, but far less triumphantly, the cheers of the cavalry from beneath, who rode to and fro on the plain, opposite the dif- ferent points of assault, to seize on any favour- able moment of the enemy's descent, or to offer an aid that the nature of the ground rendered useless. A few of the horsemen, maddened at the sight of their comrades slaughtered helplessly before their eyes, spurred their horses up the acclivity to fight by their side : the attempt was generally fatal, the riders presenting too sure a mark for the musketry above ; and the steeds, galloping masterless down the descent, fled wildly over the heath towards the town. On the side where Godolphin stood, the efforts of the assail- ants were peculiarly animated : the young com- mander strove, both by word and example, to make his advance successful; there was no want of ardour in his men to second him ; but it demanded a concentred movement of the whole force to insure any success ; and such were the difficulties of the position, that this was as yet found to be impracticable. He had planted his banner on the summit of a rock

STRATTON HILL. 55

that rose above the line of the advance ; but a well-aimed discharge of the rebel artillery had swept many of his men miserably down the rocky steep, and broken the standard: the silken flag was driven for a moment through the air, and fell at the feet of the fugitives and slain ; and the broken staff, fixed in the rock above, remained as a laughing stock to the Puritans. The battle lasted thus for several hours, without any decided approach to victory being made on either side ; the Republicans, few of whom had fallen, deriding the efforts of their assailants, and pouring their shot among them with as much, and more coolness, than if they had been listening on their superb posi- tion to a savoury address from one of their companions. The rebel leaders, finding the advantage of the day thus far all their own, and that the Royalists made no attempt to ad- vance beyond the position they had taken up, resolved to detach part of their force to charge down the hill, and force them off the ground. The latter, who apparently had waited for this measure, saw, with a joy they could scarcely contain, the rapid approach of their foes, and

56 STRATTON HILL.

the battle was soon fought hand to hand. The declivity down which the hardy Parliament- arians charged, and the advantage of directing their attack on whatever positions they chose, availed little against men who were determined to conquer or die. The superior strength of the Cornish, and the activity to which their athletic exercises had trained them, told fear- fully on the bodies of their enemies, who fell " like grass before the mower." Carew, who showed on this occasion that he feared death far less on the field than he afterwards did on the scaffold, led on his men more than once to the onset where the hated banner of Gran- ville met his eye, but it was too devotedly guarded by those who were not, " as when the standard bearer fainteth ; and the strong men turn from the fierceness of the sword." The cries of victory, as well as derision, that had for some hours filled the air, were now changed for the more thrilling ones of dismay, desperation, and death. Ruthven, who commanded this sally, did his utmost to bring it to a decisive issue; hurrying from one point to another, where his men were most pressed, and drawing

STRATTON HILL. 57

frequent reinforcements from above : he saw that they were decidedly worsted, and would fain have made a gradual and orderly retreat up the hill. This was now impossible ; the combatants were so mingled, and their ranks so broken into scattered groups by the inequalities of the ground and their own fury, that the movement to retreat only drew the assailants fiercely up the acclivity ; and the artillery, that might have swept them back again, was silent, for it must have struck both friend and foe.

Lord Stamford, who had watched with in- tense eagerness the scene beneath, in the full expectation of seeing the Royalists scattered like the dust, now made the whole of his re- maining force march to relieve their comrades. He did not accompany them, but remained on the summit a safe spectator, as he had been from the commencement of the action, mounted on his beautiful courser, and his gilded ar- mour glittering in the sun. His look was now bent long and painfully over the common be- neath, and the low hills by which it was bounded, in hope to descry the return of his cavalry. The battle that was now drawing D 5

58 STRATTON HILL.

near was arrested for a time in its progress : the fresh and numerous bodies of Parliamenta- rians checked the enemy, and each party fought with musketry, and with rapid charges of pike and sword, as band after band swept nigher and parted again on the verdant slope, like waves of the sea rolling on and breaking each other. At this moment, a circumstance took place that brought the affairs of the Royalists to a speedy issue : it was found that their am- munition was nearly all expended, four barrels only being left to the whole force. Hopton, on this discovery, hastened in person to each of the divisions ; and the Lord of Stowe, in the midst of the melay, felt his arm strongly grasped, and turning hastily, beheld the agi- tated countenance of the General ; it was pale and resolved, but its calm expression was ut- terly gone.

" Granville !" he said, " an instant and des- perate advance alone can save us ; without that the game is up, or soon will be: our ranks are too much thinned to bear this unequal contest much longer : advance, then, without firing a shot, and reserve the few charges left.

STRATTON HILL. 59

for the last struggle." The latter answered only by a gesture of assent, and nearly at the same moment the four brigades advanced with the greatest alacrity as well as desperation.

Sir Beville, who on his side was opposed to Ruthven, led his men into the thickest of the enemy : here the fight was the hottest, for the Scotchman was determined not to re- cede before an inferior force. The rude pikes, the hatchet, and other weapons with which the miners had armed themselves in their haste, made dreadful inroad on the close ranks of the Republicans, and the armour often crashed be- neath the blows like the loud splitting of the rock in their own deep mines. More than once the swords of the leaders crossed in the melay, and many a pike-thrust struck on the Spanish armour of the Royalist, who strove by his own hardihood to redeem the inequality of numbers. But his most formidable enemy was a young man slightly armed, who fought with reckless bravery by the side of his commander- it was Nicholas, who now singled out the former with determined hatred. With one blow he struck the heavy sword of Sir Beville from

60 STRATTON HILL.

his hand, and with a second prostrated him on the bank at his feet ; and drawing from his side the rich dagger he always wore, he raised it to shed the dearest life blood of the enemy, when he was stunned with a ferocious blow on the head from Andrews, who, advancing the banner to his master's side with one hand, co- vered him with his shield, with which he had inflicted the blow, with the other : the cry went instantly forth, '• Sir BevihVs down, and save the banner V — The soldiers, maddened at the sound, made so sudden and brisk an onset on the enemy, that they wavered, fell back, and then retired, fighting faintly, up the hill. With anguish, Stamford beheld his forces recoiling on every side before inferior numbers, who now pressed on with ceaseless step, neither bank nor rock for a moment retarding their progress. At this moment, his eye caught, on a distant eminence, the first appearance of a dense squad- ron of men ; the glancing light on their arms, and their regular and rapid movement, proclaim- ed them to be his numerous and long-expected cavalry. His eye never quitted that object : not the mother of Sisera, mourning for her son,

STRATTON HILL. 61

gazed more intensely forth for the glancing of his chariot-wheels, than did the Earl on the eager ranks of his gallant horse, who drew ra- pidly nigh, " fiery hot with speed." The blood rushed in a full tide to his pallid features: " They come, they come I11 he said to Stanton, the Puritan officer. " My noble squadron ! look how they sweep along the plain : there 's Chud- leigh at their head, urging them to quicken their speed : in what fine order they come on ; swift to the charge — beautiful ! ay, — and terrible tgo," he added in the wantonness of his heart, as they were now close to the rescue, " like the pale horse and his rider, Stanton, that you are so fond of quoting, who had power to scat- ter their enemies, and cover the earth with the slain/'

As he saw them sweep round the foot of the hill, the Earl rode to and fro on its brink, waving his hand in wild pleasure, and conjuring them, as if words could reach below, to save his lost honour, and retrieve the day.

The scene of the battle was at this time mag- nificent : the stillness of nature on every side seemed to mock the rage of the combatants ;

62 STRATTON HILL.

the sea, at a short distance, was hushed and calm as the plain around it, and the numerous vessels passing up the Channel, lay moveless on the surface; while their masts, as well as the roofs of each dwelling in the neighbour- ing town of Stratton, were crowded with spec- tators, gazing as securely on the disputed height, as on an arena of gladiators delighting to shed their blood. The sun, going down on the side of the hill where the fight was the hot- test, flashed redly on the wildly-moving helm, sword, and musquetoon of those who struggled in despair, as well as on the armour of them that moved no more, where the hand, head, and bosom it covered were stiffened in death. On the broad common, the cavalry were now charg- ing each other; and the combatants above paused at times, amidst their bloody work, to give a look at the fate of the day at their feet; whence the battle-cries, that passed fainter and fainter along the height, came at each moment more startling and shrill. It was at this period of the action, that Major-general Chudleigh, to second his father's fierce efforts in the plain below, resolved to make a gallant struggle;

STRATTON HILL. 63

rallied and formed a body of pikemen, and charged down the hill with such fury on Gran- ville's division, which was the foremost in ad- vance, that they yielded to the shock. No ef- fort to preserve their footing could avail : leader and man, squire and peasant, mingled in hope- less confusion, recoiled down the steep ; the haughty Norman banner quailed before the rebel standard, and the thick and impenetrable wedge of pikes that environed it- Its fame was saved by the timely succour of Trevanion, who, having witnessed from some distance the charge of the pikemen, fled with a body of troops to the aid of his friend, and impetuously charging the assailants in their flank, they were broken in an instant, and their General made prisoner. The fate of the day was now decided ; — it could not avert it, that the Royal horse, placing the slope of the hill in their rear, sustained with difficulty the desperate charges of the superior and better- appointed rebel cavalry, and saw their ranks miserably thinned at every charge — all was too late. The bravest of the Republi- can infantry no longer sought to make good their retreat : the broken and confused masses,

64 STRATTON HILL.

flying from one victorious brigade along the height, fell into the teeth of another on the right or left. — So full was the stream of blood, so rich the harvest of the dead that day on the Hill of Stratton, that the crops of corn pro- duced there in the few following years, were, in the words of an author, " most amazingly large.*" Stamford, who saw his soldiers hope- lessly slaughtered before his eyes, and the dis- ordered crowds rushing back on the flat sum- mit where he stood, and spreading wildly over it, made no effort to fight or fly. He stood in mute despair beside his useless park of artillery, looking down at one moment on his cavalry, who, seeing the day irretrievably lost, and that the cannon would soon open on them, had be- gun a slow retreat. He then turned towards the near and enraged bands of Royalists, as if in doubt whether to seek a glorious death at their hands : the thought was but a passing one; for the cries, shrieks, and prayers, that filled the air, of those who fell at every moment, made the warm blood rush back to his heart. Ruthven passed the spot where he stood, wea- ried and bloody, and followed by a small reso-

STRATTON HILL. 65

lute band, the only one that preserved any countenance. " Mount, my Lord,'1 he said, "and fly, — the day is lost!"

" Is all hope gone, Ruthven ? can we make no head ? Our numbers are still enough to drive back the enemy, could any order be restored."

11 Order and courage are fled alike — a vile panic has seized both soul and body of the troops : your dream of victory is darkened, my Lord," he said in a tone of irony, that this, his second fatal reverse, could not repress : " turn your courser's feet down the hill ; another mo- ment, and he will be piked or shot : the few brave men around me shall make good our retreat.1'

The General slowly and silently withdrew from the scene of slaughter, down a part of the descent that was still left open, till he arrived at the foot, when he rode rapidly forward to the spot where his cavalry waited to cover the retreat of the fugitives. It would seem, how- ever, as if fear had paralyzed alike the energy and the religious enthusiasm of the Parliamen- tarians, the greater part of whom, collecting in a vast and disorderly crowd on the summit,

66 STRATTON HILL.

were there made prisoners, to the amount of two thousand men ; a few scattered bodies suc- ceeded in reaching the common, the Royalists being too weak and too intent on their import- ant capture to follow the flying.

When the four brigades met on the top of the hill, it was with wonder that the Royal leaders beheld the fruits of their own victory, one of the most splendid and decisive during the whole civil war. The complete camp equi- page of the enemy, baggage and cannon, with large stores of ammunition, remained in their hands, and the power as well as influence of the Republicans in the province was irretrievably broken. Their commander, with all his ca- valry and the fugitive infantry, retreated by rapid marches, and did not pause till they reached Exeter.

STRATTON HILL, 67

CHAPTER III.

" A scene of death, where fires beneath the sun, And blended arms and white pavilions glow ; And for the business of destruction done, Its requiem the war-horn seem'd to blow."

Campbell.

The conflict had now ceased, save where a few scattered fugitives, closely followed by some of the Royalists, were seen striving, as they fled here and there, to make good their retreat to the common.

Near the foot of the hill, a young man was seen hastening from the fatal field, followed at a short distance by a soldier more than double his own age. The old man, for such his fea- tures, less than his still robust figure, proved him to'be, finding his speed could not overtake

68 STRATTON HILL.

that of his more youthful enemy, called loudly and sternly on him to stay his flight. The other calmly turned at last and faced his pur- suer, more in contempt than anger, and briefly demanded why he followed him with such de- termined purpose, and dared to arrest his flight, when no other was at hand to second him.

" Young man," he said, " I have marked and followed your path from the summit to this spot, and now you must reckon with me."

" With you !" said the other, gazing on his grey hairs and stalwart limbs, " and what for ? Could you find no one else among the panic- struck crowds to make captive of, better suited to your years ? Go back ; I \e had fighting enough to-day."

" I '11 ne'er go back,"" replied Andrews, " till I 've laid that hand low that I Ve seen draw the noblest blood to-day in the land."

" Do not tempt me to draw yours, old man," returned the youth : " and now I remember, you 're the standard-bearer that stopped my re- venge, and whose blow I still feel ringing in my head. But once more, I say, stand aside;

STRATTON HILL. 69

there's no honour to be got from a man that might be my father.'"

" Villain," replied the veteran fiercely, " what cause had you for vengeance against his Lord- ship ? the blow that palsied your hand was the dearest mine ever struck. You shall abide your malice here, or lay the servant as low as your stroke laid his master, and never more to rise up. I 'm old — but my arm is strong enough to right his cause, else 'tis time the grave had it for its own."

;i Then I must fight," said Nicholas, " to make good my retreat ; '' and he briskly attacked his pursuer, but with a carelessness that proved he held him light. The latter received and par- ried his blows with wariness and skill ; for while the ancient retainer burned with desire to revenge the wrong and shame that he conceived had been done his patron, he saw that he had little chance with his young and active oppo- nent, except by keeping on the defensive. His well-proved armour stood him in good need against blows that had that day been often fatal ; and he soon showed that seventy years had not

70 STRATTON HILL.

stiffened his limbs or withered his strength. One well-aimed thrust with his pike in an un- guarded moment sunk his antagonist on his knee ; and while he was again springing lightly from the ground, the weapon entered his breast, that had neither cuirass nor shield to defend it, and he fell helpless and desperately wounded. Andrews had seen and suffered violence enough in his long career to have remembered mercy ; yet he seemed in his rage to forget every thing but that he had the man in his power who had nearly slain his master ; and lifting his pike again, he paused for a moment over his enemy ere he finished his work.

'* Spare me," said Nicholas,—" spare me, old man ; you have your wish : for the mercy you show, you will be repaid an hundred-fold in the few years you have to live !"

" Ay, but not for what you sought to show him. I saw your dagger lifted, and your eye gleam with a fiendish pleasure as you were about to strike it into his side. Say, while you breathe there a short time longer, what led you on to such inveterate hatred, to such dark- malice?"

STRATTON HILL. 71

" It matters not," replied the other faintly : " the love of revenge springs often from slight causes, and the heart broods over them as deep and bodingly as is the moan of the North Sea yonder on the shore ere the storm wakes. I 've learnt to feel it and to love it too, among a cruel people in far Spain : a deadly lesson it may be, at least so it has proved to me."

" In Spain,1' replied the veteran earnestly, and his tone losing its sternness as he looked on one who had shared the like perils, and mingled in the like scenes as himself ; " and you 've been in the colonies, young man ; and have fought, no doubt, against those blood-thirsty Spaniards; and have touched their gold, no doubt ? Then I forgive you the malice against Sir Beville — I mean, I '11 visit it no farther on you, but will spare your young life for better deeds."

" Thanks for the kindness, though 'tis hardly given : — not to give quarter to a foe that asks it, and can render no quittance; such a deed never stained my hand — 'tis well for your grey head that yours has not done it.1'

" I 'm sorry I Ve hurt you, boy — a soldier

72 STRATTON HILL.

can say no more ; you should have fought more fairly, and you fought gallantly too ; but you should have respected the head of that ancient house, of that noble ancestry. You might have struck the Spanish Viceroy, or King too, on his throne, and done well — ay, or Hopton, or Mohun — had you met ; but Sir Richard 's my own dear master's grandson ; to strike him so ruthlessly, when I saw his light hair on the grass, his lifted hand and bright eye raised

to yours 1 say, young man,'" shaking his

pike sternly over his victim, " youVe got your deserts, and God forgive you for your cruel purposed''

" I shall soon need that forgiveness," he replied. " I have heard of that Sir Richard abroad, and his fierce fight with the enemy ; and I remember, when a child, my mother's telling me tales of his exploits ; it comes over me now like a dream ; but she lived in these parts, and knew the family well."

" Who was your mother ?" asked the veteran eagerly. k< She knew the family of Stowe too, well ! did she know them for good or ill, that her son should be their foe ?"

STRATTON HILL. 73

u Foe, old man !" answered the youth, look- ing wildly at the stern and wasted features of his antagonist : I shall soon cease to be friend or foe to aught here below — but one, and her to leave for ever ! You have sent me early to- wards my long reckoning, and 'twill bring no blessing on your own end — that cannot be far off. But tell my mother how it happened : — do that for a dying man ; she lives far to the west, in the parish of Saint Just, in a lonely house beside a group of trees below the village ; she did live in a valley not far from here once, where I was born; but shemarried, and went westward."

" What was her name, and her father's be- fore her ?" said the other, fixing his eyes, with an interest he could not account for, on the fea- tures of the youth ; — " was the name of the valley where she lived Combe F"

" The same," said the other. " Yes, it was the same : the remembrance of the place came so strong over me when I was there lately ; the

banks, the cove below, and the 'twas there

I took leave of Betsy — I said I should see her no more. But my mother's maiden name was Andrews ; I left her some years since, and

VOL. II. E

74 STRATTON HILL.

sailed for the South Seas, where, she said, her father had gone many years before."

The pike, that he had grasped firmly, fell from the grasp of the wretched old man ; and he stood with his large bony hands clasped together, looking fearfully, but fondly, on the being at his feet. He stooped, without uttering a word, and raised the head that was now help- less, cautiously from the earth, and drew the pallid features close to his own : his own hands, stained with blood, caught his eye for a moment, and he broke out into a deep and heart-rending cry. " Oh, Mary, my long-left, dearly-loved daughter ! that your father's hand should do this ; — should break into the life of your son ! They are her lips, her eyes, the same kind look, now that the fury of the fight is over. How shall I meet a daughter's curse, when she sees his blood ? — his— 'tis her own, — the child's that crept to my bosom before I went to the wars."

" And are you my poor mother's father?" said Nicholas, struggling with the effects of his wound. " Unhappy man, you've done a fearful deed ; but my hand might have done the same. Accursed be this war, that arms the

STRATTON HILL. 75

brother against his brother, and but do

not tell her that you 've done it. Had I heard her words, and loved my own home as well as the wild seas and wilder ways, this had not been. Don't despair in that way ; you could not know it when you struck me. I 've borne myself in the field as became one who was reckoned the first of Phippen's men; you can judge, for you've seen war, and your hand is heavy — strange, that it followed me so ruthlessly, and would not turn aside !"

" It would not, it would not, my son, turn aside from your bosom, though you warned me away. Oh God ! 'tis a judgment for my own past life, that in my old age I 've not remember- ed thee ! — So gallant he bore himself ! — Mary, my poor child, you '11 pray for your father — for the fierce old man that did this deed! — Prayers, did I say ? — can they raise my daughter's son ? — can they bring back his young life ? Never did my hand the whole day strike so home, so deep a wound !"

He stooped and pressed his lips again and again on the damp forehead of Nicholas, as if he deemed they were on his daughter's cheek, E 2

76 STRATTON HILL.

or that this was some faint reparation for the fearful crime he had done : he then tore, with wild eagerness, some linen from the former's dress, and strove to staunch the life- stream that his own hand had opened ; turning half aside, at each moment, with a shuddering that ran through every limb, as he pressed the bleeding body, to which he felt he had given birth. He succeeded at last in his efforts ; and bearing him in his arms, with a strength that the occasion only could have given, while his thin grey locks mingled with the raven hair of the other, he bent his way slowly over the declivity to the camp above. Helm and pike, even the well- defended standard, were left behind on the fatal spot, as things of nought. As he paused at in- tervals, while passing up the hill, down which the breeze now came freshly, remorse was stamped on every feature of his war-worn coun- tenance.

It was startling to see a man so aged the prey of such cruel and helpless emotion ; — to see him clasp so firm and earnestly the youth with the same blood-stained hands that had struck him down, as if he feared another spear should finish

STRATTON HILL. 77

the deed. It seemed that the avenues of his heart, so long closed amidst a solitary and wandering life, were now suddenly and resist- lessly opened. Feudal attachment to the noble house he had observed so long, had been the reigning feeling of his mind ; he had thought of his only daughter every day since his return, and had purposed many times to go west- ward to see her ; but the pressure of the war had found full occupation for his time. He had left her almost a child, thirty years before ; and having never seen her since, that sweet and youthful image alone was present to his fancy, and seemed now to haunt his steps, and claim, at his hands, the dying being they bore.

So shaken and overthrown were the firm nerves and hardened feelings of the veteran, that the familiar things of war, that he had loved so long, were now hateful : — as some distant shout was borne from the heath beneath, or a faint groan came from some heap of the fallen near, he strove to quicken his pace, or turn aside from the spot, as if his step were that of a midnight assassin rather than of a successful soldier.

Arriving at the camp on the summit, he

78 STRATTON HILL.

bore his burden carefully to one of the tents ; and while all were rejoicing around, he alone cursed the victory.

The tents of the Republicans, which were amply provided with every needful comfort, were now occupied by the victors; who, ex- hausted with their success, gave themselves up to the indulgences of refreshment and ease, with all the zest which previous toil and suf- fering could give. The camp contained " a very great magazine of biscuit, and other ex- cellent provisions of victuals," which could not but be most welcome to men who '* for three or four days, had suffered great want of food as well as sleep."

The crown of the eminence was covered with scattered parties of Royalists, seated round excellent cheer, of which their enemies had thought to partake when day should close on their victory.

The wild verdure of the soil served as table and couch to most ; while others, more dainty, availed themselves of the habitations of the vanquished, which stood thickly around : they ate and drank, and passed their toasts in stout

STRATTON HILL. 79

ale, with a merry heart and loud voice on the very spot whence, a few moments before, the arrows of death had been hurled into their ranks. The numerous prisoners had been sent to the town of Stratton under a guard of the cavalry ; and as darkness had come on soon after the close of the action, the removal of the dead was deferred to the following day, and many of the wounded lay among them on the field. In the tent of Stamford, that remained standing precisely as when he had last quit- ted it in the morning, the chief commanders of the Royalists were now assembled round a well- spread board. Every one felt it to be one of those moments that men rarely meet with in the career of life. The enemies of their King were hopelessly beaten ; and the decisive victory, that insured success to his cause, would pour eternal honour on their own heads : their native pro- vince too was freed ; the foot of an invader was not now on her soil. The joy of the whole party was not damped by a single misfortune : two or three of the chief officers had been slightly wounded, but not one of note had fallen. Stamford's choice hermitage made many a cir-

80 STRATTON HILL,

cuit round the board : the tent-door was open, and the night air came in deliriously calm and soft ; the summit of a lofty hill, the bound- less range of country, familiar to each on every side, seen faintly by the moonlight — these things added their influence to the perfect freedom and triumph of the hour. No more the narrow and gloomy walls of the Castle were around them, the gnawings of famine, the uncertainty of suc- cess ; the whisperings, in some spirits, of defeat and despair were passed away for ever. Great as the fatigues of the day had been, no one thought of repose. The feelings of men, after the achievement of a gallant deed, when the headlong impulse of the hour is passed, are perhaps a criterion of their real character. Hopton could not but muse with the deepest satisfaction on this, his second signal success : less chivalric in his sentiments than his more youthful companions, his heart less softened or influenced by the touching charities of domestic life, or of woman's tenderness, his thoughts re- verted to the solid honours the victory would gain : — the aggrandisement of his family, the mortification it would give to the Commons ; and

STRATTON HILL. 81

he did not draw a too sanguine picture, since a few weeks afterwards saw him Lord Hopton of Stratton. He had borne himself in the action as became the leader of so brave a band; and his calm and thoughtful demeanour had again re- turned as he sat in the same chair the Earl had occupied the evening before.

To no one had the result brought more soul- felt pleasure than to Granville : he had shed tears when he saw the Royal Standard wave on the highest point of the hill, and the rebel one laid prostrate at its feet ; and then turned to his followers, and mutely pointed to the spot, as if that sight alone were a sufficient recompense for all their toils.

The hours of the night wore away fast ; by none was the passage of time less noted than by Trevanion : the keen morning air that blew into the tent, and waved to and fro the silk drapery, was unfelt, as his fancy revelled in a paradise of sweets ; his cheek was flush- ed less by wine, perhaps, than by the love and ambition that beat at once in his heart. Elea- nor, fond and devoted, had seldom quitted his thoughts during the eventful day ; it seemed as E 5

82 STRATTON HILL.

if her spirit of enthusiasm had animated that of her lover : it was her applause he sought to gain, above, as he believed, that of the world ; and now it was gained. He had signalized himself greatly in the action ; for the first time he heard the applauses of experienced soldiers around him ; and the image of the pale and anxious girl, in her calm retreat of St. Germain's, was mingled with, and eclipsed by stronger ima- ginings. For the first time, the thirst of mili- tary fame was resistless within. Now seemed to draw nigh the fulfilment of his aspirings, amidst the retirement of Carhayes. How often, how earnestly had he mused on the characters of the illustrious men of antiquity ! in his many hours of leisure, he had thought that such were the examples he would have loved to follow. — Was not the path open now by which he might fol- low them ? — was not this struggle as sacred and noble a one, as any that ever drew on a single heroic spirit of old ? He had spoken, and not without eloquence, in the senate — but this had no lustre, such as at present shone before his foot- steps : they had but now entered on their career, and where was that career to end ? — The scene

STRATTON HILL. 83

was beautiful and boundless ; nor was this all — the thirst of command came with it. Less disin- terested in his views than Granville, to whom he was entirely devoted, and who recked little who held the baton, Trevanion began to look on Hopton, — not with envy, for he was too generous to cherish it ; but had he then sat in his Gene- ral's seat, with the same prospect of eminence, and seen the gallant band around him defile be- fore his orders, St. Germain and its fair tenant had yielded in that moment to a more dominant feeling. He joined at times in the conversation of the party, and his fine countenance beamed with animation : each trait of melancholy or pensiveness had forsaken it now ; he felt the in- expressible sweetness of the mind, when its long cherished reveries begin to be accomplished. The events of the preceding day formed the chief topic of conversation.

" We are somewhat better lodged, gentle- men, and in more airy quarters, than at Laun- ceston," said the General, with a smile. " I thought at one time the hill was more likely to be our tomb than our banqueting place."'1

" Better have been so," replied Slanning,

84 STRATTON HILL.

" than that the rebel standard should continue to wave on it, seen as it might almost be from sea to sea. The crop-ears fought bravely, and used their artillery well : had they not stirred from their position, Stamford might now have driven his gallant steed over the hill, with little to cross his path but the bodies of his enemies.1'

" They pressed you hard, Granville, the sturdy Puritans, in the last charge," said Hop- ton : " had the rest fought like them and Ruth- ven, we had not been here now at our ease.'"

