CHAPTER XXII.

Distress is virtue's opportunity.--_Southern._

The Earl of Nithsdale felt even more keenly than did the countess the indignity with which she had been treated in her interview with the king.

His dark eye flashed, he bit his compressed lip till the blood almost started; he paced the apartment with hasty strides, as he pictured to himself his graceful, his delicate, his shrinking Winifred, on whose fair form he would scarcely allow the winds to blow too roughly, dragged along the floor, the rude hands of strangers round that slender waist; and it was then he felt indeed that he was a prisoner, powerless to defend her whom he had sworn to cherish! The bars, the bolts, the high walls, the moat, the guards! oh, how his soul rebelled against them all! How agonising was the impotent indignation which possessed his every faculty.

Lady Nithsdale grieved to see his agitation, and yet from his very agitation she gathered hope that she might eventually work him to her wishes.

Meanwhile, with the assistance of Amy, she had procured most of the articles necessary for the disguise of her husband; and although resolved that every other means of safety should be tried, she still kept her mind fixed upon this last resource. The consciousness of having still a point to look to, something still to rest upon when all else failed, sustained her courage; but at the same time it prevented her attempting to submit to an event, which, in the judgment of others, was now inevitable. She could not even think of resignation; on the contrary, with this secret hope in her heart, and this plan in her mind, she would have been alarmed at her own want of reliance in that plan, had she tried to school her feelings to acquiesce in the fatal doom.

A few days after the countess's unsuccessful application to the king, the resolution was taken in council that the sentence passed upon the rebel lords should be carried into execution without delay, and on the 18th the necessary warrants and orders were despatched, both to the Lieutenant of the Tower, and to the Sheriffs of the city of London and Middlesex.

There was a startling reality in these measures that for the moment shook her inmost soul; yet she would not allow herself to dwell upon the intelligence; she scarcely gave herself time to reflect, but all the more strenuously busied herself in seeing that her preparations were complete; and she strove to interest herself in the attempt made the following day by the Countess of Derwentwater to move the king to mercy. Accompanied by the Duchesses of Cleveland and of Bolton, and by many other ladies of rank, she was introduced by the Dukes of St. Albans and of Richmond, to the king's presence, and humbly implored his clemency; but her application met with no better success than the Lady Nithsdale's more passionate appeal.

It was therefore arranged by the wives of all the condemned lords, that two days afterwards, on February the 21st, they should repair to the lobby of the House of Peers, and there implore the intercession of their lordships with the king.

More than twenty other ladies of the very first distinction accompanied them. It might have moved the most unfeeling to behold so many of the fairest and the noblest of the realm in such deep and unfeigned distress. But though among the mourning group there were many countenances which bore the traces of intense anxiety, many whose expression of grief amounted almost to despair, some perhaps who might boast of greater positive beauty of feature, on none did sorrow sit with so touching a grace as on the Countess of Nithsdale. The wan transparency of her naturally pale complexion, the refined cast of her features, which seemed moulded only to express the highest and purest affections of the soul, assorted well with the situation of deep interest in which she was placed.

But on this occasion the hearts of all seemed steeled against them. Their application met with little attention: no measures were taken, no motion made, in consequence of their petition. In blank disappointment each sought again her disconsolate, her widowed home.

Dispirited, but not utterly hopeless, they on the following day, the 22d, repaired again to Westminster Hall, and with them a still greater attendance of the first, and the noblest, of the ladies who adorned the British court; and with still more passionate earnestness they appealed to both houses of parliament.

In the Commons their petitions met with no success. Notwithstanding an eloquent address on the part of Sir Richard Steele, the court party moved that the discussion should be adjourned to the 1st of March, and carried it by a majority of seven voices.

With the Lords they found more favour. Although the Duke of Richmond, even when presenting the Earl of Derwentwater's petition, declared that he would himself vote against it, yet others spoke warmly and eloquently in behalf of men, who, though mistaken, had still acted from conscientious motives.

The Earl of Danby, moved with pity for the Lord Nairne's numerous family, urged strongly that the petitions of the several lords should be received and read. The Lord Townshend and several others, who upon all occasions had given undoubted proofs of their attachment to the present government, supported the contrary opinion; when, to the surprise of many, the Earl of Nottingham declared in favour of the petitions being read. As president of the council he drew with him many peers, and the motion was carried by nine or ten voices.

