Robert Grant

“ Maggie could see nothing from her perch but the sea, and the opposite cliff upon which Ripon House stood. A few wheeling sea-gulls, and a small fishing-boat, beating out of the harbor, were the only living objects in the view. The waves, crest over crest, hurried toward the headland, and beat into foam at her feet. Her mind was soothed by watching the torn waters, as each wave dashed out its life, in a thousand swirls and white bubbles of foam.
Suddenly she was startled from her reverie by hearing Geoffrey call her name, and she saw him on the rocks below her. ”

“ There were but few people walking on the embankment this cold day; a stream of carriages bright with glistening harness rolled by. A barge, filled with a merry party, and drawn by four horses, aroused Maggie from her thoughts, which had been of Geoffrey. She had not seen him since the evening of the King's drawing-room, when he had broken his sword before the monarch, and had returned his empty title to the dry fountain of honor. Her suspicions of him had died away long before she had received his letter by Reynolds's hand. ”

“ Oswald Carey's own. And that lady stood on the threshold of the Doric portal, her clinging driving-dress seeming loath to hide the grand curves of her figure, and her violet eyes drinking in the day. As she stood there, she seemed anything but the flower of a moribund civilization, the last blossom of an ancient régime; but there is a certain force which flourishes in anarchy, a life which feeds upon the decay of other lives, and grows but the more beautiful for it. Geoffrey looked upon her with a half-repelled, unwilling admiration, little knowing how near he had been to her the night before. ”

“ There was the track, stretching like a band of broad green ribbon over hill and dale; there was the glorious oak wood to the west, above the smooth bit of grass which used to be the lawn, where the ladies of the reign of Victoria had their picnics and showed their dresses, and book-makers used to jostle ministers in the betting-ring. "Ah," said Sydney, "my father has told me of great doings here—when King George's grandfather was the Prince of Wales."
The break rolled silently over the soft greensward, and Geoffrey feared Miss Windsor could overhear their every word, as Mrs. Carey spoke again. ”

“ To withdraw now, to sneak away from the very brink of danger, would be worse than death. They must go on to the end. The world's eyes were on them, or would be to-morrow; the world is always looking at yesterday.
Like bees from a hive they swarmed, a handful of men, from the door of the mess-tent, drawing their swords to conquer a kingdom for a king who had run away. There was a noble despair in their hearts.
"Up with the King's banner!" shouted Featherstone, and Dacre went to the mast and drew up the flag. ”

“ Geoffrey took it from her hand.
"Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood."
For a moment they looked at one another in speechless surprise.
"Kneel, Lord Brompton," she said at length. He did so, and taking a scarf from among the pile of vestments she girded the sword about him with fantastic grace. "Rise, Geoffrey Ripon, knight, and Earl of Brompton."
"You are forever my sovereign." He kissed her hand. She blushed sweetly, and turning said, "Enough of the past and its customs. We each have a present to face, and mine for the nonce is Jawkins. ”

“ Not a voice was raised in mockery of these few men; there is something in the last extremity of misfortune which commands respect, even from the multitude. And, perhaps, even then the first-fruits of freedom might have been marked in their manner, and magnanimity, the first virtue of liberty, kept the London rabble hushed.
[Pg 175] Geoffrey's eyes were turned within as he walked, as if he were thinking, but of thoughts far distant, far back in the past. Dacre held his glance still high and forward, fixed and straight upon the road before him. ”

“ Sydney, the hired wit, the broken-down man-about-town; his health gone, his future gone, with no family, no friends, no faith in a hereafter and no joy in the present; and the day preceding, at dinner, he had eaten a vol-au-vent which had disagreed with him. Next Mr. Sydney came the Duchess, the gaunt and dignified lady who awed even Jawkins to repose. There was not a night of her life that she did not cry like any schoolgirl whose lover has forgotten her, at the shame of her life, and the bitterness and humiliation of her daily bread. ”

“ It was now well known in London that the King's banker kept him very short.
"Well," she said, with simulated distress, "you have pried into my secret, Mr. Jawkins. I have never injured you. What motive have you in standing between me and fortune? Why should you begrudge me the éclat of wearing the coronet of England's Queen?"
"I will be frank with you again, Mrs. Carey. I have rivals in America who would snap you up in the twinkling of an eye. A royal crown upon the brow of a professional beauty has not its equal on the globe as a great moral exhibition." ”

“ Then he turned a last look at Dacre, still lying as he had fallen. "If he is dead, I suppose they will bury him like a Christian gentleman, as he was." And, raising his hat, the courtly old man saluted the fallen soldier.
Featherstone handed Geoffrey a cigar, and lighted one himself as the procession started.
"I wonder where King George the Fifth is about this time," he said, with a forlorn smile.
"No matter where he is," answered Geoffrey, in a voice of settled belief; "one thing is certain: Monarchy is dead forever in England—and it is time!" ”