" The Scotchman behaved like a hero," re- turned the other ; " and so did one of his offi- cers, a young man with a foreign aspect, who looked and struck like an incarnate fiend let loose on the field. I saw the former guarding his master's retreat down the hill : 'tis his second reid, Hopton, at your hand ; the third may be his last."

" True," said the General, in a tone of suppressed exultation, while a bitter sneer spread on his tranquil aspect : " there were few things in this day gave me equal pleasure to the humbling that Scot once more. He had said he was come to have his revenge on me,

STRATTON HILL. 85

and you know how dear that is to a Highland- man."

" 'Tis a better motive for which to fight," said Trevanion, " than the sordid one that has brought him from his own land. Amidst its feudal quarrels, the love of name or country might have had sway; but here, at the very extremity of the kingdom, is the Scot come to fight for a cause that is indifferent to him."

" That is foul injustice," said an elderly offi- cer warmly, who had served with some others of his countrymen in the Low Countries ; " a man may take the sword, like the Scot, because he loves a life of action better than one of ease, and seek good service in another land, though he recks little of the cause he fights for."

" 'Tis a mercenary service at best,'" replied Trevanion, " to shed one's blood in a cause that wakes no enthusiasm. ''

" It may appear so in your eyes, young man," said the veteran, " whose virgin sword has but now taken .its first stain : you will learn, per- haps, in time, that as high honour is to be acquired in many a hard field, siege, and retreat too, in which a man has served, from the pure

86 STRATTON HILL,

love of war, as when he has merely stepped front a soft retreat and noiseless retirement to the field, arrayed as if a lady^ hand had decked him." The other coloured deeply at these words, and his angry reply was checked by his friend.

" He is right, Trevanion ; it boots not to deny it, though his words are too keen ; but the Low Countries are no school for chivalry or courtesy. — Captain Baskerville, your grey hairs and tried experience in arms are a treasure to our cause ; the game we play, however, must be short and desperate, for I would not that the iron hand of war should press long on this land. It is by rapid and devoted daring, rather than by skilful and wary operations, that the cause is to prevail."

" It cannot be contravened, Sir BeviHe,1' re- plied the old soldier ; " and I well perceive the same tactics would not do here, as those we were compelled to follow in the Palatinate, under Vere. With scarcely three thousand men, we had to defend the poor Elector Frederick against the famous Spinola and his Spaniards. It was an unsuccessful defence, as you may well imagine ; but we protracted it as long as we could, and

STRATTON HILL. 87

retired fighting, step by step, like true mastiffs, looking our proud enemy in the face. But the Elector was a prince on whom fate had set its doom."

" Did he battle firmly against it,'1 asked Slanning, " at your head, or tamely yield to his ill fortune ?"

" His spirit was broken by the event of the great battle of Prague," said Baskerville ; " that sunk him from the throne of Hungary, to which he had been raised, to the lot of a powerless elector : he was King of Hungary when the battle began ; and at its close he fled from the field, a friendless and outcast man."

" 'Twas a stern change,11 said Hopton ear- nestly, " for a few hours to produce : the loss of power and dignity was such as no time could repair. The ruined, prince must have endured many a pang : the memory of his fallen crown, like the mark of Cain, would follow him through the world.11

M The Elector was of a less ambitious mind,11 replied the veteran calmly. " Much would he have given, name and fame too perhaps, for a part of his empire^ wealth, when the stern hand of poverty was on him. I saw him when he

88 STRATTON HILL.

had retired to Sedan, with his wife, who was a queen a few months before, and his children. We had suffered greatly for his cause : fa- mine, with excessive fatigue and hardship, during our retreat through that flat and un- healthy country, had thinned our numbers ; the Spaniards pressed hard on us by day, and in the night, worn with the battle, we were unable to get an hour's repose. We sometimes cursed the cause for which we fought, — for a prince, who did not even animate us by his presence. But when I saw Frederick in Sedan, in the midst of his desolate family, I thought no more, not for a moment, of these things. Oh ! there is nothing so hard to bear as the sight of a fallen monarch's tears ! Hiscrownless wife was be side him, and her fair children around her, and they had no friend left that could aid them in the world : king and courtier, statesman and war- rior,— all had turned their backs on the man they had courted, and combined to press him to the dust: the iron had, in truth, entered into his soul. He took me by the hand, and thanked me, and, in my name, all the English who alone had fought for him. • I have now no rank to

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give, Baskerville,1 he said, * no titles to bestow ; for who would heed the gifts of a deserted king V Heaven is ray witness, I would rather have raised him from his low estate, had the choice been given me, than have received a crown on my own brow. ' My Prince,' I said, and I knelt before him, — for I had seen him in his greatness : yet did it seem to be a mockery ; for the children, and they were many, knelt around me, thinking I came to offer aid to their father, and blessed me with cries and tears, and besought me not to forsake him as others had done."

" And did he not resolve to strike once more for his empire, — for the inheritance of his chil- dren ?" said Slanning.

" It was in vain, for he was utterly fallen," was the reply. " He had been deprived even of the Electoral dignity ; that was given to the Duke of Bavaria. He looked at them silently, on their uplifted hands and wasted cheeks, — for misery and they had been deeply acquainted, — and the momentary fire of ambition came to his eye, as he saw their devotion and heard their accents. ' O that my subjects and my friends

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had felt as these little ones,' he said ; s one tithe of their fidelity and love, and I had still been a Sovereign, such as I was once, Baskerville, in Prague. — These were then clothed royally ! My beautiful children, sorrow was a stran- ger to your eye and heart — all prayed for your safety — all watched your princely looks — and now, their curses are poured on your father's head ! — Why should they curse me, Baskerville ? I was no tyrant. But I will rally once more the few faithful spirits that

are left — I will put myself at their head '

' Frederick, Frederick,' said the Princess, stifling her own emotion to calm that of her family, ' lay aside your plans of ambition ; they have nought to do with our present state ; and think of past empire as a thing that has never been. Kings move not like other men, in the smooth career of life, but are lifted up and cast down by the hand of God alone ; but, my husband, they are His anointed ones — they are in the hollow of His hand ; and for these heirless ones — yes, let sceptre and crown pass away, but their love and faithfulness man cannot take from us; and here in Sedan, in this humble

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home, we may yet be happy. — Ah ! Frederick, they are a noble inheritance;' and she drew them to her side, and passionately embraced them.

" It was a moving scene," said Granville, " and harder for a father to bear than the dis- astrous field."

" He felt it to be so," replied the soldier : " his transient energy left him at his Queen's appeal ; and he sunk into a chair, pale and agi- tated, but resigned. They thanked me warmly for my fidelity, and said their blessings should follow me wherever I went. I quitted the country soon after, when the English forces, under Vere, returned ; but I heard that ere long no one remembered the King of Hungary. Many a change and frown of fortune have I endured since that time ; and when I 've been tempted to repine, I 've thought of that hour in Sedan, and it has reconciled me to my fate." " It might well do so," said Hopton ; u your experience, Captain, casts shame on our newness of service ; and fate, I trust, will prove kinder in this campaign than in the disastrous one of the Palatinate. — But, my friends, the Earl's

9& STRATTON HILL.

good cheer has brought in the dawn, and the lights already begin to pale: we'll march to Stratton with the morn, if you think fitting ; the troops will need a day or two to repose and refresh themselves, ere we pursue the enemy. In the mean time, we will give orders to collect and bury the slain, and convey the remaining wounded to the town ; the captured equipage and artillery can follow without delay." These proposals met with entire acquiescence from the other commanders ; the future operations of the campaign were then discussed, and the party at last broke up and left the tent.

It was an easy task to gather up the spoils of the disputed field, from which no enemy could now be discerned: the tents were struck, the scat- tered arms piled in heaps, and the ordnance and stores of ammunition put in order to be con- veyed to the town. The first office that drew the care of the victors was to inter their own and the enemy's dead, that lay in heaps on the now untroubled bosom of the hill : the graves were dug where they lay amidst the trodden grass, and they were thrown confusedly beneath the bank over which their feet had passed

STRATTON HILL. 93

rapidly, and their shouts rung in triumph or anguish, the day before. It was not difficult to distinguish the fallen Puritans from their own party or from the Royalists, who in many places were stretched beside them : the features were more sternly set in the hold of death ; — in some there was a triumphant air that might have be- come a martyr's fate, and the eye turned to the heaven that now looked calmly on the slayer and the slain. One group of bodies near the edge of the common, and which seemed to have been among the first that fell, attracted the attention of those who now wandered curiously or sadly round the hill. They were mostly Royalists ; and beside them was an old man, who could have borne no part in the conflict, and yet he was slain among the rest. Rendered incapable by infirmity, more than time, of acting a soldier's part, or even wielding a weapon, it might have been thought that zeal for the cause, or concern for some son in the action, had brought his trembling steps there. — It was Kiltor the champion, stretched on the last of his fields. He had folio vved in some vehicle from the ham- let of Combe, about fifteen miles distant, the

94 STRATTON HILL.

march of the troops, and had crept in the early morning to the foot of the eminence, resolved to see the battle. Having feasted so long in imagination of what a foughten field must be, he had enjoyed the reality, as a worn-out blood- hound listens to the baying of his comrades on the track of the prey. He had been observed gazing on the havoc caused by the ordnance on the height, and turning his enfeebled body quickly from side to side, as the balls struck the advancing ranks, and the cries came quickly to his ear ; and his fierce eye and nerveless hand were raised, as the flashes broke on the air every moment from above. At last a small party turned from the closer contest that followed, and, retreating down the slope, fought and fell, many of them near the spot where he sat. This was what the iron-hearted wrestler had de- sired to see, in his own words, " the hard strife o' men struggling for the life of others ;" they sunk dying almost at his feet ; and the grim old man had crawled to where a wounded Republi- can lay ; and, grasping his weapon, had hastened, it was evident, the approach of death. And there he now lay, struck probably by a chance ball,

STRATTON HILL. 95

his face towards the scene of the battle, with whose duration the thin remains of his life had kept pace, and the cruel smile on his withered lips showed that he was contented so to die.

96 STRATTON HILL.

CHAPTER IV.

" Was Fancy's spoil'd and wayward child : In her bright car she bade him ride, With one fair form to grace his side ; Or in some wild and lone retreat Flung her high shadow o'er his seat."

It is necessary to pass from the scene of war to one of a more peaceful and humble charac- ter, at no great distance from the stirring events that have been narrated, yet quite removed from the sphere of their influence. Rarely did the as- pect of the warm kitchen of the Ivy-bush look more inviting than in the afternoon of a cloudy and gusty day in the middle of May : the wind came off the sea, and swept shrilly along the single street of the village, and wafted the dust

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in clouds on the persons of the numerous pas- sengers, who, with busy step and anxious air, hastened along. This annoyance without, only served to make the comfort within the walls of the hostel " more visible and felt :" many a wea- ried and wind-beaten visitor entered, whose soil- ed and dust-covered habiliments were not all in unison with the exceeding cleanliness of every well-scowered pan, cauldron, pewter flag- gon, bench, and table that met the eye in due order and panoply : the sand that covered the u planched floor" was of a virgin hue, having been brought from the near beach that morn- ing ; for no Islamite, when water failed for his ablutions, had more earnest recourse to the sands of his path as a substitute, than did the land- lady, for the sake of beautifying the interior of her dwelling. And she now sat, as was her wont, within the spacious settle, her fingers, that moved without ceasing on some knitting work, less busily employed than was her eye, that shot its keen glances from right to left, ever and anon, on the guests that were seated within this sanctuary, or when the opening of the door announced the entrance of a new visi-

VOL. II. F

98 STRATTON HILL.

tor. As the height as well as curving form of the seat effectually hid the door from view, her visage on these occasions was gently raised in the attitude of eager listening ; and such was the accuracy of her ear, that she could generally distinguish the quality and circumstances of the customers by their particular tread on. the floor. When, however, even this nice faculty, as sometimes happened to be the case, was at fault, her tall figure was silently raised from the chair, and her earnest eye and features were discerned above the smooth summit of the settle.

A gentle step at last came on the floor, that might neither announce the approach of one whose well-filled purse and goodly tenements insured a kindly greeting, nor the stealthy pace of some unhappy being who feared to draw too much notice, or to excite expectations which his conscience told him he could not satisfy. As soon as the advancing figure of the visitor be- came visible within the range of her ken, the landlady's aspect softened into complacence, and a cordial welcome sat triumphant.

st Saint Petroc keep us ! what I should use his name for is strange, but that the head

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carved upon the fountain outside brings 'en often to my mind. — And is it your face, Mr. Carries, that I see, that I thought was pinin' and wastin' in Launceston Castle ? — Betsy ! Oh, I forgot ; she went yesterday to Stratton, upon a sorrowful errand. — But Deborah ! where 's your red face, that 's enough to put out the fire when it's aneist en ? — bring a seat — no, you always liked the chimlie corner, and there's few so cheerful as ours."

The visitor smiled, returned his thanks briefly, and sat down accordingly, with no small pleasure, within the precincts of the kindly hearth. Had Mrs. Tonkin been a pagan, a stranger would have concluded she kept her household gods in this snug and secluded place, just on the verge of the smoke and sparks that flitted wildly to and fro, as the furze-branches snapped and crackled. It was indeed a pecu- liar spot — one in which a harassed and ima- ginative man would have loved to solace his wearied form, or give way to strange musings, which the dim and solemn light, descending from above, could scarcely fail to assist. Then the eye that was upward cast saw only the dis- F 2

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tant glitter of the blue sky by day, or the so- lemn shining of the moon by night ; the clean and inviting stone too, of antique appearance, that circled round the interior of the chimney, seemed like a thing apart and sacred from the intrusion of the guests who might crowd the apartment.

The young man, who appeared to be much fa- tigued, bent over the warm hearth, and looked round with extreme satisfaction at the change a few moments had made in his condition, from the long and sullen heaths he had traversed during the greater part of the day. There was nothing in his figure or features that was commanding or seductive : the former was below the middle size, and of a slender make, without the appear- ance of possessing much strength ; what he had endured and ventured, and few at his age had ventured more, must rather have been accom- plished, it was evident, by the enthusiasm of the spirit than by strong physical powers. His long travel had given him much experience in the manners and characters of nations as well as men ; and often in the friendly circle, the pour- ings forth of his fine imagination, aided by a

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clear and plaintive voice, raised in other minds the deep interest which was ever awake in his own. The mildness of his manners, and sweet- ness of temper, with his frequent roamings through his native province, rendered him a popular and well-known personage, sometimes in the hall, but always in the cottage and hamlet. Had he been of his father's creed, his toilsome pilgrimage, and the marvel it excited, would undoubtedly have procured him the honour of being canonized ; as it was, the relics of singular repute and virtue which he had brought, did not fail to excite awe in the feelings of numbers, who, though they had forsaken the ancient faith, still retained a fear of its faded superstitions. The mistress of " the hostel1' had on more than one occasion neglected the all-engrossing duties of the kitchen, and listened for hours with rapt attention while the wanderer spoke of his career. He was a character quite out of the general sphere of mine hostess's observation, and she paid him more observance and respect than she would have done to wealthier or greater men.

" You 'd a hard time of it, surely, in the

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gloomy castle ; not a bein' to speak to all day long, and no comfort for body or soul : — I shoud'n say that, though ; for you woud'n be without the latter, if 'twas in a dungeon."

" I was fain to seek it, my good dame," said her guest, " in a source which bars and bolts cannot shut out ; and sweet in the hours of extremity was that consolation. I never deemed the blue sky so lovely as when gazing on it through the iron grate of my chamber."

" That was a choice thought and a comfort- able one, Mr. Carries ; if Betsy was here, she would treasure it up : — sore grieved she was to hear of your bein' put in sitch a place by those hard men ; but she's others' woes to attend to now "

"And where 's Elizabeth, then," said her guest ; " I cannot afford to lose my old compa- nion— and what woes can take her away from her home that she left so seldom, and in these unsafe times too ?"

" One that you 've kenned afore now, if I 'm not mistaken. The wild youth that came back from beyond the sea — Stephen Nicholas: he

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was left for dead after that bloody day of Stratton : he would take to arms and run to his death, spite of all we could say agen it. Sore wounded and helpless, he was lyin' in the town hard by the hill ; and Betsy heard of it, and could'n bear that he should suffer and die without a friend nigh, and she's gone to see after him."

" Is that young man a sufferer ?" said her guest, greatly surprised. " What had he to do in the quarrel ? Poor and gallant fellow ! I have sat with him beneath his father's roof, and heard him talk how he longed to roam and seek adventure through the world— that was before he went abroad. I sought to calm his restless spirit, but it was in vain. — He is not mortally wounded, I hope ?"

" 'Tis impossible to say ; there 's so many flyin1 stories about who 's dead and who's livin'. He 's given over, they say — poor creature ! To think that he was here, handsome as he was, though his skin was somewhat burnt, sittin1 there, with his head c? raven hair leanin' agen the settle, and talkin' of mountains o' gold and sil- ver, and the hands red with blood that touched

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them and now, — Ah ! Mr. Carries, it may be,

the hour of vengeance is come ! — sore were the wounds his sword has gived to others for the thirst of lucre, and now his fair body is mangled, and his blood poured forth."

" It may be so," replied the other ; " but do not let us judge harshly. He had a generous and daring nature, that might have been guided to much good or evil. — On what side did he fight?"

* Ay, that 's the worst, they say. If he had chose the right side, and gone with my Lord Granville for the King and the County ; — but he was upon the rebels1 side, against his own soil, and that was a bitter thing : and now his bearing though none bore themsells better, got no glory to him ; and his hard-got wounds are thought lightly of, and ha1 neither pity nor sor- row *

" Who says that ? — who dares to say it ?" replied the other, rising from his seat, his mild aspect reddened with momentary anger. " Why should not the cause of liberty be as glorious as that of the oppressor, and those who fall for it? — are they to be unpitied ?"

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" Sit ye down," said the dame, after eying him attentively for a moment, — " sit ye down, and be calm, and don't let your blood be chafed out of its usual way by other folks' thoughts or sayins. Their thoughts are not mine, I tell ye, or words either ; though I wish well to my liege Lord, and success to his banner. But they that say a man that spends his life fear- lessly upon the one side or other, and flies the last, as Nicholas did, isn't worthy of praise and honour, say what is false ! — and so I tould Betsy, when she grieved that he should have fought for the rebels.*"

" You have said truly," he answered. " I would that I had been at his side !"

u You have been far enough over the world to have been a wiser man," the landlady rejoined. D'ye think you'd be so well off, lying stark and writhin1 upon a stony ground ; or runnin' away with the enemy's cruel cry in your ears, as you are in that leu corner ? I 'd rather hark to your soft voice, £nd look upon your musin' face, with the smile that 's mostly upon it, than see ye a General, with a train of bright men waitin' for your word. — But you're pale F 5

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and thin," she added, " with that weary prison-life ; and no wonder. How long were ye confined ?"

Her words, however, might as well have been addressed to one of the thin clouds that rose at every instant into the dim void of the chimney and slowly eddied and disappeared. The guest heeded them not, and was lost in one of those reveries, which, perhaps, his long and lonely wanderings had rendered habitual to him. His head reclined on his hand, and his look bent on the glowing embers, he heard not the sharp voice of the hostess; and it was doubt- ful, from the frequent changes of his counte- nance, whether the scene of the battle,, the cell of the castle, or some past or promised hour of tenderness, were again present to his vivid fancy. His entertainer, however, had no conception of such abstractedness, having never, during a single moment of her eventful life, experienced any thing resembling it. She perhaps imputed it to another cause.

" Deborah," — and the voice was louder than that of the shrill gusts without, — u what can ye be doin' , you careless, thoughtless drab ? — 'tis as

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well have a mill-stone in the kitchen ! There 's Mr. Carries, quite wearie and forworn, goin' into a sough for want of a wholesome meal, which he never saw the face of, I '11 warrant, in the dark keep. — Put the table, you mallin, here in the luth, — not out by the window, wi' the wind creepin' in through every cranny : lay the white linen cloth, and the pewter plate from the top coin on the left hand, — the same that his honour of Stowe was served with, last time he came in, weary with huntin'. So — the creature has some notion, — 'tis hard beatin'

it into your head though And now, Sir,

the meal is waitin* and hot, with a look and smell enough to tempt old St. Petroc out of the stone fountain yonder, where he 's carved like life/'

The visitor turned, well content at the ap- peal ; and, placing himself at the table, began to satisfy the appetite which the progress of the day had given him : there was more daintiness than avidity, however, in his manner of eating ; and the landlady seemed to think he hardly did justice to the good fare. " You got nothing so good, I'll be sworn, in the prison ; and yet you're

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just like a sparrow pickin' the grain, and lookin' about, every time, for something better. Did the Royalists make ye fare sumptuously every day?"

" It was the loss of liberty, and not of luxury, that preyed on my spirit. I thought sometimes, my good hostess, when all was lone and sad within and without my narrow chamber, of your own cheerful dwelling, of the trees before the door, and the fountain without.1'

" You thought of the Ivy-bush, did ye, in your extremity ?" she said eagerly ; " there 's many a one ha1 longed, in the hour of sorrow and darkness, and in their last hour too, when they should ha thought of other things, to be inside the pure, warm kitchen, or in the ould porch outside, what time the trees were green, or the birds in the branches."

" I thought too," said the other in a melan- choly tone, scarcely heeding the interruption, "of scenes far more lovely and distant. It was no wonder they came back on me then."

" Hav'n ye had sufferm" enough in your wan- derins over the face o' the earth," returned his companion, " that ye long for them still ?"

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" You are mistaken, my good friend," he re- plied : "in the hardships you speak of, there was always a high excitement, a sweetness that made them even dear to me. And then, the change, the ceaseless change, — there was a charm in that, dame, that I cannot describe to you, who have all your life, like some of the patriarchs, dwelt beneath the shadow of your own tree, and drank of your own fountain, and never dreamed that others were cooler or sweeter."

" You are too far off, and too deep for me now, Mr. William ; I never had sitch feelins, and sure I am I never wished for them : my own hearth is brighter in my own eye; and those rafters, black as they are with smoke, are dearer to me than a gilded marble palace, such as they say you Ve seen and lived in abroad ."

" Would to God," said the wanderer, ?' that it had been thus with me ! that my own roof was as then, ere my feet left it ; and my own hearth as bright and dear as when she lived— my mo- ther ! — For such hours would I give up all my splendid journey ings; be as I then was, obscure and unknown to the world ;" and he covered his face with his hands, while his tears fell fast.

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" You may well mourn her loss," was the reply ; I knew her well : — three things always clung to her heart — the first was her son, the next was about a better world, and the third was the poor and wretched."

w That was my dear mother, — her very self," said Carries earnestly. He paused for a moment, as if he struggled with his own feelings. " The chief blessing she implored for me was a con- tented mind ; it came not — it never came : and then, when the winds blew wildly on the heath without, I loved to talk to her of my long che- rished wanderings, through hallowed lands ; and she listened with a pleased ear, yet could not see me depart. But the desire, the fevered hope, burned like a stifled fire within me ; and when she saw that, she consented. ' Go, Wil- liam,' she said, c if it will make you happy. You will be preserved ; of that I feel assured ; but the cup of bitterness will be given you to drink." — I have been there," he continued ; " it was the first spot to which I hastened on landing. — You know where she lies, in Quethiock church- yard.— I had passed by our dwelling in the

STRATTON HILL. Ill

way, and seen the desolate walls, the wasted flowers that her own hand had reared — you remember how fond she was of flowers — the cold hearth, and cold and empty seats where we used to sit. I turned towards the heath, and came at last to the spot ; and there, beneath the few old trees that have stood so many years, was her resting-place."

" 'Tis a lone and far place," observed the other, — " the last place I 'd like a friend to be buried in — 'tis a weary step over the downs ; and there's no dwelling as you say, within ken. — But let me fill your glass with this good old ale ; for grief is dry, and you arn't of a habit to bear much wastin1."

" So should all burial places be," replied the youth, striving to obey, at the same time, the injunction of the hostess, whom he had long known, and Joved to converse with. " I like them not so well, encircled with houses, and the busy hum of voices around them. I have often stood by the tomb of some holy man, or santon, who had died and slept in the wilderness, be- neath the shade of the few palm-trees that

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pious hands had planted there. Such is my mother's lone sepulchre."

" You won't compare it," said his auditor, " to the ould oaks in our burying-ground, that ha' fended many a good Christian, in his long home beneath, from the cold blast ? — where will you see trees like them ? and the pure white grave- stones in the shade, and the tread of many feet to and fro, in the sanded walk of one's friends and keene : — so may I sleep, when my call shall come ; but not in the dark and forsaken places of this world shall my bones rest ! — Besides, Mr. Carries, I could'n sleep out o1 sight of the Ivy-bush, o' the stream afore the door, and the rustle 6* the ould trees, maybe, in the wind ;" and she filled herself, at the same time, a glass of the old ale, to drown the feel- ings that were fast creeping on her.

" You are a character, my good hostess, as sterling as ever I met with in all my wander- ings," said the youth, his emotion insensibly giving way, as his fancy kindled at the re- membrance of his beloved enterprise. " Peace to the Ivy-bush, that has often kindly sheltered

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me ! and never ought the mistress and the man- sion to be divided : the honours of the one will melt away, when the head of the other is turned to the wall. — But to return," he continued, " to her of whom we have spoken. She wished not to sleep where the voices or the tears of those she left should be around her dust. Often she spoke of the burying-place of Mamre, in the Desert, where the ashes of the patriarchs were laid, and their descendants passed on to another land, and the sound of their mourning was no more heard. When I wandered after- wards to that spot — "

" And ha' you really been to that place that we read of?" said the landlady, in a tone of earnest surprise, as she emptied the flaggon into her own glass. — " Deborah, get another from the fifth bin, and put another faggot o' furze upon the glowin1 turf. — You're much paler than afore you went away ; you seldom got a comfortable fire there.'1

" There was no need of it there — I thought little of it. My ancient friend, it was, in truth, a land of wasting heat, where the shadow of the

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rock or the tent was welcome as this ale to the parched lip. But in that plain of Mamre no tree gave its shelter ; there was no well of water; it seemed as if the place had been withered, when the foot of the Patriarch forsook it ; and then we passed upwards to the Valley of Hebron, and that too was barren : we rested in the shade of the precipices, near the town ; beautiful trees rose over the hallowed cave, — the palm, the cypress, and sycamore; — but we dared not go nigh, for the foot of the Christian was forbidden the spot where Israel rested after all his toils. I would have passed on from the place in the cool of the evening, and pursued my way ; but I remembered my mother's ardent attachment to it, and resolved that at all hazards I would see it."

" And o' what use to her, or to you, could sitch rashness be ?" asked the other.

" When the night was come," continued her companion, his features kindling with the im- passioned remembrance, " I left my party with- out the town ; and passing through the streets, in which no step save my own was heard, I climb-

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ed the wall that inclosed the area, in which was the cave of Machpelah. It was a natural cavern, not hewn out of the solid rock, as was the wont of the Hebrews of old. The descent was deep, and through the dimness of the interior I dis- covered the light as of a single taper burning — I dared not descend, for the spot was revered by the wild people, and there might be watchers near. Hour passed away after hour, while I bent, with breathless awe, at the entrance of the cave, and strained my gaze to discover some object within ; but all was dark as the grave, save where the taper threw its light to a small distance around. That was the spot, my fancy whispered, where slept the fathers of the people of God — where he, who was as a Prince in the land, ended his noble and faithful career — and the tried and troubled Israel, his wanderings over, was laid in his own sepulchre."

