Jane West

“ Eustace was thunder-struck, and rushed after his commander to enquire the cause of such severe treatment. "I forgave your extortion and licentiousness," said the General, with a stern austere look which pierced him to the soul; "I pardon the rashness which broke our line of defence, and weakened us by the loss of a brave detachment. After this I took you into a confidential situation, and you betrayed your General and your Prince.
"Never, never," was the exclamation of the tortured Eustace. "I own my other offences, but with my latest breath I deny being a traitor." ”

“ As a man, there was little to blame and much to revere in the character of Evellin. He was open, impetuous, brave, generous, and placable, with a noble simplicity of soul, untainted by the mean alloy of selfishness. He was a Christian too. In Dr. Beaumont's eye, that was an indispensable requisite. Yet more, he steadily adhered to the established church with enlightened affection; and in an age when the Puritans grew more open and confident in their attempts to overthrow it, love for the most venerable support of the protestant cause was a sacred bond of union. ”

“ He was now a husband; he expected to be a father. Isabel must not be deserted in the hour of distress, and her life was bound up in his. She endured the change in her prospects with a cheerful serenity, that seemed as if she felt only the sorrows of her beloved. Nor did Dr. Beaumont betray any feeling which tended to shew that the expectation of stalls and mitres ever withdrew his thoughts from the celestial contemplations in which he loved to expatiate.
"Why should I grieve for those who seem wrapped in measureless content?" said Evellin. ”

“ I suffer worse than death by looking on the traitor you cherish in your bosom. But before you condemn me, mark my words—Young De Vallance lives—he is beyond your power; he is a firm royalist, and ready, like myself, to die for his King. Hear me yet again. If you determine to bring on your cause the odium of deeming an aged cripple dangerous, let my execution be private; for no pomp of death can quail my courage. On the scaffold I shall proclaim my attachment to the Sovereign, who bestowed my birth-right on that viper—the betrayer of us both. ”

“ He exhorted Barton to use his influence with his friends, persuading them to acquire the only triumph over the church in their power, by renouncing their own prejudices, when they could not make their opponents subdue theirs, and thus prove themselves to be the truest disciples of the Prince of Peace. "Let the contest," said he, "be only which shall serve our common master best, by leading a life of unpretending holiness. Schism does infinitely more harm by the enmity it engenders, than it does good by the zeal it kindles. Controversial ardour is rather the death than the life of piety." ”

“ I have, like a hunted wolf, dressed those wounds in mountain-fastnesses, shunning the abode of man, and eluding pursuers whose mercy I disdained to ask. I have seen my King a prisoner, without power to redress his wrongs; my country a prey to tyrants; all her hallowed institutions overturned; but never till now, Eustace, was I completely wretched; for never did anguish, in its most desperate forebodings, whisper that I could be the parent of a traitor. ”

“ Dazzled with the attention of his Royal mistress, still beautiful, and most fascinating in her affability, Eustace never considered that the request wedded him to her fortunes. He saw in her who made it his sovereign Lady, the consort of that excellent Prince whom he had been taught to reverence in prosperity, and adore in misfortune. Inflamed with the ardent spirit of chivalry, he panted to defend the title of his King, and the beauty and virtue of his Queen, against all impugners. To suffer for her was glorious. Perish the base worldling who thought either of danger or remuneration! ”

“ I have seen the fiend-like face which looked, without compunction, on the sufferings of the Royal Martyr, and I felt too weak to revenge his wrongs. Have I not gone too far in saying I would accept of freedom from his hands?"
"Vengeance for such a crime," replied Dr. Beaumont, "is too vast and comprehensive to be entrusted to mortal agency. Let us leave it to Him who claims it as his own prerogative. Murder, perfidy, and treason, will be remembered when the avenging angel shall visit the sins of man." ”

“ Lloyd rose, and examined the apartment to see that there were no witnesses; he then drew his chair close to De Vallance, and gazed on his emotion with the delight of a healing angel commissioned to alleviate the woes of virtue, and, grasping his hand, told him "he should see Eustace—the living Eustace," continued he. Seeing Arthur look incredulous, "Eustace Evellin is alive, and resides with me. Hush! suppress that burst of ecstacy; all our lives are at stake. Not even honest Jobson must know he lives, lest his intemperate rapture should betray him." ”

