CHAPTER VII.

OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS

The last battle of the Civil Wars was fought. Or rather the battle-field was changed, and the long contest of the Commonwealth began, between Oliver governing and all the rest of parties and men who wished England otherwise governed, who wished it ungoverned, or who wished to govern it themselves.

The Royalists, Prelatical or Presbyterian, necessarily against him, the classical Republicans, the Anabaptist levellers, and, in their passive way, the Quakers. Indeed, it seemed as if all parties, as parties, were against him. The wonder was, that the arm which kept them all at bay should be strong enough at the same time to keep the world at bay, for England; and to keep England so ordered, that many of those who hated the Protector's rule confessed that the times--"by God's merciful sweetening (said they) of bitter waters"--had never been so prosperous as under it.

I confess that the change from Kidderminster to our home in London was in some measure a relief. It was like coming from a walled garden (admirably kept, indeed, and watered) into the open fields. It had not been my wont to live in a place so pervaded by one man as Kidderminster, or at least what I saw of it, was at that time by Mr. Baxter. He was so very active and self-denying and good, that do what I would whilst there, I could never get over the feeling of being, in some way, a transgressor if I happened to differ from him. His writings and sermons were certainly mainly directed against the great permanent evils of ungodliness and unrighteousness. But he wrote so many controversial books on every kind of ecclesiastical topic, and was so convinced that they were all convincing to all sound minds, that it was difficult, while in the Kidderminster world, to regard oneself, if not convinced, as having anything but a very sound mind.

So that it did feel like getting into a large room, to meet and converse again with people who did not think Mr. Baxter's judgment, moderate and wise as it doubtless was, the one final standard of truth in the universe. Not, certainly, that London at that time was a world free from debate and controversy of the fiercest kind. A Commonwealth in which, during the eleven years of its existence, thirty thousand controversial pamphlets of the fiercest and most contradictory kind were battering each other, each regarded by its author and his particular friends as absolutely convincing to all sound minds, was not likely to be that.

From our home, however, such debates were mostly absent. My father fled from controversy to the Bible, and to the Society for the promotion of the new experimental philosophy, which met at Gresham College; the revelation of God in His Word and in His world. Aunt Gretel had the happy exemption of a foreigner from our English debates, political and ecclesiastical, and tranquilized herself at all times by her knitting, her hymns, and the making of possets acceptable to sick people of all persuasions. And my husband had what he regarded as the advantage of differing on some theological questions from the good men with whom he acted in religious work (he having a leaning rather to Dr. Thomas Goodwin, in his "Redemption Redeemed," than to Dr. Owen, or even to Mr. Baxter); so that he had to avoid the intermediate debatable grounds, and keep to those highest heights of adoration where Christianity is incarnate in Christ, or to those lowly duties where it is embodied in kindnesses. So much of his time, moreover, was spent in what the Protector vainly endeavoured to persuade his Parliaments to keep to, namely, the "work of healing and settling" that he had little left for the "definitions" of all things in Church and State, into which those unhappy Parliaments were so continually, to the Protector's vexation, straying.

Then there were the children, Maidie and Dolly, and the two boys who came after them, renewing one by one, in their happy infancy, the golden age; the joyous little ones, around whom it was manifestly our duty to gather as many relics of Eden, and foretastes of the thousand years of peace, as were to be had in a world where thirty thousand fiery pamphlets were flying about.

The spirit of Annis Nye, meantime, abode, listening and looking heavenward, on lofty heights far above all debate, though ready for any lowly service. And in a house in our garden, on the river bank, enlarged for his accommodation, lived our High Church friend, Dr. Rich, with his eleven children, his spirit also loftily looking down on the strifes of the present, not from the heights of immediate inspiration, but from those of history; while his eleven children, lately orphaned of their mother, made no small portion of my world, with its many interests and cares.

So that, in spite of the wide divergences of judgment in our household concerning matters political and ecclesiastical (perhaps rather in consequence of the mutual self-restraint they rendered necessary), our home came to be looked on by many as a kind of haven where people might meet face to face on the common ground of humanity and Christianity.

The mere meeting face to face on common ground, if it be pure and high, or helpful and lowly, the mere taking and giving the cups of cold water in the Master's name, the mere looking into each others' faces and grasping each others' hands as kindred, has in itself, I think, something almost sacramental. How much, indeed, of the depth and sacredness of the Highest Sacrament consists in such communion union through what we are in Him instead of agglomeration through what we think; union in Him who is to us all the Way, the Truth, the Life, but of whom the best we can think is so dim, and poor, and low.

In those years we learned to know and revere many whose memories (now that so many of them are gone, and that we so soon must be going), shining from the past we shared with them, throw a sacred yet familiar radiance on the future we hope to share.

Dr. Owen, coming now and then from his post as Vice-chancellor of Oxford to preach before the Parliament on state occasions.

Mr. John Howe, the Protector's chaplain, living on radiant lofty heights, far above the thirty thousand controversial pamphlets, himself a living temple of the living truth he adored.

Colonel Hutchinson and Mistress Lucy, with that lofty piety of theirs, which, as she said, "is the blood-royal of all the virtues." He with his republican love of liberty, and stately chivalry of character and demeanour: she with her pure and passionate love; with her earnest endeavours to judge men and things by high impartial standards; and her success in so far as that standard was embodied in her husband. Much of their time, however, during the Commonwealth they spent on the Colonel's estate, collecting pictures and sculpture, planting trees, "procuring tutors to instruct their sons and daughters in languages, sciences, music, and dancing, whilst he himself instructed them in humility, godliness, and virtue."

And Mr. John Milton, blinded to the sights of this lower world by his zeal in writing that Defence of the English People which wakened all Europe like a trumpet; and by his very blindness, it seemed, made free of higher worlds than were open to common mortals. Whitehall, I think, was not degraded by his dwelling there, nor its chambers made less royal by his eyes having looked their last through those windows on

"Day, or the sweet approach of morn or even, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, and herds, and human face divine,"

before his

.....light was spent, Ere half his days, in this dark world and wide."

For his life was indeed the pure and lofty poem he said the lives of all who would write worthily must be.

The Society of our Puritan London in those Commonwealth days was not altogether rustical or fanatical. Discourse echoes back to me from it which can, I think, have needed to be tuned but little higher to flow unbroken into the speech of the City, where all the citizens are as kings, and all the congregation seers and singers.

The first public event after our return to London was the funeral of General Ireton, Bridget Cromwell's brave husband, who had died at his post in Ireland.

He was buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The concourse was great. Dr. Owen preached the funeral sermon. There was no pomp of funeral ceremonial, of organ-music or choir. The Puritan funeral solemnities were the pomp of solemn words, and the eloquent music of the truths which stir men's hearts.

The text was, "But go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." (Dan. xii. 13).

"It is not the manner of God," Dr. Owen said, "to lay aside those whom He hath found faithful in His service. _Men indeed do so_; but God changeth not.

"There is an appointed season wherein the saints of the most eminent abilities, in the most useful employments, must receive their dismission. There is a manifold wisdom which God imparteth to the sons of men; there is a civil wisdom, and there is a spiritual wisdom: both these shone in Ireton.

