CHAPTER VII.

The realm from danger to secure, To foreign aid we cry; With papists and non-jurors join To keep out popery.

_Whig Song._

In the mutual affection which subsisted between herself and her lord, the Countess of Nithsdale would now have enjoyed happiness, as perfect and as unalloyed as mortals may look for here below, had not the public affairs of the time been to both a subject of deep interest and anxiety.

The party of the Chevalier de St. George was strong in Scotland. The people in general were disaffected to the government in consequence of the Union: a measure against which many signed a protest, which was presented by the Duke of Athol; and a measure which, in the eyes of many Scotchmen, appeared contrary to the honour, interest, and constitution of their country, the birthright of the peers, the privileges of the barons and boroughs, and to the claim of right, property, and liberty of the subject.

While such feelings tended to produce discontent among all orders, the regular troops, under the Earl of Leven, did not exceed 2500 men, many of whom upon the landing of the Chevalier would most probably have joined him. The castle of Edinburgh was destitute of ammunition; and if it had surrendered, the Jacobites would have found themselves masters of a considerable sum of money.

The King of France, with the view of making a diversion from the Netherlands, and of occupying Queen Anne with disturbances at home, had granted considerable assistance to the Pretender. A squadron was assembled at Dunkirk under the Chevalier de Fourbin, and a body of land forces was embarked under M. de Gace: James was furnished with services of gold and silver plate, sumptuous tents, splendid liveries, and all sorts of necessaries, even to profusion. Louis had presented him with a sword studded with diamonds, and had repeated to him the same words with which he had dismissed his father,--that the kindest wish he could express towards him was, "that he might never see him again."

The Scottish nobles but awaited the moment of the Chevalier's landing to rise simultaneously in his favour: though outwardly all was quiet, they were on the tip-toe of expectation, when the active measures taken by Queen Anne, the vigilance of Sir George Byng, who intercepted the squadron before it could reach Edinburgh, and the wind, which prevented its ever arriving at Inverness, rendered vain all their hopes and fears.

The Chevalier, after having been tost upon the seas during a month of tempestuous weather, returned to Dunkirk; and Sir George Byng sailed up the Leith road to Edinburgh, for the purpose of receiving the freedom of the city which he had delivered from impending danger.

Thus ended the Chevalier de St. George's first, and almost ridiculous, attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors.

To the Earl of Nithsdale this period had been one of no common anxiety: he was too well aware of the dissensions which Colonel Hook's imprudence had produced among the Chevalier's most faithful partisans, to feel confident of the result under any circumstances; and he knew that till the king was actually in Scotland, and was himself a rallying point for all his adherents, nothing but mischief could accrue from any movement among his friends. He had therefore so conducted himself as to escape the notice of government: his disappointment was great when he found that a moment, in many respects so favourable for the Jacobite cause, had been allowed to escape; but far greater was his mortification at finding the monarch to whom he had devoted himself could be so easily persuaded to return to dependence on the court of France; and his fears for the future affected him still more deeply than his vexation at the failure of the present attempt.

His young wife also grieved at the dispersion of their cherished hopes; but to her, the object of real and deep anxiety was her husband. Sometimes, when, with folded arms, he would gaze vacantly upon the blazing fire, his dark brows knit, his lips compressed, his mind absorbed in sad retrospections and melancholy forebodings, the un-read book would fall upon her knee, or the needle drop from her hand, as she watched the expression of his face. On one occasion, when he caught her eyes thus fixed upon him, a kind but passing smile illumined his countenance; and addressing her with the low and mellow voice which first made her maiden heart his own,--"My gentle Winifred," he said, "you have exchanged a calm and peaceful home, beloved and cheerful friends, the sister of your affections, and all the joyous carelessness of youth, for an unsettled country, a troubled land, and a gloomy husband--who hates himself, dearest, when he thinks his thoughtfulness and his abstraction can cast a shade of care over that smooth and tranquil brow----"

"Oh my dear lord!" she exclaimed, as she looked up at him, her eyes half filled with tears.

Lord Nithsdale continued,--"Or that his moody silence can bring tears into those dear eyes!" and seating himself beside her, he pressed her slender hand in his.

"It is not his silence, but my beloved lord's kind words, that have brought tears into these foolish eyes. I can scarce believe that one so far above me in wisdom and in knowledge--one whose mind is engrossed by subjects of such moment, can take so much thought for such an ignorant child as I am. I often regret my convent education; for I feel, my lord, that I can be no companion to you; and in these times especially, when----"

"Wish not yourself other than you are, my love! It is that purity, that heavenly innocence, that confiding simplicity, which render you in my eyes so immeasurably superior to all the far-famed beauties of this, or any other land. What are their charms, their wit, their talents, their learning, their acquired attractions, to that pure blush which even now mantles my own sweet Winifred's cheek, to hear her praises, though from a husband's lips?"

