CHAPTER XX.

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.--_Lord Bacon's Essays._

Mrs. Morgan and Amy Evans expected that the control which the unfortunate Countess of Nithsdale had as yet exercised over her feelings would have completely given way when no longer exposed to the gaze of indifferent persons: they prepared themselves for tears and fainting; and were surprised when Lady Nithsdale, although silent, remained firm and collected.

Reared in a foreign convent, from which she had only been removed to a retired Welsh castle, and from thence to a life of domestic privacy in Scotland, or, if she occasionally mingled in the busy world, accustomed to look up to her lord for advice, to hang upon him for support, to rely on his judgment for the guidance of her own, it seems wonderful that under such trying circumstances as those in which she was placed, she should have possessed the worldly wisdom, the courage, the discretion, and the decision, to act for herself and for her husband, and to proceed, without wavering or irresolution, to take every measure that prudence could dictate.

When they reached Lady Nithsdale's lodgings, the kind-hearted Mrs. Morgan took her leave, after having given Amy and Mrs. Mills a thousand directions and injunctions as to the tenderness with which the countess should be treated, the possets which she hoped might compose her to sleep, and the julap which should be placed by her bed-side.

Lady Nithsdale listened to all her good-natured counsels with a placidity which astonished and almost alarmed Amy Evans, although to Mrs. Morgan it appeared but the effect of exhaustion, and, as she trusted, only augured that she might be restored by some calm and refreshing sleep.

Amy, who better knew her mistress, and knew that with increased danger and distress her strength and courage proportionably rose, was not surprised when, upon Mrs. Morgan's departure, and Mrs. Mills's leaving them to prepare the posset so earnestly recommended, Lady Nithsdale laid her hand upon her arm.

"Now, Amy, your true affection, in which I have the utmost confidence,--I rely on it almost as on my own to my lord,--now it is going to be put to the test. He must not die! and we must save him! you and I, Amy, must save him! You start, and look as though you feared that all I have heard and seen this day" (she pressed her hand over her eyes) "had turned my brain, but it is not so; for many weeks I have considered the plan, which is now almost matured within my head. Prisoners have made their escape from places as strong and as well guarded, before now! If others have succeeded in rescuing those most dear to them, why should not we succeed? Promise me, my good and faithful Amy, that you will assist me to the utmost of your power; and, above all, promise that you will offer no argument to dissuade me from my purpose. I tell you before-hand it will be of no avail: should you refuse to serve me, it will only drive me to confide in others who will not deserve my confidence so well."

"Oh, madam! do you doubt me? and do you think Amy Evans would leave undone what others could be found to do? I started, for I remembered those high walls, that broad deep moat, those guards who pace about each avenue to the Tower, and I thought what could we hope to effect? But, madam, command me, and I will diligently execute your behests, and scrupulously keep your counsel."

"Thanks, dear Amy; I was fully assured you would prove true, and I know not why I spoke for a moment as if I could doubt your devotion. Forgive me! but the necessity is so absolute that all who meddle in this undertaking should be able to answer for themselves under all circumstances, that I would not have you enter into it thoughtlessly, or unadvisedly. Even myself, to-day, I thought I could have heard unmoved, or at least without betraying emotion, the horrible, horrible words that were uttered; but I misjudged my own strength, my woman's nerves failed! And yet I bore a great deal, Amy, and wavered not. I saw the axe, the glittering axe; and I saw my lord, and I heard his voice; and I heard part of that sentence! I bore much without betraying myself; and, at last, I was only stunned, confused, for a time. Yes, I think I may rely on my own fortitude; and you, Amy, you never for a moment lost your self-command,--and you have always had a ready wit; oh, we shall succeed, I am sure we shall!"

"Heaven grant we may, my honoured lady! If zeal and perseverance can effect my lord's preservation, we shall succeed."