" That was a strange place," said the land- lady, " and no pomp or pride o1 this world about it, either."

" There was, in truth, none," was the reply. " The ashes of heroes and kings, of the first of

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this world, have been often violated, and even scattered to the winds ; but around these blest remains, Heaven has stayed the violence of the spoilers and the robber's hand, that was here lifted in mute adoration : the Roman, the Greek, the Turk, the Arab, have all knelt around that hallowed cave. These thoughts coursed each other through my mind, while I kneeled at the entrance ; and the hour was suited to them : all the people of the town were buried, in sleep, and not a voice, not a murmur came from the dwell- ings around. I heeded not how time passed ; but the morn had broke in the east, and, on a sudden, the loud shrill call rose from the mosque hard by, and called the people to prayer. It echoed, amidst the precipices, and down the valley, and seemed to enter the sacred cave, and then again rose into the calm air, as if it ap- pealed to Heaven for its truth. I recoiled at the fearful sound ; for fearful and blasphemous it seemed in such a spot, as triumphing around the very ashes of the favourites of God. I rushed from the scene, with every feeling jar- red and violated ; passed silently through the empty streets, and gained my party, who waited

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for nie at the foot of the rock. Ere the sun rose, we were beyond the valley ; but never shall I forget that night."

There was a pause when he had finished ; for the mistress of the hostel, unused as she was to such long interruptions of her own loved voice, showed no inclination to interrupt the speaker : with her long bony hands clasped together, and her eye fixed on his animated countenance, she listened with deep interest to the relation. " You ha" seen strange things," she at last replied, " and I've often wondered how you'd strength of body or mind to go through them ; and Bet- sy says she wonders how your health didn't sink under them, for you used to be ailin' and delicate."

" I wish she had been here now," said the traveller, " for I miss her fair and quiet face — - my old and sweet companion for many a plea- sant hour : the kitchen is no longer the same thing, dame, now she's away."

" Glad would she ha' been to be here now, and seated there again, maybe ; she would sit up for nights together to hearken to sitch sights as you've been tellm' of; and seldom would the

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sound of her voice break in upon your's ; but her look tould more than words could do what a feeling heart she had ; and of that blessed land too, as you call it, she used to ask ques- tions, again and again, and then look in her scripture afterwards, to see if these things was so, and then she would sit and think — so pale and thoughtful.'"

" The night wears apace," said the guest. " I must pass it, however, beneath your ioof, and with the morrow bend my way again."

" And where may you be bendin' your way to-morrow ? if I may ask the question.1'

" It matters not," he answered : " you know my love of change — that a palace could not confine me long, though it were of gilded mar- ble, like that, you say, I lived in abroad ; even amidst the eastern groves, I've longed for the fierce precipices of my native shore ; so I must leave the Ivy-bush to-morrow, but it maybe I '11 see you again ere long."

He rose from the table, and resumed his seat beside the hearth. The dying embers at his feet cast a faint glimmering around, and aided the effect of his depressing thoughts. He was aware

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that the aspect of affairs grew every day more dark and threatening, and the measures resorted to by either party more remorseless : should the Royal arms continue to prevail, the iron rod of oppression might enter into the soul as well as fetter the limbs. Like all men who deliver themselves too much to the exercise of a power- ful imagination, he proved that it played the ve'ry tyrant with him, and sometimes dressed his present career in devoted and glowing co- lours, or, as now, in those of persecution and even martyrdom. The habits of his early life had contributed to this : his father had pos- sessed some books of the lives of the Romish saints; these he had early read, and the impression they made could not afterwards be erased. The strange deeds and sacrifices, the tales and mi- racles in which he then delighted, he had often brooded over in the walks and winter hours of his secluded home ; and though the mind after- wards rejected the legends, they left a latent and subtle influence on the fancy. When tra- versing the wilds of the province, with no object in view but the blue sky, and the dull surface of the moor beneath, trod by no step but his

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own, he pictured the high enthusiasm of Francis of Assissi in his far journey ings, or of Xavier, the purer as well as abler character of the two, to whom the sandy beach or the dripping rock was soft as a couch of down. Had reason spoken to the mind in these moments, she would have said, there could not well be a greater gulf drawn than between his romantic, sincere yet fluctuat- ing spirit, and that of those unshrinking, all- enduring men. To them, fair faces, soft ac- cents, and gentle spirits, were of no more account than the stern form and wild words of the savage they strove to convert — not so to Carries, who loved their companionship, and would often pause to enjoy it, whether in the cottage or the hall ; and these hours that passed lightly over his spirit, fled not so to that of others. Elizabeth, the fair daughter of the hostel, had found them to be among the sweetest of her life ; the eloquence with which he spoke of his journeyings ; the vivacity of his manner ; and the feeling thrown into it, had sunk into the heart of the girl, and, as she confessed to Nicholas, her ill-starred lover, she could not resist the attachment.

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It was not so with Carries, wlio knew not the impression he had made, and passed lightly on his way. Had he known it, it would not have availed, perhaps, for a more splendid and se- ductive object was already in his path.

vol. ir.

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CHAPTER V.

" I have had wounds, and some that never heal, What bodies suffer, and what spirits feel."

Crabbe.

While these scenes were peacefully passing within the walls of the hostel, to which almost every hour brought a change of company as well as converse, a more exciting interview took place, about a day's journey distant, between the very beings who were the subject of discourse at the close of the last chapter. There stood a lonely but very neat cottage about a mile from the town of Stratton. From its quiet and hum- ble aspect, it might surely be deemed that no stormy passions dwelt there ; that no rending emotions of the soul could enter and revel within its walls.

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On the bed of a rather lofty chamber, on whose whitewashed walls no spot or stain was visible, was laid a young man, reduced to a state of extreme weakness and almost helplessness by acute suffering.

His suffering, however, had not been linger- ing : he was now rapidly recovering, and seem- ed to welcome back the world with a buoyant eye and unquelled spirit. There was, indeed, every thing around him that could aid the shat- tered frame in its passage to health and strength, and soothe the agitations of the thoughts. — It is strange, how mainly, in the chamber of sickness, both the senses and the thoughts are moved and acted on by things in themselves apparently trifling or of small import I We pay minute and exquisite attention to our chambers of luxury, to the setting forth the more spacious apart- ments of our dwellings, where no ornament either of taste or fancy that can catch the eye or please the senses is neglected — the painting of the stern or soft features of nature ; the fi- gures, voluptuous or fearful, that are scattered around our halls. But the place where the being (for whose pleasure perhaps all this dis- G 2

124 STRATTON HILL.

play was made) trembles on the verge of life, is seldom studiously arrayed or cared for. Yet when the senses, all vivid and freshly waking from the very regions of the tomb, are strongly arrested by sights and sounds that were for- merly dear or familiar to them, the pleasure is indescribable. Then do the features of na- ture, that seemed lost for ever, open like para- dise to the view : — the fern-covered hill, the grey rock, the simplest thing that flourishes in the free and pure air, are welcome and joyous, as if, like ourselves, they were newly redeemed to the light of heaven. This very feeling seemed to have prompted the gentle hand that had ar- ranged the chamber of sickness : the window- seat was covered with pots of flowers, that sent a delightful fragrance through the apartment ; thyme and rosemary were strewed on the small table by the bed-side; a plane-tree screened with its bright green foliage the only window, but so partially, that the sunbeams fell softened and broken on the floor, and on the bed of the invalid. The branches waved gently in the noon-day breeze that swept healthfully down the

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neighbouring hill, whose steep rose near and dis- tinct to the view. His eye wandered with an expression of the deepest satisfaction from one part of the chamber to another ; then on the bosom of the hill, or on the expanse of the sea that opened boundlessly at no great distance : deeply had he loved its blue waves that now rolled gently and slowly towards the shore, on which they broke with a sound, that to him was welcome as that of distant music. Beside the bed sat a young and fair woman, whose fea- tures now wore an air of exultation that did not seem to be their habitual expression ; her head rested pensively on one hand, and in the other she held a small book, from which she appear- ed to have been reading. The silence of the apartment was at last broken by the former, who turned his eyes suddenly on his attendant.

" A few more days such as this,1' he said, " and I shall quit the bed on which I've lingered so long : this bright sun and heath, and the sea yonder, bring back the days of my strength to mind, and make me pine like the dungeon cap- tive to go forth again."

126 STRATTON HILL.

" I trust, Stephen," she replied, " it will not be long ; but strength is not our own to com- mand: yours has returned swifter than it seemed possible to hope for; and you must use it charily, for it sits as yet on your frame like a stranger."

" Does it so ?" replied the youth, striving to raise himself in the bed. " You are mistaken, Elizabeth : I feel vigour in these limbs once more ; my heart pants for the fresh air of hea- ven, like the dying man does for water; and my feet would bear me now amongst the fern yonder. — How sweetly these flowers smell ! and never in a burning clime did the shade of a tree seem so welcome. — Did you ever know what a bed of wasting pain and weakness was ?"

" No, never ! Heaven has preserved me from that trial ; but I have watched beside that of others, and have witnessed the changes, sudden and cruel ofttimes, that a short space of time has made both on the mind and body, and have been grateful that such a cup was not given me to drink."

" By my soul ! you had reason to be — but I

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have felt the bitterness of the sword before — have been tossed by the surge on a friendless strand, weak as an infant : but this confine- ment has galled me worse than the captive's chains — these wounds have entered into my soul."

" Your impatience and repining," she answer- ed, " have made them hard to bear, and have turned into poison what might else have been as the waters of life : as it is, the thoughts and resolves of your days of health sweep as wildly over your mind, I fear, as ever."

" And that is true," replied the other. " I fear I am a reckless disciple ; but what would you have ? — that I should learn a lesson of peace and resignation — should remain, perhaps, in this cottage, or go to my native one, and resume my old habits? — Better to turn hermit at once.''

" And have you so soon forgot," she said, " what you said to me a few days since in the extremity of pain ?"

" No, I have not forgot it ; but it was said to pleasure you, my gentle counsellor, when you deemed the gates of death were opening to re-

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ceive me : — darkly and nigh they seemed to wait my coming/'

" And was it so, in truth ? Alas ! the com- punction that was not felt in such an hour as that, can hardly find entrance now ! — But you loved, Nicholas, to hear me read to you; and your heart sometimes seemed to be softened, and your words were more gentle,"

" Then read to me again," said the latter ; " the sound of your voice will do me good, and I will try to think more seriously of these things." He sunk back on his pillow, and turned his look on the form of his fair compa- nion, that seemed to inspire other thoughts than those she most wished, perhaps, to inculcate. The youthful widow, with a pleased and ear- nest look, fixed her eyes on the book that, in this time of religious controversy, had become a favourite one with a numerous class — it was the celebrated " Everlasting Rest" of Baxter, so full of glowing and inspiring passages. She read in a soft, calm voice, with that kind of tone that quickly arrests the attention of the listener.

There are moments of softness in the most

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obdurate heart, — intervals, though short-lived, when each stern and preconcerted purpose bends to a better principle, to a more gracious feeling, or to the memory of earlier and happier moments. It might be the latter that was now felt in the mind of the wounded man, or, more probably, tenderness for the being who was thus earnestly seeking to soothe and even van- quish the fiercer passions that had already wrought him so much ill. The sense, too, of how greatly he was indebted to her kindness, brought, as he had been, to the dwelling of a stranger, and the care of an enemy : she had come and soothed his agony ; even in the still- ness of the night, as well as during the weary hours of day, she had held the cup to his parched lips, had borne his sinking head on her breast, had spoken of hope, when it seemed to have been fled for ever ; — and all this was from the woman he loved, dearly, passionately. Even when hovering on the utmost verge of life, he found this attachment was the silver cord that drew his soul resistlessly back, and made it recoil with horror and desolation from the future. He had been hardened, indeed, had he G 5

130 STRATTON HILL.

beheld the earnest solicitude of this woman for his good without being moved. His heart had been steeled and perverted rather by wayward circumstances than by a course of lawless indul- gence, and now its native kindliness and gene- rosity broke through the dark clouds that bitter disappointment and unsatisfied revenge had drawn around it. His pale lips trembled as those gentle accents, to which he listened, dwelt on the noble hopes of the upright spirit, and the des- tiny of the hardened and fierce one ; his thin hand, that had moved wildly as the wild thoughts coursed through his mind, was laid gently on the pillow, and a more subdued ex- pression came to his haughty features. Eliza- beth paused for a moment, raised her look from the page, and turned it on the countenance of her companion, and saw, with a satisfaction she could not conceal, that her pure and ardent purpose was not perhaps hopeless. He had never appeared to her so interesting as in that moment; — not with all the freshness of his gay and gallant bearing, and comely counte- nance, and words of pride, as now in this mo- ment of suspended, if not conquered evil pas-

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sions, of chastened emotion ! For the first time, thoughts of tenderness began to spring up in her heart towards him: it was strange, that this should have been the moment of their com- mencement ; but the ardent desire she had felt to turn his stern and troubled spirit to better and happier thoughts was near akin, it may be, to softer feelings ; and these found a hushed and subtle flattery also, in the persuasion that she had now achieved that victory.

fc< Nicholas," and her voice trembled as she spoke, u you are much moved with what I've been reading ; it is joy to me to think that these sweet passages have s.o arrested your attention, and engaged your better feelings."

He turned on her a sudden glance for a mo- ment, and then averted it again.

" Are you faint again ? Shall I open the window yet wider, and let the air in more freshly around your bed ? It will revive you.1'

u No, it is not needful,'" he said ; " thanks to your kind care, to which my life is entirely due ; but for that, I had now been where so many brave men sleep, who a few weeks ago moved on that hill in all the pride and vigour of their

138 STRATTON HILL.

strength. Ay, they sleep soundly, though I saw their eye flash and their arm wave wildly then."

" My care has been no more than was due to your helpless state, and the terms of kindness on which we have been, Nicholas. And oh ! it is far better to be thus, with your eye brighten- ing, and the ruddy hue coming back to your cheek, on which it used to mantle so richly, than to be cold and pale, — to rest beneath the green and damp sod, where the worm is so rife — to speak, and look, and love no one no more : this is fearful ! — God has been gracious to you — do you not think so, in truth, Stephen ?"

" No doubt of it, my dear Elizabeth, — I do not doubt it : but the worm will not yet rest on this frame ; that gentle hand of yours has redeemed me from being his prey; though when I fainted on the field, beneath that old man's blows, I never thought to look on that face again : my last thoughts, my last words, as the world was closing on me, were of you."

M Were they so, in truth ? — more of me than of the world you were going to — was that right ? — yet oh, how faithful ! Then, for my sake, abandon your plans of violence : by that

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near and awful view you had of your last hour, forego the field of battle henceforth, and do not tempt your fate again. — I cannot forget, no never, how you looked, so wan, still, and death-like, when I first saw you."

" And can I ever forget," he said pas- sionately, " the moment when I woke from that deadly slumber, and your form was bend- ing over me, and your tears falling warm on my face ? I had a faint remembrance of that fierce old man, as he stood over me, after I sunk be- neath his dreadful blows : he said he was my mother's father, and yet he shed the blood of her son with a ruthless hand. — Has he been near my bed — has he gazed on the work of his own hands ? I could not bear to see him again."

" He did come, many times,'' she answered, " and looked on you in your sleep, for he feared to meet your waking eye ; he said it was so like that of his daughter."

" I 'm glad that I slept," said the young man fervently. " Should you hear his footstep again, close the door, and let him not enter. His cry of agony over me is in my ears still —

134 STRATTON HILL.

the wild, ghastly look with which he tore his grey hair. I saw the dead and dying, in heaps, that day, on whose forms the rending sword and scythe did fell work ; but, oh God ! I saw nothing so terrible as the parent of my dearest mother, when he drew my face to his white and withered lips, and his teeth gnashed over me, and he looked up to Heaven, and asked why it had permitted that deadly crime? — why its thun- derbolt fell not ? — There is another cause why I could not bear to look on him.'1

" What other cause ?" said his companion earnestly ; " are not these terrible enough ?"

" Ay, they are. But why do you ask me that question ?" he said, in a slow and sullen accent. After a long pause : " He stopped me in my revenge ! his arm was the only one that beat back my weapon from his breast — the breast of the man who slighted and insulted me. His arm alone arrested my flight, else I might have been in the field quickly after, and faced the foe again, instead : but for that I forgive him, — 'twas a soldier's fate ; though he marked me out, and followed me far, — and

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why ? — because I struck at his master — Ah ! there, again, that master was my enemy, and doubly crossed me."

" Nicholas," said the young woman, " this is dreadful. Can such feelings be fostered still in your heart ? I deemed them vanquished ; but I see that they agitate you again."

" Why then must they be called forth from their hiding-place ?" he answered. " I would have concealed them from your sight — I knew not that they yet had such power over me ; but the memory of that evening of the battle has revived them afresh, and now they will have way. — Look at that hill !" he continued, point- ing to the verdant and lofty bosom of the hill of Stratton, that was near, and distinctly in view from the window : " do you see that ? 'twas there I struck him down, and saw the man who had scorned me lie defenceless at my feet. — By St. Petroc ! that moment was worth ten years of life, when that cursed chance came in my way — that old man is doomed to be my ruin."

"Unhappy youth!" said Elizabeth sadly,

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" it was the kindliest deed his hand ever achiev- ed, and brings more honour on his grey hairs than any other of his long career."

" You speak like a woman, in sooth," said the other, with a stern and vindictive smile, that spread fearfully on his wasted features : " your gentle heart has known not of the fierce yet dear passions, to drink of whose sweetness is like health to a dying man — You see there the wrecks of that fight are strewn over the grass of the declivity, — cuirass, spear, and helm ; look ! they glitter in the sun-beams, and by their side are the whitening bones of many a one who bore them proudly."

His companion turned her eyes to the spot, and saw, with shuddering, what his keener eye had often dwelt on in his hours of languishing.

" Ay, the armour is there," he continued, u but not the armed men ! Were the voice of the trumpet to wake on that hill now, 'twould sound like the wail of the parted spirits, or like the summons to those bodiless forms, those wind- beaten bones, to arise from that rank and bloody •field. Ah ! 'tis a strange sight — Stanton is there, whose voice of praise and pious shouting

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rose over the din of battle : Hamilton is down, the haughty Royalist : they fell and grappled to the death by my side — but he died cursing."

" I see,11 — she said, " I see it plainly ! What a solemn and fearful scene it is even now ! — Nicholas, did you fight on that spot ?"

" Did I see it ? — did I mingle in it ? I saw men thirst for each other's blood, like the buc- caneer does for gold, merely because they thought differently about politics or faith. I passed them by, and sought him who had in- jured me, — the Lord of Stowe !"

" He your enemy I11 she replied. " Sir Beville Granville hates you not, and he is too high a mark for your hatred. — This rancour will con- sume you : I see it now in your changed look, your trembling hand, and the cold damps on your forehead. — And is this merely for a few words, a look of slight or contempt, which he deemed, perhaps, your past career deserved?11

The wounded man raised himself in his bed by a sudden effort, and laid his wasted hand on the fair round arm of Elizabeth, who re- coiled involuntarily from the touch ; his dark and sunken eye flashed with the only evil pas-

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sion that filled his breast ; but it did not meet unabashed her steady and reproachful look : and the muttered curse died on his lips.

" And you talk calmly, woman, of such an affront — you talk calmly ! — by Heaven ! 'tis the first time that any human lip ever cast it on me. Had he or any other given me open words of insult or defiance, I had met them as a man should do ; but the sneer that curled his proud lip — the haughty glance with which he surveyed me from head to foot ; and then bade me leave his castle-gate — Ah ! by the mother that bore me ! blood only can atone for that deadly slight, that cut into my spirit keener than the old man's spear did my naked side ! Where is my sword and poniard?" he continued, grasping hurriedly towards the chair on which he had placed them: — "Betsy, where have you laid them ? They did not rob me of them on the field, the villains ! That hoary — no ! he had enough of his own, which he got and used too, no doubt, in the same land as myself. — Oh dear Peru ! had my feet been on thy soil, this injury had ere now been deeply avenged : he would have lain at my feet, the taunting op-

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pressor ; the lips that uttered the gibe would have been still — ay, still for ever ! — I am strong now : the sea-breeze through the casement has braced my limbs ; they can carry me well across the floor. — There is my faithful weapon ; I see its gleam in the sunbeam that falls through the leaves of the elm.'"

" And are these to be the first-fruits of the strength you have so freshly gained ? — Unhappy, and guilty man P she said, " I had hoped better things : but nothing, I see, can soften that cruel hardness of heart : mine can have no portion with it, no, never : as well might the lion rest with the lamb."

" What mean you ?" he answered hurriedly. " Have you not renounced all compact with me ? have you not rejected my love, in my days of health and prosperity, when my heart too was unseared ? — And now there can be no hope for me : what you have done to save my life, was done, I well know, from pure kindness of heart — but that is not love."

" What will you think of me, Nicholas?" said the young widow, in deep emotion, while the whole of her countenance was of the hue of the

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rose. " If I say there is hope — that — that the state of helplessness and suffering in which I have seen you so long, and the subdued and humbled spirit you have shown at times, though alas ! but seldom, have made me think other- wise than I was wont to do, — then I think too, it may be, but for my rejection of your love, you had not gone to the field, you had not suffered thus. No, you offered to go to your native place, and live in peace ;" — and she leaned her head on her hand, to hide the confusion she felt.

The youth did not interrupt her, for every word sunk into his soul : he clasped his hands fervently, — and not health or strength, or even gratified revenge, could have given the brilliancy and the rushing colour that now revelled in his eye and cheek.

" Then I will bless my sufferings, and bless even the blow that humbled me. — Dearest Eli- zabeth, turn not those loved features from me, which now I shall one day call my own : yes, your own lips have said it : — that form, that was to me far fairer than all the rich and tempting ones of the south, — that gentle spirit too shall

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be mine ! Think not, my love, that it cannot mate with my own : it shall tame its fierceness, and mould it to its will : that sweet voice, that to my ears was always music, will never pour its words in vain. When you are mine, I will be all you wish — by this hand, that trembles in my own ! — Ay, the weapons to which your eye is wandering, you shall take them — bury them — throw them in the deep, if you will."

u Then you will renounce,1' she replied, — " you will renounce for ever all your dark designs? I have said too much, perhaps more than was beseeming for me to say : but it was for this I have confessed it, — to turn you from your evil and guilty purpose ; to make you swear to me that you will pursue it no more. Swear to me, then, that from this moment your thirst of ven- geance shall pass away ; that you will drive the fiend from your bosom."

His countenance changed as he looked wist- fully on her : the glow of exulting passion gave way to an expression of deep anguish. " Not yet, Elizabeth, the hour is not yet come. Not heaven or hell shall prevail with me. I have dreamt of it, — in my broken slumbers, that ven-

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geance was sweet to me — he sunk again at my feet: in my waking hours, and they have been many, I have brooded on it. And now, to cast it from me — to gnaw like the dying steed the spear that festers in his side and can- not free himself from it — Ha, ha ! twere a boon, by the powers ! too rich and generous for me to give."

There was something frightful in the hollow laugh that broke from his pallid lips. Elizabeth knelt by the bed-side, and clasped his hands in her own. — " Oh, Nicholas," she said, " offer not this return to Heaven for the boon of life it has given you ; draw not down its sure destruction on your head. You asked for the love of my widowed heart — I have given it you. In the frenzy, in the despair of your passion, you rushed to meet death, but the king of terrors passed by his victim. And, now that returning health and successful love are your own, will you still cling, with convulsive grasp, to this fatal snare ? — Stephen, I would rather see the grave close over you, the earth cover you, than see you the sport of a demon-passion like this. Hear me, then,— hear your own Elizabeth, whom

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you believed lost for ever to your hope — resist not my prayer.""

He stooped and kissed her forehead, and placed his fevered hand in her luxuriant hair, and gazed on her with the deepest tenderness, muttering some reply between his teeth, but no distinct words reached her ear. By the changes of his countenance, it seemed that the struggle was a violent one. He turned at last his face to the wall with a deep sigh, and waved his hand sadly, as if to entreat her to trouble him thus no more. " Oh, why am I exposed to such a strife as this?" he said faintly. — " Elizabeth, the possession of you has been the hope, the stay, on which I lived ; it passed from me, and then I welcomed death. Let that draw nigh once more, in all its terrors, be you but near me, beloved woman, to bend over me, to gaze on and comfort me ; that I may rest on vour bosom, and hear your voice, though

it be earth's last sound But rend not this

dark and cherished secret from my soul ; it is wound round every fibre of my heart : take it not from me ! rather let me sleep with the brave on the grassy hill- side, laid there by your

144 STRATTON HILL.

hands. But to yield up this baffled, lingering hope — this unquenched thirst of 1 can- not, no, I cannot do this !"

She rose, and cast on him a sad and lingering look ; then raised it imploringly to Heaven, and silently quitted the apartment. As she passed out, her gown chanced to brush against the arms of the sick man ; he raised his head as the faint clash of his weapons met his ear, and cast a hurried glance towards them. — " They are safe," he murmured, as he sunk back again; " her hand would not do me that wrong."

It was probable that the spirit of his kind attendant, who had just left him, was as far from peace as his own. She had just admitted a new passion into her heart, and could scarcely account to herself for the seeming readiness and inconstancy with which this was done. It was in vain to task that heart, and call it to a severe account : she could only lament its wayward- ness; and this might the more easily be par- doned, that the situation in which she had watched and mourned over the present object of her tenderness has ever been one of the most subduing and ensnaring in which a youthful

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woman can be placed. The hours of languor, the sickening, and then the reviving hope, the grateful look, the heartfelt expression — these were present night and day ; and he whose image she had hitherto cherished was afar, and thought not of her.

VOL II.

146 STRATTON HILL.

CHAPTER VI.

" I see the spreading leaves and flowers, I hear the wild birds singing ; But pleasure they hae nane for me, While care my heart is wringing."

Burns.

It is time to return to a neighbourhood from which we have long wandered, — that of the de- caying cathedral of St. Germain's. It seemed, by the deep o^iiet that reigned around, as if the genius of monasticism still shed its influence on the adjacent population, harmless and careless spectators of the deadly game that was playing on every side. This could scarcely be said, however, of the tenants of the faded dwelling of the prior, before whose awakened fancies the pageant of many a battle had passed. Certain tidings came, at last, to dispel all misgivings, and

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it need not be said, that their complexion was of a welcome character. Greatly did the Daw- navs exult in the success of the Royal arms, — the rather that it was unexpected, so excessively had rumour magnified the number and array of the rebel force. Often had Eleanor dwelt, even to anguish, on the fate the war might bring forth : her lighter-hearted sister, who had no such dear stake at issue, heard of the events of the few last weeks with more calmness, and was far more moderate in her eulogies on the splendid success of Stratton. She bade Eleanor, amidst her flights of enthusiastic pleasure, wait yet awhile, ere she wove her garlands for the victor's brow, for revolutions were variable and inconstant things.

