CHAPTER III.

You call this weakness!--It is strength, I say; the parent of all honest feeling! Who loves not his country, can love nothing.

_The Two Foscari._

Dear as her sister had ever been to the Lady Winifred, never had she seemed so dear as at the moment of parting from her for ever: never had she so loved the convent garden, which had hitherto been her only place of recreation; the cloisters, through which she had so often wandered in the twilight; the chapel, where she had so regularly joined her companions in devotion. It was with a sensation resembling awe, that she bade adieu to the tranquil retreat where she had passed a youth unruffled by any grief, if not enlivened by many pleasures, to enter upon a career which was destined to call forth feelings as pure and as ardent as ever informed mortal clay; feelings which, whatever might prove their intensity in after years, now lay dormant under an exterior almost child-like in its placidity.

To her unpractised eyes every object was new, every sight interesting. The very streets of Bruges were not familiar to her, for she had seldom passed the portals of the convent. The town appeared to her interminable. So many houses, with their high roofs and their pointed gables; the innumerable people, who hurried past each other in every direction, intent on business or on pleasure; the various vehicles which crowded the streets;--all confused her, and she forgot for the moment the grief of parting from her sister, the joyful prospect of seeing her mother, her curiosity concerning her native land, and even her dread of the husband to whom she was destined.

Uninteresting as was the country between Bruges and Ostend, she looked with pleasure at the fields so brightly green, at the hedgerows of willow, at the luxuriant crops; at the industrious peasant who still toiled at his daily labour, or at the noisy boors who were enjoying the relaxation of their favourite game of bowls; at the stout and active boys, who almost excited her mirth by their antics as they ran with incredible speed by the side of the carriage.

The extreme flatness of the country prevents the traveller from becoming aware how near he is to the ocean, till he finds himself almost upon the shore. Though overpowered, her first emotion was mixed with disappointment. When standing on a level with the sea, the eye embraces so much smaller a range than when placed on higher ground, that she did not receive that impression of its boundless expanse which she had anticipated. Yet the sight of the ocean awakened other emotions. She almost felt as if it were part of her native country. She had imbued and fed her mind with the history of England's glories--of England's triumphs. She felt as if the waters were all tributary to the Island Queen; she knew that the navies of England maintained the empire of the sea, and she hailed with a feeling of love and reverence the waves which washed the white cliffs of Albion--the waves which bore the British fleets to conquest and to glory.

It was not till on board the vessel which was to convey her to her long-loved though stranger home, and that the first surprise had in some degree subsided, that her thoughts were again able to dwell on her own future fate.

After a long and thoughtful silence, she thus addressed Evans:--

"It would be impossible that a person who was good should fail to love her husband, would it not?"

"A woman's first duty, madam, is towards her husband."

"Then I trust I shall assuredly love the Earl of Nithsdale," she replied with a brightened countenance; "for when my confessor parted from me, he bestowed on me this little crucifix, which was brought from Our Lady's holy convent at Einsiedlin, and giving me his benediction, he told me I had been ever a good girl, and that he felt confident I should prove myself a virtuous woman. I have felt happier from that moment; for since Father Albert says so, I suppose I must prove virtuous, and fulfil my duties, whatever they may be."

"I wish her grace, your honoured mother, were present," answered Evans, "to hear you speak so beautifully and so properly!"

"But if I should not love Lord Nithsdale, I shall be sinful!" exclaimed Lady Winifred with a look of terror.

"Young ladies' minds should not be turned upon such subjects as love: it is a word which does not befit a maiden's lips," replied Rachael Evans, with an expression of severity in her countenance.

The Lady Winifred was silent and abashed. She feared to have been unmaidenly in her questions, and she buried within her own bosom the emotions which she could not subdue.

It was long before she again ventured to address her companion. She found that years had not softened the old woman's character. She was faithfully devoted to the objects of her loyalty--the Herbert family, the exiled Stuarts, and after them the mountains of Wales; she did not imagine that any doubts or scruples could lawfully interfere where duty towards either of the first-mentioned objects was in question.