"Then listen:--You must purchase at various shops, and on various occasions, not to excite suspicion, all that is necessary for female dress, and we must make it up, complete, the size to fit my lord. I have one in my thoughts whom he may personate: she is very tall; and though slender, her present condition makes her appear more stout than usual, when wrapt in a loose cloak. She suspects not my design,--nor must she;--for she is timid, and might betray all by her fears. She must not know till too far engaged to retreat.--And now, Amy, send Walter Elliot to the Tower to inquire of the lieutenant at what hour to-morrow the Countess of Nithsdale may be admitted to visit her lord. I am informed that, after the sentence, we are to be allowed to see the prisoners freely; and it will be best we should do this openly. Alas! the hardest task of all will be to work on my lord to consent."

"And, madam, think you I also shall be admitted to see my lord?"

"Assuredly, I hope so; I trust we shall procure admission for many of his friends: it is upon that understanding I build my hopes. I have been informed that when sentence is once passed, such has usually been the custom. And now away; let us be stirring. I would there were something to be done every hour in the day. It is in solitude and inaction that my sorrows press upon me most heavily. But to-night there is no more I can effect; I must even wait for the morrow!"

Soon after the Earl of Nithsdale had been reconducted to his lodgings in the Tower, he heard the striking of the chapel-clock: "It is now more than an hour," he thought, "since the court broke up. By this time the news has reached her. By this time my dear wife knows my sentence, and those hopes which she was resolved to cherish, and which she never would allow me gradually to undermine, have been destroyed at one rude blow. Would I could know how it fares with her, how she supports the shock! To-morrow I shall see her; and strange is it, but I dread to see her--I dread the sight of her despair. Oh! were it not better to pass unloved into the grave, than to feel that one's fate inflicts such exquisite anguish on her, to spare whom a pang such as she now suffers, one would willingly endure any lengthened torture. Yet could I wish to lose one particle of that affection which alone suffices to make life so precious? It may be cruel,--it may be selfish;--but no! I cannot wish her love to be less! After all, we part but for a time! I do not doubt that we shall meet where the weary are at rest. And now that all hope is over, my Winifred will assist me to prepare my soul for the great change; and she will bear to speak placidly and composedly of those happy regions where the fear of parting will never embitter the enjoyment of each other's presence! and I shall be able calmly and cheerfully to fulfil my destiny, if I can see her resigned!"

But when the morrow came, and Lady Nithsdale was admitted, he found her far indeed from placidly acquiescing in the fate which he esteemed unavoidable; but neither was she bewildered with despair, nor dissolved in tears: she was altogether different from anything he had anticipated. Her cheeks were flushed, her eye was brilliant, her manner resolved. He was surprised; but he rejoiced that his own fortitude was not put to the trial he had dreaded.

"My Winifred will assist her husband to bear himself as becomes a man and a good Catholic: I see she will avoid unnerving me by her grief; and among my many causes of gratitude to her, I may still add this, that she will smooth my passage to a better world. Thanks, my own love, thanks!"

"And does my lord imagine I could speak, stand, look, move, as I now do, if I believed it would be carried into effect--that sentence, that horrible sentence! For I was there--I was in Westminster Hall--I heard it; I saw the axe! and I saw you, my own dear husband,--I saw you, and I heard your voice,--that voice which thrilled through all the court, which must have penetrated to the inmost recesses of every heart!"

"Oh, Winifred! I could almost chide my best beloved for having wantonly, without any adequate motive, exposed her feelings to so needless a trial!"

"It was not needlessly; it was not without a motive that I did so: I had the strongest earthly motive. It was with a view of ascertaining my own strength, my fortitude, that I courted what I should otherwise have shrunk from. It was with a view to the accomplishment of that plan which I have long been forming, and which not all the arguments you can adduce shall prevent me from pursuing. It was with a view to self-preservation,--for is not my life wound up in yours? Think you, in honest truth, think you, I can exist without you? Do you not believe that if you perish, I shall not survive?"