“ Astonishment and terror may awhile paralyze the national spirit; the remembered miseries of civil war may render the phantom of peace so alluring as to induce many to call a deleterious intoxication felicity. But unless Cromwell can obliterate every record of what Englishmen were in past ages—unless he can make us forget the education, opinions, and hopes of our youth—the labours, sorrows, and wrongs of our riper years—his meanness and his crimes;—never—never can the British lion crouch at an Usurper's form, or the red-cross banner wave graceful over a traitor's head. ”

“ Walter answered, he could scarce be comforted even by such gracious words; but he acted his part ill, for though the King's goodness was too noble to suspect him, the courtiers nicknamed him the merry-mourner.
"Why speaks not my noble master," said Williams, observing the fixed posture and quenched eye of Evellin. At last he exclaimed—"I am not dead;" and bursting into an hysterical laugh, he swore De Vallance should find he was not dead.
"That is the point," replied Williams, "to which I have long wished to urge you. Only appear and prove your identity; nothing more is wanting. ”

“ It is either wedded to his deserts, or so estranged by his faults, that love may as well light his fire on a monumental tablet as make me again admire in man, that fair semblance of generous integrity, by which Eustace won me to select him as the partner of my future life. Him I shall ever love, or ever mourn. But were he proved guilty of every base crime laid to his charge, this extortioner, this debauchee, this refractory soldier, nay, even this traitor, must not be placed by the side of Monthault, unless it be right to compare the guilt of frail man with the impious desperation of Satan. ”

“ Pluck him as a burning brand out of the furnace of thy wrath. Make him see that he is a vessel filled with spiritual pride, hypocrisy, and barren legality. Punish him for the saving of his soul till he repents of his ungodly enmity to us thy chosen favourites, whom thou hast raised to the work of conversion, and penned in thy fold to eternal life," &c.
Dr. Beaumont and his family withdrew, in compassionate silence, from this profane perversion of devotion, which discovered the same spirit of intolerance and persecution that characterized the darkest periods of Popery. ”

“ Could he forget the wrongs and woes of Allan Neville; the death of Eustace; the mournful seclusion and daily anguish of Isabel!—Submission to Cromwell must be combined with a sacrifice of every honest principle, every cherished affection of his heart. England therefore afforded no rest to the sole of his foot, and if he sought the continent, it should be as a military hireling, not as a dependent mendicant; as one who could earn his bread, not as a supplicant, who had no other claim to support than loyalty and indigence. ”

“ Again and again he required Jobson to repeat the assurance, that he had actually held in his arms the living Eustace; the determined martyr to loyalty and truth; the brave, conspicuous, honourable soldier; his own dear son, not a traitor to his King or his love, but all that he could wish a true Neville to be, except in his misfortunes. It seemed a double resurrection to life, and to unclouded fame. And was it possible he might again see him at his feet craving his blessing? ”

“ The language of loyalty, unostentatious generosity, and warm attachment to Eustace, was, to Jobson, a sure pledge of the honour and sincerity of Monthault. He readily promised to get the whole secret out of Mrs. Isabel, and discover none of his intentions. "I see, noble sir," continued he, "you are a true gentleman, and know, that a gentleman like yourself hates to be thought poor, and had rather starve than have money given him; whereas we poor men never care how much we get from our betters. ”

“ But could he quit the banks of the Ribble, leaving his Isabel to suffer the pangs of suspense, and to pine under those limes and alders that had sheltered him from persecution? Her behaviour told him she would conduct herself with propriety in every situation. Her society had been his chief consolation in sorrow, and he saw that her fortitude would support him in the hour of trial, her wisdom guide him in difficulty, and her participation give the fairest colouring to success. Whether he sat in the senate as a peer, or stood at the bar as a criminal, Isabel should be his wedded associate. ”