“ A slight preponderance of evil or even some exaggerated habit of mind—a little over-development of pride, of ambition, of passion, a too accented doubt and an overcold analysis—suffices to throw the decision on the wrong side of every case, so that the outward life appears, perhaps, one consistent darkness and wrong. But no one knows how near at every step the noble impulse came to winning.
As Eleanor Carey strained her beautiful eyes in wakeful memories that night, the one memory that remained to her was Geoffrey Ripon. ”

“ Again he thought of Dacre and his look when all was lost: a look unchanged, unmoved; a look less of despair than the majesty of certain fate—a fate not new nor sudden, but chosen of his own calm will. A man of stone, thought Geoffrey; the incarnation of one thought; hardly human in his conscious strength. And yet, as Geoffrey saw him in the darkness of the night, his heart went out to him, and he felt that he loved this man as he had never loved a friend before. ”

“ Dacre's eyes were lost over the ocean; even Miss Windsor was grave and silent. Mrs. Carey tried to point out a sail to Geoffrey; he could not see it, and she leaned over close to him that he might follow the direction of her eye. Her breath seemed warm upon his face after the sea breeze.
"Your eyes are not so good as they used to be," said she. Geoffrey looked at her, and thought to himself that hers were deeper. He said so; but she only laughed the more and looked at him again. "Do you remember our rides in the pony-carriage?" she went on. "Poor Neddy!" ”

“ The perspiration stood out in beads on the bald head of the Duke of Bayswater.
"It is all up with us," whispered Ripon to Dacre.
"My God and my King! It is a noble cause to die for," answered the cavalier, and his proud face looked beatified.
There was a dread and awful silence as the attorney-general finished his last words. The hour for judgment had arrived, unless it were that some senator or commoner wished to speak for or against the prisoners. A bitter and illiterate friend of the government saw fit to spring to his feet and enter upon a violent harangue. ”

“ Perhaps you would not call Sir John's face attractive; his expression does not change enough for charm, and there is not light enough in those still gray eyes. As you see it now, so his expression has been these twenty years, from his studious youth at Oxford on. The four horses break into a furious canter down the hill; the coach sways from side to side; and Dacre still looks far ahead and down the road. If there is no light in the eyes, there is no tremor of the lips; just so he looked when at the doorway, all unconscious that Mary Lincoln was looking at his eyes and finding them attractive. ”

“ Oswald Carey is far too clever to stay in the glare of a great room like this," said Miss Windsor to Geoffrey. "She is one of those women who seek a corner and quiet and flourish there—not, however, alone. She is in the smaller room beyond, with Colonel Featherstone, who must have nearly pulled his great mustaches out by this time. You know how he twirls and twitches them when he thinks he is being quite irresistible, just as you are doing now, Lord Brompton." ”

“ But, after thinking of the dark side of the medal, Geoffrey gave a shrug of his shoulders, and cast off for a moment gloomy thoughts, as a duck shakes off water from its oily plumage.
"Mrs. Carey was right," he said; "love is the great thing, after all; and I love Maggie Windsor. I have little enough to offer her, not even my life, for that I promised to John Dacre, and the reversion is not worth much, I fear. ”

“ Mary Lincoln was a rare type of womanhood. She had inherited her mother's grace and lithe beauty of form, and from her father she took a strong and self-sustained nature. But there was added a quality that was hers alone—a strange, silent power of enthusiasm—a fervor that did not cry out for ideals, but filled all her blood with a deep music of devotion. A man with such a nature had been a poet or the founder of a creed. But the ideal of a man is an idea, while the ideal of a woman is a man. Time alone can bring the touchstone to such a heart. ”

“ I fear I have no class, and therefore no prejudices. I was too young to be a conscious aristocrat before the Revolution, and now I am too old to be a thorough Communist. But go on, Dacre, I know you have something to propose."
Even Dacre's enthusiasm cooled for a moment before the odd calmness of Geoffrey, who was, as he himself surmised, a man almost without a class and undisturbed by the hopes, fears or prejudices of those who have one. ”

“ We are recreant to our position, intelligence, to our fathers' memories—or we shall be if we do not—"
"Do not what?" asked Geoffrey, as Dacre paused.
"If we do not unite and have another revolution!" answered Dacre, slowly and firmly.
There was a slight sound outside the room, which made Geoffrey raise his eyes and glance toward the window; but Dacre, now aflame with his subject, stood before him and arrested his look.
"Ripon, do you think that the nobles, the gentlemen of England, have lain down like submissive creatures to this atrocious revolt? Do you think nothing has been done?" ”