"He ever counted it his wisdom to look after the will of God in all wherein he was called to serve. For _this_ were his wakings, watchings, inquiries. When that was made out, he counted not his business half done, but even accomplished, and that the issue was ready at the door. The name of God was his land in every storm; in the discovery whereof he had as happy an eye, at the greatest seeming distance, when the clouds were blackest and the waves highest, as any.

"Neither did he rest here. Some men have wisdom to know things, but not seasons. Things as well as words are beautiful in their time. He was wise to discern the seasons. There are few things that belong to civil affairs but are alterable upon the incomprehensible variety of circumstances. He that will have the garment, made for him one year, serve and fit him the next, must be sure that he neither increase nor wane. Importune insisting on the most useful things, without respect to alterations of seasons, is a sad sign of a narrow heart. He who thinks the most righteous and suitable proposals and principles that ever were in the world (setting aside general rules of unchangeable righteousness and equity) must be performed as desirable, because once they were, is a stranger to the affairs of human kind.

"Some things are universally unchangeable and indispensable: as that a government must be. Some again are allowable merely on the account of preserving the former principles. If any of them are out of course, it is a vacuum in _nature politic_, which all particular elements instantly dislodge and transpose themselves to supply. And such are all forms of government among men.

"In love to his people Ireton was eminent. All his pains, labour, jeopards of life, and all dear to him, relinquishments of relatives and contents, had sweetness of life from this motive, intenseness of love to his people.

"But fathers and prophets have but their season: they have their dismission. So old Simeon professeth, _Nunc dimittis_. They are placed of God in their station as a sentinel on his watch-tower, and then they are dismissed from their watch. The great Captain comes and saith, Go thou thy way; thou hast faithfully discharged thy duty; go now to thy rest. Some have harder service, harder duty, than others. Some keep guard in the winter, others in the summer. Yet duty they all do; all endure some hardship, and have their appointed season for dismission; and be they never so excellent in the discharging of their duty, they shall not abide one moment beyond the bounds which He hath set them who saith to all His creatures, 'Thus far shall you go and no further.'

"The three most eminent works of God in and about His children in the days of old were His giving His people the law, and settling them in Canaan; His recovering them from Babylon; and His promulgation of the gospel unto them. In these three works he employed three most eminent persons. Moses is the first, Daniel is the second, and John Baptist is the third; and none of them saw the work accomplished in which he was so eminently employed. Moses died the year before the people entered Canaan; Daniel some few years before the foundation of the temple; and John Baptist in the first year of the baptism of our Saviour, when the gospel which he began to preach was to be published in its beauty and glory. I do not know of any great work that God carried out, the same persons to be the beginners and enders thereof. Should He leave the work always on one hand, it would seem at length to be the work of the instrument only. Though the people opposed Moses at first, yet it is thought they would have worshipped him at the last; and therefore God buried him where his body was not to be found. Yet, indeed, he had the lot of most who faithfully serve God in their generation--despised while they are present, idolized when they are gone.

"God makes room, as it were, in His vineyard for the budding, flourishing, and fruit-bearing of other plants which He hath planted.

"You that are employed in the work of God, you have but your allotted season--your day hath its evening. You have your _season_, and you have _but_ your season; neither can you lie down in peace until you have some persuasion that your _work_ as well as your _life_ is at an end.

"Behold here one receiving his dismission about the age of forty years; and what a world of work for God did he in that season. And now rest is sweet to this labouring man. Provoke one another by examples. Be diligent to pass through your work, and let it not too long hang upon your hands; yea, search out work for God. You that are entrusted with power trifle not away your season. Is there no oppressed person that with diligence you might relieve? Is there no poor distressed widow or orphan whose righteous requests you might expedite and despatch? Are there no stout offenders against God and man that might be chastised? Are there no slack and slow counties and cities in the execution of justice that might be quickened by your example? no places destitute of the gospel that might be furnished?

"God takes His saints away (among other reasons) to manifest that He hath better things in store for them than the _best_ and _utmost_ of what they can desire or aim at here below. He had a heaven for Moses, and therefore might in mercy deny him Canaan. Whilst you are labouring for a handful of _first-fruits_, He gives you the _full harvest_.

"You that are engaged in the work of God, seek for the reward of your service _in the service itself_. Few of you may live to see that beauty and glory which perhaps you aim at. God will proceed at His own pace, and calls us to go along with Him; to wait in faith and not make haste. Those whose minds are so fixed on, and swallowed up with, some end (though good) which they have proposed to themselves, do seldom see good days and serene in their own souls. There is a sweetness, there is wages to be found in the work of God itself. Men who have learned to hold communion with God in every work He calls them out unto, though they never see the main harvest they aim at, yet such will rest satisfied, and submit to the Lord's limitation of their time. They bear their sheaves in their own bosom.

"_The condition of a dismissed saint is a condition of rest_. Now rest holds out two things to us; a freedom from what is opposite thereunto, and something which satisfies our nature; for nothing can rest but in that which satiates the whole nature of it in all its extent and capacity.

"They are at rest from sin, and from labour and travail. They sin no more; they wound the Lord Jesus no more; they trouble their own souls no more; they grieve the Spirit no more; they dishonour the gospel no more; they are troubled no more with Satan's temptations, no more with their own corruption; but lie down in a constant enjoyment of one everlasting victory over sin. They are no more in cold communion. They have not one thought that wanders from God to all eternity. They lose Him no more.

"There is no more watching, no more fasting, no more wrestling, no more fighting, no more blood, no more sorrow. There tyrants pretend no more title to their kingdom; rebels lie not in wait for their blood; they are no more awakened by the sound of the trumpet, nor the noise of the instruments of death; they fear not for their relations; they weep not for their friends. The Lamb is their temple, and God is all in all unto them.

"Yet this cessation from sin and labour will not complete their rest; something further is required thereto; even something to satisfy and everlastingly content them. Free them in your thoughts from what you please, without this they are not at rest. _God is the rest of their souls_. Dismissed saints rest in the bosom of God; because in the fruition of Him they are everlastingly satisfied, as having attained the utmost end whereto they were created, all the blessedness whereof they are capable.

"Every man stands in a threefold capacity--natural, civil, religious. And there are distinct qualifications unto these several capacities. To the first are suited some seeds of those _heroical virtues_ as courage, permanency in business. To the civic capacity, ability, faithfulness, industry. In their religious capacity, men's peculiar ornament lies in those fruits of the Spirit which we call Christian graces. Of these, in respect of usefulness, there are three most eminent, faith, love and self-denial. Now all these were eminent in the person deceased. My business is not to make a funeral oration, only I suppose that without offence I may desire that in courage and permanency in business (which I name in opposition to that unsettled, pragmatical, shuffling disposition which is in some men), in ability for wisdom and counsel, in faithfulness to his trust and in his trust, in indefatigable industry, in faith in the promises of God, in love to the Lord Jesus and all His saints, in a tender regard to their interest, delight in their society, contempt of himself and all his for the gospel's sake, in impartiality and sincerity in the execution of justice, that in these and the like things we may have many raised up in the power and spirit wherein he walked before the Lord and before this nation. This I hope I may speak without offence here upon such an occasion as this. MY business being occasionally to preach the Word, not to carry on a part of a funeral ceremony, I shall add no more, but commit you to Him who is able to prepare you for your eternal condition."