To no one did the victory give more undis- sembled pleasure than to Honor Middlar; it was a subject on which she could not possibly be at fault : there was no neutral or debateable ground on any part of it ; in no one of its bear- ings could she miss her way, or be left in a painful struggle between contending feeJings. No warring faiths mingled in the question of the splendid field of Stratton; and high and H %

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incessant, therefore, were her eulogies. She had had dreams, and remarkable ones, for three nights before the battle, in which she saw hosts charging each other, with great fierceness and a frightful bloodshed ; and, above all, who fought and struggled, was a man upon a white horse, with red armour on, up to the ears, who did wonders, and, by his voice, she knew it was Colonel Trevanion. Sweet and peaceful were now the hours of her attendance on her younger mistress; even St. Sebastian, the youthful martyr, was for a while forgotten, so much less hold have passive sufferings, however noble, on the fancy of women, than active valour. Not that Honor did, in truth, partake of the chivalric prepossessions of her mistress, or was a fierce partisan of either Royal or Parliament side ; but the war was a copious and descriptive subject ; and her fancy, like those of the poet and the historian, hovered often over the foughten field, and called up its terrors anew. Not many days after the period alluded to, she was sum- moned one morning to attend the elder of the ladies : she found her seated in a chamber, whose viewless site and gloomy aspect would

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have better suited a more meditative and sad- dened spirit. The business of the toilette was beguiled by the casual talk, usual on such pri- vileged occasions ; though it was observed that the waiting maid was less garrulous and fearless in her eloquence with Miss Dawnay, in whose company she could not avoid feeling some de- gree of awe, to which she was a stranger in that of Eleanor. The beauty of the morning, that made itself visible, even within the high and dark inclosure of the court without, had been observed on ; when a new rumour, that burn- ed like suppressed fire within the spirit of the attendant, gave another direction to the subject.

" Have ye heard, my Lady, what cruel Phi- listines them Royalists are? — Not in their taking up arms ; — they 're right enough, no doubt, in that ; and they know how to use them too, as people ought to do, that ha' got cause, as master says : — but they hav'n no humanity, — not like the beasts o' the field, for their own kind, — to treat a poor young man as they ha"' done."

" Whom do you mean, Honor ? and what new story is this you have got ? They are not

150 STRATTON HILL.

likely the leaders of the Royal forces, to treat any man with cruelty.1'

M Not likely ! but they ha* done it, and in a manner enough to make one's heart ache, and one's blood run cold, at the tellin' of. — Hav'n your Ladyship heard of how Mr. Carries have been treated by them, like a poor forgone cri- minal r

" Who said so ? — and when did you hear this?" said Catherine, turning pale as death, as she bent her look full on her domestic's : " it must be some invention of your own, Honor, or of other persons."

" It mayn't all of it be true ?— St. Teath I Gimmini ! that I should speak sitch a word ! 'Tis the little ould image in the wall down by, puts the bein' in my mind : 'tis only the facts I speak of, for fear of frightening your Ladyship : 'tis a cruel story, and there 's no believin' all that 's said ; — rumour, you told me the other day, was like the running out o' waters, when the Lynher, belike, owerflows the turfy ground all about."

" Tell me, I insist, what they do say : I feel a lively regard for the character of the Royal

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arms ; and would not, for the world, they should be stained with cruelty to a human being, much less to one I have had some acquaintance with.'"'

" That's what I thought, that your Ladyship had sitch a regard and feelm1 for the Royalists1 behaviour, that you would be angry at the mention of the thing; — but why should they choose out a man that never did harm to nobody, to work their cruelty upon ?"

" What cruelty and what harm, woman ?" said the lady ; " they did not dare to proceed to extremities with him — they could gain nothing by such severity."

" Extremities, my Lady ! you may well say that. In war, you know, they don't stick at any thing : and what was it else, when they put en down into a fearful dungeon, bound hand and foot? and there he was kept night and day."

" It was a cruel deed," said Catherine, rising hastily from her chair, " and an unnecessary one : who could have advised it ? — and where did this take place ? — where was he confined ?"

" In Launceston Castle," replied the other: " that weary keep; I ha' never passed it without

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a quever runnin' through me, at sight o' the black walls, and the many unhappy people that ha' died inside them."

" But what was the consequence of Mr. Car- ries' confinement ? Surely he is not still there ? Did no one interfere on his behalf ?"

" 'Tis difficult to say when his confinement would ha' ended — not till he had sighed his last sigh, and his bones were left upon the floor, like those of many another poor creature, with a ring-boult drawed round them, if the Colonel had'n interfered, and made interest for his being left out of the dungeon. But his suffering, they say, was very tryin"* — no light from mornin' to night, not a glimmer oMay, and nothing to feed upon but bread and water. He was never very stout or full fared, your Ladyship ; but now he 's wasted, they say, to a skeleton."

u And Trevanion procured his liberty," said the mistress ; " it was a generous and friendly deed. Fools that they are, and unfeeling, those Royal leaders; they deserve not the victory they have gained r what terrors were there in an unarmed man ? and of what aid to their cause could his confinement be, in a strong-hold, and

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with a numerous garrison too ? — Shame on such conduct ! 'tis a stain on their crests."

" So I said, my Lady. Had it been a fierce boastin' man, clothed in armour from head to foot, 'twould ha' been a different thing : but a peaceful and sweet young man, and a gentleman, like Mr. Carries ; it was a wrongous thing : and 'twill be visited upon their own heads, there 's no doubt; ay, they'll be bound hand and foot, and find it as hard, I trust, to get out, as those that were thrown into the fiery furnace, that we read of in the pure Word, my Lady."

" True, Honor ; you speak justly. — But tell me what was the consequence of this wanton treatment he experienced ? — He was liberated, you say ?"

" I can't say that, altogether," was the reply. " His sufFerin' was so severe in that cold dark dungeon, and bein' bound hand and foot too, that they say he's hardly able to move about ; his eye, that you know used to be so bright, is all sunken; and his face too, that used to have a good colour, is gone as white as a sheet. It must ha' been a sweet thing, though, after all, for'n to behold the light o' the day H 5

154 STRATTON HILL.

agen, and see the fiiee of a friend ; — though he has'n got many, poor man, where he is."

" I fear not," her mistress said sadly. " Sin- gular, that after braving the threats and pe- rils of the barbarians, he should meet them in his own land, and near his own threshold ! — He is gone there, perhaps ; he cannot still be within the walls of Launceston, which the Royalists have left long since.'"

It is said, a fine woman looks handsomest in her tears : this is more than doubtful, seeing that grief has rather a pale and depressing effect : a moderate degree of anger, perhaps, mingled with tenderness, is the most resistless auxiliary to beautiful features. At least, whoever gazed on Catherine Dawnay at this moment, would have said so. As she paced the room to and fro, her countenance flushed with indignation, yet a melting softness mingling in the dark eye, her lips moved at times, and murmurs, almost indistinct, came from them ; but their expres- sion was various, and might hardly reach the ear : they reached Honor's, however, as she stood, with her head a little inclined, to catch with greater facility the floating sounds, and

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her look, bent on her mistress with a sharpened searching meaning.

" Honor," said the young lady, at last, " I doubt that this story is greatly exaggerated : at least, the latter part of it surely is. Mr. Car- ries' family and character are so well known, that I can scarcely believe they would go to such lengths against him, — What provocation could he have given them ?"

" True, my Lady, that's the thing; none in the world : but you know that he 's a man of a quick mind, and a set path about the new sen- timents,— about religion, I mean ; — and woukTn give up his purpose, if there was a lion in the way, much less the Royal officers, some of whom are no great things, they say : — and my opinion is, they ha1 stroven to make 'en renounce his way, the right way ; and he ha' strove agen their opinions and doin's, which there 's little good to be said for ; and so, seem' he was firm set, they put 'en in prison in the frightful old keep."

" It may be so," was the reply. " 'Tis dan- gerous, striving with men, with arms in their hands, and the enemy near, and the aspect of affairs dark and difficult ; the unhappy times

156 STRATTON HILL.

too, and the town in a state of siege and dis- tress : men's hearts are strung to things which they would start from in happier periods.* — What had he to do near their encampment ? why thrust himself into the teeth of danger ?"

" There was no great sense in doin' so," an- swered Honor ; " especially as he's set agen the King. — Poor man! he 's sore fore-foughten with his Parliament, and his own people goin' agen him ; and 'tis'n the thing to set one's face hard, like iron, against 'un, and wish for his over- throw, and be speakin' in houses and cottages that he's an oppressor. I've always obsarved, that the measure we meet is meetened 4)ack to us agen : and so it is wi' Mr. Carries; he ha"1 felt in his own spirit and bones, what the oppressor's hand is — sharp and heavy enough."

" Who made you a judge of others' words or motives ?" returned her mistress in an angry tone. — " Had you a few days1 confinement in the prison yourself, 'twould do your tongue some good, and you deserve it much better."

Honor's amenity was thoroughly invaded by this retort ; and her ire, in spite of her usual policy and tact, greatly roused. " Me shut up

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in prison, Miss Catherine ! that 's a queer sayin' ;

and what ha' I done to desarve sitch a lettin"

down, sitch a disgrace upon my name, leavin"*

alone the bread and water, and darkness. — Me !

that always loved my liberty above every thing

else in the earth ; and in my mother's dwellin'

upon the lone moor, when the young men came

from miles to try to wile me away, it wud'n do ;

I discerned their footsteps afar off upon the

turf, and stood in the door more than once, and

called out, ' What are ye comin' for, you scavel-

lins, to intice me inside o" your dwellin's ?' And

what for ? they 'd nothing takin' about them,

your Ladyship. Though when John Tresize

came, he was a superior man ; and to see 'en

come over the moor, with a step, a face as red

as a rose, and sitch a leg, I coud'n help askin"

'en in : but I tould 'en I was in no hurry ; that

the moor was natural to me ; that I loved to

hear the birds singin' among the turf: — though

he had a pure houldin' of his own, with a croft

and a tidy meadow, leavin' alone a strong boat

in the Cove ; and these things, with his parsonal

gifts, made , en much souft after.'1 — Here Honor,

like many other people, had talked the best part

158 STRATTON HILL.

of her anger away : the memory of hours of bloom and conquest past, came like a sweet anti- dote over her feelings ; especially as her mistress, in the anxious concern by which hers were en- grossed, forbore the irony that would at any other time have stayed this fluent description.

" Well, say no more about it, Honor," said the lady thoughtfully, taking up a book at the same time from the adjoining secretaire : " go and see if it threatens rain to-day ; if the clouds gather on the head of Brown willy, for neither sky nor hill is visible from this gloomy chamber. I think I shall walk out to-day to- wards the village, to inquire something more respecting this news.'1 The latter quickly re- turned with the intelligence that the weather was fair and inviting. " Then come to me in an hour or two," was the order, " and you shall attend me to the village ; — for you know all the people, I believe, there as well as in your native cottage."

" Ay, that I do; there is'n a greater set of talkers, idlers, and — — " when an expressive look from the former induced her to close the door, and leave its inmate alone. Catherine

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Dawnay sat down pensively at the table, and fixed her eyes on the book before her, that proved to be a volume of some favourite ro- mance or poesy, for the cherished legends of her more enthusiastic sister found no place in her chamber. The page, however, whatever it was, seemed not long to fix her thoughts : the book was thrust aside, the window gazed at repeat- edly ; partially as the light found its way into the apartment, it gave evidence sufficient of a fair day without. She put on the cloak, that was rather a graceful appendage than a protec- tion from cloudy skies ; a round beaver hat, with feathers, completed the dress ; and sum- moning the attendant, whose service on this occasion was indispensable, issued forth on her morning walk. The day was, in truth, one of the fairest in the year ; and the young lady, walking at a rather rapid pace along the lawn, looked with an elated eye on the rich variety of wood, stream, and hill. Too much a woman of the world to feel the romantic attachment of her sister for rural seclusion, for sweet dells, and hours of pensiveness amidst them, " the world forgetting, by the world forgot/' she loved na-

160 STRATTON HILL.

ture en passant, but loved society and its varied characters yet more. Honor, like the follower of an Eastern sultana, both an attendant and watcher, trod close at her side. She never would consent, it was observed, to follow at the heels of either one of her mistresses, — out of ex- treme pride, it was said ; but she was dogged in her purpose, that had nothing in view but to keep in sight of the looks of those she accom- panied, as she had an invincible dislike to be talkedto over the shoulder, — " likin" better," in her own words, " to trust to the countenance for people's meaning than to the sound o' their voice." To a casual observer's eye, there was a singular disparity in the appearance of the mis- tress and her maid : the one moved like a lady in the land, with a free and graceful step ; the other, with a figure shorter at least by a head than her companion, and more embonpoint, shuffled along at a pace neither remarkable for its grace nor dignity. Whoever has seen a rough, stuggy, self-willed pony of these hills, trying to keep pace with a spirited, handsome, high-mettled courser ; imitating its movements, envying its array, and shouldering, now and

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then, in some inequality of the ground, may form a tolerable idea of the twain who now skimmed the lawn, then entered the wood, and at last drew near the solemn ruin. The short, round bonnet that adorned Honor's head had been altered, after her own taste, out of a faded silken one of her younger mistress ; and instead of improving her height, as is the endeavour of most short women, sat upon her head much in the manner of a warming-pan, suffering her still thick and brown hair to float gently in the morning breeze; her legs too, which partook peculiarly of the want of lengthiness visible in the whole of her form, were entirely concealed by a coloured petticoat that had once shrouded a lovely form ; and having been imported from France, had also allowed a very small and neat ankle to be distinctly seen ; but now, as if en- vious of the form it covered, it drooped and draggled even to the broad foot, and caught up occasionally particles of dust and weeds as it swept along. Stung at the silence that had now lasted for some time, and having little taste for the picturesque, Honor fixed an earnest and passing gaze on the ruin to which they were now nigh.

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" What a blessin' to see that ould building in sitch a state ! one stone crumblm' after another, and the pillars like those o' the temple of Dagon, that Samson made to totter to and froY'

" Why so, Honor?" said her companion ; " it's a noble building even now ; and I should be sorry to see it levelled with the ground : it would deprive the neighbourhood of one of its chief ornaments."

" I can't see any thing fine about it, my Lady ; 'twas a strong-hould o' the dark super- stition of old times, o' the days of error that are gone by; they'll never come again now, 'tis to be hoped."

" Most likely not ; the times are too en- lightened : and the cathedral, you see, is too much in ruins ever to lift its head again. — But I thought that you loved sometimes to wander about the old place? — you have been here often with Eleanor."

" Ay — ay, I have been here often enough, 'tis true ; for Miss Eleanor is fond o1 prowling about the pillars and tombs, and croonin' in her mind over the memory of them that had power here once, if they had known how to use it :

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There's the figures o' the ould creatures, the bishops, carved in the walls, that I ha' seen her kneel to, as if they'd been keenlie young men with a handsome face, and a sharp eye in their head: — 'tis a kind of idolatry that, and there's no sense in it either."

" Did you think thus always, Honor?" re- plied the lady. " There was a time, if I remem- ber, when you were attached to the Church of Rome. Were not your parents followers of it ? What first brought about this change of senti- ment ?"

" True, my Lady, true ; I was brought up in the way of darkness by my parents, and remem- ber the time when I had a little leaden image to play with, of St. Marget, that my mother used to pray to. But I had misgivin's, when I lived upon the lone common, and doubts o-* the thing ; and then light came into my mind, like the blinkin' o1 the moon through a furze rick, that can hardly struggle through ; but when I came to your Ladyship's, and read some o' the books your Ladyship is so fond o' readin', the truth blazed into my mind like the rick catched by the flame. 'Tis a sweet thing to taste o' the

164 STRATTON HILL.

Word as 'twas written, before 'twas meddled wi' by men's hands."

" You have given a descriptive account, Ho- nor, of your becoming a Protestant. I was not aware that this had sunk quite so deep. — And do you mean to persevere steadfastly in them ? Do you not look back, at times, to the days of your first faith ? — there were many tempting things about it,"

" Persevere, Miss Catherine ! 'tis strange you should ask the question ! as I tould John Tre- size, the other day, after he had kept hoverin about the window a long time, in hopes to see me : ' If ever,1 says I, ' you become an idolater, never hope for my favour : persevere,' says I, ' John, in the true way" (he was a Papist once), 6 or I '11 never cast a kindly look upon you again ;' and that 's much to say, seem1 he 's sitch a keenlie man." .

" Very firm, indeed," said Catherine. " But here 's the village before us ; and as it 's so fine a day, we will not hurry ourselves : it is some weeks too since I have been here. You know every body in the place, I believe, Honor ; and

STRATTON HILL. 165

you can inquire more respecting this strange news you told me of to-day." Saying this, they entered the small village, that ran along the dell, beside which stood the woods and towers of the cathedral. The houses had an air of neatness and cleanliness, both within and without, that evinced the neighbourhood and example of more than one ancient and opulent family. The woods that stood on the gentle acclivity above, shel- tered the dwellings from the keener winds. As the young lady advanced, more than one door was opened, and face thrust out with a ready and flattering welcome. But Honor bustled on before, passing door after door, with a scorn- ful glance, to hold parley with one or two cro- nies, who let nothing human escape their ears and tongues, whether of things in earth, or things in air. The door of the chosen dwelling was opened, the seats placed for the visitors, on one of which, she who was the cicerone sat herself down, with an important and authori- tative air, and after a few short answers to the observations of the dame, such as " Ay, Goody, the weather is fine ; but I 'm not come

166 STRATTON HILL.

about the weather — the birds are singm1 sweet enough, no doubt, and the trees are all out in their pride ; but there *s a sound sweeter than the birds can give, and comfortabler than the shadow 0"* trees/' — and she proceeded to cross- examine the woman with considerable skill. The latter, however, to the querist's annoyance, after two or three replies, turned involuntarily to the lady, who sat silent, as if she expected her commands. Catherine briefly inquired what was the latest news from the Royal army, or from the town of Launceston ; as the village being a thoroughfare, every report arrived there before it could travel to the scats in the vici- nity. It appeared, however, that the whole rested on the authority of a soldier, a native of the village, who had returned after the action of Stratton ; and having been in the garrison of Launceston, had kept guard, in turn, over some parts of the Castle, and been aware of the confinement of a prisoner, who was Mr. Carries, in a dark and gloomy cell, where he had re- mained some weeks, in a state, no doubt, of great suffering ; and he had been set free before the forces quitted the place. More than this

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was not to be collected : comments and abuses there were in abundance, on the hard-hearted- ness of the deed ; but as these gave little light or satisfaction, the lady soon rose, and, wish- ing the cottager a good morning, turned her steps homeward, in a more silent mood than before, and less heedful of the breaks and re- marks of her attendant, which came at every interval, to break the stillness, like pebbles in the course of a smooth and fair stream.

When Catherine returned to her home, it was not to abandon herself to lonely meditation, or a vain sensibility. Either of these resources might be pardoned, in her case : she was in love, and she coijld not deny it to her own heart ; and the saloon into which she entered contained neither spinnet, harp, nor aught that could give dulcet sounds, or divert the weary thought. Yet the hours seldom passed heavily within the walls. The early loss of their mother, by which they were left to their own guidance in matters of taste, was the cause, no doubt, of the want of some of those accomplishments that, at a subse- quent period, so richly embellished female life. The strength and decision of Catherine's under-

168 STRATTON HILL.

standing contrasted finely with the more weak and romantic one of her sister. Differences of feeling, disposition, and taste, neither deep nor serious, had grown up from girlhood ; and having been augmented for some time past by warring attachments, both in love and faith, had produced a want of confidence, and a degree of estrangement, as great as could exist with the attachment they really felt. Misfortune had seldom brooded over the family of Dawnay : never yet, since the last ill-fated prelate had been exiled from the palace, had it once crossed the threshold. But, in the present troubled and convulsed state of affairs, many a loyal family had suffered ruin from the violence of the Parliament's forces. Every day now brought not only disaster and the severest exac- tions on the hitherto opulent and proud, but set the friend against his oldest intimates, the lover against his mistress, the brother and the sister against those of their own household.

Eleanor's cheek grew pale, and her manner abstracted, as the days rolled on, and brought tidings of the continued advance of the Royal force?, who were likely soon to meet a more for-

STRATTON HILL.

midable enemy than they had lately conquered. Her lover was safe, and full of confidence ; he had lately gained the meed of all others she had desired for him ; but long days and months of absence came sickening to the feelings : then his letters had of late come far between ; and once or twice she had fancied they were not so kind and affectionate. She did not make allowance, perhaps, for the military details that now occu- pied many passages ; and the ardent thirst of distinction in many a glowing word, that before had dwelt only on love. How far more beau- tiful it would have been to be at this moment dwelling amidst the calm retreats of his ancient seat, with the ocean spread far at their feet ! She now felt the difference between the dear and seductive pictures of glory we form for ourselves, or for those we love, beneath our own stiil roof, and the fearful hauntings that they leave behind. She would have gazed on the melay with tumultuous joy and pride, and have seen steeds charging, and lances breaking, and Trevanion the victor, in many a charge; but should a stronger arm come, and his blood stream beside his shattered plume, and his sunken eye

VOL. II. I

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be raised despairingly to hers: — such was the image that was present, in lieu of an affluent home, a devoted husband, and her sweet chil- dren around her.

It has been said that her sister had im- bibed gradually the pure sentiments of the Protestant faith ; with doubt and fear at first ; yet her mind having once ventured, if the expression may be used, on the sea of inqui- ry, refused to pause in uncertainty. Truth, like an angel, came at last, in its full lustre on the path of her spirit, and never quitted it again. Her keen love of ridicule and satire, it was observed, gave place to more sweetness and amenity of feeling ; while the powers of imagi- nation and reflection were heightened in that long and painful research. There was another rock, from which this young and ardent woman was saved in her career, and to which so many of her sex have fondly clung — enthusiasm.

Had Eleanor quitted the faith of her fathers, she would have rushed into some of the excesses of feeling, which were by no means rare among either sex, at this period. The tales of her beloved saints, their raptures and trials, would

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have been supplied by the equally dangerous professions and wild assumptions of many of the sincere reformers, as well as hypocrites of the day. There was a lingering look at times to- wards the ancient and cherished path, from which she had severed herself: yet this was but a passing cloud, whose shadow flits for a moment by. In the present painful moment, she strove, in some trifling avocation, to dissipate the anxiety that had gathered on her brow. Her fine countenance had an unsettled and dejected expression that was not natural to it : she drew forth from a recess a small manuscript, and, reclining her head on her hand, perused it attentively ; but it was easy to perceive, from the impassioned look cast on the paper, that she prized it more as the gift or record of one who was dear to her, than for any vivid inte- rest the contents might possess. Yet they had an interest. As Catherine read, her eye beamed with pleasure, and a calmness gradually stole over her features : perhaps the lines recalled moments of sweeter and more unclouded emo- tion, ere the days of peril and trouble had come on the land ; and she refused to believe, that the I 2

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hand that had penned them, might, even now, be chilled by suffering, or bound with fetters in some prison-house.

Catherine had not been alone in the strife the mind feels, when quitting a revered path for a novel though purer one : she had been aided by a spirit less powerful, but more ex- perienced than her own.

Woman often remains indelibly attached to the being whose gentle and subtle efforts have calmed the storms and conflicts of her thoughts, and cheered them to a brighter shore. St. Au- gustine found it more difficult to withstand the feelings which the epistles, full of earnest, — it might be said, impassioned gratitude, — from many a lady whose admired guide and instructor he had been, than he once did to stem the torrent of his own wild passions. And this aid had here been given so unassumingly, and with so much deference, by a being whom chance had made her acquainted with, whose words, whe- ther uttered or written, had a character so simple and eloquent, that they seemed the very echo of her own. The manuscript that now engaged her attention was the story of his

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various wanderings and stern perils, so vi- vidly painted, that he who dared them seemed to be present to her glance, and to come again to her side. The stern Puritan of the age would have thought the adorning of her apart- ment a little too wanton and indulgent. There were dresses of various fancy and costliness ; for she was curious and tasteful in these things, aware, probably, like every attractive woman, that the world's as well as the admirer's eye, overlooks them not : gold ornaments, many of them so massive and antique in their form, as to show they had belonged to her mother; with these were mingled two or three articles of great rarity, that had been more valuable in the eyes of many than the sceptre of princes : crosses and figures of mother-of-pearl, from the land of promise ; small paintings, fili- greed with gold, from some monastery in the wilderness, of fathers who had lived and died there ages ago. These had been a gift ; and the girl gazed on them with pleasure, and some- times with a strange feeling of remembrance and mistrust ; for they recalled the time when she would have placed them next her heart, as

174 STRATTON HILL.

availing and invaluable things. And here they stood, kept with peculiar care ; not the smallest spot or dust was allowed to rest on them ; whe- ther this was solely out of regard for the hand that bestowed them, it is difficult to say. Long cherished religious feelings and associations, that are so soon banished or crushed in the mind of man by dint of his many excitements, linger still and endearingly in the female bosom. The time had, in the meanwhile, fled quickly away, and only an hour after mid-day brought the summons to the dining-hall. This hour did not happen to be every day alike ; in conse- quence of the antiquarian and erratic habits, though in his own neighbourhood, of the father: he did not sometimes find his way home till the regular time of repast had long elapsed, and the cook had fretted, and Honor had bustled five or six times in and out of the house, com- plaining and fuming about her master's strange taste in preferring an old block of stone to a good hot meal. Indeed, she was once heard to express a wish, that a large stone might fall out of one of the abbey walls upon his head, and either give a quietus, or an effectual cure of

STRATTON HILL. 175

such a habit : but as this was only uttered for her own ear, no malice prepense could be prov- ed. On the present occasion, each one of the small circle was seated there.

Many events had passed over their heads, during the last few weeks, of the deepest im- port. The march, the battle, the entrance into Devon, and the total dispersion of the Parlia- ment forces, were themes that had filled every cottage and hall.

" You were at the village this morning, Ca- therine,' ' said her sister : " it is seldom you walk that way. Were there any fresh tidings from the seat of war ?"

" I was tempted by the beauty of the morn- ing," the other replied : u the little village looked so gay and happy amidst the woods — the very image of contented retirement. But I heard not of any new event.1"

" It is strange how slowly tidings come !" said Eleanor : " Fame surely ought not to be painted with wings; not a day can pass now without some deed of import being done ; yet how little comes to our ears in this remote scene !"

176 STRATTON HILL.

" I wish," said Catherine, addressing her father, and willing to divert the subject, " that our King but knew such a tranquillity as reigns in that place ; he would not then complain that his crown was studded with as many thorns as the hairs of his head."

" Ay, that's true," he replied : " it was a bitter but a just saying: we are not now, as in King Harry's time, when no one dared to think or believe, but as his Majesty wished or commanded. Now, every man is a law to himself, and does what is right in his own eyes. We are happy in being free from such delusions — thank Heaven ! we seek no novelties, and have no de- sire for them.11

The sisters looked at each other, conscious that these words could not entirely apply to either of them.

" Was I right," he continued with increas- ing animation, " in saying that we sought no novelties ? Those who are my only portion and joy on earth, alone can tell if their choice has wandered where their fathers cannot follow. My rest on earth cannot now be long ! let it not be darkened by any sorrow of their creating."