"Nay, nay, my love," he replied, almost smiling at her vehemence, "I do believe your affection for me is as strong as ever warmed the pure soul of devoted woman; still I cannot but think and hope that you will live many, many years, to be a guide and a protectress to our children. Remember, you but share the fate of many other fond and loving wives! Have not the other condemned lords wives, fond and loving wives; and must not they endure----?"

"No, no, no! Speak not of them! they do not, cannot love their husbands as I love you; for have they husbands so worthy of their love? What is the wild Lord Wintoun, the Lord Kenmure, or the good old Lord Nairne? The Lord Derwentwater, I grant you, is a worthy gentleman;--but what are they, any of them, when compared with you?"

"But, my sweet Winifred, to die is the doom of all created beings. Many have loved before; and of all who have ever loved, one must survive. It is a sad, it is a painful truth; but it is a most plain and undeniable one. Then why should not this be borne as patiently as the same bereavement by any other means? A long illness would reconcile you to the event! and yet would you wish me to endure lengthened bodily ills? Should you not rather rejoice that I shall thus be spared all the protracted sufferings of sickness, and that, comparatively speaking, I shall thus be exempted from the pains of death; that I shall pass from earth with all my intellects unimpaired, in the full enjoyment of my faculties! Could there be any satisfaction in marking the decaying mind, the enfeebled spirit, the soul waxing weak, as the body sinks under the effects of some wasting malady? Yet how often has the most devoted affection watched all these humiliating and painful harbingers of death, till the mourner has been brought to look upon the dreaded bereavement almost in the light of a blessing? But is there any consolation in this? Would one not rather choose that the memory of the departed should be undimmed, unpolluted by the recollection of mortal decay?"

"Your words are beautiful! I love to hear your voice! it thrills like music through my heart! The thoughts are noble, lofty, pure, and holy; but they persuade me not! As I gaze on you, as I listen to you, I only feel the more, that life without you is not life: it is a blank!--a dark and dreary chasm into which I dare not look: that I must, must save you; and that if you love me, you will give heed to me, and that you will agree to what I shall propose."

"Oh, Winifred! this is cruel kindness. It is cruel to wean me from the thoughts of death, which I have almost taught myself to love, to lure me back to those of life, which, alas! possesses only too many charms for me!"

There was a tenderness in the tone and the manner which gave her hope that she had worked upon him. She felt that love for her, and pity for her sorrows, might at this moment induce him to listen; and she opened to him the plan she had formed for his escape.

But she had scarcely detailed her proposed measures, when he vehemently refused to engage in what he thought could not be carried into execution without compromising others. Desperate at the ill-success which attended her efforts, she abandoned herself to grief: she strove not to control her feelings; she wrung her hands, she wept in hopeless agony.

Meanwhile he paced the apartment in anguish not less acute. He accused himself of cruelty towards her when he witnessed her desperation; and yet he could not bring himself to agree to measures which he deemed degrading, and in the success of which he placed little reliance.

Such moments comprise a greater sum of suffering than is spread over many a common life. At length he stopped before her.

"Winifred, my wife, my honoured wife! Urge me not to anything unworthy. Call up that noble spirit, which has ever deserved my respect, my admiration, as much as your beauty and your tenderness have won my love! Now listen to me in return!"

In a moment her attention was riveted. She scarcely breathed; she listened as though she would devour each word that fell from his lips, in ardent hope that he might himself have struck out some plan which she might execute.

"I have ever been unwilling to present petitions to the king, or to the government. All that I could in honour urge in self-defence, all that I could in honesty profess for the future, has been already stated in my answer to the impeachment, and in my address to my peers yesterday. I have been, and still am, unwilling to crave mercy at the hands of one who owes me nothing; from whom I have no right to expect it;--but that you should not reproach me with wilfully neglecting any means of safety, I will consent to a petition being presented to King George by you yourself. If anything can move him, it must be the sight of distress such as yours,--and in such a form as that!" he added, looking upon her, as, like a marble statue, she sat with lips apart, her slender throat bent forward, and her eyes fixed upon him. "He cannot behold thee unmoved! It may avail thee something in future, if it serve not me!" he murmured in a low voice.