Often I had longed, if only for once, to hear the organ rolling its grand surges of music through the aisles of the Abbey. But when that grave voice ceased, and left a hush through that great assembly, I felt no music could be more worthy of the solemn place than those nobly reticent words of lamentation and praise; nor could England raise a nobler statue to any of her heroes than that Puritan picture of a Christian statesman.

Indeed, the public pomps of the Commonwealth which have engraven themselves most deeply on my memory were of the funereal kind.

In 1650, five years after Ireton's death, for once, by the Protector's command, the dear, long-unfamiliar sound of the old Prayer-book was heard in the Abbey, as the funeral service was read over the remains of good Archbishop Usher, buried at the Protector's expense in the great mausoleum of the nation and her kings.

In November, 1654, three years after the funeral of Ireton, Mistress Cromwell, the Protector's mother, was buried beside him among the kings.

She was ninety-four years of age. She died on the 15th of November. A little before her death (we heard) she gave the Protector her blessing, saying, "The Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of your most high God, and to be a relief unto His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. Good-night!"

She, living wellnigh all those fifty-five years of his beside him, knew well that his life had been no triumphal procession, but a toilsome march and a sore battle, little indeed changed by the battle-field being transferred from moors and hill-sides to palaces and parliament-houses. At sound of a gun she was wont to tremble in that stately home at Whitehall, fearing lest some of the many plots of assassination had at last succeeded in proving to the assassin that killing her son was no murder, And once at least every day she craved to see him, if only to know that he lived.

They laid her to rest reverently among the kings in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. And so the consecrating presence of tenderly-reverenced age passed from that English home, which during the years of the Commonwealth was at the head of all the homes of the land.

And five years after came that last funeral, which was, indeed, the funeral of the Commonwealth itself.

These are the state ceremonies of the Commonwealth which have left the deepest mark on my memory. Its thanksgivings for victories, its inauguration, installation, and enthronization of the Lord Protector in Westminster Hall were not without a certain sober republican grandeur, nor did the ermine and the sceptre misbecome the true dignity of his bearing; but they did not, I think, enhance it. Clothes need some mystical links to the unseen and the past to make them glorious; and Oliver certainly did not need clothes to make him glorious. The brow, furrowed with thought for England, was his crown; the sceptre seemed a bauble in the hand that had ruled so long without it; and the robes of state that fitted him best were the plain armour of the Ironsides. Roger, however, thought otherwise. He would have had every symbol of the royalty within our "chief of men" outwardly gathered around him, even to the crown and title of king. Whatever may be the case in religion, in politics (he thought), the common people are taught by ceremonial. As the Protector said "The people love that they do know; they love settlement and know names." If Oliver, he thought, had been proclaimed king, no Stuart would have returned to proclaim him traitor.

Be that as it might, it was not done; and the omission seemed (to many) to make the rest of the state ceremonials of the Commonwealth ragged and incomplete. Crowned, Oliver might have become in the eyes of the people King Oliver; uncrowned, he seemed but Mr. Cromwell of Huntingdon, with a sceptre in his hand which did not belong to him.

But after all, the great solemnities of the Commonwealth were the sermons. Great sermons and great congregations to hear them. They were our state-music, our military-music, our church-music, all in one. The _Te Deum_ of our thanksgiving days for victories, our coronation anthems, our requiems.

The sermons which so moved the heart of Puritan England were no empty sound of words harmoniously arranged,--a lower music, I think, than that of any true musician;--for words have a higher sphere than mere melodious tones; and, like all orders in creation, if they do not rise to the height of their own sphere, fall below the sphere below them.

It was the eloquence of men speaking to men, of things which most deeply concerned all men; of the ablest men in England speaking to her ablest men; of the loftiest spirits in England speaking to all that was loftiest in the spirit of man.

Dr. Owen's appearances in London were only occasional.

The sermons that come back on me across the years like the voice of a great river resounding with deep even flow through all the petty or tumultuous noises of the times, are those of Mr. John Howe, chaplain to the Protector.

He came to London as a country minister from his parish of Torrington, somewhere about 1654, and went to hear the preaching in Whitehall Chapel. But Oliver, "who generally had his eyes everywhere," and whose eyes had such a singular faculty for seeing men's capacity, discerned something more than ordinary in his countenance, and sent to desire to speak with him after the worship of God was over. The interview satisfied him he had not been mistaken. The great heart that so singularly honoured the worth his eyes were so quick to discern, whether those he honoured honoured him or not; and the will so strong to bend all men's wills, would not rest until he had induced the parson of Torrington, though somewhat reluctantly, to become his own chaplain.

The choice might reflect some light on the nature of the Protector's own piety.

There was abundance of vehement fiery eloquence to be had among the Puritan preachers, and (I doubt not) there could have been found too many flatterers.

But Mr. Howe so little flattered the Protector, that he deliberately preached against the doctrine of a particular persuasion in prayer, which was one of the Protector's strongholds.

And so far was his eloquence from being vehement, that its very glory was a majestic evenness of flow, which, while it swept the whole soul irresistibly on to his conclusion, seldom tossed it up and down with those changeful heavings of emotion that are the luxuries of popular orations. Any preacher who was less of a fiery declaimer and of a fanatic, or less of a brilliant popular orator than John Howe, Oliver's chosen chaplain, can, I think, scarcely be found in the history of preaching. If he had a fault, it is the difficulty of detaching any word, image, or pointed sentence from the grand sweep of his argument sufficiently to give any conception of its power to those who did not hear him. If his eloquence was a river, it was one without the dash and sparkle of rapids and eddies, steadily deepening and broadening, in a majestic current to its end. If it was a fire, it was no mere spark or flame to make the heart glow for a moment, but a steady furnace enkindling principles into divine affections. If it was a flight, it was no mere darting hither and thither, as of smaller birds; scarcely even the upward musical mounting of the lark to descend on her nest; but the soaring of the eagle with his eye on the sun. He strengthened you for duty by transporting you to the divine spring of all duty. He strengthened you against earthly care simply by lifting you above it to "the holy order of God." "Do not hover as meteors; do not let your minds hang in the air in a pendulous, uncertain, unquiet posture," he said; "a holy rectitude, composure, and tranquillity in our life, carries with it a lively, sprightly vigour. Our Saviour says that life consists not in things, but in a good healthy internal habit of spirit. What a blessed repose, how pleasant a vacancy of diseasing, vexatious thoughts, doth that soul enjoy which gives a constant, unintermittent consent to the divine government, when it is an agreed, undisputed thing, that God shall always lead and prescribe, and it follow and obey. Discontent proceeds from self-conceit, self-dependence, self-seeking, all which despicable idols (or that one great idol _self_ thus variously idolized) one sight of God would bring to nothing."

He strengthened men for death, not by fortifying them against it as a sleep, but by regarding life as the sleep and death the waking. "It fares with the sluggish soul as if it were lodged in an enchanted bed. So deep an oblivion hath seized it of its own country, of its alliance above, of its relation to the Father and world of spirits, it takes this earth for its home where 'tis both in exile and captivity at once, as a prince stolen away in his infancy and bred up in a beggar's shed. Being in the body, it is as with a bird that hath lost its wings. The holy soul's release from its earthly body will shake off this drowsy sleep. Now is the happy season of its awaking into the heavenly vital light of God. The blessed morning of the long-desired day hath now dawned upon it; the cumbersome night-veil is laid aside, and the garments of salvation and immortal glory are now put on." "The greatest enemy we have cannot do us the despite to keep us from dying." To one whose spirit was thus itself a living Temple, even the great Abbey seemed an earthly house. The incense, the ritual, and the music of the heavenly city were around Him. "The sacrifice of Christ," he said, "is of virtue to perfume the whole world."