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" To what do you allude, my father ?" said Catherine, colouring deeply : " you know our affection too well, to believe we would willingly give you any cause of disquiet."

u So be it," he replied, " and I shall be happy : you know how I hate the lawless senti- ments that are abroad, and what little favour any one possessing them is likely to find in my sight. Can I then receive beneath my roof, ay, even into the bosom of my family, one of their most determined advocates? By the memory of your mother, whose tomb stands beside the abbey wall, according to her last wish, such a thing shall never be P

" There is little cause," she replied coldly, " for this warmth : Eleanor and I were observ- ing how rich and varied a face the woods around the village wear, now that their fullest foliage is out. I wonder the Bishop did not fix his residence among them, rather than on this eminence, exposed to every bleak wind f

" He might have chosen better, my love, cer- tainly," he said, resuming all the gentleness of his manner, " and glad should I have been had he built his palace in that dell ; we could then I 5

178 STRATTON HILL.

have passed from our own door into that rich area of antiquity that is close at hand. — Did I ever read to you the passages contained in the manuscript I discovered about two years since ? It must have been written by one of the last surviving fathers, who had found an asylum in one of the neighbouring cottages.1'

Often had the ladies listened to this tale, yet they expressed an anxious desire to hear it once more.

" You know the dwelling," he continued, " that stands apart, with the decayed wooden portico in front, and the green bank at the foot of which the brook still flows. There, I have heard my father say, he remembered, when a boy, to have seen the last Lord Abbot seated, with a bright eye and thin wasted frame, like Time itself, looking at the destruction of the noblest things."

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CHAPTER VII.

" Hearts that the world in vain had tried ; And voices lose the tone that shed A tenderness round all they said."

Mo ORE.

The evening drew on ere the party thought of leaving the hall. The father repaired, as was his wont, to his well-stored cabinet ; and the two sisters, instead of retiring, each to her separate apartment, entered, as if by chance, one of the untenanted rooms of ^the mansion. It was spa- cious and rather imposing in its aspect ; but for what purpose it had been used in olden time, it was not easy, from its present appearance, to divine. The Christian patriarchs who inhabit the East, such as the Greek and Armenian, have in their

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episcopal dwellings a room of audience, a kind of long, low, and richly-furnished place; — at least, the most costly as well as tasteful articles of furniture beneath the roof are to be found in it. Such, probably, was the use assigned to this chamber, that had evidently once been the most imposing in the episcopal domicile. It was not known which of the many bishops had here made liberal use of his taste and expen- siveness : a painting of the Nativity, not badly executed, was perhaps the most valuable relief to the nakedness of the apartment ; a well- worn and massive sofa, covered with faded em- broidery, stood beside the wall ; and some an- tique ebony chairs, rudely carved, were placed here and there, like forlorn and neglected habi- tants of a wasted territory ; on a shelf were many old books too, chiefly on devotional sub- jects. Here the dignitaries did formerly, per- haps, receive the ecclesiastics as well as neigh- bouring gentry and nobles, who came to pay them homage or respect. Very little use had ever been made of the place by the present in- mates; it was too spacious and cold for their small family. When the rains fell fast and with

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little intermission, or the biting eastern winds prevailed long, the old gentleman was used at times to walk to and fro the long floor, for hours, by way of making amends for the loss of exercise without. At present, however, the early and almost unseasonable heat of the month of May had completely expelled the chilness and dampness of the apartment; and the ex- treme clearness of the evening relieved its gloom. It was seldom that the sisters met here ; and on this occasion, perhaps, it was the conver- sation of the preceding hour that made them more than usually desirous of each other's society. They sauntered through the spacious hall a few moments in silence, gazing on the faded walls and decaying appendages. The younger at last, opening the conversation by something the most foreign to the thoughts that agitated her, ob- served it was singular that the most choice and luxurious apartment of the episcopal dwelling should now be the most desolate."

u It is only an emblem of the changes that happen so often," replied her companion, " in the bosom of families, as well as on the thrones of kings. Look at Charles ! is he not crown-

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less, and his palace forsaken by all of his blood ? — and here, no doubt, the bishops of St. Germain's have sat in their pride, while the first families in the province did them homage. What a mockery is that tattered embroidery now of such a scene !"

"It is so, in truth,1' said Eleanor sadly. " When I walk here at times alone, and look around, the memory of that period comes vividly before me. I picture the prelate seated on the massive sofa, with a look of dignity and sanc- tity that were irresistible ; while the noble, the daring soldier/ the trembling peasant,— all draw nigh. So wrought on has my fancy been, that the pageant seemed to pass before me; and I have almost knelt before the seat, to receive the blessing also."

" It was a beautiful but an overwrought reverie, Eleanor : the imagination, so indulged, often may acquire a dangerous power."

" But I would not be deprived of the plea- sure it gives me. When the light has faded along the dull apartment, sweet and solemn has been the feeling that came over my spirits ; the steps that have so often pressed this floor — steps

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that had turned from the world in scorn and victory ; the words issuing from saintly lips that have poured into the harassed and stricken spirit : I can picture the bloody knight, unable to bear the glance of the prelate's eye ; the timid lady cheered by his smile of mercy. Would that I had lived in those days, and that scene had in truth come before me !"

" It cannot come again,1' the other replied — " that day of power and pride ; you know it cannot ; why, then, regret it so vainly and romantically ? Impressive and splendid as these things were, the mind could not bear them again — no, Eleanor, it could not, in truth, else it had not risen in rebellion, and burst their chain — their empire, then, if you will. The senses and the fancy were charmed for ages; but the reason at last awoke."

" Do not say so, sister ; do not be confi- dent that your own imagination may not be misled or perverted : I would not think slight- ingly of the faith of so many ages — my own too from infancy : I could not bear the loss, 'twould render me weak and defenceless."

" My dear sister," replied Catherine, " let

184 STRATTON HILL.

me not disturb one hope or remembrance of a mind so devoted ; rather cleave to them with the same ardour that you have always felt ; — perhaps with too much ardour on some points," she said, with a smile of irony she could not suppress. " There are bounds to our belief, but Fancy is an enchanter : your favourite, Armelle Nicholas, who was raised above the floor, in the excess of her rapture, does her Life still continue on your table, the favourite theme, the loveliest legend ?"

Eleanor coloured slightly, and her dark eye was turned earnestly on her companion. " Do not make a subject of satire of what surely ought to be held sacred. A delusion ! no, no, it was not so ; she relates it herself with such simplicity, with such a force of truth. But were it so, Catherine, — were it possible for Ar- melle Nicholas to be mistaken, was it not a happy delusion ? How glowing are her words and feelings ! do they not all belong also to a better world, to a higher scene of enjoyment ?"

" They do," the other replied. " I do not blame the subject or the motive ; but the im- probable manner of the description. Such things,

.

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believe me, weaken the mind that gives evidence to them."

" They weaken the mind, you think," said her sister, with increasing animation. " Rather give me that weakness, as you deem it, than the cold strength, the naked and unadorned belief of so many of the present age. Look at the raptures of the modern Puritans, as they are called; their coarse ardour, their repulsive exhibitions, and revolting reveries on sacred things. 'Tis not to your mind, Catherine, that such things as they describe can come ; it is incapable of them : but such is the cause with which — am I not right ? — you have allied your- self. Remember, that the faith you blame was once your own."

Catherine turned to the recess of the gloomy window, beside which she stood, and reclined her head thoughtfully on the massive embra- sure. " She is right," she said to herself. " My poor and enthusiastic sister ! — but a few years since, I was as she is: — a mind so noble too, and yet so credulous ! — Eleanor," she said, " we will not dispute about our respective creeds; it is neither kind nor generous. Think you that

186 STRATTON HILL.

I would have abandoned the religion in which we were both brought up, lightly or carelessly? They were not the visions of the imagination that I felt, but the deep and resistless appeals to the heart. I too have heard strange voices, clasped many a sweet error to my heart, and believed in a cloud of legends and phantoms ; but I cannot do it now. No ; the dark night of illusion is past, and the morning come in its glory, to leave me no more. Forgive the words that have given you pain ; and now let us talk of things of the present moment ; we have both need of each other's counsel."

" Most willingly," said the other ; " for of late, thoughts of future ill have harassed me. It is strange ! but a few weeks past, and I was armed at every point, and prepared for every reverse, even the sternest that might come."

" Those feelings, my sister," replied the for- mer, " were borne, perhaps, in the hour of high and dear emotion ; — in the presence of one for whom every sacrifice seemed light, ere time and change had tried their constancy."

" Do not use the word," said the younger earnestly. " What induced you to try me thus ?

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Time has, in truth, shown me that I was not strong and resistless, as I vainly deemed. But I am hot changed, Catherine : my hopes, my pur- poses are all the same — they are still with me, but no longer bright and animating. They are darkened, ere their truth is tried."

" And when the time comes that shall try their truth, you will not fail in the conflict, Eleanor. I know your heart; do not let^it sink thus beneath evil surmisings. You, an admirer of chivalry, to mourn and wail that your lover is afar, where laurels are gained and names rendered immortal. What if he does think more at this moment of his banner than of his mistress ? 'Tis the failing of a soldier, and may easily be pardoned.""

" Pardoned ! I have forgiven him a thousand times ; — it was so new to him too. I have im- plored blessings on his head ; and in many a sweet moment, that I have knelt before my fa- vourite shrine, in the faded niche of the cathe- dral, it has been revealed to me that Treva- nion would be illustrious in this war. — St. Mary grant it ! — but it was his impassioned desire and mine — yes, it was mine also. — But, Cathe-

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rine," and the transient colour fled from her cheek, Cl I cannot forgive myself. I urged him to take part in this gallant cause ; I placed the sword in his hand, and the casque on his brow, and fanned every fevered desire. He would have married me then : he besought me with tears to join our hands; to retire to Carhayes, to peace and love — dear, delicious images ! Oh, it is a fearful thing to give a new impulse to an aspiring and headstrong spirit ! — it is dan- gerous to bid the love of fame be resistless in the heart, where tenderness and softness have dwelt so long !""

* My dear Eleanor," said the other, striving to calm this torrent of feeling, " why will you thus causelessly agitate yourself? I always thought it ought not to have been deferred ; that your happiness, when certain, should not have been reserved for a future hour, But calm yourself — it is but delayed for a time : it matters not now, when the trial is nearly over. A few weeks, a few months, perhaps, and this cruel war will be closed; and he will return, crowned with fame, with the laurel he will have gained in other battles as well as that of

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Stratton. His name will live in the annals of his country ; and then, to be his bride, Eleanor, — to be the bride of a hero P' she continued, turning the mind of her sister to the theme she knew would be most effective.

" He will be a hero!"" replied Eleanor, u and justly so. Ah ! my noble lover, would that the hour were come ! Well would the flush of vic- tory become his handsome countenance, and the honours of his sovereign sit gracefully on his elegant form. He fought, 'tis said, Ca- therine, on the day of Stratton, in a complete suit of polished steel that glittered in the sun- beams like panoply of silver. Was it not like a knight of chivalry, in the days that are passed ? When he rushed to aid Sir Beville in his ex- tremity, would that I had beheld the field from the plain, or from the dwellings of the town, at that moment ! No tournament ever offered , a more brilliant scene:" and the en- thusiasm of the remembrance bore down the forebodings of sorrow.

" You have drawn a beautiful and seductive picture," Catherine answered. " I shall envy you that hour, Eleanor, of high and exquisite

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enjoyment ; for what can be sweeter than to see our fondest hopes realized, to drink of the cup of which we have so long panted to taste ? And it will come ere long, that hour of accom- plishment.—For me," she said thoughtfully, " I have no warrior to welcome, on whose brow to plant laurels, or to think of his name living illustriously. But what of that ? a devoted spi- rit may be found in the path of peace as well as war : a gifted mind needs not the latter."

" True," said the sister, now wholly under the impression of the moment, and glorying in the superiority of her own admirer : " a sincere and devoted being may, in truth, be found in a quiet path, or an obscure one ; but who that possessed ambition, would wish to remain there, to have no name in the world ? I do not think I could admire, or feel an impassioned attachment for such a character.'"

Catherine replied coldly, that to be an im- pressive character, it was not necessary to be an ambitious or vain one : as the small lake at the foot of the lawn was an inferior spectacle to the sweep of ocean beyond; but then its shores were always lovely and peaceful.

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"But the ocean shore is far more magnifi- cent," returned Eleanor sharply, "though in one respect your simile is not right : the lake wears ever the same aspect, and that is more than every Puritan does."

" What mean you ?" said the elder earnestly. u It is well, Catherine, if you are content :" was the reply ; " 'tis not the choice I should have fancied your proud mind would have made : the quiet and less brilliant character offers a charm, no doubt, of greater security and happiness. — Do not mourn, sister, if the former be your lot rather than the other.'1

" Mourn !" replied Catherine warmly. " I never mourned for a moment ; I have, in truth, little cause, though the knightly crest and plume will not glitter by my side, or the war horse be spurred to his fiery speed. You have talked of the magnificence of the ocean shore : beware of the wrecks and ruined hopes that often cover it!"

" What wreck is greater," said her sister, with some bitterness, " than that perversion of spirit that urges rebellion against its King, and feels a delight in overthrowing an ancient mo- narchy, and bringing convulsion to our doors?

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But the unknown man is not to be relied on. — St. Etha ! to love with ardour, one who jour- neys from cottage to cottage, and seeks only to subvert the simple and loyal mind !"

Catherine started at this reply, and the fiery colour mounted to cheek, temple, and bosom ; for the kindliness of feeling with which the con- versation had commenced, was fast quenching in the rivalry of pretension.

The young woman paced through the apart- ment, and struggled hard with her feelings, for she was naturally haughty and passionate. She could not avoid feeling also that, in family and fortune, Trevanion was a man of higher rank than him she loved ; and a sense of humiliation for a moment stole over her thoughts ; but she cast it from her instantly, as the idea of his worth and honour rose. — " Eleanor," she said, with forced calmness, " you have tried me hard ! An unknown man ! — no, he is not that. I have striven, at first, with my attachment, I will not deny it. It was not the choice, as you have said, that I had pictured: my views were as high as ever your romantic flights have carried you. It boots not to say why I relinquished them ;

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but they fell before a deep and resistless attach- ment, that has been to me more sweet than the dream or reality of heroes sighing at my feet."

" I do not doubt it, Catherine," said the other ; " the greater is the pity, that such an individual should have enchained so entirely your affections. I would have seen my sister a mate for the proudest names in the land, and well would she have graced them."

" What have we to do," replied the former sadly, " to claim high names for ourselves, when the King and the noble are humbled around us like the poorest beggar? Let us rather choose a humbler lot. — Eleanor, it seems to me there is a doom on high-descended names in this war — how they have been scattered, while the low and the mean man rises fast on their fail !"

"True, many a Cavalier has lost mansion and fair domain. Trevanion's fate perhaps, — but by whose deeds is this done ?" she added ; " by men who are rebels to their prince, who creep coolly into the dwellings of their betters, and effect the same mischiefs by their words and acts, as

VOL. II. K

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their braver comrades do in the field by the sword. "

Pity as well as reproach were in the look Catherine turned on her sister, at these cutting reflections. " I have not deserved this," she said ; M I would have calmed that restless and unquiet spirit ; but I cannot bear words like these, that cut deeper than the sword." As she finished these words, unwilling any farther to prolong a conversation that had now grown painful, she quitted the ancient apartment, and left her sister alone. The latter gazed after her earnestly for a moment, and then turned her look, fixedly, yet vacantly, towards the fad- ing light that still struggled through the stone- carved arches of the massive window. With the caprice of a weak yet generous mind, Eleanor's thoughts misgave her for the harsh and un- guarded expressions she had used to her sister, and the little delicacy shown to an attachment she knew to be irrevocable. The melancholy of spirit to which, at intervals, her mind had been prone, seemed now to gather strength in the loneliness of the place and hour ; and the

T»

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high and irritated feelings that had just been cherished, sank very soon into dejection. She clasped her hands sadly on her bosom ; and as gloomy thought after thought coursed wildly there, the tears filled her large dark eye, and stole slowly down the pale and agitated coun- tenance. As she sat thus on the ancient and massive sofa, in the midst of the vast and darkening apartment, it needed no great effort of imagination to believe, while the light yet lingered faintly on her pale countenance and light dress, that she was one of the dreaming and devoted enthusiasts she loved to picture, a St. Madeline, or Rosalie, who had renounced all softness of the heart, ere its power had faded.

K 2

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CHAPTER VIII.

" Outnumber'd, not outbraved, they still oppose Despair to daring, and a front to foes ; And blood is mingled with the dashing stream, That runs all redly till the morning beam."

Byron.

The evening being still warm and beauti- ful without, Miss Dawnay resolved to take ad- vantage of it, and soon after quitted the house, and directed her steps towards the verge of the wood. There was much in the scene to soothe oppressed or anxious thoughts ; the small lakes into which the river Lynher gently ran, were calm and clear, so as to receive the unbroken image of every object that sank on them. The evergreen banks, the willow and birch trees ; a

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mimic ruin of an edifice that stood on a jutting point, built of grey stone after the fancy of the owner, gave their airy and various forms in the hushed water with great distinctness and beau- ty. The latter consisted of two arches, and within, a rude seat was placed : such place suit- ed not, however, the present thoughts of her who passed quickly along the shore, to where the navi- gable waters of the two rivers, here united, moved sluggishly on towards the sea, at a few miles' distance. Many a bark and boat went by, some to the neighbouring fishing creeks, others to more distant ports. The step of the young lady grew slower, as the scene grew more wild and varied, rocks and bold descents in one part, or quiet hamlets and thin clumps of trees, where the bank was more level. At a small distance, the sound of busy and cheerful voices ran along the shore, proceeding from a party of fisher- men, near one of the hamlets, who had entered the stream to some distance, and, extending the long net they carried on every side, had inclosed a quantity of small fish, and were now drawing them to land. Their wives and families stood

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at the door of the cottages, enjoying the busy scene, and the prospect of the plentiful meal which the numerous shoal gave assurance of; some of the older men were seated on the green bank, in all the enjoyment of a serene evening at the end of June. The quiet interest of the scene was soon disturbed by an event that drew every look and feeling away.

A large boat, in which were many persons, was seen rowing rapidly towards the hamlet, and not a voice or a sound came from it, save the quick and hurried plash of the oars, that flung the spray wildly on each side. But it was the silence of fear ; for at no great distance behind was seen another boat, crowded with people, in rapid and fierce pursuit. It was a small party of Royalists endeavouring to escape from the hostility of the Republicans. Although the former had lately been victorious on land, suc- cess had deserted them at sea ; they were the re- mains of the crew of a small vessel of war that had fought with a ship of superior force, and being worsted, had fled in their boat from the mouth of the river, where the engagement took place,

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and had been pursued by the greater part of the enemy's crew. The pursuit, that had con- tinued for several miles, had nearly exhausted the strength of the fugitives, who had vainly wished to push for the shores on either side, during the chase ; but they were turned and baffled in every effort. But the sight of the little hamlet and beach, not far from which they were passing, seemed to offer a favourable place for escape, and it might be of refuge also ; for they knew the people of the country were well affected to their cause. The latter gazed with the deepest interest on the scene that was now rapidly drawing to an issue : the boat that con- tained the rebel crew, urged on by more nu- merous hands, gained rapidly on the other bark : already the quick dash of their oars, and cries of exultation, were heard near at hand: their weapons gleamed and glanced to and fro, as they menaced the pursued ; and those who stood up in the boat strove by their gestures to animate their comrades to increased speed. They were impatient to revenge their bloody defeat at Stratton ; and it too often happened, in this un-

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natural war, that the voice of humanity and mercy was utterly unheeded. On this occasion it was not listened to, though it came earnestly from the lips of every female spectator, old and young : the fair girls of the village looked on, and trembled, while the mothers of families cursed the war, and drew their children closer to their bosoms. The fishermen, stung by the daring approach of the Republicans, as well as by the appeals for help that came from the fu- gitives, as they drew nigh, ran to their boats that were moored at a short distance, all un- armed as they were, and pushed to the spot where the rival barks were now meeting. That meeting was a short and cruel one ; the bank and the hamlet were not more than a few minutes' distance, when the crash of oars and the deep cry of the Parliamentarians, followed by hurried and heavy blows, announced that the fugitives had now no chance of escape. They turned, however, and fought desperately, animated by the sight of the fishing barks hast- ening to their aid. Catherine, fixed to the spot, gazed on the scene in terror and anguish : for

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the first time the miserable reality of war was brought before her eyes. She saw the pursuers and pursued bleeding and falling alternately beneath each other's blows : some fell into the river, and were wafted gently by the slow cur- rent to the bank, while its waters were colour- ed with their blood. Such was the rage with which they fought, that the boat reeled to and fro to the very edge of the stream, as its nu- merous crew, impeding each other, rushed for- ward to the front of the assault. At this mo- ment, a light skiff was seen approaching from the opposite shore, conducted by a single pas- senger : he was a young man of good appear- ance, dressed in a handsome cloak, and bonnet lined with velvet, and eagerly urged his light bark to the spot. He came only at the close of the strife, and, unarmed as he was, strove by his efforts to mitigate the rage .of the assail- ants ; and seeing one of the latter about to cut down a Royalist, already wounded, and almost defenceless, he warded off the sabre blow with his lifted paddle, with which he struck the as- sailant into the stream, and in the next moment, K 5

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with a cry of surprise and joy, sprung from his own boat to the side of the man he had saved. It was Carries, wandering from the village of Kilkhampton on one of his favourite rambles : all of which were not so timely or fortunate as the present.

Fast as the fishing-boats hastened to the aid of the Royalists, they came too late to save more than a few of their number, so rapid had been the work of slaughter. Springing into their bark, snatching the weapons of those who had fallen, some of the fishermen commenced a fu- rious onset on the rebel crew ; while the other boats, hemming them in on every side, made their strong oars serve the purpose of more effective weapons. The latter, their numbers thinned by the fight, and their love of ven- geance, sharpened by the long pursuit, in some measure satiated, drew off from the unequal contest ; and plying their oars, slowly retreated, with many a curse and threat on the people who had snatched from their hands the remnants of their prey. The horrors of the scene had ceased to the spectators1 eye, but its fruits were still

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lingering before it; they were ready to exclaim, when they saw the retreating enemy, " Surely the bitterness of death and cruelty is passed ;" but when they saw the mangled bodies, to some of whom life yet clung, floating on the tranquil stream, or lying on the smooth beach at their feet, and those who survived in the bark, faint and bleeding, from the strife, the women of the hamlet clasped their hands, and burst forth into cries of pity and rage, while the men gave more active and efficient aid. They brought the Royalist boat to the shore, and conducted those who survived into their cottages, praising at every step the bravery that had taught the crop-ears so severe a lesson.

Miss Dawnay drew nigh to the place of the conflict, the termination of which she had beheld with eager joy, blessing the timely succour given to the overpowered Royalists ; and now, anxious to render all the aid in her power, she ap- proached, and spoke to some of the fishermen, to whom she was well known, and bade them con- duct some of the rescued men to her home, where they should be well and kindly pro-

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vided for. The men were some of them grate- ful, and others seemed too much occupied by rage and fury, to give any attention to words of kindness, and threw long and fierce glances after the slowly retiring bark of the enemy. But when the bodies of some of their dead and dying comrades were carried by, by the fishermen, the lady shuddered, and shrunk back involun- tarily, and took refuge from the sight, in one of the groups of females that were gathered around. Not so, perhaps, when the man who had been the object of so many painful thoughts drew nigh, following the Royalist whose death- blow he had arrested, and whom he regarded with the deepest sympathy, as he was borne helpless to one of the huts. Observing Miss Dawnay, he was quickly at her side, and a hur- ried salutation was exchanged. The words that passed but ill expressed, it may be, the feelings each was conscious of at the moment; for this meeting was entirely unhoped for and unexpected. The latter was rejoiced to meet with one she knew in a scene of such tumult and confusion, and as she was still greatly agitated, he pro-

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posed entering one of the dwellings to rest awhile, ere they returned home. It stood apart, almost at the extremity of the grassy bank. The wailing and the noises that still conti- nued without, rose not in the interior of this humble dwelling; hushed and subdued sounds were there, that denoted the presence of some object of distress or pity ; for on the low bed was laid the man who had been griev- ously hurt in the fray, and whose span of life seemed drawing to a close. He was not young, though still in the prime of life, with a pale and foreign aspect, and features strongly ex- pressive of intellect, with a wildness of eye that denoted his Servian origin. " What a sore incomin' of sorrow upon the poor man I" said one of the female bystanders ; " far away from his own land and keene, and his eye is rovin' as if he saw them e'en now ; but they canna come to 'en." At this moment, his look fell on the group that entered, and a sudden feeling of delight spread over his features, as he raised his hand to intreat them to draw near. Carries gazed with strong interest on the wounded man ;

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it was his attached servant and companion in his hazardous journeyings ; he pressed his out- stretched hand ardently in his own, and stooped and kissed his pallid brow. " Miraelitz, do we meet again thus ?"

" My master ! my dear master I11 he said, *c it is a joy to me to see you once more. I always loved you, and would have travelled with you to the end of the world ; you know I never cared for death, and I do not fear it now — 'tis drawing nigh."

" I know you did not ; but my faithful and devoted follower, you are dying ; — what had you to do in this quarrel ?"

" You know," he replied, " quiet and a set- tled life were my dread from childhood ; and when you besought me to come with you to your own land, and never to leave you, I said I could not ; 'twould wear out my life. I tried it

in a palace, with Lord R , for two years,

till I longed for the plains to which my foot had been used — it will visit them no more for ever."

w Would to Heaven !" said the other, " you

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had come with me, then would this have been avoided. "

" After parting from you," he replied, " I went again to my own eastern home, and jour- neyed through Armenia with a party of mer- chants ; but it was not so happy a journey as with you ; our lonely wanderings in the deserts; our captivity, and the long converse we used to hold, to beguile the weary time there. You said we were like that banished people that sat down by the river's side, and wept for their own land ; but I had no sorrow, for all lands were the same to me. My heart loved change, and so did yours ; and when we had been a few days in a place, that was like a Paradise at first, you would say — c Come Miraelitz, let us take down our tents, and go to a new city or wild, for this is grown dull and withered to the eye;' they were your very words."" His eye grew yet brighter at these recollections ; and the anguish he felt seemed quite forgotten. Carries made no reply, but turned to the lady beside him.

" This is that faithful attendant, Miss Daw-

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nay, of whom you have often heard me speak — a man far superior both in his mind and man- ners to the condition in which he moved ; but in what manner he came from that distant land, or why he mingled in this civil strife, I know not."

" Why I mingled in it P" returned the other. " You know I loved fighting ; you remember the skirmish with the Bedouins. And all being in peace up the Levant, I heard of this war from the sailors of an English merchant-ship, that their countrymen were fighting for their liberty ; and I hated despotism from my heart ever since I left my Servian home to serve a Turkish lord, curse on his head and his Prophet too ! So I took my passage for this country, and joined the side of the people. One of their ships passed my own but a few days since, and I went on board her.1'

" Would that I had come but a few mo- ments sooner !v said the ether ; Ci I have some influence with the enemy, and might have turned aside their vengeance, and saved your life,"

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" As I have saved yours,"" he replied, " more than once ; but yours was a charmed life. I have seen the people of the desert, who would have crushed hardier and fiercer men, suffer you to go on unharmed ; but mine is a fated life. Why am I to sleep here, rather than in one of the famous scenes we have traversed ? You will see them again, the rich plains and si- lent valleys, — you will see them again ! O that I might be at your side !" And he closed his eyes, as if the far scene was again before them, while his lips moved earnestly.