The Lady Winifred sat watching the waves as they dashed one after another against the side of the vessel; she wondered within herself to find that the accomplishment of her constant and early wish--the prospect of so soon setting her foot on British land--should not give her more pleasure. She wished she had remained in ignorance of her mother's intentions respecting her, and she felt a certain awe of that mother stealing upon her, from finding old Evans so much more stern and serious than when she had parted from her. Since that period, Evans, who was a privileged person, had been entrusted with many of the secrets of the Jacobite party, and had occasionally been of service in conveying intelligence between the Duchess of Powis and her friends. She had consequently become more and more devoted to the cause, and would have resented any difficulty thrown in the way of a Jacobite plan as an injury offered to herself. She feared Lady Winifred might not blindly submit to the decrees of her mother, and she felt almost displeased with her for even wishing to know to whom she was destined. But the Lady Winifred was so thoroughly imbued with the principles of submission and duty, that resistance to parental authority seemed to her impossible: yet her submission would have been that of a mind in which the sense of duty was stronger even than the warm and ardent feelings of which she in after life gave such signal proofs, not the submission of weakness or of indifference.

At length the white cliffs of Albion actually greeted her eyes, and she once more forgot herself and all that might await her. What a strange and strong tie is that which binds the soul to the land of one's forefathers! Her heart went forth towards the very earth: strange as it was to her, it seemed familiar: and as the vessel glided up the stately river, and passed the ships which bore the riches and the arms of England to every region of the habitable globe, she exulted in the power and the wealth of her country.

They passed the Tower of London; and little did the fair young creature, who gazed with youthful curiosity upon the antique edifice, anticipate what she would one day endure within those walls! Little did she think, when the Traitor's Gate was pointed out to her awe-struck and wondering eyes, that he in whom her own existence was wound up would one day mount those dreary steps, and pass that ominous portal.

The duchess's coach was in waiting to convey the Lady Winifred to her mother's presence--the Duchess of Powis having undertaken a journey to London purposely to receive her daughter: she usually resided in retirement at her son's castle in Wales. She did not wish to excite suspicion by openly refusing to attend the court of Queen Anne; yet she could not bring herself to pay the accustomed homage expected of one of her exalted rank, when, in truth, she was devoted to the cause of the Chevalier de St. George--when she looked upon Queen Anne as an usurper, though, as many others at that time did, she looked upon her in the light of an unwilling usurper.

Queen Anne was known to speak with kindness and pity of her exiled brother; and she was not regarded by the Jacobites with the same horror they had entertained towards Mary, whose want of filial piety afforded her enemies a never-failing topic for eloquent invective.

As the heavy coach, with its ponderous horses, conveyed Lady Winifred to that part of the town where the Duchess of Powis had for the time established herself, her feelings were too much excited to remark upon the long, muddy, and unpaved streets, which contrasted so strangely with the extreme brilliancy of the shops, and which usually called forth the astonishment of those who visited London for the first time.

At length she was ushered into the presence of her who was at once a parent and a stranger. She knelt at her feet;--it was her mother's hand which was placed upon her head--it was her mother's voice which pronounced a blessing over her. The venerable lady embraced her, while a tear shone beneath her eyelid. She looked with tenderness upon her child--her youngest child, but it was a tenderness mixed with reserve and with habitual stateliness. Her mind had been of late years turned to matters of secrecy and importance, and her countenance had acquired an expression which, while it did not amount to sternness, was nearly enough allied to it to awe her young daughter rather than to attract her. Her silver hair was parted smoothly from her forehead, while a black silk hood, from beneath which appeared a close cap of the finest lace, formed her head-dress. Her stature was tall, and remarkably erect. She moved and looked the daughter of a long line of ancestors--the widow of the true and loyal Duke of Powis--the mother of a race of nobles!

The Lady Winifred was presented to many of her relations; and to her sisters, the Ladies Seaforth and Carrington, and the Lady Mary Molineux.

All were delighted with the timid and graceful girl, whose heart was so ready to receive them, as if she had ever been nurtured among them; while the freshness of her mind, her wonder at all she saw, and her determination to love and to admire every thing English, rendered her as interesting as she was attaching.

The Duchess of Powis did not devote many days to making her daughter acquainted with her kinsfolk, but shortly set forth upon her journey to Wales; and at length the Lady Winifred's ardent desire to gaze on real mountains was likely to be gratified. In the agitations of the last few days, and the anticipated delight of visiting Wales, the destined husband had been forgotten. Her mother had not alluded to the subject; and with the natural buoyancy of early youth, she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment, and would not look beyond the present happiness.