Yet I feel that these extracts give as little idea of the power of his preaching, as a phial of salt-water of the sea. You perceive from it that the water of the sea is salt and clear, but of the sea itself, heaving in multitudinous waves from horizon to horizon, you have no more idea than before.

The very titles of his books read like arguments of a divine poem--a Paradise Lost and Regained. "The Living Temple;" "The Blessedness of the Righteous;" "Of Delighting in God;" "The Redeemer's Tears wept over lost Souls;" "The Love of God and our Brother;" "The Carnality of Religious Contention;" "Of Reconciliation between God and Man;" "The Redeemer's Dominion over the Invisible World."

Far indeed his spirit dwelt above the small controversies of the time, engaged in the great controversy of light against darkness. "Holiness," he said, "is the Christian's armour, the armour of light: strange armour that may be seen through." "A good man's armour is that he needs none; his armour is an open breast. Likeness to God is an armour of proof. A person truly like God is far raised above the tempestuous stormy region, and converses where winds and clouds have no place. Holy souls were once darkness, but now they are light in the Lord--_darkness_, not in the dark, as if that were their whole nature, and they were nothing but an impure mass of conglobated darkness. So '_ye are light_,'--as if they were that and nothing else. How suppose we such an entire sphere of nothing else but pure light? What can raise a storm with it? A calm serene thing, perfectly homogeneous, void of contrariety. We cannot yet say that thus it is with holy souls, but thus it will be when they awake. Glory is revealed to them, transfused through them; not a _superficial skin-deep glory_, but a transformation, changing the soul throughout; _glory, blessedness, brought home and lodged in a man's own soul_."

Blessedness, to Mr. Howe, consisted in godliness, and godliness manifested itself in goodness--as high a conception of Christian religion, I think, as has been realized before or since. His learning was not as fragments of a foreign language, intertwined for purposes of decoration with his own, but as a translation into the language of day of the converse he had held, on the high places of the earth, with his kindred among the lofty souls of the past, in the language native to them all, concerning the infinite heavens above them all. This was the kind of eloquence we listened to at Whitehall and St. Margaret's during the days of the Commonwealth. And among all the great Puritan preachers this was the one whom Oliver chose for his chaplain.

We never intruded ourselves on the Protector during his greatness. There were so many to claim his notice then. And we needed it not; having work enough to occupy us and means enough to do it, and happiness enough in it, what with the sick and the prisons and the children in the home.

But Roger was always in his service, and he brought us word continually what a burden and toil that rule was to the ruler.

Above the noisy strife of parties, men like Howe could dwell in the purer air; beneath it the people and the churches were silently prospering. But Oliver's way lay through the thick of the strife, with little intermission, from the beginning to the end. If ever "I serve" was justly a prince's motto, it was his. "Ready to serve," as he said, "_not as a king but as a constable_; if they liked it, often thinking indeed that he could not tell what his business in the place he stood in was, save that of a good constable set to keep the peace of the parish." Oliver's parish (Roger said) being England with all her parties, and Europe with her Protestants and Catholics, ready at a word to fly on each other. He kept the peace of his parish well. Others might concern themselves with the _well-being_ of the nation (as he said)--"he had to consider its _being_." The ship which the mixed crew of Anabaptists, Levellers, classical Republicans, and Royalists, were debating in Parliament and out of it how to work according to most perfect rules, had meantime _to be worked_, being not in harbour but on the stormiest sea, amidst hostile fleets.

Parliament after parliament met, debated, did nothing, and was dissolved. But still the ship of the nation sailed majestically and triumphantly on, breasting stormy waves and scattering hostile fleets, with that one hand on the helm, and the eyes of that one man on the stars and on the waves.

Roger was full of hope throughout those years. The time must come, he said, when the nation would see what the Protector was doing for her. All Europe had seen it long. Ambassadors came from Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria.

All Europe felt England a power, and knew who made her so. England herself could not fail to see it soon. Then, instead of taking her greatness sullenly from Oliver's hands, she would acknowledge him as the "single person" to whom the parliaments and people owed allegiance--her sovereign by divinest right--suffer him to rule in accordance with her ancient order instead of in spite of it--grant what he passionately craved, the privilege of making her as free as he had made her strong; rise herself to be the queen of the Protestant nations.

And then the glorious day would dawn, Roger thought, for England and the world. What tender sweet hopes lay deep in his heart, as one of the roses strewn by this Aurora, I knew well. What England and the world said, one maiden's heart would surely be blind to no more!

So the years passed on. Our fleets, with Blake in command, were ranging the Mediterranean Sea, Rumours came of victories over Italian and Mussulman, of compensation for wrong, of slaves set free.

In the late king's reign the Barbary Pirates had carried off our countrymen from our shores near Plymouth Sound. Under Oliver, our fleets battered down the forts of the Pirates on their own shores, and set the captives free.

All nations courted his alliance. And from the plantations of New England (through Mr. John Cotton and others) came joyful voices of congratulation on the liberties and glories which these children of Old England felt still to be theirs.

All seemed advancing, Roger thought, like a triumph. Righteousness springing out of the earth, Truth looking down from heaven--when tidings burst upon us which stirred the heart of England to its depths, from sea to sea.

From the far-off valleys of the Alps of Piedmont came the cry of wrong. How a whole race of our fellow-Protestants, "men otherwise harmless, only for many years famous for embracing the purity of religion," had been tortured, massacred, and driven from their homes, to perish naked and starving on the mountains.

Never, since the Irish massacre at the beginning of the Civil Wars, had England been so moved with one overwhelming tide of indignation and pity. But with the indignation at the Irish massacre meaner feelings of selfish terror had been mingled. This wrong touched England only in her noblest part. For the time we seemed to reach the depths beneath all our divisions and turmoils. England felt herself one, in this common sympathy; and what was more, the Protestant Church glowed into a living unity through this holy fire of indignation and pity, which, being true, failed not to burst forth in generous deeds of succour. "For," as Milton wrote, "that the Protestant name and cause, although they differ among themselves in some things of little consequence, is nevertheless the same, the hatred of our adversaries alike incensed against Protestants very easily demonstrates."

The massacre began in December, 1654, that merciless "slaughter on the Alpine mountains cold." Six regiments were engaged in it, three of them the Irish "Kurisees," from whom the Protector had delivered Ireland.

It was the 3rd of June before the cry of distress reached Oliver at Whitehall. The hills had been flashing it for five months to heaven. For five months our brethren and their families had been wandering destitute, afflicted, tormented, on the mountains above their ruined, desolated homes.

Much frightful wrong had been wrought irrevocably, past all the remedies of earth. What remedy was still possible there was no delay in finding, and no lack of generous tenderness in applying.

The Protector at once gave £2,000 from his private purse. A day of humiliation was appointed throughout the country, "such a fast as God hath chosen, to undo the heavy burdens, to break every yoke, to deal bread to the hungry, and cover the naked." Thirty-seven thousand pounds were contributed to the suffering brethren in the Valleys. Secretary Milton wrote six State letters in the Protector's name to the princes of Europe and the Switzer Republic. Oliver showed plainly to France that he cared more for the righting of this wrong than for the most profitable alliances in the world. The Catholic world perceived for once that Protestantism meant more than mere doubt and denial, that it meant a common faith and a common life.