" They were beautiful," said Carries, deeply affected ; " my friend in every sorrow and peril, we are not parted from them for ever ; no, not yet, Miraelitz. But this is despair, and not the high courage you always had ; your wounds may not be mortal; recollect the grievous one you received once."*

" What, in the wilderness !" said the other with a sudden exulting look, " when Achmed would have betrayed you. Ah ! would that I had died there — the pure climate that I loved, the wild hills and mountains always bright, and

210 STRATTON HILL.

the cave where the prophet lived, where you knelt and prayed. Why do we not wander there still ? I had not been cut down by the Royalist's sabre. Is that the light of the moon or sun falling on the bed ? 'tis so pale and faint to what it was in that country; and you, my dear master, are you happy now as then ? your frame is thinner, and your face more pale. Place the covering on my feet, for they are cold as death ; the last time you did so was at the foot of Sinai, when the fierce fever took me — you remember it, and how I wished to die there. " Seeing that the latter only answered him by his tears, he continued, but more faintly, " Life is ebbing from me fast ; but tell me, ere I leave you for ever, shall you remain here in your own land, and alone too ? We often talk- ed," he said with a smile, while the hue of death gathered fast on his features, " of going into Circassia in search of beauty," — and seeing the fine countenance of Catherine bent over him at that moment, he paused, — " such was my dear sister in Servia, the only one I ever loved but him ; the same dark eye, full of kindness, the

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same rich cheek ; and now she will be friend- less ! Oh, if I have served you faithfully, think of her, care for her ; and should you go again, seek for the village of Silia, where she lives. And now," lifting up his eyes, " I will try to think of Him that you often entreated me to think of. I have bowed at the shrine of the Prophet, the Greek, the Armenian ; but it was to make your way lighter. May He forgive me, and make my way light to the place I am going ! You laughed at the Prophet's heaven, and so have I ; yet, 'tis strange how his gardens and rich groves of eternal beauty, and rushing rivers, come before me now — my parents taught me to believe in them — but it cannot be ! Fare- well ! do not turn your look away ; so did you look on me when the Turkish lady that you loved was slain." He turned his face gently towards his pillow, and breathed his last.

The grief of the wanderer for the death of his companion was extreme ; as he gazed on his countenance, recollections of the past came in their full power, when this man had watched his slumbers, screened him from the wasting

212 STRATTON HILL.

blast and heat, and been his only friend in many a friendless land. He clasped the pale thin hand that had often been his defence and shield, and turning to Miss Dawnay, who strove to comfort him, poured blessings on the head that was now silent in death.

After some time, he rose from his seat, and giving directions that every care should be taken of the remains previous to their interment, they left the cottage and walked slowly towards the mansion. The conversation was wholly on the scene they had just witnessed, and the sangui- nary one by which it had been preceded. They soon arrived at the small lake, and paused on its banks as the night came slowly over the water. It was not in admiration of the silent scene that they paused; but this was in unison with the saddened feelings of each ; the soft rippling of the water on its grassy shore, the gentle passing of the night-wind over its surface, the shadowy form of the slander arches of the mimic ruin, were sights and sounds that came sooth- ingly after hours of such cruel agitation. Quit- ting the spot, they soon arrived at the door of

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Mr. Dawnay's dwelling ; and Carries, declining to accept the entreaty of his companion to enter, aware, probably, that he would not be there a very welcome visitor to all, and saying that he should find a resting place in the adjoining vil- lage of St. Germain's, bade the latter a hurried adieu. On entering the house, Catherine found her father grievously disturbed in his beloved study by the arrival of three or four of the defeated Royalists from the hamlet, and he had need of all his loyalty to sustain the invasion with patience and equanimity. With a moss- covered fragment of a wall in one hand, and a candle in ihe other, he stood in the passage with a surprised and bewildered air, gazing on the harassed men as if they had come to sack his cabinet, and asking them questions as to their design or destination. The timely arrival of his daughter, however, put all matters to rights ; he listened to the detail with interest, and cordially agreed to show every hospitality to men who had suffered almost at his own door in so righteous a cause. He was shortly after joined in the saloon by the ladies, after they had

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personally directed every care and kindness to be shown their visitors. Eleanor, highly inte- rested, asked repeated questions respecting the events of the evening, regretting that she had not been a spectator of them. Fatigued with her long walk, and indisposed for conversation, Catherine soon after retired to her apartment ; it was not as yet to seek repose, but rather to give unrestrained indulgence to her excited feelings. Thoughts of tenderness, where they previously exist, cannot have a softer or surer aid than a scene of sorrow ; with the varied and fearful one of to-night they were strangely and affectingly blended. The desperate fray, the harrowing feelings it had excited — the arrival of Carries at that moment — he was safe too and unscathed from the hard treatment he had ex- perienced, save in the fixed paleness of his as- pect— then the scene between his dying attend- ant, so devotedly attached to him, even to the last. It wanted not these things to place him in an amiable light in this young woman's view; but they threw, on this occasion, a dearer inte- rest, it seemed, over his person and character ;

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these had been long known to her by reputation. Trevanion had sometimes spoken of him as a singular and interesting being, who was among the few that opposed the Royal cause from pure and disinterested motives ; and caused it more harm in his mild and noiseless career, than many of the warmer enthusiasts did by their sword. It was only at the close of the last year that she had chanced to meet him at the house of an ac- quaintance ; and since that time, though he had rarely visited at her father's house, their inti- macy had continually increased. And was this man her lover ? thoughts like these, from such a woman, deserved the most devoted, the most enslaved attachment — he had never spoken on the subject — his lips had never uttered a word : but the soul speaks ere the voice, and Cathe- rine Dawnay had heard its still resistless word.

216 STHATTON HILL.

CHAPTER IX.

P The battle cry at this dead hour :

What swiftly moves along the height ?

Some signal — 'tis the spoiler's light, —

What bodes its solitary glare?"

Moore.

When Carries took leave of his fair com- panion, he bent his steps straight to the neigh- bouring village, certain of finding an asylum for the night in one of its dwellings. He was not disappointed ; the door was opened with a kindly greeting ; though no carpeted saloon or rich viands were there, extreme neatness and looks of welcome gave a relish to every thing. The hours of the following day passed heavily in the stillness of the place ; and the evening that brought coolness to the close and sultry bosom of the dell, had seldom been more wel-

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come to his eye. On the morrow, he intended to leave the neighbourhood, with a spirit more restless and passion-tossed than ever.

He had retired some time to his narrow chamber, and, not disposed to rest, sat gazing on the darkening woods that crowned the gentle declivity on which the window opened, when distant shouts on a sudden caught his ear, like those of men engaged in some daring deed ; there was a pause — the sounds rose again, but now they were close at hand ; and quickly after, a fierce light fell on the still and deep woods above, succeeded by cries of alarm and distress. He quitted his apartment and hastened into the open air, where a single glance revealed the cause of this night alarm. It was a small body of the enemy, that had penetrated to the hitherto quiet and unmo- lested village.

He saw among these men the faces of the party that had pursued the Royalists up the river two days before, and had caused the des- perate fray near the hamlet. Enraged at being baffled in their object by the interference of the neighbouring people, they had resolved, under

VOL. II. L

218 STRATTON HILL.

cover of the night, aided by their remaining comrades, to plunder the village of St. Ger- main's.

It was an easy achievement, as the shore, off which their vessel was anchored, was but a few miles distant. The villagers, astonished at an assault of which they had never dreamed, start- ed from their beds and ran from their cottages in wild confusion ; but the assailants were now in the heart of the place, and met with no re- sistance to their progress: their cheers broke loudly on the silence of the night, as they entered one dwelling after the other, and rapid- ly stripped them of all that was valuable. To strike a deeper terror, they had fired two or three of the dwellings, and the flames rose and flashed over the narrow dell with a strange and unnatural light : had an earthquake shaken and entombed woods, hamlet, and ruin, it could not have amazed the people more. The lonely dwelling in which the last Lord Abbot had died, its wooden portico and single oak-tree before the door, were fired and burned sadly and slowly down ; the latter, that had been a shadow from the noon-day heat, crashed and

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fell into the red stream beneath, that bore it onwards to the sea.

Carries saw, with indignant feelings, this havoc and outrage on the^illage, but stayed not long to contemplate it, for he heard words from the band of more daring import ; he rushed into the wood on the right, and soon left the scene far behind. In a short time, he drew nigh the dwelling of the Dawnays on the de- clivity of the hill : the inmates were buried in repose, but a light still appeared in one of the windows. He knocked loudly at the door, and was admitted by the favourite attendant, Honor, the only one of the family who was still awake, She uttered some exclamations of wonder at his appearance at such an hour, and held the door but half open in her hand, cautious of allowing a speedy entrance. He bade her instantly call her master and the ladies, and say that a band of the rebels from the shore had attacked the village, and would shortly make their way to the dwelling ; and without uttering another word, she fled with all the speed her feet could exert to her ladies' chamber with the fearful intelligence. l 2

220 STRATTON HILL.

A few minutes had hardly expired, when the sisters rushed into the saloon, to which the visitor had ascended, and were soon joined by the father. " I have the sword of Sir Regi- nald left," he said, " and it cannot be drawn in a better cause. Alas ! I never thought to see the feet of rebels enter the faded palace of St. Germain's. But whence came you here, young man ?" he said sternly, observing the intruder for the first time ; " how do I know but you are leagued with these spoilers ?"

The latter made no reply, but turning to the large window of the saloon, pointed to the dis- tant glare that rose to the sky. Sounds too were heard issuing from the wood, and the distant cries came through the silence of the night to the ears of the startled family.

" There is not a moment to lose," he said ; " resistance is madness ; you must fly from the mansion, and leave it, for a time at least, to the mercy of the enemy : succour cannot be far off, for I marked some of the peasants rallying as I left."

" He speaks the truth, my father," said Ca- therine, deeply agitated ; " there is no other way

STRATTON HILL. 221

of safety — and see, they come ! — Carries, you will not leave us in this hour of extremity r11

"It is for that I am come," he replied ; " for your dwelling is remote, and no aid nigh ; you can easily fly down the lawn towards the river, to the fishing-hamlet, before these ma- rauders come."

So saying, he led the way; the old gentle- man, with a daughter hanging on each arm, and Honor and Huey bringing up the rear ; the two other domestics refusing to quit the dwelling. " To think," said the former, with great bitterness of accent, as she stepped over the threshold, "of being hurried in this way, out of a warm dwellin1 ; how dark the earth and sky is, and the meadow ! — Oh, Miss Eleanor ! what will become of. all the precious relics and things that's left behind, and the picture of that young saint dyin1 ? so handsome ! these wild men ha" no fear nor love of sitch things."'

" Tes'n a time for talkin' now, Honor,11 said her companion, in a gruff voice : " make more use o1 your legs, and keep your tongue quiet.11

" And that may do very well for you, Huey i'1 was the reply, " that ha' got a pair like two hop

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poles, with a. thin quever of a body put upon them ; but mine are somewhat o' the shortest, though I always say, as one that kens what a leg ought to be says, that a short one is far more takin' than a long one in a woman ; but there's no steppin' so fast, and the lawn is quite steep heres Huey ! — But look at master — how he's fixed like a mill stone in the grass."

And this was true ; for the old gentleman, turning his eyes suddenly towards the village, uttered a loud exclamation of sorrow, and stood like Niobe mourning for her slain.

The noble front and ivy clad towers of the cathedral were seen wrapped in a sheet of red and fiery light, that flashed through every faded window and archway. Each rent that time had made grew fearfully visible, and through the massive portal the vivid glare was thrown on the interior, on the slender pillar, tomb, and broken pavement, as if the hour of their final destruction was come. The birds, that had long made the ruin their dwelling place, rose in clouds from the walls, and flew with wild cries into the depths of the wood.

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" It burns — the abbey burns !" said the father wildly.

" No," said Catherine, looking earnestly at the scene, " I do not think it : His surely but the reflection of the flame from the dwellings; there is no smoke visible."

" Look how it gathers on the western wall !" he said ; " see how the massive windows glow, and the niche beside !!1

" And that 's the worst of all," said Honor, breaking in, " for that 's the very place where St. Teath, Miss Eleanor's saint, is, in the hole in the south wall; shell be burnt, as sure as can be : 'twill be a sad downcome for her, that ha'' stood so long ; she '11 be roasted like a martyr."

" This is the height of folly," said the guide, " to waste the few moments that are left us ; if you stand here, Sir, gazing on the ruin instead of flying, the enemy will be here."

This pause was fatal for their escape ; for, as he spoke, the band of the rebels issued from the wood on the right, and rapidly drew nigh the spot. They looked first at the nearly deserted mansion, to plunder which, a part of their

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force advanced to the gate, while the remainder sought to intercept the fugitives. This was easily done, and the latter soon saw their retreat arrested, near the bank of one of the lakes, by a party of lawless men, inflamed by their success, and resolved to push it to extremity. " This is the rankest Royalist family," said one of the men, " in all these parts, and we can't do better, after we 've stripped the house, than to carry them aboard."

" You dare not use this violence !" said Mr. Dawnay. " What led you to assail a family that has taken no part in the war, in word or deed ? You II quickly repent it ; you know there is a garrison at Stowe, that will track your steps as surely as a bloodhound."

<fc Stowe," said the Republican sternly ; " 'tis too far to hear sound of this onset. I 'd give my share o' to-night's work to be as near that cursed den of the Cavaliers as I am to your walls, my old friend, with a stronger band. But come, this parleyin' won't do. — Ah ! by St. Gregory ! that "s the youth that struck me into the stream in the fray of the river yesterday I

STRATTON HILL. 225

I'll be revenged," he said, drawing one of the pistols from his belt.

" Don't hurt him," said Catherine, placing herself instantly before the latter. " You shall only harm his life by first taking mine. You dare not ; he is a Republican like yourselves, and has fought for your cause."

Carries stepped from the side of the generous girl, and confronted the assailants, among whom he fortunately recognized two or three men who had fought under him at the battle of Edgehill. He raised his bonnet, so that the star light fell full on his features. " Do you remember your officer?" he said. The men testified their recol- lection by pronouncing his name with evident satisfaction. " Then what make you here,'1 he continued, " with this cowardly night attack on defenceless peasants and women ? Disarm that villain and retire ; follow the work of spoil with your comrades; but touch not a hair of this family's head, nor stay their retreat for a moment." The men he addressed- loudly declared against further violence, in which they were joined by most of the party ; L 5

2£6 STRATTON HILL.

and, in spite of the murmurs and curses of the man who had headed them, they wheeled round, and made hastily towards the dwelling. The rescued party pursued their way straight to the shore, to where the hamlet stood, sheltered from the tumult. They had not long arrived there, when the mingled sounds from the hill announced that the peasants had rallied, and returned on their assailants, who, after a stout and protracted resistance, were obliged to re- treat to the beach, cursing the dwelling for the sake of whose plunder they had lost the fruits of their inroad. The fugitives were soon lodged in two or three of the fishers' huts; and, certain of the preservation of their home, resolved to remain in the hamlet, rather than return to the scene of disorder in the darkness.

Carries too sought his chamber, but not to sleep: the hurried scenes of the evening drove it from his eyes.

The coarse rafters above his head, the low roof and broken floor, were welcome ; for the place was a palace to the imagination of the inmate, at whose side the woman he loved seem- ed again to stand ; her hurried eye, her out-

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stretched hand, and indelible words rang in his ear. Hour after hour fled, till the starlight faded, ere sleep came ; and then the desert seemed again around him ; he paused near an Arab cemetery in the wild, and one of the rude stones seemed to rise from its resting place, and his attendant slowly beckoned him to come and dwell there; and pointed to the precipice and sand, and, with a ghastly smile, said he had ever loved them, and now they must be around him for ever. The grey light of the morning at last came through the window that looked out on the river, and bade these visions depart : he gladly left the cottage, and followed the path along the shore. The loud 1mm of voices was not yet there, nor was the tide broken by a single bark.

The shore was bold and winding ; his steps sometimes circled round a jutting point, and the next moment descended into a grassy glen, while the stream ran calm and silently by. Seating himself on a moss covered rock, close to the water's edge, he watched the rays of the sun slowly steal over the scene.

Hearing the soft sound of approaching steps, he turned, and saw Catherine Dawnay ad vane-

%%8 STRATTON HILL.

ing along the shore. The calmness and fresh- ness of the morning had led her to choose this path, and she walked on slowly, unconscious of the presence of a being in the place. Her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground, and the rich colour that always wantoned in her cheek was heightened by the pure breeze; her air and step were those of a proud woman, yet of one whose pride at this moment was combated by a more master passion.

"Is it you P'1 she said hurriedly, as her look was turned for a moment on his moveless figure. " I had not thought to find a human being in this lonely path ; but midnight and sun-rise are your wandering hours. We can never thank you enough for the service of last night.1'

" Speak not of it," he said ; " this cruel war is full of such events ; and we cannot avoid them, whether we sit down inactive spectators, or mingle in the strife.'*

"Who could have thought the war would have so fearfully broken on our slumbers ? But your look is harassed and dejected, " she said earnestly ; " the prison in the Castle has done you much ill."

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" Not so," he said ; f you see me here un- scathed in spirit and in strength, as before the cell was my dwelling place: I loved its walls, for my adherence to the cause of liberty brought me there. I know not if I did wisely in quitting the ranks of freedom ; but the sight of the blood that flowed so often, the sacked mansion, the houseless families driven forth, as you were last night, by those accursed villains, sickened me early of the fruits of civil war.,,

" You have done right, most right," said his fair companion ; " but it has been said by some, but they knew you not, that you loved not action, that to brave danger was not your choice — in fine, that your words were brighter than your sword."

He gazed at the speaker with impassion- ed earnestness, at the dark and indignant eye that showed how dear to her was his fame.

" Miss Dawnay," he said with a smile, " they knew me not that said it. Does it ask more hardihood to rush into one of those fierce and exciting fights, such as Stratton or Edgehill,

230 STRATTON HILL.

than to preserve amidst long privations and defenceless solitudes, a patient and enduring spirit ? To bear contempt too, and contumely ; and, harder than all," he continued sadly, " the severing for ever from those who have come like a bright vision on our path ?"

u What severing do you speak of?" she asked earnestly : " you have often told me of the troubles of your path, but you never told me of any bitterness of the soul it caused you— of what nature was it ?"

" It was not a slighted passion," he replied, " or a broken vow ; they leave deep traces be- hind ; but not so deep as a happiness that was slain suddenly, just as the heart was shrined in it. I thought it had faded from my heart ; but yesterday, his last words — my faithful com- panion ! — made the past come like a torrent to remembrance. He spoke of an eastern lady — she was beautiful, and I loved her ; but she perished by the sword ;" and he placed his hand on his brow, to veil the emotions that gathered there.

It is seldom a welcome thing to speak to one

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woman of a violent attachment cherished for another ; but when the object so enchanting is passed from the " world of love and tears,11 and 'tis memory only that hovers round what she once was, envy and rivalry come not there. The hues of Catherine's cheek changed often from bright to pale, as the other told in a few words, how that lady had been lost to him.

" 'Tis a sad tale," she said, turning her agi- tated countenance away from the speaker's gaze : kt I knew not of this before. Then you have brought a withered heart to your own land ? — 'twas a dear price to pay for your wan- derings."

" Say not," he said, " that my heart is blighted ; many a hope, many an illusion were scattered and broken, and I fled the scene where they had been cherished : but a brighter hope opened at last, that shall never, I trust, pass away."

" Mr. Carries," said his companion with a forced smile, " 'tis said that you were ever prone to change, and that all places, and, it may be, feelings, begin to weary on you after a time.

232 STRATTON HILL.

Is it any wonder if bitter regret and disappoint- ment should give way in turn to happier emo- tions ?"

" It is not so," he replied earnestly, <s though I have given some cause for the saying ; but ought this to have come from your lips, whose slightest breath I feel deeply ? Yet the oppres- sor's chain may come again, and my path be desolate and despised, so that those loved words are my meed, 'you shall only reach his life by taking mine ;' they were the dearest sounds I ever heard, and I blessed the weapon that caused them. — But not again," he said in a suppressed tone, " let that bitterness come into my soul ; — the lips I once listened to breathed fragrance, yet I saw them cold and sealed— and here, too, 1 may clasp a broken reed."

He rose from the rock on which they were seated, and paced along the strand, on which the stream came with a gentle sound, as if in mockery of the conflict that struggled in his breast. He knew she was not indifferent to his attachment ; but he dared not be confident that, was he to declare it, success would follow.

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He knew her to be haughty, that her family was of illustrious descent, her rank in the world superior to his own, and her father in- vincibly prejudiced. He looked on her as she sat, her head resting on her hand, that was half buried in the luxuriance of her auburn hair, and her eye, that had lost its self com- mand, turned hurriedly on the rapid stream. Yet he misjudged himself; even now, while he doubted and feared even to agony, her heart was wholly, devotedly his own. It was strange how this wanderer acquired his ascendancy over the female heart ; he had found in the far lands he had traversed, where personal rather than intellectual dignity is the most valued, that where men had passed him by without notice, the dark eye of woman had been turned on him with interest and even tenderness. He owed this, perhaps, to the mixture of extreme gentle- ness and simplicity of character, with high en- ergy of spirit and feeling, when the occasion called it forth.

Indolent and self-indulgent, giving way for days and weeks to rich and fanciful prospects,

234 STRATTON HILL.

place but the object of his hope in -view, whether it was a spot of high natural beaut}r, or of glorious name, or the lovely form of the woman he sought, and his eye flashed with joy ; no obstacle or peril could arrest his onward path, or the fiery blasts beating on his delicate frame.

" Miss Dawnay," said the latter, after a pause, in which he vainly strove to summon confidence, "I am come to bid you adieu ; I can be thus no longer. We have talked, have wandered, have read together : those hours can return no more."

" Where will you go, William ? and why part from me thus ? I am no evil genius in your path," she replied in a voice that trembled with emotion : " this is some sudden resolution, some wayward fancy, like many a former one."

" It is not a sudden fancy," he said ; " I am resolved to prove my fate, or go forth again a wanderer. — Catherine, I love you passionately — and have struggled — no, not for victory, that I could not do ; but to arm myself against the ruin of my love, and that ruin would send me

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forth once more — desolate ! to go where no heart beat for me ; to leave behind me the only spirit to which mine is bound for ever, the only

woman The desert shall again be my home,

and its parched sands my bed, — they will have no terrors, not even the death blast, that bids love and sorrow cease for ever.1'

She raised not her eyes to his during this avowal, but the plaintive sweetness of his voice fell on her ear like calm and delicious music ; each haughty feeling fled at the images his words placed before her ; her head drooped lower, and she burst into a flood of tears.

No lover ever mistook that sign of tender- ness ; and he sat beside her, and taking her hand in his, pressed it ardently to his lips. This was the happiest moment of the wander- er's life, and he felt it to be so. To be the object of this high-minded woman's attachment, to be assured that her hope, her joy, and her despair centered only in him ; the glowing cheek that rested on his shoulder ; the dark eye that told far more than words ; the light tresses that were gently waved to and fro on

236 STRATTON HILL.

the snowy neck, as the breeze swept freshly from the stream. These thoughts were not long cherished ; Catherine rose from the mossy seat, the colour mantling to her very brow. " We must part," she said ; " the sun spreads fast on the hills beyond, and my father and sister will wonder at my stay ; for we must return to the home from which we were so rudely scared. Adieu ! we leave the hamlet instantly."

" To-morrow we will meet again," he replied : " I shall seek your grey dwelling, Catherine, though I have shunned to enter it as I would the hold of Despair ; but now hope leads me on."

She waved her hand, but there was no denial in the gesture ; and disappeared round a pro- jecting point of the shore. In an hour after, the family were on their way to the mansion, attended by a few of the fishermen, who had re- turned from their employ in the course of the night, should any stragglers of the enemy be still lurking about. To the no small joy of its inmates, the dwelling was found to have suffered little damage by the attack, save the plunder of

STRATTON HILL. 23?

some articles, of no great value ; and the two ancient domestics took no small credit for resting within the walls, bolting the doors, and sending forth shrill cries for succour from the windows. The storm, however, was past, and things soon returned to their usual tranquillity and order.

On the following day, when the sisters were seated in the saloon, and the old gentleman was busied at his cabinet, a visitor was announced ; but as his inquiry was only for the latter, he was forthwith ushered by the domestic into his presence. The master of the dwelling raised his head from his earnest occupation, and bowed coldly as he saw Carries enter the apartment. Surprise was in his face ; and a darker feeling would soon have joined it, had not memory kept it down. "You are welcome," he said kindly, " I am glad to see you thus, to ex- press my deep sense of the service you ren- dered to my family the other evening, with- out which -"

" Do not name it," replied the other ; " I shall ever deem that moment the happiest of

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my life : may I hope it will convince you I am not such a rebel as you think me, that my heart does not delight in bringing disorder and bloodshed on my native land ?"

" It may be so," said the other hastily ; " it is so, no doubt : I am bound to believe it : but re- member, young man, you have been in arms against the King, and are even now hostile to his rights."

" I will not deny it," replied the latter ; iC but in these convulsed times, when scarcely one man thinks like his neighbour, is it kind or just to make warring opinions the cause of dislike and enmity ?"

" Enough," said Mr. Dawnay warmly ; " we will speak no more on this subject ; allow me to repeat, that the aid we received, and the generous spirit with which you gave it, have my warmest gratitude. Can I do ought to prove my high sense of your conduct ?" His visitor then dis- claiming all merit for the trifling service of the previous night, spoke freely and with ardour of his attachment to his daughter ; and implored that he would wave his political hostility in this

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case, and consent to allow his addresses. The father heard him patiently, looked earnestly at him while he spoke, but without anger, and leaned his head thoughtfully on the table at which he was seated. " This could not be," he said at last, "except there was a kindred feeling elsewhere. You dared not come here, young man, on this unwelcome mission to me, did you not know that its success would be welcome to a heart that is bound up in my own. — St. Benedict ! must I consent that my daughter wed a rebel, or one who has been such ? No, no, the house of Dawnay must not stoop so low. Yet how nobly she stepped before him that evening, and offered her own bosom to the ball rather than his. I marked her look : woman never dares like this except from a deep and determined feeling. I know not, Sir, how this has been ; nor where you gained her regard, or she descended to receive yours, I will not inquire. Urge me no more ; I will not consent. — Her happiness ! say you ? Cathe- rine has a strong and clear spirit that will not wither before this blast : I am sure it will not.

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Farewell, young man ; you have my esteem, my grateful remembrance ; but to give you my child, it cannot be."

The latter stood silent a few moments beneath this blow, his mild features filled with anguish, and his eye bent at times with intreaty, and then with pride, on the father. He bowed at last and retired, carrying with him a deeper anguish of spirit than his chequered life had vet known.

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CHAPTER X.

" Cold was the evening breeze, the day was brief, Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf, The dew dwelt ever on the herbs, the woods Roar'd with strong blasts, with mighty showers the floods."