"Oh! do not trust to the pity of those who have already proved themselves so ruthless: trust rather to the zeal of your own wife, and our faithful Amy Evans!"

"I will trust to your zeal, my love, but let it be employed in such a manner as befits us both; and doubly precious will life be to me if 'tis to you I owe it!"

"And if, as I expect, the king is obdurate? for he fears you; he fears the unconquerable fidelity of your family to the Stuarts, and he fears the influence of your high character: he fears,--therefore, will not pardon you!"

"There is the general petition to parliament, to which I have agreed to put my name."

"And if that should fail?"

"Then, my love, you must prove that you are a Christian, and a Catholic, and that you have not forgotten the exhortations to faith, submission and patience, which good Father Albert gave you in your youth, and which you tell me he has so often repeated by letter."

"Nay, nay. If all these fail, then promise me that you will not reject the means I will offer you; that you will not be more merciless than the king himself; that you will not obstinately refuse to save from despair one who has ever loved you with most true faith!"

"Oh, Winifred!"

"Promise that you will listen to my plans; that you will maturely consider them; that, if practicable, you will not reject them; and I will present the petition, I will cling to the knees of the king, I will wring mercy from him if it be possible; and if he pardons you, I will honour him, I will love him, and I will ever esteem him worthy to be the monarch of these fair realms by the qualities of the heart, as I already believe him to be so by those of the head! Only promise me that, if all this should fail, you will not condemn me always to plead in vain, that you, at least, will not turn away from my prayer, that you will listen."

"If all other means should fail, then--then, my love, I will listen attentively, calmly, to all you may urge."

"Thanks, I am satisfied," replied Lady Nithsdale, resolved to interpret his measured expressions into an implied assent to all her wishes: "and now prepare the petition, my dearest lord, and I will lose no time in taking measures that it should reach the king himself. These hands shall give it him. I know how I may gain access to his presence. I will see him with my own eyes; and he shall refuse me with his own lips, if he cannot be worked upon to mercy. When will it be ready?"

"Patience, my love. I must consult with those who can assist me in so wording it that I may not risk giving offence. In some days it shall be drawn up."

"Why such delay? Time is precious. Talk not of days. To-morrow, or, at farthest, the day after,--the twelfth. Tell me when, that I may seek the kind Mrs. Morgan, and with her arrange all for my admission to St. James's."

"Gently, gently, dearest Winifred. We must do nothing rashly. By the thirteenth the petition shall be ready, and we will hope it may find such grace as shall spare you all further fears on my account. Meantime, compose yourself."

"Nay, am I not composed? Surely I think I must be a stock, a stone, thus to preserve my senses, and move, act, speak, like other people. I sometimes fancy I must lack natural feeling; for it is not grief that possesses my soul, but hope and fear so strangely blended that there is no space left for grief!"

"My Winifred need not tax herself with coldness!" replied the earl tenderly, but sadly, smiling as he looked upon her. Then, resuming a calm and business-like tone, he added, "The Lord Nairne's lady, as I understand, is also to present an address to the king, and there seems good hope that hers may be graciously received. If you could accompany her it might be well; for she is a staid and discreet person, and has been much used to courts. She was for some years in great favour with Queen Anne. She may support and guide you; and, indeed, Winifred, you must not overtask yourself!"

He was half alarmed at the reliance she seemed to place on her own strength, and feared it might proceed from a feverish state of excitement.

"I will wait upon the Lady Nairne to-day," resumed Lady Nithsdale. "I will do anything, everything, you suggest, now you have promised in return to listen to my arguments."

She instinctively worded his promise as vaguely as he had done himself, fearing to alarm him into a declaration that he had only promised to listen to, not to comply with, her wishes. Without being exactly conscious that she was endeavouring to cheat him into attending to his own safety, she hoped to accustom him to the idea, that if she adopted every plan he proposed, he was thereby pledged to follow hers upon the failure of his own.