And as far as might be the wrong was set right, the exiles were relieved from their destitution and restored to their homes.

It was something to be an Englishwoman then.

Roger was appointed to accompany the envoys sent by the Protector to Paris. He came to take leave of us with a face all alit with hope.

"England is beginning to acknowledge her deliverer," he said. "All Europe is flashing back on her his kingly likeness, as if from a thousand mirrors. She must acknowledge him at last."

And with a farewell which had the joyous ring of a welcome in it, he went.

The joyful confidence of his tones and hope made them linger on my heart long, like music. "She must acknowledge him at last." They mingled with my dreams, and woke with me when I woke, but with a double meaning subtilely intertwined into them; as if England were personated, as in some royal festive masque, in the form of Lettice Davenant, no more weeping and downcast, as when I had seen her last, but her bright face, and her dear joyous eyes full of serene determination and unquenchable hope.

LETTICE'S DIARY.

"_Paris, Twelfth Night_, 1655.--My birth-day. More than four years since I wrote a word in this book. The pages begin to look faded, like my youth. I scarcely know why I have left such an interval, except that it is so difficult not to look on the whole of this life of exile as an interval; a blank space, or an impertinent episode in the history of life, which, by-and-by, when the true history begins again, we just tear out or seal together.

"All this time I have heard nothing from the old friends in England, except two letters; one from Mistress Dorothy, wherein she gave me a terrible picture of the wrong-doings and thinkings of certain religious people of an entirely new kind, whom she calls 'Quakers.' It seems that Olive brought one to her house at Kidderminster, which Mistress Dorothy thought a great wrong. As far as I can make out, Olive has no thought of becoming a Quaker; nor can I find out distinctly what the Quakers are or do, except that every one seems enraged against them, and that on that ground Olive and Dr. Antony took this Quaker maiden under their wing. Poor sweet Olive, she always had a way of getting entangled into defending people under general ban; from witches downward or upward. I suppose Annis Nye is Olive's present Gammer Grindle. In which case, Olive at least seems little changed. But that letter was written before the Battle of Worcester. From Mistress Dorothy's account they appear to be a new kind of sect, with a new elaborate ceremonial or ritual, to which they adhere very strictly. Mistress Dorothy speaks of their refusing to take off their hats, and to bow or courtesy. This must evidently be a ritual observance; because people would scarcely be sent to prison simply for keeping on their hats and not courtesying.

"Mistress Dorothy spoke, too, by the way, of Olive's two children, Maidie and the babe.

"The babe must be now a prattling child of five, and Maidie probably a little person invested with the solemn responsibilities of the eldest sister. I fancy her with Olive's fair, calm face, thinking it her greatest honour to share her mother's household occupations, or to run by her side with a basket of food to supplement Dr. Antony's medicines. I fancy Mistress Gretel smiling at the babes, and letting them entangle her knitting with the feeblest of remonstrances, and in a serene way undermining all Olive's 'wholesome' discipline. I fancy Mr. Drayton a little older, a little graver, not quite satisfied with the fruits of the war, wishing Mr. Hampden back, and Lord Falkland, and England as they might have made it; and taking refuge with the stars and his grand-children. I fancy--till I am angry with myself for fancying anything, as if it made shadows out of realities. For they live; _they live_, in the old solid living England. If any are shadows, it is we, poor helpless, voiceless exiles on this shadowy shore; not they. And then I begin to think not of what I fancy, but what I know. I know they are good, and kind, and godly still. And I know--yes, I know--they have not forgotten; they still love and think of me.

"Only sometimes it troubles me a little that they are going on thinking of me as the young Lettice they knew so long ago; which is scarcely the same as thinking of the middle-aged Lettice Davenant who has reached her twenty-ninth birth-day to-day.

"I think sometimes now of the scorn with which I was wont to speak of middle-states of things, saying there was no poetry in mid-day, mid-summer, middle-station, middle-age. And often and often the answer comes cheerily back, how _he_ spoke of 'manhood and womanhood, with their dower of noble work, and strength to do it;' and how he could not abide 'to hear the spring-tide spoken pulingly of, as if it faded instead of ripening into summer; and youth, as if it set instead of dawned into manhood.' 'It was but a half-fledged poetry,' he said, 'which must go to dew-drops and rosy morning clouds for its similes and could see no beauty in noon-tide with its patient toil or its rapturous hush of rest.'--It comes back to me like an invigorating march music, now that the joyous notes of the reveille have died away, and the vesper hymns are not yet ready, and the march of noon-tide life has fairly begun.

"What, then, makes evening and morning, spring and autumn, the delight of poets? The light then blossoms or fades into colour. The light itself then is a fair picture to look at. At noon it sinks deeper no longer on the surface of clouds, but into the chalices of flowers and into the heart of fruits; it is painting pictures on the harvest-fields and orchards; it is ripening and making the world fair, and enabling us to see it. It is light not to look at, but to work by. Its beauty is in making things beautiful. And so I think it is with middle-age. Its beauty is not in itself; but in loving thought for others, and loving work for others. Looking at ourselves in middle-life, we see only the glow faded, the dewy freshness brushed away. Therefore we must not look at ourselves, but at the work the Master gives us to do, the brothers and sisters the Father gives us to love. In Olive's heart, no doubt, the thought of youth passing away scarcely arises. She sees her children growing around her, and works and plans for them, and counts the hours again as morning, not as evening hours, renewing her life in the morning of theirs. And although that lot is not mine, I have scarcely more temptation to 'talk pulingly of morning fading into noon' than she. Madame la Mothe takes me close to her heart. With her I am her friend's child. Then these revenues which come to us so much more regularly than to most of the Cavaliers, give us so many means of helping others, that this alone is an occupation. Especially as these revenues are, after all, not unlimited, and my father and Walter believe they are (as the wants of the Cavaliers certainly are), so that it requires some planning and combining to make things go as far as they can. Which in itself is a great occupation to Barbe and me, and makes our daily house-keeping as interesting as a work of charity. And since the English Service has been prohibited at the Louvre, as it has been since the Battle of Worcester, I have some happy work in a kind of little school of young English girls, amongst whom it is sweet to do what I can, that when they go back, the Holy Scriptures and the prayers of the dear old Prayer-book may not be unfamiliar to them.

"Then my father is wonderfully forbearing with me. For it has vexed him that I could not listen to some excellent Cavaliers, who wished for our alliance.

"Madame la Mothe also sometimes lectures me a little on this score with reference to a nephew of hers. But as the project was primarily hers and not his, this little proposal was much easier to decline. Only sometimes she shakes her head and says,--

"'There has been a history, my poor child! Every woman's heart has its history. But heaven forbid that I should seek to penetrate into thy secret. Yet thou art not like thy mother in all things. She suffered. Thou wilt conquer. Her eyes were as those of Mater Dolorosa by the Cross. Thine are as those of Regina Cœli above the storms.'"

"And I cannot tell her. Because I can never look on that love as a history. I know so well he could not change. It is scarcely betrothal, for there is neither promise nor hope. It is simply belonging to each other in life and in death.