The tide of war, that had advanced but a few weeks since into the heart of Cornwall, had receded rapidly, and at this time not an enemy's foot was on its soil. The royal forces, after their victory of Stratton, had found their pro- gress eastward uninterrupted ; and reinforce- ments from all quarters, as had been foreseen, began to flock to their standard. Advancing straight to Saltash, and leaving small garrisons in the few fortified places by the way, they

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passed through the heart of Devonshire, pre- serving a strict good conduct towards the people of the country. They wisely resolved not- to waste their time or resources in the siege of Exeter, as it was defended by a sufficient gar- rison, and the inhabitants were well inclined to the cause of the Parliament. The Earl of Stamford, after his defeat, had thrown himself into this town with a part of his scattered forces, and with each proud hope laid prostrate. Ruthven, and one or two more of his officers, had left him, to offer their services to some more fortu- nate leader. With rage as well as mortification, he saw the enemy, their banners being in full view from the walls, march coolly and securely past the town, and leave it in their rear. During the advance, they received intelligence, that the King had sent Prince Maurice and the Marquis of Hertford with a good body of horse to join them. It was about the middle of June that these noblemen, with seventeen hundred horse, and one thousand new levied foot, came to Chard, a small town in Somerset, where they were met by the Cornish army. The latter

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consisted of four thousand excellent foot, eight hundred dragoons, and a good train of artil- lery, with supplies and stores of all kinds. The Marquis, as well as his colleague, was not a little surprised to see this fine body of men ad- vancing in such array, and so well provided, to meet him ; for he had rather expected to see a wild and ill-armed host, disorderly in their march, however brave in battle. It was re- solved by the united forces, first to invest Taunton, one of the richest and largest towns in Somerset, and entirely attached to the Com- mons, who held it by a garrison. The royalists had little trouble to obtain the place ; for, on their near approach, the garrison fled precipi- tately, and in a few days the former were pos- sessed of several strong towns, as well as Dun- star Castle, the situation of which was consi- dered to be impregnable. The rapid and easy successes which now attended their arms could not be reasonably expected to continue much longer ; the forces of the Commons had given sufficient proof in other parts of the kingdom, that they were disposed to make a stubborn

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as well as desperate struggle for their rights. The formidable force of Waller was rapidly drawing nigh, and the fate of the entire West must soon be decided in the open field. The troops which had arrived under Maurice, how- ever, conducted themselves as if all action and peril were at an end, and they had only to revel in the plentiful quarters of this fertile province. The licence which the soldiers, as well as the cavaliers, their officers, gave them- selves, did much injury to the royal cause, and gave great umbrage to the people of the country ; and this behaviour was the means of sowing the first seeds of disunion between the Cornish leaders and their auxiliaries. The former, by their great exertions, as well as good example, had preserved their troops in an admirable discipline and obedience, and had succeeded in restraining them from com- mitting those deeds of violence and disorder that were but too common on either side. But the newly arrived cavalry often made incur- sions on the flat plains that extended on every side beyond the valley ; here they sometimes harried the domain of the farmer, driving off his

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flocks to their head-quarters, or living for some days beneath his roof in riot and wantonness. The cottage of the peasant, shrouded beneath the thick trees that overspread this part of the country, was not free from these preda- tory visits; and many a one who had prayed for the success of the King against his enemies, now began to curse him in their hearts. Often, when the family was seated round the happy hearth, and the light from the solitary window was dimly seen through the wood, the distant tramp of the dragoon was heard on the wind, and his lawless summons soon thundered at the door. The inmates gazed in wild alarm as his heavy step came on the floor : the timid girl clung to her mother's side, and the father's prayers mingled with curses and loud laughter.' And when that hearth was left in the morn, around its dying embers stood the dishonoured maiden, her heart seared, and her flushed cheek tearless ; while the eves of the old man glared with revenge, and thirsting for blood, he wildly snatched the first weapon, nnd hurried to Waller's camp. It was not often that the royalists had found themselves thus fortunately situated, in so wealthy and luxurious

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a region, till now unvisited by any armed force. The valley of Taunton was one of the loveliest and best cultivated parts of the kingdom : the hills, covered at this time with waving corn, in- closed it by a gentle descent on either side, its bosom was plentifully watered by several streams, and in the midst rose the goodly town. Beyond the hills, spread arich extent of level land, covered with woods, fields, and meadows, and abounding with an industrious population. Maurice seldom cared to restrain the licence of the troops: a soldier of fortune, and having no local interest or attachment to the country he now traversed, he thought, probably, the indulgence he allowed the troops would be a means of attaching them the more to his own person ; he possessed few natural, and no acquired endowments, to win the esteem or respect of others ; and, though nephew to the King, cared little to converse with men of quality, but affected the society of low and inferior men, with whom he was fond of being very familiar.

The Marquis of Hertford, on the contrary, whose possessions lay chiefly in the western

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counties, where he was held in much estimation by the people, was greatly mortified and in- censed at the excesses which he saw daily committed ; but, unused to command, his autho- rity was insufficient to restrain them. There was another cause of discontent in the force, which the utmost experience and skill would have found it difficult to allay. The number of auxiliary troops, brought by Hertford and his colleagues, was extremely small, and scarcely amounted to more than a third of that of the army of Cornwall ; yet with this force came a formidable array of chief officers of every kind — generals, lieutenant and major-generals, of foot, of the horse, and the ordnance, — as if they had marched merely with the view of entering on a pleasant and complete eommand, ready prepared to their hands. They had come direct from Oxford, where the King then was ; and these several appointments had been arranged, amidst the intrigues of the court, with no little difficulty and delay. Maurice, and the many general officers who accompanied him, among whom were several of the nobility, had thus

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stepped easily from the luxuries and gaieties of the court into the leading of a tried and victo- rious army. It was not possible that the com- manders of the western force could thus see the fruits of their victory taken from their hands, without indignation and regret. The fight of Stratton had been entirely their own, and the united body of men now under their command had been organized chiefly by their great exer- tions, and stimulated by their spirit : and now they must submit to the leading and experience of men who had as yet done little for the public service, and descend into the rank of private colonels. This degradation was the more bitter, because unexpected ; and the royal order that appointed Maurice to be lieutenant-general un- der the Marquis, omitted to confer any of those promotions that had been so richly earned by the past signal successes. The great temper and forbearance shown by the slighted officers, alone preserved the army from total disunion ; for the Cornish soldiers murmured loudly at the assump- tion of the chief command by these strangers wrho had arrived from Oxford, declaring plainly that the King's cause had triumphed by their

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own efforts, and under the leading of their own favourite chiefs, and they would not submit to the authority of the newly arrived courtiers. They did not spare to use reproachful epithets on the latter, especially on Maurice, whose dark hue got him the appellation of the Moor. The commanding influence of Sir Beville Granville was exerted on this occasion with great success : concealing his own wounded feelings, he strove to calm those of his brother officers; and with the private men his stern injunctions instantly checked all mutinous feelings, for to them his word was as a law.

It is uncertain how long this apparent harmo- ny would have continued, if advices had not ar- rived of the rapid advance of Waller.

Alarmed at the late fatal reverse their cause had sustained in the west, the Parliament were resolved to strain every nerve to give a more prosperous turn to their affairs ; and disliking to trust any more to the abilities or courage of Stam- ford, they had chosen a man of acknowledged reputation for their leader. Sir William Wal- ler had served abroad with a fair character for cou- rage and conduct, and on his return had achieved M 5

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two or three exploits with so much daring and success in the service of the Commons, that the name had been given him of the Conqueror, and the most sanguine expectations were formed of the result of his present expedition. And the lat- ter did not belie their hopes; for marching night and day, and collecting the scattered fugitives as he passed, he arrived at Bath with a formi- dable force, and took possession of a noble posi- tion on a commanding height, almost before the royalists believed he was set out from London. Here he was joined by the dragoons that had es- caped from the battle of Stratton, and who were indeed a gallant and well appointed body ; and burned with desire to revenge their late defeat. The news of this enterprise caused an instant commotion in the Marquis's camp, and broke rudely on the dream of luxury and licence that had long dwelt there. It was resolved without delay to leave their quarters, in order to beat up those of their enemy ; and in a day or too after, receiving the intelligence of Waller's ar- rival, they commenced their march from the town and neighbourhood of Taunton. The

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rain fell in torrents on the retiring columns, and the many streams in the valley were swollen so as to flood the green meadows on either side. It was with no small joy that the inhabitants witnessed the slow and unwilling departure of the troops : numbers of the gentry, indeed, join- ed the ranks, to go and fight for their King in the approaching battle ; but the whole of the common people and peasantry were inclined to the side of the Commons. As the files of infan- try and cavalry continued their tedious progress, and the train of artillery could with difficulty be drawn through the flooded meadows and rapid brooks, shouts of exultation from time to time filled the air, as well from the town as the thick- ly peopled hamlets on every side. The western commanders, as they marched at the head of their columns, could not help contrasting this farewell with the heartfelt and impassioned adieus and blessings that had accompanied then- parting from Launceston about two mouths be- fore. Colonel Trevanion seemed to feel the in- sult more deeply than the others, and his coun- tenance wore a sullen and dissatisfied air as he

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listened to the unwelcome sounds, and regarded the disorderly array into which several divisions of the army had fallen. Maurice, surrounded by many young and inexperienced men, rode carelessly on, as if they were going to a certain victory ; or that impetuous charges in the field, in which, like his brother Rupert, he was ready enough to engage, would be sufficient to decide the campaign. The Marquis of Hertford, a man of high honour and character, now began to find himself in a situation for which his previous habits of life had little qualified him. He had never been a favourite at court, and had devoted himself wholly to a country life, where he lived in much grandeur and hospita- lity, passing his time chiefly in the cultivation of literature, to which he was greatly attached. And now, being sent into the west with so small a force, he felt his command to be a very ar- duous and trying one, having an able and ex- perienced general to contend with, and also to soothe and allay the discontents and jealousies that began to arise among his own officers. He strove to supply his want of experience in

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war by the utmost vigilance and activity ; and it was evident that Hopton, though no longer the nominal commander, was the chief counsellor of the operations. After leaving the long and spacious valley, the army wound slowly up the hills by which it is bounded ; the rain and wind increasing in violence at every step. Their fine squadrons of near three thousand horse were in advance, and covered the whole summit of the narrow hill over which they were passing ; and far as their eye could reach over the wide ex- tent of country in front, not an enemy appeared within view. This increased the contempt which they were but too ready to cherish for the army of the Commons. Late at night the troops arrived at the small town of Somerton, and here the Marquis resolved to take up his quarters for a few days. The order to halt was received with no small satisfaction. The tents were pitched without the town, for the use of the chief officers ; but the infantry, harassed by their long and tedious march, preferred encamping on the damp and barren soil for their bed : the greater part laid themselves down with little order, to seek

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a speedy repose ; while others, kindling with difficulty a few feeble fires, sought to allay the demands of hunger. As no enemy was ima- gined to be within reach, few precautions were taken to guard against surprise ; some parties of cavalry only were stationed about a quarter of a league in advance. The tents of the lately arrived nobles from Oxford stood remote from those of the western commanders, that were pitched on the opposite extremity of the camp.

Few scenes could be imagined more comfort- less than the encampment of the royalists at this place. The rain still fell in torrents on the waste and shelterless scene ; a bitter contrast to the luxurious quarters and wanton indulgence they had that morning left : and the stars were hid by angry and driving clouds. The tent of Sir Beville Granville was at this moment approach- ed by the hasty step of a cavalier, who was in- stantly admitted by the sentinel : the nobleman looked anxiously at the visitor, and saw his friend Trevanion stand before him. A warm and brief greeting passed on each side.

" We have changed somewhat for the worse in our quarters/' said the former : " the rich

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scenes and good fare of Taunton are not around us now. Perish the counsel, Trevanion, that kept our force so long idle and useless in that town, while Waller was gaining strength every day and hour."

"There is a doom on the counsels we fol- low," replied the other; " such a one as pride and folly always bring down. It was not thus when we marched and fought in perfect con- cord, and no haughty superior fettered our hand and heart."

" True, Trevanion ; each sacrifice and priva- tion was then sweet ; there was not a jarring string in the host."

" And why is it not so still, Sir Beville ? why are those days of devoted counsel and pur- pose yielded to the present time of hesitation and indolence ? It ought not so to be ; the royal cause is sacrificed to these delays, — to this want of conduct as well as daring that now haunts our every step. By heaven ! we shall soon become a ridicule and bye-word to the people, whose bread we eat, and on whose in- dustry we have battened."

There was bitterness in his tone as he spoke,

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and the spirit of the young soldier, it was evi- dent, was chafed to the uttermost ; the free and frank expression of his features had changed to that of sullen and suppressed indignation.

" That cannot be," said his friend earnestly ; " the errors of our companions in arms may bring disaster, but never disgrace. Did I think so, the banner of Cornwall should not remain another moment beside those of Maurice or Mohun ; we would march with our own band, and attack Waller on his height as we did Stamford, and God would give us success."

" And that success would be splendid, Gran- ville; and the fame, as at Stratton, all our own : but here we must share it with so many, mere fair plumed birds, who have just winged their way from court. The King has been ill- advised to supersede the command of men who have done so much for his cause."

s< I would not blame him," replied the other, u though evil counsel has been at work. Hert- ford is an honourable and zealous man, but no soldier; and Maurice, besides that he can have little enthusiasm for the cause, is rash and vain-

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glorious. We encamp here for a few days, I find/'

" Ay, so 'tis said," answered his friend, " in order, no doubt, to show the good people of So- merton the pageant of war ; no council of officers has been called. I passed by the foreigner's tent but now, and the sounds of revel and merri- ment were loud within ; they mingled strangely with the hollow passing of the blast. Brave men were lying without o'erborne with this cursed march ; men whom I had seen bleed and strug- gle in the field — for what ? that these minions might come here to batten on their toils.1'

" It is true, Trevanion ; and yet we must bear this slight for the good of the cause, for the sake of the King : think of him, how his purpose and hope are often mastered by others'' counsel and treachery, and let not your spirit be so wrought on."

" I love my King," said the other, " and will spend my last breath for his right. I have staked my fortune, my fair patrimony, in the cause ; but I cannot see with patience the meed for which I have fought pass into others' hands.

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Is not command, next to glory, the sweetest re- compense of success? — and now it is wrested from me. By my father's crest !— by my lady- love ! I will not bear it."

" And deem you that I would bear it thus patiently," returned his friend, " but that I long to see Waller driven back on his course, and the rebel colours once more trampled be- neath our feet ? We play in a deadly and des- perate game. If Waller conquer, you will quickly see the invader's foot on our own loved soil — ay, in our own halls ; moreover, what recks it who holds the baton, if we are victo- rious ?"

" What recks it, Sir Beville ! your Norman blood did not prompt that saying. Will it not be said, if the battle is ours, that it was won by Hertford, and Maurice, and Carnarvon, the General of the Horse ; while we, who have only the rank of private Colonels, will be little spoken of; our names will be little recorded in men's mouths? I looked for disaster, for poverty, even for exile, but I looked not for this ! Can you, the chiefest name, the foremost man of our county, tamely submit to it ?"

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His friend looked calmly at him for a mo- ment. " My dear Trevanion, this must not be. Jealousy and wounded ambition have wasted that countenance more than the havoc of war. You remember BaskerviuVs words, — that the hardness of war would come on you ; that its iron would enter into your soul. It has entered deeply."

" Granville," said the latter, " 'twas for this I sought you. I know that beneath that calm and subdued look lurk suppressed anger and scorn ; I marked it this morning, as the troops slowly made their way through the flooded land ; and Hertford looked on more like an abbot conducting a pilgrimage, than the leader of a gallant force. Raise, then, your banner for the King, and we shall march a far more united, ay, and more successful band against Waller."

" Ha !" said Sir Beville, " this sounds more like treasonable than loyal counsel ; it is well the night is dark, and the wind blows shrilly without, for other ears might listen to words that would sully your fair name, Trevanion, in the ranks of the King."

" The ranks of the King," said the other,

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" would gain by the change. I have heard the murmurs that ran through them this morn, and seen the impatient looks that were turned on you as you marched, a private colonel of foot, under Maurice's leading, in the midst of the host you had swayed ; for, though Hopton was the nomi- nal leader, it need not now be said that you were the soul of all that was done. I shrink from the foughten field that is fast drawing nigh, for the bloody shroud of defeat is there : I picture the drooping colours, the hurried re- treat, the slaughtered heaps. Oh how different from the exulting shouts of Granville to the sky .' the onward step, the deadly but successful strug- gle ! By heaven ! Stratton is again before me.1' " Do not tempt me thus,"" said the Lord of Stowe, after a pause : " I would give my life to humble that Puritan leader, and scatter his boasting to the winds. But it shall not be; the banner of my house for six hundred years has never waved but at the bidding of its prince, and shall it now sow division and disarray in his ranks ! What would Charles say, when he heard I had preferred my own glory to his?

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No, my noble and suffering King, I will not plant this thorn in the path that other hands are but too ready to embitter.""

His friend turned from him, and paced the tent with a hurried step. " A few days more,1' he said, " and the die will be cast, and darkly, I fear, for the crown, for I have no confidence in our present counsels. Waller, whom the Com- mons call the Conqueror, waits calmly and mockingly our coming on : if we succeed, others will reap the fruits of the day ; if we are foiled, the western road leads to our quiet halls, and there we will hang our shattered banners."

Sir Beville bent on his friend a look that seemed to search his very soul. " Our views and aims," he said, " I see with sorrow, are no longer the same. You have wandered, Tre- vanion, from your first high purpose, and the patriot is sunk in the ambitious soldier. I no longer recognize the calm and thoughtful re- cluse of Carhayes in the fierce and jealous par- tisan, who would thrust from the helm the chiefs selected by his King, in order that him- self and his friend may replace them ; for the

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good of the cause, if you will — be it so ! — but believe me, such is not the road to the fame that you seek with such avidity. I never sued to Charles or his ministers for command, but scorned to solicit their smiles or promises. The meed for which I seek, is to render illustrious the barren wastes of my native province, and to live for ever in the memory of its people ; and when I look on the brave band that are now slumbering around us, and think that they have earned a glory that can never pass away — Trevanion, it is the sweetest feeling of my life !" Sir Beville's countenance, as he spoke these words, glowed with the enthusiasm of his feelings, and the fiery and indignant glance of his companion quailed beneath his own. The latter felt and yielded to the ascendancy that a powerful mind and determined character seldom fail to exercise in trying moments, when brought into contact with the more fluctuating wills and pas- sions of others.

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CHAPTER XL

i: Midst storm and darkness, cries and shouts arise. The night is thick with phantoms."

At this moment, loud and confused sounds rose from the camp without, and cries of alarm ran from side to side ; it was evident a night attack had taken place. The two commanders seized their arms, and, quitting the tent, has- tened to their divisions, which they found al- ready under arms. It was quickly seen that the attack had been made on a regiment of dra- goons, who were stationed half a mile eastward from the town. The former had retreated ra- pidly, and were now driven in disorder on the camp. Not a moment was to be lost; the western troops, being nearest the point of attack,

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advanced first against the enemy, and were quickly followed by the heavy cavalry from Oxford, who had always professed the most sovereign contempt for the troops opposed to them. It proved on this occasion to be an error, for which they paid dearly; for the republicans, as rapid in their operations as their adversaries were slow and lingering, had pushed on a for- midable and well-appointed body of horse and foot, in the hope of entering the camp by sur- prise. In this they had very nearly succeeded ; and in the thick darkness that prevailed, several of their columns were already mingled with the royalists, who marched on without knowing the numbers or position of the assailants.

The firing of musketry was for some time entirely at random on both sides ; for it was impossible for the combatants to distinguish each other at more than a few paces distant, and then by the flashes of their own guns. Often the advancing royalists, who imagined they were driving the assailants before them, heard the vollies of musketry from behind, even in the midst of the ter.ts they had left. The cries

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on each side, that came at once from the high and low ground, from the camp and from the walls of the town, only increased the confusion of the fight ; for no one knew for some time what ground was lost or won. Often amidst the deep gloom, the advancing or retiring co- lumns heard the rushing of other bodies of troops near them, but could discern neither banner nor array ; then came the rapid charge of the cavalry, that was met only by means of the warning sound, for the forms both of horse and rider were indistinct aud shadowy.

The forces of Waller, finding themselves too weak to force the camp, began at last to draw off, and retire over the flat land around the town, towards the hills that rose at some dis- tance. The darkness at first favoured their retreat, by screening their columns from many a murderous charge of the numerous royalist cavalry. When day broke faintly on the scene, the crowded walls, the forsaken camp, the tents standing tenantless as those of the Assyrian host, who heard the rushing of chariot wheels — the wildly peopled plain, where horse and foot swept

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fast and furiously — all came at once on the spec- tator's eye. The enemy broke at last before they had reached the hills ; but the heavy rains had so deluged the level ground, that the Earl of Carnarvon, the gallant General of the horse, found that his repeated charges met with little success. One of these, at the head of which was Maurice, having been made on the rear of the enemy, through many deep pools and ditches filled with water, was briskly repulsed ; and the republicans, directing their vollies of musketry on the disordered cavalry, did great execution. The horse of the Prince was shot under him, and those of several of his companions shared the same fate ; when some infantry fortunately came up under Slanning and Trevanion, and, fording the stream, obliged the rear of the ene- my to give way. They were just in time to save the life of Maurice, who, striving to free himself from his dying steed, and floundering in the discoloured stream, was at the mercy of a republican, who had been tempted by the richness of his armour. The latter was brought down by a pistol shot from Trevanion, who

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passed the dismounted leader at that moment, and casting on him a look of scorn, pressed on after the enemy.

" It was a lucky shot," he said to Slanning, "and I'm glad of it for his sake; but for the good of the cause, 'twere better he had lain there beside his sunken steed : that man will bring no good to our banners, any more than his brother Rupert, in whom the King places such confidence."

" The hour is fast coming that will put him to the proof," said the other: "but see the ad- vance of the crop-ears are halting on the top of the hill, as if they meant to make a stand there." The latter had, in fact, formed on the emi- nence, for the sake of covering the retreat of their scattered columns on the level land below, and of showing a face to the pursuers. In this manner, without confusion, making a stand and skirmishing wherever the ground offered an ad- vantage, Waller's army made good their re- treat to Wells. Their stay in this city, how- ever, was but short ; the royalists followed the pursuit steadily, and towards evening saw the N 2

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towers of the ancient place rising before them. Waller, who had not reckoned that the pursuers would have been so soon and eagerly on his new quarters, did not choose to stand their attack in an open and defenceless town, but made his forces instantly evacuate it with even more speed than they had entered. The royalists entered with colours waving in a kind of triumph, and were received by that loyal city with loud acclamations of joy — that were the more welcome to their ear, after the biting taunts of the preceding day. The houses of the inhabitants were eagerly opened to the soldiery ; and tnose of the wealthier gentry, as well as that of the Bishop of the see, to their officers ; such, indeed, was the enthu- siasm of the latter, that he would have opened the ancient cathedral itself for their reception, had it been necessary. The Marquis of Hert- ford, elated with this his first success in the field, as well as with the spirit of loyalty he saw every where around him, was disposed to enjoy the present hour in its fulness, and re- mained in the town with the whole of the foot and the artillery ; while the Earl of Carnarvon

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and the Prince followed the enemy with two re- giments of horse. The loyal city of Wells was delighted with the presence of the royal army, who wore, indeed, the air of a victorious force, though their enemy had, as yet, given them little opportunity to claim any signal success. The palace of the prelate, in which the chief officers were quartered, stood very near to the ancient cathedral, and was surrounded by some trees of almost equal date, and a well-cropped and sightly lawn in front of the dwelling. The thick-set hedges that bounded the lawn, were of such height as to obscure the view of the streets, or passengers without, — of all objects, in fact, save the massive walls and towers of the cathedral. A garden of ample dimensions, and rather waste and neglected aspect, showed that the taste of the inmates was little devoted to its adornment. The place had an aspect of ex- treme retirement and quiet, and, in this respect, wore a forcible contrast to the exciting and spirit-stirring scenes without. The Marquis, a lover of retirement in all its aspects, and of literary ease and enjoyment still more, was sin-

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gularly struck with the deep calm, the hallowed air of learning and piety that reigned within this spot ; and he could not help thinking, with a sigh, of his own splendid and peaceful abode that he had left, for the head of an army.

Laying aside with joy his heavy armour, and resigning to Hopton the care of the forces, he felt that, but for the presence of his officers, he could have taken up one of the garden tools, as was his wont in his own splendid domain, and planned a more beautiful design for the neglected garden : he eagerly followed his host into the spacious and well chosen library. It was one of those mo- ments when war puts aside its horrors, or rather veils them, while fair faces, bright eyes, and soft and flattering words, come in delicious array to supply their place. Many ladies of the place aided those of the Bishop's household, to do honour to the defenders of the throne, — of their own see also, it might be added, for no one doubted, should the puritans conquer, that the prelate, his palace, cathedral, with all the minor advantages which the residence of the well-en- dowed clergy gave to the town, would expe-

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rience a great and merciless downfal. That day, however, seemed now to be far averted : the republicans had retreated rapidly ; and the presence of so many royal officers of rank and influence gave a zest and grace to the company assembled, of the laity, as well as the numerous ecclesiastics. The hall extended along the whole front of the palace, and was large enough to con- tain the numerous assembly that had been in- vited by the hospitable host, who looked with a calm and pleased eye on the array of beauty and chivalry, as it might be termed, that was seated at his spacious table. The windows were opened to admit the fresh air from without, for the heat of the day was oppressive, — and the solemn sounds of the cathedral chant could be distinctly heard. The tone of the conversation among the ecclesiastics was loud and bitter ; the more so, that the presence of the republicans, though transitory within their walls, had filled them with dismay. Waller, whose every ope- ration in the field had been crowned with suc- cess, had but lately quitted their town, and had boasted that he would soon return to take up

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his rest within the walls of the palace, and taste of the good Bishop's cellar. The venerable pre- late's look, that had quailed the day before at the threats of the rebel officers, grew bright and confident, as it was cast on the array of the brave and high-born, and he could not help augur- ing well and sanguinely of the royal cause. He even pictured the rebels bowing submis- sively at his feet, and suing for the church's as well as the King's forgiveness ; for it was the first time during his long ecclesiastical reign, that he had seen his dignity outraged and his per- son treated with contumely. — Other aspects were turned on the guests, more welcome, and pro- bably with a less selfish expression, than those of the dignified ecclesiastics. Of the many ladies whose presence threw a charm over the motley assembly of churchmen and soldiers, there were none who exceeded in personal attractions the daughters of the prelate — they were the allowed beauties and toasts of the loyal and ancient town of Wells, over which their fa- ther's influence was not unlike that of a tem- poral sovereign ; so that it scarcely required the charms they really possessed, to render

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their sway tacitly allowed. The present, how- ever, seemed to be the most brilliant moment of their lives; it was the first time they had seen so many gallant and accomplished men be- neath their roof; or been the favoured objects of eyes that had so lately met war in its most horrid front. Allied to the love of admiration was a feeling of gratitude also ; the hostile and insulting foot of the rebels had, only the day before, invaded the very precincts of their pa- lace and garden, and threatened desolation on their revered domain. To eyes that loved so well the fair things of this world, there was a refresh- ing contrast between the grey, smooth heads and well-fed cheeks of dignitaries, and the kindling glance, the youthful form, and glow- ing words of the cavaliers by whom they were surrounded. The routine of their daily life was delightfully broken by this event, and each in her own mind had singled out her hero among the officers around, and, careless of how it fared with the King or his rebels, had fol- lowed him in fancy to the hour of victory and royal favour.

The father looked on this pageant of war as n5

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the thing that was to secure his own impor- tance and power ; the daughters loved it for its own sake ; and the shining armour that was hung up on the hitherto peaceful walls, the glittering cuirass, and the variously formed sword and rapier, often drew their wandering- glance.