Then came the question whether in the case of an impeachment the king possessed the power to reprieve. It was now that the Earl of Pembroke redeemed his pledge of exerting himself in Lady Nithsdale's favour. His animated and eloquent address carried with him the sense of the house; and, with the assistance of the Duke of Montrose, the king's power to pardon was carried in the affirmative.

This was followed by a motion for an address to the king that, as he had the power to do so, he would be pleased to grant a reprieve to the lords who lay under sentence of death, which, although opposed by the firmest friends of government, was also carried.

Lady Nithsdale's heart bounded within her; hope for a moment danced in her bosom, and lighted up her cheek with a passing bloom. Her joy was however doomed to be evanescent, for another lord represented that "though clemency was one of the brightest virtues which adorn and support a crown, yet in his opinion the same should be exercised only on proper objects;" and he therefore moved, "that they should address the king to reprieve such of the condemned lords as deserved his mercy, and approved themselves worthy of this intercession, and not all indiscriminately."

The amendment was carried by two voices only, but it was carried;--and her heart once more sank within her. This salvo blasted all her hopes. She was assured it was aimed at the exclusion of those who would not subscribe such a petition as some of the peers had themselves prepared,--a thing she knew her husband would never submit to; nor, as she herself declared, would she have wished to preserve his life on such terms.

Still, however, the address to the king had passed generally, and she thought she might turn this circumstance to account in lulling the vigilance of the guards. She lost no time in quitting the House of Lords, and hastening to the Tower; where, affecting an air of joy and security, she told the soldiers as she passed, that she brought joyful tidings to the prisoners, for that the petition had passed in their favour. She then gave them some money to drink to the lords and his majesty; but she prudently made it but a trifling sum, hoping thereby to secure their good-will, without awakening in them any suspicion of design on her part.

And now there remained but the one last resource. She trembled as she thought that, though all was in her own mind prepared, the most difficult point remained yet to be accomplished,--her husband had not yet consented to the disguise she proposed; and although he had not retracted his promise of giving her proposal a fair and patient hearing, she had in fact extracted from him nothing more. If he should now pertinaciously refuse to accede to it! Oh, no, it was impossible. He could not doom her to such hopeless, unutterable misery!

Trembling, agitated, yet worked up to the utmost pitch of courage and resolution, she reached his apartment. She staggered into the room; and flinging herself into his arms, she sobbed convulsively on his bosom. She could not speak: but after a few moments he said, with hopeless composure and tenderness,--

"So, my poor Winifred, both houses have then rejected our prayers! Alas for you, my love! would I were able to give you consolation! would I could alleviate your sorrows!"

"You can! you can! You, and you alone, can now save me from despair!" she exclaimed with passion. Her eyes were dry, her cheek was flushed, her whole countenance seemed suddenly inspired: "My life, my existence, are in your hands! You have but to will it, to make me the happiest of wives, of mothers! If I am doomed to the early death of the heart-broken," she continued almost in a threatening tone, "or if I am doomed to drag on a weary, joyless existence, a lingering death-like life, in which the welfare of my soul--yes, the salvation of a precious soul, is in peril, for I shall murmur, I shall repine--there is no resignation here--I feel I shall not submit as it would be my duty to do:--if such is the fate before me, it will be _you_ who doom me to it! I can save you--I am sure I can! If you refuse to lend yourself to the measures I propose, it will be _you_ who destroy my happiness in this world, _you_ who peril my salvation in the next!"

There was a restless fire in her eye, an energy in her manner, a fearful inspiration about her, that awed, while it touched him. He could not but think what must be the strength of those feelings which could so transport her out of herself; which could change the mild, timid, shrinking wife, into the inspired threatening Sibyl!

"Hush, hush, my love! you know not what you say!"

She looked wildly and doubtingly around her; then bursting into tears,--"Alas! alas! what have I uttered?"--and falling on her knees, with clasped hands raised to heaven,--"Pardon, O most merciful Being; pardon for my wild and wicked words! O Thou on whom my reliance is placed, Thou in whose providence I trust,--cast me not off for these hasty words, wrung from me by insufferable anguish! And thou, my lord, my love, my husband, urge me not to despair! This brain may become unsettled, reason may give way, I may again be hurried into impious ravings!--Oh, take pity upon me, dearest, dearest husband!" She clung to his knees; she stretched her beseeching arms towards him.