"Then sometimes she smiles and kisses me and says, 'There is some little comfort even in thy being of "the religion." On that rock of thine, no torrent of Port-Royalist eloquence will sweep thee away from us into a convent. And for the rest, God is merciful; and having made islands, it is possible He has especial dispensations suited to islands.'"

"For Madame la Mothe has entirely relinquished my conversion. Seeing that I can honour the ladies of Port Royal from the bottom of the heart, without being attracted to Port Royal, she has given me up.

"She says I have no restless cravings, no void to fill, and it is to the restlessness of the heart that the repose of religion appeals.

"In one way she is right. Thank God she is right. Or rather my whole heart is one great craving unfathomable void. But Christianity fills it. Christ fills it. He Himself; satisfying every aspiration, meeting every want, being all I want. Pitying, forgiving, loving, _commanding_ me. The commanding sometimes most satisfying of all. Always, always; all through my heart. Redeemer, that is much; Master, that (afterwards) is almost more. Father! that is all.

"There have been sorrows. After Worcester, my father was so terribly cast down and gentle. I remember it was almost a relief the first time he was really a little angry after that; although it was with me he was angry; and quite a relief to hear him begin to storm at the French Court again, when they suppressed our English Service at the Louvre, and did what they could with any civility to suppress or dismiss us, and began to pay court to the Arch-Traitor.

"Since then the success of the Usurper in making England great, and the baseness of some of the attempts to assassinate him (not discouraged, alas, by some of our Court)! have strained my father's loyalty to the utmost.

"But the sorrow is Walter; the wrong which sometimes makes us ready, in desperation, to pay our allegiance anywhere but there whence the evil came, is the sore change in him. We made some sacrifices in old times to the royal cause. But what were poor Dick, and Robert, and George, slain on the field, or even Harry laying down his life at Naseby, or even that precious mother stricken into heaven by his death, compared with a life poisoned in its springs like Walter's at this selfish wicked Court? All the fair promise of his youth turned into corruption; his very heart slain!

"Our martyred king required the lives of our dearest, and they were given willingly for him. But this king takes their souls, themselves, their life of life, not as a living sacrifice, but to be trampled, and soiled, and crushed in the dust and mire of sin, till their dear familiar features are scarcely to be distinguished by those who love them best.

"The gladness of heart my mother delighted in changed into a fickle irritability, or frozen into mockery at all sacred things human or divine. The generous spirit degraded into mere selfish lavishness, caring not at what cost to others it buys its wretched pleasures.

"And then the miserable reactions of regret and remorse which I used to rejoice in, until I learned to know they were the mere irritable self-loathing of exhausted passion, as little moral as when (at other times) the same irritation turned against my father or me instead of against himself. Until at last I dare not profane the sacred names of mother and of God, by using them as a kind of magic spell to unseal the springs of maudlin sentimental tears. Oh, how bitter the words look! Walter, Walter, my brother! tenderly committed by my mother to me, living in the house with us day by day, yet farther off--more out of reach (it seems) of pleading or prayer than those who lie on the cold slopes of Rowten Heath and Naseby! Is there no weapon in God's armoury to reach thy heart? Good Mistress Gretel used to say God had so many weapons we knew not of in His storehouses. In mine, alas, there seem none; none except going on loving. And perhaps after all that is the strongest in His.

"Going on loving. Yes; our Lord surely did that, does that. When 'He turned to the woman' in Simon's house, it was not the first time He had so turned to her. Not the first. How many times from the first! Yet at last she turned and came and looked on Him. And she was forgiven. And in loving Him a new fountain of purity was opened in her heart, the only purity worth the name, the purity of love; the purity not of ice but of fire. Yes; in Him there is the possibility of restoration.

"But, oh, for these desecrated wasted years, for the glory of the prime turned into corruption, for all that might have been and never can be, for this one irrevocable life ebbing, ebbing so fast away, for the terrible possibility of there being no restoration. For some looked, and listened, and longed, but never came!

"_May_.--Barbe came into my chamber this morning, weeping and wringing her hands.

"'Ah, mademoiselle!' she said; 'another St. Bartholomew--a second St. Bartholomew!'"

"'Have they risen against the Protestants in Paris?' I said. And my first thought was of Walter,--a wild thought, whether this might be the angel's sword to drive him back into the fold. If we were to be hunted hither and thither, who could say but in the severe destitution of some den or cave of refuge, or even in the prison of the Inquisition, sacred old words might come back to him, and he might turn and be saved? And then another flash of thought! If we were seized as Protestants, England would rise; Cromwell, Englishman and Protestant that he was, would demand us back. We should no more be Royalist and Rebel, but all English and Protestant; and return to England, to Netherby, and Walter with us, and a new life begin. Wild hopes, flashing through my mind between my question and Barbe's answer, delayed, as it was, by her tears.

"'Not in Paris yet, mademoiselle; that is to come. No doubt, the tyrants will not end where they began. It is the people of the valleys--the Vaudois--men of the religion, before France knew what the religion was. My mother's kindred came thence,--quiet, loyal peasants, tilling their poor patches of field and vineyard among the savage mountains. The Duke of Savoy would have them all foreswear the religion in three days. They held firm. He sent six regiments--herds of monsters, wild beasts, among the people. They tortured, killed, wrought horrors I cannot name, but which those faithful men and women had to bear.' And her sobs choked her words; until by degrees she told me all she knew of the dreadful story of outrage and wrong.

"'And is there none to help?' I said.

"'There is none;--unless it be this Mr. Cromwell,' she said, with a little hesitation, knowing how abhorred the name was amongst us. 'These poor, exiled, outraged Christians have appealed to him.'

"_June_ 8.--My father says all the world is ablaze about this letter of Mr. John Milton, the Usurper's Latin secretary, concerning these persecuted exiles from the valleys. Its words are very strong. It seems not unlikely the French Court may be moved to interfere an their behalf. 'It is some comfort,' said my father, 'to see that the old country has a voice which must be listened to, even though she speaks through the mouth of this murderous Usurper.'

"_June_ 9.--My father came in, with his eyes enkindled with a look of triumph such as I had not seen in them for years.

"'We must have a rejoicing, Lettice, cost what it may. There is no help for it, but an English gentleman's heart must be glad at such news! Robert Blake has been pounding them right and left--Pope and Turk, Duke and Dey. The Blakes of Somersetshire--a good old family: I knew them well. The English fleet calls at Leghorn, and the Pope and his Italians eagerly grant whatever they demand. The English fleet calls at Tunis, demanding justice from the Dey and his pirates. The Dey refuses: Blake batters down his forts, and burns his fleet in the harbour. The Dey will not refuse us our rights again. The world begins to know what the name of an Englishman means. Already these French courtiers practise a little civility. The very rascal boys in the streets seem less impudent. We must have a merry-making, Lettice. What can we do? At home we would have all the village to a feast, set all the ale-barrels flowing, and all the bells in the country ringing. But here the people, poor half-starved creatures, drink nothing but vinegar. And as to these everlasting bells, that are always dropping and trickling, no one knows why; it would do one's heart good if one could wake them up for once, and set them free all together, to burst out in the torrent of a grand old English peal. But we cannot. Who can we give a feast to, Lettice? One cannot exactly have a Cavalier dinner, because it might look like celebrating the victory of the Usurper. Yet somebody or other must be made the merrier, that the old country has done such a good stroke of work. Whom can we have?'