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CHAPTER XII.

" Tis sweet to rest in lordly hall,

And hear no more the trumpet's call."

The sounds that rose both from within and without the hall, on this still and sultry even* ing in July, were suited to banish war and tu- mult from the mind, and excite gentle and peaceful feelings. The many voices of the fairer guests were mingled with, and even rose above, the more subdued tones of the cavaliers ; the sudden laugh, the sally of wit, and more rare boast of prowess, were interrupted by the deep and measured voices of the priests, or the far more impressive sounds of the cathedral chaunt that swelled the scarcely felt breeze of

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evening. More than one veteran, who had taken, when he least thought of it, the sword once more into his hand, and left the home to which he had retired after his foreign cam- paigns, now thought of that home with a sigh, and sorrow, that his last years should go down in violence and bloodshed. On a sudden the rapid tread of cavalry was heard in the streets without, — they were now returned from follow- ing the retreat of the enemy ; and not long after, the officers who had commanded on this ser- vice entered the hall. They had succeeded, after two or three desperate skirmishes, in ad- vancing as far as their head-quarters near Bath ; but had suffered greatly in this pursuit, Wal- ler having drawn reinforcements from his main force during the retreat, and made the royalists pay dearly for their hardihood. Maurice had received several wounds, and the Earl of Car- narvon had seen his fine regiments of dragoons somewhat thinned by the severe and repeated charges. The ladies retired soon after the en- trance of the royal officers fresh from the field,

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and ihe tranquillity as well as harmony of the company soon began to suffer an entire inter- ruption. The good Bishop did not spare at- tentions or compliments to the newly arrived officers, who had achieved the rapid and severe task of driving the enemy home to their en- trenchments; but the former were not a little chafed at the thankless service in which they had been engaged, as well as the rough handling Waller had given them.

The Marquis, at last, rose from the table, and retired with the prelate, in order to dis- cuss, more at their leisure and ease, some point of literature that had engaged them in an earnest controversy for the last hour.

Near the lower end of the table was seated a retainer of Sir Beville Granville ; it was, probably, the having been near the person of his chief, or the behaving commendably in the field, more than any strong personal or mental qualification, that entitled him to a place at the prelate's table. It was Trenlyon, who having pertinaciously followed the banner of his patron,

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through good and evil, after the battle of Stratton, now found himself a guest among the reverend and the great, and placed in common with nobles and princes. He was seated among some favourite officers of Sir BevihVs regiment of cavalry, and played his part with a more assured mien, and a bolder eye, than he could possibly have done a few months before. The consciousness of high birth always has a ten- dency to preserve him who feels it from those inward misgivings and discomposures of thought, which will invade the mind of the most daring, when surrounded by beings of far loftier pre- tensions than themselves.

It stood the chief man of Kilkhampton in good part on this occasion : he bore the full gaze of the tilted warrior, and the arrogant look of the lordly churchman, with a steady and unquail- ing aspect ; indeed, on some of the canons and inferior clergy, as well as on more than one sol- dier of fortune, he turned the strong glance of his grey eye with something of a contemptuous expression. More than once, in the warring

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pretensions that even found their way among the various and jealous guests, he demanded the pedigree and standing of their house and name, with that brief, stern tone that betokened the conviction of superiority ; and when he saw that his nearness of relationship to the proud line of Granville produced its full effect on his audi- tors, he leaned back in his chair ; the rich co- lour mounted to cheek and temple, and the smile curled his expressive lips.

The outer man, indeed, was great) y changed. In the Ivy Bush, peace and indulgence seemed to be stamped on every lineament of his coun- tenance, on every limb of his rather short but robust frame. And now the cuirass sat mar- tially on his broad chest ; the iron lines of war were traced in his full cheeks, and the eye had acquired a more dark and startling expression. These changes were not built altogether on a sandy foundation : whether it was the force of the Norman blood that circled in his veins and spurred him on to high deeds, or the effect of bitter rivalry of feeling, it was well known that

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he had not disgraced the ancient line of the Trenlyons in the battle of Stratton, having, in fact, behaved with no small hardihood. He had cleaved to the banner of his house amidst all the changes of the fight, and therein had no doubt consulted his own security; for he felt himself to be surrounded by men of might, as well as name.

In the last onset of the rebel pikemen, he had been overturned on the steep bank, and tram- pled on by the fierce assailants ; but had receiv- ed some consolation, amidst his bruises, by see- ing Pengreep of Tredavern, his ancient rival, biting the grass, and apparently breathing his last at his side. Raising himself on his hands and knees, after the rebels had swept by like a torrent, he had turned with a^look of pity to his rival, with the words, " Pengreep, is it all over with you ? that 's a sore thrust o' the rebels in your thigh ; you 're leavin' a fine holdin" in Treda- vern ; you Ye the last o' your line, too ; that \s an old one, rather, there 's no denyin\ Ah ! what a pity you should bleed to death in such a way, upon the green grass!"

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" You're lookin' upon more ancient blood than is in your body, or the whole of your name afore ye, Trenlyon," said the dying man ; " the very grass and wild flowers will run riot upon it; the pikemen ha' spared yours, that ye've boasted of in sitch a way, 'twas'n worth the spillin' — and as for Tredavern, — ne'er talk o' your stone cage in the same breath ; there ?s the "

His words failed here, and he soughed gently away ; while his hereditary rival, who had set his teeth, and grasped the trampled sod in his clenched hands at these insulting words, looked at him as one of Job's comforters would have done.

In the repulse of the enemy that followed quickly after, Trenlyon had borne his part, and brought down two or three of the flying enemy with his long pike : this, however, was in the down-hill retreat ; for, to run up the steep of Stratton in his thick armour, would have been quite impossible.

In the feasting and exultation among the royalists in the captured camp, he had vividly

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shared, and had actually sought out his rival's body among the slain, and followed it to a de- cent interment; conscious, perhaps, though he would not have allowed it, that one of the sweetest sensations in the world, is the seeing one's old, long-tried, and bitter enemy placed calmly and gently beneath the sod. The march to Taunton, and the subsequent retreat, had improved his military habits; and he now found himself in the hall of the Bishop's palace at Wells, surrounded by fair ladies' faces, from the exceeding witchery of whose look he could sometimes hardly withdraw his own. His at- tention, however, was now diverted towards the looks of discontent and jealousy that gathered fast and darkly on the aspects of some of the commanders, after their return from the late skirmish. With all the interest and attachment of a feudal retainer to the ancient tree that shadows him, Trenlyon watched the gathering storm, consulted the faces of some of the lead- ers of his house, of Bonville, of Roselian, and others ; and his own features grew lowering or excited as he saw theirs change every moment.

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It was unfortunate that circumstances should at this moment have combined to blow into a flame the embers of discord, that had for some time rankled in the bosoms of the party. But for the severe and unsuccessful skirmish with the enemy that had just taken place, the unani- mity of the hour had perhaps not been broken : but the leaders of the pursuing force deemed themselves to have been insufficiently support- ed ; that while the enemy had drawn powerful reinforcements from their camp, no troops had left the town to aid their own division.

Amidst so many jarring feelings, causes of dissension could not long be wanting. The pursuit of the republicans was instantly the sub- ject of discourse.

" You have had a hot chase of it, Prince," said Slanning ; " I thought the crop-ears would have turned to bay ere we reached this city ; but they kept their hard blows for you, it seems."

" Had others chosen to share them with us," replied Maurice, " the event had been very different : but we had to face an overwhelming

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force ; the fellows poured on us from behind the hills, like bees from a hive.v

" But )>ou have gained honour," replied the other good naturedly, " if you have brought away no trophies more substantial ; you've only met the fair chance of war ; successful to-day, and, maybe, baffled to-morrow.'"

" 'Tis a true saying," said Maurice sullenly ; " that ought not, however, to have been fulfilled to-day. Had Waller permitted his forces to remain inactive in their quarters, as our own have done in the town, we should have had another tale to tell. One regiment of dragoons would have decided the day, or even a regiment of the boasted Cornish infantry would have turned the tide ; — would they not, Carnarvon ?''

" They would, by my life," answered the Earl, " and have served the King better in so doing, than by feasting in the fat quarters of the town."

" Your pursuit has spoiled your tempers, gentlemen," said Trevanion, with a sneer : " had I known sooner of the strait you were in, the infantry you speak of should have advanced to

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your rescue ; they would have done as good service, I doubt not, to the Prince, as they did this morning, when they saved his life."

" You plume yourselves,"" observed the Earl, colouring, "on your success at the battle of Stratton ; one would think it had been the only service performed during the war; it seems the men of your county can fight heartily on their own ground, but on another soil they grow careless of their own or their friends' laurels.11

" The usurpers of their laurels, you mean," replied Trevanion warmly. " It is pleasant, no doubt, to come from the halls of princes, and the bowers of ladies, and earn their praise thus suddenly."

" By Saint George !" said Carnarvon, " this is too much : 'tis foul injustice to say I've de- sired to reap what others have sown, or to claim another man's fame to myself. — As to the com- mands, they were given by the King.'1

" And by whose counsels, or rather by whose intrigues ? some wily courtier's, or fair lady's, perhaps ? — Take your own troops, gentlemen, — the gallant and numerous troops with which

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you have joined our army, and go and face Waller ; the Conqueror would desire no better fate."

" Proud Cornishman," said the Earl, " you shall not thus speak of men who have been placed at your head; you are accountable to the King, whether you choose or not to submit to his orders ; but you shall account to me for this contumely. "

" Forbear, I intreat you, Trevanion," said Sir Beville, " and urge not this dispute farther. — Carnarvon, recall the words you have spoken : whatever provocation the mention of the west- ern force has caused belongs to me, who count myself its leader, and no one shall arraign it in my presence."

i( I will recall what I have said at no man's bidding," said the Earl, " not even at yours, Sir Beville : why am I to be taunted thus, and my colleagues, with the bearing of your troops, and the licence of our own ? 'tis not the first time, by many, these things have been said."

"And they have been said justly, my Lord," replied the other : " ask the people of the coun-

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try where we have been quartered. Had your troops committed such excesses in my own pro- vince, I would have been the first to bid the people drive them from their soil, as invaders rather than friends, wanton rioters, rather than faithful soldiers. "

" Had his Majesty known,1' said Maurice, with a dark smile, " what noble and faithful allies we have got, I think he would have taken the leading of them in person. But the Nor- man blood, without doubt, would not have brooked such a commander. — My Lord Mohun, what say you ?"

" He will say,1' said Sir Beville sternly, " that among the ills his Majesty's subjects bear with patience, few are more bitter than the leading of a foreign minion, whose rashness in the field is only equalled by his licence in the camp."

Maurice's colour rushed deeply over the olive hue of his aspect, in spite of the paleness which his freshly received wounds had given ; and the settled look of scorn on the other's features, only added to his anger and vexation.

"Remember, Sir Beville," said Mohun,

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" that he bears the King's commission, as se- cond in command under the Marquis : is it well thus to excite dissension in our councils ?"

" My Lord," said the other, " have you breathed also the court air ? — You know that I have laboured night and day to stifle the jea- lousies and discontents that were fast spreading in the force, and my efforts have not been with- out success. The present leaders of this army have ever found prompt obedience to their orders ; not because I deem them wise or for- tunate, but that the cause of the King may suffer no prejudice. But words like these can- not be borne ; the licence that has been suffered in the field, must not be brought into the hall ; our taste, like our native hills, is too rude to brook it."

"But insult and arrogance," replied Carnar- von, " are not to be brooked, whether in the camp or the court."

" My Lord of Carnarvon/' replied the other calmly, as he rose from his seat, " your high character and devoted gallantry are too well knowrn for any words of mine to do them harm.

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These excesses, that have stained our cause, were not of your bidding. But enough of this, the day is at hand, — to-morrow's sun may bring it, — that will flesh our swords in a better cause than that of each other's quarrel. You shall be supported, even to the death, by men who have known how to conquer ; and when the day is won, my Lord, should any rancour remain for what has been said this night, ask then of the Granville to atone for it ; his lips never uttered what his hand was not ready to avow."

He bowed respectfully to the incensed noble- man, and left the apartment. The latter gazed after him for a moment — " He is a noble gentle- man," he said after a pause, " and does not belie his high reputation — I could not lift my hand against him, by heaven P

" No, my Lord," said Trevanion, " that hand must now stoop to a lower mark ; you spoke, if I mistake not, of my accounting to you for some words that passed, was it not so ?"

" Even so," replied Carnarvon, " and it is not my wont to recall my words."

" It is well,'1 said the other coolly, " and an

VOL. II. O

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early hour would be fittest, perhaps, to arrange this affair. Would sun-rise to-morrow, with- out the town, suit your Lordship's convenience ?" The latter replied briefly in the affirmative, and the company soon after broke up. The progress of this dispute, and the various circum- stances attending it, had been strictly observed and watched by Trenlyon : when the hand of the chief of his line was laid, in the sudden impulse of the moment, on his sword hilt, his own had slid instantly to the basket handle of his own short and heavy weapon. With a flashing eye and a ruddied cheek, he had listen- ed to the words of provocation on each side ; and his look that he had fixed on Maurice, as well as the large clenched hand laid on the table, proved, that if he had him then at the mercy of his pike, the German's term of life would have been a brief one.

From not understanding perfectly, in his wrath, the concluding words that had passed, he had imagined the challenge to have been between the Lord of Stowe and the Earl of Carnar- von, and the naming of the place sounded in

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his ear like the final arrangement for mortal combat.

He retired from the hall in strong agitation of spirit ; and repairing to his small chamber, seated himself in the single chair it contained ; and leaning his head heavily on both his hands, so that his calm and full chin rested on the edge of his cuirass, he revolved again and again in his thoughts the various bearings and wind- ings of this sudden and unexpected affair.

Judging merely from " the thewes and sinews of men," Carnarvon was no match for the head of his house; but experience told him that fate did not always judge or act according to these premises. He had seen Pengreep, a more powerful man than himself by far, cut down like a flower of the field, while he still walked firmly over the course of life. The gloom that gathered around his chamber was unheeded ; the latest gleam of day, coming through the single window, or rather skylight, and falling on his tough cuirass, alone discovered that a human being was seated within. Yet Tren- lyon was not habitually a meditative being ; o 2

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indeed, a mood like the present was quite foreign to his usual one ; the fierce and stirring events that had passed before his eyes, the startling ups and downs that he had observed to befal so many men, had given a deeper and more moral tone to his feelings. A deep sigh echoed once or twice through the apartment ; but whether it arose from the loneliness and comfortless feeling of the place and hour, it was difficult to say : certainly the danger that now impended over the head of his line was an affecting considera- tion : he could not bear the idea of his being cut down prematurely. The Trenlyons, it was clear, however stainless in themselves, derived a high and borrowed glory from his counte- nance and connexion ; and that this should now pass away like a shadow, was a fearful looking for.

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CHAPTER XIII.

" O for a wing beyond the falcon's flight, To bear him like an arrow to that height : The love of youth, the hope of better years, The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears."

Byron.

The hours of the night were now passing rapidly and gaily within the palace, and the numerous guests who were assembled in the spacious saloon scarcely thought of the wonted hour of repose. There was every thing around them that could banish the busy and startling thoughts that might else have intruded ; the recent success too had animated the spirits of the royal officers; and, amidst the flatteries and compliments that flowed fast on every side, was it possible to dream but of victory ? Of the

m

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soft and subtle attentions that women so well know how to pay to the successful soldier, the victors of Stratton had the larger share, for all the circumstances of that fight were minutely known to every one present. Amidst the gay and glittering throng, the Marquis of Hertford sat in tranquil converse with the Bishop; and from the unexcited expression of his counte- nance, and the measured tone of his voice, it seemed that they talked of his own retired domain and its rare garden, or of the revenues of the See rather than of the decisive opera- tions which were at hand.

Of the ladies present, no one attracted the general admiration of the cavaliers more than the eldest daughter of the prelate, whose tall and commanding figure moved among them like that of a queen in the land. Receiving with affected carelessness and even haughtiness the homage paid to her beauty, she attached herself entirely to Sir Beville Granville, with whose lady, a native of Devon, she had been well acquainted before her marriage.

The look of the former beamed with delight

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as he replied to the affectionate inquiry of the lady for her friend ; it was the first time, since he left his Castle, that the theme had been touched on by other lips than his own ; and then he spoke of the perfections of his beloved wife ; how little years had faded her beauty or her devotedness to him ; that both had still all their first freshness.

As he spoke with the simple and animated tone of true affection, his look dwelt intently on the features of his fair auditor ; each glance of the eye, and smile of the ruby lips, and mild accent, brought his absent bride vividly before him.

" You are struck," said his companion, " with my resemblance to Lady Grace ; it was re- marked in us when girls, and during our first intimacy; but I did not know that it still re- mained : years then have done little ravage upon her."

" Little, indeed," said Sir Beville, with a

smile, " though somewhat more than on that of

her friend : remember too that she is the mother

*of a fair family ; and so great a keeper at home,

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as not once since her marriage to have crossed the boundaries of her province."

" I know," said his companion, " Lady Grace's praise as a wife and mother ; it has not been confined to the walls of Stowe ; though there is not enough cause that she should always be immured there, like the inmate of a nun- nery. When does her lord return to that wild and solitary place ?"

" I know not,1' he replied ; " the chances of war are so uncertain. I had purposed, ere this, to have visited my home, and embraced its inmates once more, whose anxieties on my account have been keen and unceasing. But the approaching conflict renders this, at present, impossible."

" Not so," said the lady earnestly ; " do not, T intreat you, defer to return to Stowe ; you know not what the morrow may bring forth : and I know my friend's heart ; the present sus- pense, the dark and fearful anxiety. — Ah ! had I such a husband, I'd share the perils of the field with him, rather than endure alone the tortures of my own fancy."

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" It may not be," replied Sir Beville, struck with the earnestness of her manner. " Can I leave my troops at this moment, when the enemy are almost in sight ? What would be said, should they march to the field, and their leader was away ?"

" Image not difficulties where none may probably exist," she answered. " The Mar- quis of Hertford, there is little doubt, from what I have heard, intends to spend some weeks at Wells. Go then ; promise me that you will go and see your lady and children ; I know their joy will be great, — the more so, because unexpected ; bear her dear and early friend's wishes and prayers for her happiness ; promise me, Sir Beville, that the sun shall not set again ere you depart :" and she laid her hand on his own.

" I will promise then," he said, after a short pause ; " though it will be little to the credit of my love, when Lady Grace is told it was her friend's entreaty bade me return. — Can Hert- ford really mean to stay so long in the town ? I had not dreamed of this.11 o 5

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" You are a true Knight,"" said the lady, rising, " and worthy, I see, of all my friend's devotion. — Farewell, till you bring me some tidings of her !" and she rose and joined one of the many lively groups of the party.

The former turned thoughtfully to the gay scene around : it reminded him forcibly of the evening before the march, at his own Castle ; when a like assembly was gathered together of the fair and the brave ; and a foreboding, a secret uneasiness, hung for a time on the spirits of all. How false and ill-founded had the latter seemed ! Instead of disaster or misfortune, success had crowned their every step since leaving the Castle-walls ; and here, on this even- ing, while, around, each voice and look breathed only confidence and elation, and the prospect of the future was so brilliant — was this a moment to cherish sad and anxious thoughts ?

Ere the company separated, the venerable Prelate, rising from his seat beside the General, requested their assent to a ceremony, that he had judged would not only be impressive in its nature, but would tend to draw down the di-

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vine blessing on the royal arms. That to- morrow they should go in solemn procession to the cathedral, and, forgetting for a time the stern duties of war, join in supplicating a con- tinuance of the signal success that had thus far crowned the cause of the King.

It wanted yet an hour to sun-rise, and the good citizens of the loyal town of Wells had hardly begun to open their doors and win- dows to the morning light, when the steps of two or three cavaliers were observed slowly passing through the almost silent streets. Muffled in his cloak, and with only one attend- ant, Colonel Trevanion walked towards the gate of the town, that opened on the road to Bath ; then, turning abruptly to the left down a gentle slope, he came to a small and secluded bottom, or dell, from whence no part of the adjoining town was visible. The trees by which the spot was thickly bordered, were now in their fullest foliage ; the dews of morning as yet hung heavily on their leaves ; the rich bank beneath was covered with wild flowers, on which the early rays of the sun had not yet fallen ;

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not a sound broke on the silence of the hour, and Trevanion had ample leisure to be pleased with the quiet as well as pleasantness of the place ; but he stood with an abstracted air, and his pale countenance evinced that no slumbers of the night had rested on it. Another foot- step soon after approached, and the Earl of Carnarvan appeared, and, saluting with cour- tesy his antagonist, hastily apologized for being after the time of appointment.

They threw aside their cloaks, drew their swords, and, without another word spoken, be- gan the combat ; while the attendants stood on the bank beside, and looked on with as much interest as they would have done at a tourna- ment; though with somewhat more personal attachment, for they were favourite domestics of their respective masters. There was a sin- gular contrast in the look and manner of these men as they stood inanimate spectators of the strife. One was an Italian, whom the nobleman had picked up in his foreign travels ; and used to the frequent and skilful combats abroad, as well as no stranger to the practice of the sti-~

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letto, the fellow gazed with the curious and savage eye of a connoisseur, at the quick and deadly passes ; while the Cornishman, long in- ured to wield the cudgel, or hurl his opponent in the wrestling-ring, crossed his arms on his brawny chest, and gazed on his master with a strong expression of contempt mingled with anxiety, at what appeared to him a foolish and fanciful way of seeking satisfaction. He had, in truth, the most reason to fear the event ; for the excellent use Carnarvon had of his weapon was more than a match for the intrepidity and coolness of his antagonist, and the latter had great difficulty in saving himself from more than one pass that was aimed directly at his life. The bank on which they fought was already stained with the blood that flowed from several wounds that each had received, though of no serious consequence ; and the rich and flowery sod was trampled on, and torn by their rapid and changing footsteps. The sword of Trevanion at last snapped in a home thrust against the silk doublet of the Earl, leaving him almost at his mercy ; the latter, however, made

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no ungenerous use of his advantage, but directing his point at the unarmed breast of the former, requested him to acknowledge that the words of the preceding night were unfounded, and uttered in passion.

Trevanion, with a quick and haughty gesture, dashed the weapon aside, and drawing his dag- ger, the combat recommenced with new vigour, but at fearful disadvantage, it could not long have thus continued ; but, fortunately for the King's service, the sword of the Earl received so sudden and well-aimed a blow from an un- known hand, that it flew into the air with such force as to carry it nearly to the summit of the lofty oaks that waved gently in the morning breeze, leaving its owner lost in asto- nishment ; and Trenlyon, emerging from the thick foliage close to which the strife had been, stood suddenly before them. He brandished the pike with which he had arrested the combat, with a firm air, conscious, from the hasty glance he threw around, that no one there was so well provided with means of offence. Disappoint- ment however, as well as surprise, was in his

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look, for he had evidently expected to see Sir Beville on the field instead of Trevanion. It was necessary, however, to be instant in expla- nation, for the storm of indignant anger was gathering fast on every brow around him. Tren- lyon griped his pike hard, keeping the point still towards the company ; and edging nearer towards a huge old oak close at his back, — " Gentlemen Cavaliers," he said, " I came just in the nick o' time, thinkin', however, to find the noble head of our line here, and keep you, my Lord, with this long pike, from the spillm' of his blood, that 's worth more than that o' your whole house put together, for the Welsh canna compare wi' the ancient Norman. — Colonel Tre- vanion," his voice growing firmer, "you're lookin' pale and forefonghten ; the red stains upon your doublet would e'en ha'' been thicker by this time, if I had'n sent the Earl's sword into the air ; for which ye ought both to thank me, instead o1 scowlin' in that manner wi' your eye. Though I 'm the last o' the Trenlyons, my Lord, I '11 ne'er quail for what I ha' done."

The effect of these words on the disappoint-

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ed combatants was to produce a long and re- sistless peal of laughter, that effectually banish- ed all remaining rancour from their minds. Trevanion stepped back, and taking the Earl's sword from the grass and leayes amidst which it had fallen, presented the hilt to its owner. " My Lord," he said, " I thank you for the life you gave, though the fury of the moment made me careless of the boon. The combat that has been thus strangely interrupted must here end. Whatever I said to give you offence was in the heat of the moment, and I regret it deeply."

" It is nobly said, Colonel Trevanion," replied the other, sheathing his weapon. " Let all rivalry of feeling henceforth cease between us, save it be for the honour of the King's service."

They then courteously bade each other adieu, and proceeded by different paths to the town. Trenlyon stood a short time beneath the thick foliage of the oaks, with an expression of ex- treme complacency on his countenance ; he sent his look first after the retiring cavaliers, and

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then fixed it on the small clear pool into which the bank gently sloped, talking to himself at the same time in broken accents. " If the very flowers and pool arn't redded ! there's none o" his among it though, or they 'd ha1 felt my point through their doublet ! With what fierceness they griped at one another, like two mastiff dogs over a bone."

Shouldering his long pike, he then turned his steps nimbly towards Wells, enjoying the sha- dow of the wood, that screened him effectually from the sun-beams, that now fell full and sultrily on meadow, high road, and verdant bank.

It was now mid- day, and the city was no longer the scene of military bustle or gaiety ; the streets were silent, and no voice of revelry was heard in the dwellings. A great part of the curious population began to gather round the doors of the cathedral, for the hour ap- pointed for the religious ceremony drew near. A. cloudless sky and brilliant sun, things that add greatly to the effect of all processions, sacred or military, now beamed on the venera-

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ble edifice, its low and dull towers, and the duller dwellings and streets of the town, which on this occasion were thronged with spectators. The sounds of slow martial music soon an- nounced that the array was drawing near ; the Bishop and his chief ecclesiastics at the head, and the principal commanders, after whom came the subordinate officers, who walked slowly towards the dark portal.

The music ceased as they entered the ancient gateway, and passed slowly up the aisles, that had never before inclosed so impressive and excited an assembly. Numerous fair spectators were already seated, whose looks were bent, in hushed and deep admiration of the spectacle, on the calm and subdued aspects of the cava- liers, which they had seen the night before lighted up with pride, vanity, and ambition.

The tombs of many a knight of the Crusaders were ranged on each side of the massive walls ; and on some were the marble figures of those warriors " lowly laid," with clasped uplifted hands and mailed breast, as if to show how fleeting was earthly honour.

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Not even the bright glances and graceful forms that were mingled strangely among the carved figures of the departed, could draw the attention of the assembled officers from the so- lemn scene before them — in truth, the living in this hour seemed to have less power over the feelings than the dead. The procession had now arrived at the altar ; and while the solemn tones of the organ rung through the low and heavy aisles, the prelate and the royal officers knelt humbly and reverently around the sacred place. The men who had so lately cherished feelings of stern rivalry to each other, thought not of them now ; even the fierce combatants of the morning, kneeling side by side, seemed to have dismissed their hatred for ever.

The sun-beams, falling strongly on the large arched window of richly painted glass, were cast brokenly and beautifully on the impressive scene ; and the venerable prelate, raising his hands, in a feeble yet distinct voice implored the divine blessing on the arms of the King in the approaching contest ; and that by signal success the throne might be guarded from its

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deadly foes, and the Church preserved from the wolves of heresy.

This part of the ceremony finished, the assembly rose, and slowly leaving the cathedral, returned to the palace of the prelate.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON : PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street.

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