And Winifred was happy; for she found that in truth her unobtrusive affection, her gentle cares, could alone dispel the gloom which hung over that beloved husband.

Time, however, changed the nature of his regrets. Lord Nithsdale's clear understanding could not fail to perceive that his country was quiet, prosperous, and glorious under the rule of its present monarch; and the doubt would cross him whether it were the act of a true patriot to favour the pretensions of one who must necessarily overturn much of what tended to promote that prosperity.

Still, was he not by birth a Jacobite? a Catholic? and therefore bound from motives of religion to support a Catholic claimant to the throne? Moreover, had he not, in his romantic interview with the Pretender, pledged himself personally to his service? It was too late to retract! If any attempt were renewed in his favour, he could not but join in it. Yet the consciousness of being bound in honour to a cause of which his reason could not thoroughly approve, oppressed him with a sense of care--almost of guilt.

He was a man who wished strictly to act as honour and as duty might dictate, and he was not carried away by eager hopefulness, or by ambition, or by passion. He saw and balanced so nicely the reasons and arguments on both sides, that he was apt to be dissatisfied with himself; sometimes to think he was guilty of a dereliction of duty towards his lawful sovereign, when his clear judgment forced upon him the thriving condition of his country; at others, to feel that he was perhaps ready to sacrifice the real good of thousands to his own private notions of personal honour.

The Lady Nithsdale, with never-failing gentleness, soothed these wayward feelings, if wayward they may be called, which were so natural to a conscientious man in times such as those we treat of. She would chase away his gloom by light and playful converse; she would gather around him their friends and neighbours, and lure him to forget his careful thoughts in the pleasing duties of hospitality; or she would draw his attention to the gambols of their children, the young Lord Maxwell and the little Lady Anne, and lead him to join in their sports, and thus lose the sense of the conflicting duties which pressed so heavily upon his mind. He was always, and at all times, the object of her thoughts; and the earl in return hung on her as his stay, his support, his consolation.

The bond of their mutual affection thus became more firmly knit than if their lives had passed in an uninterrupted flow of happiness. The affection which is wearied by sadness, or falls off in sorrow, is one which has taken but shallow root in the heart.

It is perhaps to the credit of human nature, that misfortune is not the trial under which mutual attachment so frequently gives way as under that of unbroken prosperity. When there is any groundwork of tenderness, the sight of the object of that tenderness in sorrow, in sickness, or in suffering, endears it more and more. The attention is fixed; the thoughts are occupied: affection is called into action; it is not allowed to drop into a slumber, which sometimes ends in lethargy. The enduring love of wives to wayward husbands, the exceeding fondness of some husbands for capricious wives, may thus be accounted for. How natural was it, then, that an anxious and thoughtful temper, produced by conscientious scruples, devoted loyalty, romantic honour, and disinterested patriotism, should concentrate upon her husband every feeling of a soul which, like the Countess of Nithsdale's, was made up of duty and of tenderness!

The imprudent boldness with which many Jacobites professed their principles and their attachment to the Pretender was to Lord Nithsdale a source of much vexation. The Duchess of Gordon sent the faculty of advocates a silver medal, representing on one side the Chevalier de St. George, and on the reverse the British islands, with the motto "Reddite." The duchess was thanked for having presented them with a medal of "their sovereign lord the king;" and a confident hope was expressed that her grace would soon have an opportunity of offering them a second medal, struck upon the "restoration of the king and royal family, and the destruction of usurping tyranny and whiggery."

This whole proceeding was afterwards disowned by the faculty, and by a solemn act they declared their attachment to the queen and the Protestant succession. But such uncalled-for boldness, such weak retracting of daring imprudence, in the opinion of Lord Nithsdale, augured ill for the cause to which he was bound. Such conduct could in no wise forward the hopes of his master, and it only served to keep the country in an unquiet and disturbed state.

He disapproved of the measures of his party; and consequently he kept himself somewhat retired at Terreagles, associating more with his immediate neighbours than courting political connexions. With the Earl of Derwentwater alone he kept up a constant and confidential intercourse. They together deplored the infatuation of some of their friends: in loyalty and patriotism each found in the other a spirit congenial to his own.

Lord Nithsdale's visits to London, or to Edinburgh, were rare; and no change occurred to mark the lapse of years, unless we may note that which took place in the bearing of Amy Evans. She was still, as before, high in her lady's favour, who regarded her more in the light of a confidential, though humble friend, than merely as a waiting-woman. Indeed, Amy in her childhood had been admitted as play-fellow and associate to the daughter of an old cavalier who resided in the neighbourhood of Poole Castle, and from her youthful intercourse with Mrs. Mellicent Hilton, she had acquired a tone of feeling somewhat superior to those in her station of life.