"I could think of no one but Barbe, her father and mother, and the seven hungry little brothers and sisters she helped to support. Accordingly the next day we made them a supper in honour of the victory over the Turks, an attention which seemed to gratify our guests much, although my father was not a little dissatisfied at having to entertain guests on what he scornfully termed 'broth, vinegar, and sugar-plums.' But I think to the end Barbe and her family remained in a very misty state of mind as to what they were to rejoice about; and but for my father's imperfect acquaintance with the French language, I am afraid the closing speech of Barbe's father, who was an old gentleman with political theories, and of a lofty and florid style of eloquence, might have caused an explosion. For the point of it was:

"'Excellent Monsieur and amiable Mademoiselle, your country is a great country; though sometimes to us Frenchmen a little difficult to understand. No doubt, this Monseigneur Cromwell has not the advantage of a descent as pure as could be wished; but he has the advantage of making himself understood in all languages. The Turks seem to have understood Mr. Blake. There is, also, Mr. Milton, who writes Latin with the elegance of the renowned Tully. The Duke of Savoy will have to understand him. The poor exiled Vaudois are to be restored to their valleys. Monseigneur Cromwell has insisted on it. He has also sent two thousand pounds of his own for their relief, and your nation has added more than thirty thousand;--a sum scarcely to be calculated by simple people. It is a pity Monseigneur should be out of the legitimate line of your country's kings. But such changes must happen at times in dynasties. Our own has changed more than once. And, no doubt, your magnanimous nation understands her own affairs, and ere long will arrange herself to the satisfaction of all parties. Monsieur and mademoiselle, I thank you in the name of my family. Such hospitality is a proof of a tender and generous heart, worthy of the great nation which has sent this princely succour to the oppressed.'

"'What does he say, Lettice?' whispered my father.

"'That England is a great nation,' I replied; 'and that it is a pity Oliver Cromwell was not of the house of Stuart.'

"For a moment my father's eyes flashed; but then, shaking his head compassionately, he only said: 'Of course, these poor foreigners cannot be expected to understand our politics. We must make allowances, Lettice; we must make allowances. Every man cannot, after all, be born an Englishman.'

"_June_ 10.--The meaning of Barbe's father's speech is plain. The Usurper has sent an Embassy Extraordinary to the French Court and to Savoy, and all the redress he demands for the Vaudois is to be made. They are to be restored to their mountain homes, and protected from future ill usage. He styles himself 'Oliver, Protector.' The poor Vaudois, at least, are likely to think the title not undeserved.

"_June_ 11.--My father says Roger is here. If any one in the world could help Walter, he might. Walter has been terrible lately. His reckless, mocking ways drive my father wild. He storms in righteous anger. Walter recriminates with cool, reckless jests. My father commands him to go. Walter goes; does not come back for days. My father grows more and more restless and wretched during his absence; reproaches himself; taps at my door at night, and says: 'Lettice, I shall never rest any more. I have driven the lad to destruction. I will go and seek him.' In a few hours he returns with Walter, destitute and affectionate. He returns as a prodigal; but, alas! not come to himself; aggrieved against the husks--against the beggarly citizens, who would not give him any--but chiefly against the father, who, having given him his own portion, refused him his brother's. And so, for the hundredth time, we welcome him, weep over him, make much of him, and provide him with such best robes and portions of our living as we can possibly spare. And in a day or two he meets his old associates, has some good-natured message from the king, and, before long, is drawn off into the old tide of riotous living. Away from us, heart and soul, in the far country, where we at the old home are mere shadows to him. We mere shadows to him; and he the core of our hearts to us!

"I feel that these tender changes of feelings of my father's, the very anger springing from affection, and the affection making him repent of his just anger as of a sin, are not good for Walter. I cannot help, sometimes, telling him what sacrifices my father makes for him; how ungrateful and unjust he is in return. But he merely laughs, and talks as if women were creatures with quite another edition of the Ten Commandments from men; or, sometimes, he says my Puritan friends have taken the spirit out of me; or that I should have married, and then I should have understood the world a little, and had something else to do than to educate my brothers. But when he says such things to me, he is always, or often, sorry afterwards, and tries to expiate them by some little extra gift or attention.

"And often my father also is vexed rather with me than with Walter, when he and Walter have differed. He seems to think I ought in some way to have made life more cheerful to them both. But this I know he does not mean. Such words are only as an inarticulate cry of pain. He means it no more than he means what he says far oftener and more vehemently, that he will never waste another groat, nor hazard a drop of blood again, for the heartless, faithless family ('Scottish and French not English,' saith he, in his bitterest moments), which fate has smitten England with; when I know that, at the next glimpse of a hope of Restoration, he would spend his fortune to the uttermost farthing, and his blood to the last drop, to see the young king enjoy his own again.

"_June_ 12th.--We have met, Roger and I, for a few minutes, but those minutes, seemed to have bridged over all the years between, and it is as if our lives had been lived side by side all the time, Yet we said scarcely a connected sentence that I can recall.

"It was in one of the little tumults which now and then arise in the narrow streets out of disputes for precedence.

"I was in Madame la Mothe's coach, when we met a coach which happened to belong to a seigneur, whose lands are close to Madame la Mothe's in the country. Neither of the coachmen would give way and back his horses. It was a rivalry of centimes. As happens in so many contests, the immediate interests of the chiefs were lost sight of in the vehemence of their followers. Madame la Mothe and I were left solitary and uneasy in the coach, while the servants contended for our dignity in the street. At length the tumult of voices grew fierce, the hoofs of the horses clattered on the stones as the postillions urged them with a defiant crack of their whips, and it seemed as if the two coaches and their inmates were to charge each other bodily, as if we had been batteries or battalions.

"'There will be bloodshed,' exclaimed Madame la Mothe, 'bloodshed for a title, for my title!' and pushing open the door, she sprang on the pavement, and threw herself among the combatants with words of peace.

"The lady in the other coach seeing her descend, did the same. Advancing rapidly towards each other they made reverences to each other.

"Madame la Mothe held out her hands. 'Let us make a compromise, madame,' she said; 'we will both reascend one coach with my young friend, Let it be yours. We will then proceed together, while my coach retires. Bloodshed will be avoided. The loyal rivalry of our people will be satisfied. Your side will gain the victory, but it will be in my service.'

"The ladies embraced, and hand in hand entered the other coach. The retainers shouted long life to both the illustrious houses; and the little drama was ending in a general embrace, when an obstacle presented itself in the determination of one of Madame la Mothe's horses, which absolutely refused to sacrifice his own sense of dignity by retreating.

"The perplexity was great when Madame la Mothe, turning to me, exclaimed, 'My child, you will excuse my making you the victim of a slight _ruse de guerre_, to avoid wounding the honour of these excellent people. We will make it a question of national courtesy.' And having obtained the other lady's consent, leaning from the window, she said to one of the young gentlemen in attendance, in a voice that all round might hear: 'See, this young lady is of a noble English house, in exile for loyalty to the unfortunate king. All noblesse yields to noblesse sacrificing itself for royalty. Conduct Mademoiselle Davenant, I pray you, to my carriage, aid let us retire before her.'