"Do with me what thou wilt, Winifred. If this is weakness, I am weak! If this is cowardice, I am no longer brave! Command me! guide me!--I am but the instrument in thy hands, my wife! I would sacrifice my life to honour; but if there is dishonour in my attempt to escape, I will sacrifice honour itself to you, my love!"

"It is not the sacrifice of your honour I demand; yourself cannot value it more highly than does your wife. They carried the address to the king, but it was coupled with an amendment that it should only apply to those who would sign a petition of their own framing. I knew you would not--I do not ask you to do so. Your honour is precious to me as your life--more precious than your life!--but there is no dishonour in escaping from a cruel and an ignominious death!"

"Not ignominious, Winifred; an honourable death!"

"From a cruel and an unjust death!--a treacherous death! Was it not upon the understanding that your lives were to be spared that you all surrendered at Preston? Was it not to avoid useless effusion of blood that you yielded? and that you advised others to yield? Would it not have been easier and sweeter to have perished in battle, than to die on the scaffold, as your fellow prisoners must? No! there is no dishonour in escaping from tyranny!" She spoke with energy, for the first time uttering the words of "death" and "scaffold," which had never before found their way to her lips.

"Have I not said it, my love? I am ready to follow your injunctions. Do with me what you will."

"You have promised it, you have sworn it!"--and her face was radiant with joy. "My own love! you are mine once more! We shall not be parted;--we shall live and die together,--we shall grow old together! Oh, thanks! thanks!" and her imagination had overleaped all the bars and bolts, the dreary boundaries of the prison. She felt they were at large to roam over the wide world together. He gave her one sad and grateful kiss, and walked to the window to conceal his emotion; but she saw the expression of his countenance as he slowly surveyed the court-yard, and his eye rested on each sentry as he paced in his appointed spot.

She perceived the almost mocking smile which passed transiently over his lips; and she plainly read how vain he thought her hopes, how unavailing would prove the consent she had extorted from him.

"You think my schemes all visionary!--you think me scarcely in my right senses!--you deem me already crazed with grief!"

"Nay, my love, I think your wishes run beyond your judgment, and I fear you are only preparing for yourself a more bitter disappointment. The blow will fall the heavier for coming upon you in your present state of excitement. It would tend more to your future peace of mind if, discarding all worldly thoughts, you would fix your hopes, and would assist me in fixing mine, on heaven, and heaven alone."

"And think you it could tend to my future peace of mind, the reflection that one hour of bold prudence, one hour of steady perseverance in the execution of the scheme already formed, might have led to a reunion for life?--perhaps a long and happy life! You would not surely retract the vow so solemnly made, even now?" she added in a reproachful tone.

"No! I have promised; and I will keep my promise!"

She pressed his hand in token of gratitude. "Then I must away. There are still some with whom I have need to communicate. Do not look for me early to-morrow: I shall not be with you till towards dusk,--and then----"

"Not till evening? The last day must I be deprived of your presence till evening?"

"The first day of your deliverance, my love!--the first of many days of liberty and happiness!"

He dropped his eyes. He would not sadden her by his own forebodings. And yet he felt he should be permitted to look on her for so short a space, that it was with difficulty he could bring himself to lose sight of her for a moment.

It was already night; but he watched her from his prison window, and fancied he could detect her beloved form as she glided down the steps leading to the archway. He stood gazing at the spot till tears suffused his eyes; and he flung himself upon a seat, determined to wrestle with his emotions.

When alone,--when not exposed to the influence of her tenderness,--he looked on death with perfect composure, and almost wished his course was run, and that the inevitable moment was arrived. The hopes with which she strove to inspire him unsettled and distracted him; and then he reproached himself for such weakness. Yet how collect his thoughts? how temper them down to a tranquil, firm, unmoved acquiescence in his doom, when all his energies would be required for the enterprise which was to restore him to life, to love, and to liberty? He strove to forget the plan in agitation. He tried to abstract himself in prayer; but when most he hoped to have spiritualised his meditations, visions of the future would flash across his mind, painful anticipations of what would be his Winifred's desperation upon the failure of her attempt, agonising shame at the idea of being discovered and caught in the act of evasion, dread of appearing in the undignified position of a reclaimed fugitive, dragged unwillingly to the block, instead of the loyal martyr, boldly, firmly, with an unconstrained step, mounting the scaffold, to consummate the sacrifice he had of his own free will chosen to make.

He almost repented the promise he had given; he longed for the repose of hopelessness.