Lady Nithsdale could not but remark that the laughing eyes which once sparkled with merriment were now dull and spiritless, and that the ruddy cheek had lost its bloom. When she sought the chamber where her maidens were employed at their needle, she no longer heard the clear voice of Amy, who used to enliven the light labours of her companions with the ditties she had learned in her childhood. Her gay laugh no longer pealed cheerily on the ear. Lady Nithsdale attributed the change which had gradually stolen over the demeanour of her dear Amy Evans to her separation from her lover.

"You are sad, dear Amy," she one day remarked to her; "but I think I have news that will call up the bloom on those pale cheeks, and I shall hear your old Welsh songs carolled with fresh glee. The farm of Hetherstone is vacant now, and my lord proposes that David should become his tenant;--and then I suppose I must make Jeannie Scott my 'tirewoman!"

"Alas! my gracious mistress, not unless your ladyship is weary of the services of poor Amy Evans. I trust that I can still diligently ply my needle, and that I can arrange your ladyship's head-gear with as neat a hand as Jean Scott at the least."

"Nay, you have been a diligent and careful servant to me, Amy, and I shall love to see you as careful and diligent a wife; and when I visit you in your home, I shall once more see your merry eyes sparkle as they used to do."

"No, madam, those days are gone by for me. You shall ever find me a true and faithful servant, but I shall never be a wife."

"And what will David do without a housewife to see to his dairy, to bake his bread and his bannocks, and to trim his hearth, and keep all neat and seemly around him?"

"He needs not me for a housewife, madam: he has found one, more to his taste, these six months back. He was married, madam, last Lammas-tide;" and, though her hands trembled, she still proceeded in the composition of the spiced comfits which her lady had come to overlook.

"Oh! my poor Amy! And is this true? Can men really be so false?"

"Indeed can they, madam. And I am not the first girl who has been slighted: they all tell me so! But I always held myself high; and it is no comfort to hear how, when his wedding morning came, Donald M'Rae was nowhere to be found; or how Jockie Smith deserted Kate Armstrong, after he had broken a gold piece with her; or how Mary Morrison pined herself to death for the loss of Jamie Elliot. But I am not one to pine myself to death! David's wife shall never hear that Amy Evans had so mean a spirit; no, she shall hear of me cheerful, and contented, madam. And why should I not be so, when I have such a good, kind lady, whom I love better--ay, better than I once did David himself!" And now the tears rained fast from her eyes, which Nature seemed to have intended should only express sprightliness and warm affection. "But, I beseech you, madam, speak not to Jean Scott or to Annie Bell of my griefs. They have never yet seen me weep, and I would not have them know that David's falsehood had wrung tears from me. I shall not feel it so much after a while, my lady! And when all is said and done, where could I ever be so happy as with my kind, my honoured mistress? So you will never say anything more, my lady, of making Jean Scott your 'tirewoman?"

"Oh no! dear Amy; I should never, never like any one about me so well as you!"

"I thought so, my lady; and I told Jean Scott I was sure you would never turn me off, though she prides herself so upon her taste, and the nimbleness of her fingers, and is always throwing out that the time will come when she will have my place!" And Amy was half consoled for the loss of David, when she had ascertained that she retained the same hold on her mistress's affections. Since the blight which had fallen on her first and early love, she valued the favour of her lady above all other earthly goods, and watched over it with the jealous tenderness of a lover.

Her secluded education, and her own early marriage to so honourable a man, had prevented the Countess of Nithsdale's having ever witnessed, much more having ever experienced, the caprice and infidelities of the other sex. She had heard and read of them, as of matters undoubtedly true, but as never likely to come under her own immediate cognizance; and she was astonished at Amy's treating a lover's desertion of his mistress as an event of common occurrence. She wondered still more that pride should, in a low-born country maiden's heart, almost overbalance the more instinctive feeling of love. That a noble damsel should resent any slight was indispensable to her birth and breeding; and the proud blood of the Herberts mantled in her cheeks at the mere imagining such a case. But she thought, had she been lowly born, pride could never have sustained her under so cruel a blow. She forgot that, in all ranks alike, each feels the eyes of his equals upon him,--that the lowest, as well as the highest, have their world, before whom to blush is degradation.

It was not that the gentle Lady Nithsdale was haughty in her nature; the affection which subsisted between herself and Amy sufficiently proved the contrary; but as she was imbued with the divine indefeasible right of kings, so was she with the innate inherent nobility of an ancient family.