“ The old Duke, who always loved a pretty face and brilliant eyes, got on capitally with Miss Windsor, and seemed to forget his fallen dignity and the mournful face of his consort, as he said pretty things to the beautiful American.
"I had a great curiosity to see Mr. Windsor before I came here," whispered Mrs. Carey to Geoffrey. "He has a strong face, has he not? They say that he is so rich that he does not know how much he is worth, and that he has made all his money himself." ”

“ The sight of Geoffrey Ripon again had won upon her strangely, and his unworldly speech had struck some chord in the depths of her own heart now long unused. There is no greater error than to suppose the evil beings of this world all one consistent evil—that would be to be perfect, as Lucifer, the father of lies, alone is perfect. Every life is but a sum of actions, and in every action the good and evil motives are most nicely balanced at the best. ”

“ Poor people, how they must hate me in advance, and what a vulgarian they must think me to be."
"Jawkins says that it is a recognized system, papa, you remember," answered Maggie. "After all, if you wish a great tenor or a violin-player at your parties, you pay them for it. If you wish a duke to awe or a beauty to charm your guests, why should you not hire them? This is a commercial age. The poor people must live, and if they can only awe or charm, there is no harm in their receiving pay for their sole merits." ”

“ You are not safe one moment in London; you know not who might betray you. The steam-yacht which brought you to England lies ready this moment to receive you."
George tried to think; but he could not. He walked about nervously.
"Let us have Bugbee here!" he exclaimed, with a burst of relief.
"No! I implore your Majesty! Do not trust any one—even him. He may be true as steel—I do not doubt it. If he be true he will not object to your escape. But not knowing all, he may advise delay—and delay is destruction." ”

“ The bulwark of the nation's safety in that hazardous time, as history well knows, was Richard Lincoln; and though we who have faith that God is ever working for man's good, know that human nature must in the end evolve into higher grades of truth and power, and that even the sublimest soul is but a cipher in the eternal scale; yet England had need of a rare spirit in that time of her sore distress to save her from the rocks of revolution and anarchy. ”

“ What is more dashing and brilliant than a coaching-party? What more inspiring to the eye, more light and careless; what fun more fast and furious? And many a man that morning, who felt his hand clothed with all the might of the people, looked curiously at the equipage of the Yankee millionaire and envied these gay people, the haughty beauty of the women, the gentlemen with their calm, unruffled exterior, and the light-heartedness, the carelessness of it all. ”

“ All three drank, and Dacre whispered, "No more of this, Featherstone. I shall see Geoffrey this evening; he is not one of us yet."
"What an attractive woman Mrs. Oswald Carey is!" exclaimed Featherstone. "You knew her before, did you not, Geoffrey?"
"I was her father's pupil before I went to Oxford."
"And knew the goddess when she was budding into womanhood. I can see it all. You fell in love with her, of course, cherished a locket in your left-hand waistcoat pocket for some weeks after you left her father's tutelage. I don't blame you. I never saw a woman who made one's blood course faster." ”

“ And now Ripon was living in his porter's lodge, all that was still his of the great Ripon estates, with his empty title left him, minus the robes and coronet no longer worn; and his King, George the Fifth, an exile, wandering with his semblance of a court in foreign lands.
The world moves quickly as it grows older, with an accelerated velocity, like that of a falling stone; and it is hard for us of the present day to picture the England of King Albert Edward. ”

“ I am always saddest at dinner, for I know that I have been asked because there is a tradition in society that I am a wit. If I speak of the gloomiest subjects people snicker; if I am eloquent or pathetic, they roar. I am by nature rather a lyric poet than a wit—ah, you are laughing, Mrs. Carey, you are laughing. ”

“ Then it will be every man's duty to strike down the enemies of the people—to destroy them, so that we and our children shall not be destroyed. We do not appeal to the sword, but the sword is ours, and we can use it terribly. Their blood be upon their own heads who dare to lay their hands on the charter of the people's rights!"
In the wave of tremendous applause that followed these words Mary Lincoln looked at Dacre, who had turned from the window. His face, always severe, was now set in fierce sternness. ”

“ Mrs. Carey is a very dangerous and bad woman; at the moment when Geoffrey appeared to you the worst he may have loved you the most. Have heart, dear, if he loves you, and if he is a good and true man, as I think he must be, for John Dacre trusts him—"
Maggie raised her head, looked into her friend's eyes and read her secret. Then two hands clasped together tightly, and they kissed and wept together.
"You will see him again," whispered Mary, as Maggie was leaving the room. "You will see him soon, and everything will be right." ”