CHAPTER XII.
EBENEZER
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE PREAMBLE.
——————
WHEN I was a young maid and just about to be married to my excellent husband, with whom I have lived so long and so happily, my dear and honored mother-in-law gave me as a wedding present, a chronicle (if I may so call it) which she herself had received in like manner, from her grandame, who brought her up. She said it had for some generations been the custom in her family to keep such annals, and in this way had many facts and circumstances been preserved which would otherwise have been lost.
I have always preserved this chronicle with great care, and shall make a copy of it (if time and opportunity present) for the use of my daughters, feeling that my dear and honored cousin, Lord Stanton, hath the best right to the original manuscript.
Thinking upon doing the same put it into my mind to make a similar chronicle for the use of mine own daughters. I feel that it will interest them (especially when I am dead and gone, as I soon shall be) to know what their mother was at their age. I am able to make this account the more full and particular, as during the year or two before I was married, and specially while I was living in the family of my dear and honored lady at Stanton Court, it was my habit to keep a journal, in which I wrote down not only what most concerned me, but a vast deal besides.
In these pages I have transcribed a part of that journal, sometimes supplementing the text with my present recollections of events in those days.
It hath been my lot to see many and sad changes. The Archbishop who was so great with king and court when these pages were written, I saw mobbed, insulted, and finally thrust into prison, from which he was delivered only by death. In him was fulfilled those words of the prophet, "When thou shalt cease to oppress, then shall they oppress thee; and when thou shalt cease to deal treacherously, then shall they deal treacherously with thee!" I could never get over the way Mr. Prynne treated the old man. 'Twas not like a Christian nor a gentleman, however great had been his wrongs, and no one can deny that they were bitter enough.
Then came that terrible event, the death of the king. My husband never approved of Cromwell's course in that matter, though he said, and as I believe truly, that there was a time when Cromwell would have saved him, had the king only been true to himself. But there alas! was his great failing—sorrowfully acknowledged by friends as well as foes. With all his virtues, the king knew neither truth nor gratitude. His want of the first he called kingcraft like his father before him: and as for the last, I do believe he felt himself raised too far above ordinary mortals to owe them anything. If they served him, even to the laying down of their lives, it was well—they did no more than their duty. If they did not, then were they rebels and traitors. But he hath gone to his account, and I will not judge him. My lord adhered to him always and afterward went abroad to the court of the young king, Walter taking the charge of his estates and sending him money.
Since the Restoration, my husband has lived in retirement, though he has had more than one offer of office and preferment. But he loves this quiet country life, and so do I.
My lord is back at the hall with the second lady and her children and his own boys, and we are all good friends. She is an excellent woman, but no more like my own dear lady than a cabbage is like a lily. Yet we are good friends always, and she is very kind to me and my children.
I feel that my time is short, and that I must soon leave my dear husband and children. I pray my precious girls to receive this volume as a legacy from their mother, and to remember her last words—that the path of duty, though its way be hard and thorny, is always the path of safety—the path which leads to honor here and happiness hereafter. "To do his duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call him," is the sum and substance of a Christian's work. A poor plowman or milk-maid can do as much with God's help, and the greatest king on earth can do no more.
MARGARET CORBET
[Illustration]
LADY BETTY'S GOVERNESS
[Illustration]