"I wad being reconducted to Madame la Mothe's carriage, pale, perhaps a little anxious, for there were murmurs of discontent among the retainers of the adverse company, when suddenly Roger appeared before me, and in a moment my hand was in his before I knew how, and I was alone in the carriage, slowly advancing, while he walked beside the window.

"'A friend of mademoiselle's father! Move forward!' he said to the attendants, in slightly broken French, with that quiet expectation of obedience which always gave credentials to his commands. He was obeyed; and we moved slowly on.

"'You excuse me?' he said to me. His hand was on the edge of the window. 'I heard your name, and saw you looking alarmed, and before I had time to question my right to do it, I found myself taking care of you.'

"He said no more. And I said nothing. It was one of those moments which seemed not to belong to the hour but to the ages; because ore does not think of looking backward or forward while they last, the rest they bring is so complete.

"But as we came to the end of the narrow street, and were about to turn into a broader place, there was again a little tumult which delayed us. Looking out, I saw it was caused by a company of young cavaliers arrogantly pushing the crowd aside. Among them I saw the faces of one or two whom I recognized as friends of Walter's, and I thought I caught a glimpse of Walter himself.

"Then I forgot everything but Walter, the longing I had so often had that he could know Roger and the possibility of Roger saving him.

"'Roger,' I said, 'you remember Walter the youngest of us, the boy my mother thought so much of. Those are some of our king's courtiers. They are Walter's friends. They are bad friends. They are ruining him for life and for ever. I have thought sometimes if you could have been his friend, it might have been different.'

"'I will do all what I can, Lettice,' he said, and that was all. But his 'what I can,' and his 'Lettice,' are volumes that need no commentary.

"Madame la Mothe re-appeared.

"I introduced Roger as best I could.

"She lavished thanks on him, and kept him some little time in conversation, while the men were setting something right about the harness.

"But he replied only in monosyllables.

"For some time after he had taken leave we drove on in silence.

"I was thinking whether I had done right. In committing my brother to Roger had I not, as it were, made him my knight, set him forth on a sacred enterprise for my sake, which he might interpret into an atonement for that terrible deed which separated us?

"That terrible deed which all the blood in the world, and all the good deeds in the world cannot expiate, which nothing but repentance can blot out! And Roger will never repent.

"They came sweeping back on my heart with his voice, all the old familiar sacred recollections, my mother's affection for him, the touch of her hand clasping ours, the sound of her voice blessing us. And far away, like a ghost, at cock-crowing, glided that dreadful scaffold. 'Politics!' did not every one say; 'what have women to do with politics?'

"And after all, what had Roger to do with that terrible deed? He had sat near on horseback, as a soldier of Parliament, while it was done. As a soldier of the Parliament, what could he do otherwise? As a man, would he not rather have risked his life to save the royal sufferer's life? All the consequences of rebellion are involved in the first act of rebellion. War means life or death, victory or death to all involved. All the terrible results were unfolded in the first fatal lifting up of the rebel standard at Edgehill; a shot might have ended His Majesty's life then as easily as the axe years afterwards. Roger's loyalty is to England, and, for her sake, to whomsoever he believed will rule and serve her best. That first act of disloyalty once committed, in the choice of a wrong leader, the more loyal the character the more disloyal must be the acts ever after. It was Roger's fatal hereditary misbelief which had enlisted him in Cromwell's army. And that my mother knew, and knowing, had sanctioned his love. But once enlisted, it was the very loyalty of heart which would have led him to die with Montrose for the king's cause, however hopeless, which had lead him thus to guard the king's scaffold, however he hated to be there. For I know he did hate to be there! If he would but once confess that his heart had bled at the sight, as I am sure it did! But I knew too well how that fatal loyalty of nature which had prevented his resisting the worst deed of his traitorous leader, would keep his lips sealed for ever from disclaiming his share in it, when done.

"But if I knew his heart, ought I not to accept the reverent pity which I knew must have moved him, and made his presence at the martyrdom a torture to him, in place of any mere words which a heart less true than his would have uttered so easily? Indeed, whether I accepted it or not, had not it been already understood and accepted above? As the mistakes of Port Royal were understood and forgiven, and of Aunt Dorothy, and, as we trust, our own mistakes will be.

"Then came the thought,--

"'You are getting sophistical. Right and wrong are right and wrong for all and for ever. If you try to put yourself into the place, and feel the temptations of every criminal, as he feels them, you will end in condemning no crime.'

"Thus as I sat silent by Madame la Mothe's side, while in a few moments all those arguments rushed in conflict through my heart, there was anything but silence within.

"At last Madame la Mothe spoke. Very quietly she laid her hand on mine, and without looking at me, said,--

"'My child, forgive me. I shall never ask what your secret is again, nor wonder why you keep your heart sealed like the doors of Port Royal.'

"'It is no secret, madame,' I said. 'We were betrothed by my mother's sanction. Only this dreadful war has separated us.'

"'Your young Cavalier is not on the king's side?' she said. 'It is a pity. He has the manners of the ancient chivalry. Deferential and stately, his politeness has something at once protecting and lofty in it, as if he were a king, and all women as queens to him. Alas, for these English politics and these consciences!'

"'It is not politics that separate us, madame,' I said, almost mechanically; 'it is the king's death.'

"'Surely the young Cavalier was too noble to be concerned in that!' she said.

"'He was a soldier of the Commonwealth, madame,' I said, 'and as a soldier had to obey.'

"I found myself defending him in spite of myself.

"'The king's death was not the work of the soldier, was it?" she said, 'but of the headsman.'

"'The soldiers guarded the scaffold,' I said.

"'This young Cavalier was among those who guarded the scaffold,' she said. 'Was that all? Being a soldier, what would you have had him do? Surely there is absolution on earth and in heaven for such a mistake as that.'

"'He does not repent, madame.'

"'Ah, my child,' she said, 'see what it is to be a Protestant; you have to be your own Supreme Tribunal, even when your conscience is on the Judgment-seat, and your own heart at the bar, to be broken by the sentence. Now, if you would only believe the Pope and the Church, whatever the unavoidable pain of the sentence, you would at all events escape the torture of at once inflicting and enduring it.'

"'Alas, madame,' I said, 'can the sisters of Port Royal escape the torture of being their own tribunal? Can they believe a fact is a fact because a Pope says it? They distinguish, indeed, between fact and right; but are not rights really but facts of a higher sphere, if we only knew them? And as unalterable? We only want to know what is right, madame. It seems to me no decision on earth, or in heaven, can make a thing right, any more than it makes it true.'

"'My poor child,' she said tenderly, 'heaven guide you. Only take care your heart does not get into the judgment-seat, and persuade your conscience that the very anguish of the sentence is a proof of its justice. Noble hearts have made such mistakes ere now. One, I think, very dear to thee and to me.'

"She was silent some minutes, and then said in a more cheerful tone,--

"'He was silent, this young Cavalier. His character is perhaps rather grave?'

"'It is a way of all the men of our nation who are worth anything, madame,' I said. 'Your countrymen have a natural eloquence. Feeling enkindles them into speech. With us it oftener fuses men into silence. An Englishman who has no dumbness in him is not to be trusted.'

"She smiled.

"'Ah, my friend,' she said, 'if I defend, you attack; if I attack, you defend. I will leave you to defend your own cause against yourself.'"