Time journeyed onward—and with a flight as
rapid, when every day and hour was charged with
tidings of some great event, with some terrific rumour,
or some perilous foreboding, as though it had

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

ebbed noiselessly away in peace and in obscurity.
The golden days of autumn had already flown—
the last slow wain had dragged its freight to the
piled threshing-floor—the last flower had shed its
petals scentless and colourless upon the frosted
grass. The leaves, that had for many weeks
clothed grove and forest in a rich garb of many-coloured
splendour, now detached themselves one
by one from the sere branches, and fell whirling
slowly in the heavy atmosphere, like hopes blighted
before accomplishment, to the dank steamy
earth—the glimpses of the sun were rarer and
more pallid than their wont, and often in the depth
of night the mighty winds went forth, wailing as if
in sorrow over the faded glories of the year. Nor
were the signs of the times less gloomy than the
tokens of the season. All England was in confusion
and dismay, and both these hourly increasing,
till the one half of the people was wellnigh
maddened by its fears, the other by the excitement
of its own fierce and stormy passions. To-day a
rumour was abroad of mighty armaments levied beyond
the sea; and even now preparing to pollute
with foreign weapons the free soil of England, and
to erect the power of her monarch, already stretched
beyond all limits of constitutional sway, into absolute
and self-controlling tyranny. On the next, a
tale was rife that Pym, the champion of the people's
cause and king of their affections, had been
assailed, perhaps even murdered, by the hired
emissaries of a sovereign stern and cold by nature,
and rendered merciless and cruel by the extremity
of terror. Then came the one great accusation,
swallowing up in its atrocity all lesser charges, all
inferior crimes, as the sunshine drinks up and blots
from heaven the fainter lustre of the stars!—The
one great accusation, at that time generally credited

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

by men of every class except perhaps a few of the
most confiding and most generous cavaliers—and
since those days confirmed almost beyond the
possibility of doubt—that the Irish rebellion, with
all its horrible features of midnight massacre and
midday conflagration, was the premeditated, coolly
calculated, work of Charles and Henrietta! The
one great accusation, penetrating every breast, in
every rank of persons, with mingled sentiments of
pity, horror, hatred, and disgust; imbittering still
more against him the foes of the misguided sovereign,
and alienating from his side many of those
devoted and enthusiastic spirits, that never would
have swerved from their allegiance, so long as they
had sense or being, had he but shown himself in
the most trivial circumstances constant, not to his
faithful servants, but to his own true interests, or
even to himself. In the Commons house the minds
of men were even more unsettled than in the world
at large—parties ran daily higher, and with a greater
share of virulence and private animosity than at any
previous period; and, indeed, it seemed that the
king himself was labouring as earnestly to the advantage
of his enemies, the puritans, as they themselves
could wish. At the first meeting of the
parliament, a committee had been appointed “to
draw up a general remonstrance of the state of the
kingdom, and the particular grievances it had sustained;”
which, after its first nomination, had, however,
scarcely ever met, and was almost forgotten.
But now, during the causeless and protracted
absence of the ill-fated monarch in the sister
kingdom—irritated by his apathy with regard to
bleeding Ireland—appreciating fully his dishonest
motives in lingering at a distance from his parliament—
and goaded almost to madness by his
attempt to seize or to assassinate, as many did in

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

truth believe, Argyle and Hamilton—the party
came to the resolve of reproducing that momentous
question; and, in accordance with their views,
upon Strode's motion, it was carried, that “the
committee of remonstrance be revived, and ordered
without more delay to meet;” and time and
place incontinently were appointed. Within a
few days of this measure, a bill of far more questionable
character, and justified alone—if it might
any way be justified—by the unwonted and most
unbecoming violence of the spiritual lords, who
lent themselves in every instance as willing instruments
to aid the usurpation of the sovereign, and
scrupled not to violate the spirit and the letter of
the laws against the Romish church—was introduced,
ordered by a majority of voices to be read,
and, without any opposition worthy of remark,
transmitted to the lords, for the disabling the
bishops from the exercise of voting in the upper
house, or of any temporal office throughout the
kingdom. Just at this critical and anxious juncture,
with his accustomed rashness and inveterate
obstinacy, Charles deemed it fitting to collate five
preachers of undoubted eminence and learning, but
known as well for principles of state the most obnoxious
as for their talents, to as many sees vacant
by death or by translation—in absolute defiance, as
it seemed, to the desires of the popular branch of
legislation, and contrary to the advice of his most
trustworthy and valuable counsellors. In the midst
of the tumults—for to an extent which scarcely can
be designated by a less forcible word was the violent
struggle carried between the upper and the
lower houses—consequent upon this doubtful measure,
tidings arrived in London, that on a day appointed,
having arranged all matters in that kingdom
to the general satisfaction, his majesty intended

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

to depart from Scotland on his homeward progress;
and straightway the committee offered the report
of their proceedings, together with a draught of the
remonstrance, to the house; which instantly, although
divided much in sentiment, and, as many
thought, in general opposed to this decisive stroke,
proceeded to discuss it with a degree of bitterness
and fury perhaps unprecedented except in the
debates upon the case of Strafford. In the meanwhile
an answer had been returned to Ardenne by
his constituents of Huntingdon, agreeing fully to
the terms he had proposed, whereon to serve them
in the Commons as their representative and member;
and urging him, so soon as it might be consistent
with his leisure, to betake himself to London;
there to assume his seat. All preparations had
been made for his departure; chambers secured
for him in Westminster; his retinue and horses
sent before him; nay, even a day fixed whereon
again to leave, after so brief enjoyment of its
serene and tranquil pleasures, his paternal home.
He felt not, it is true, that terrible sensation of
passionate and overwhelming sorrow which drowns
the hearts of the young at their first setting forth
into the wide and cheerless world, from the dear
roof that saw their birth!—much less that sullen
and collected bitterness with which the exile gazes,
ere he turn from them for ever, upon the scenes
never before so beautiful or so beloved!—but he
did feel a heavy and continual gloom clouding, he
knew not wherefore, all his anticipations of the
future—an ominous and all-engrossing sense of
coming evil—a prophetic fear, that it would ne'er
be his again to cast away the burden of his sorrows,
and be, as it were, once again a child in spirit,
beside that old domestic hearth—a fear not justified,
perhaps, by any clear perception, nor founded

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

upon any evidence of judgment; but still oppressing
his mind, no less than the influence of a coming
thunder-storm is often seen to agitate the lower
grades of animal creation, when not a speck of
cloud is visible as yet above the clear horizon.
As far indeed as regarded any real or well-founded
apprehensions, Ardenne had every following day
less cause to dread a rupture with his father in
consequence of any difference in politics; for so
completely had the old man taken up the notion
that his son intended to apply his nomination by
the puritanic party to the advancement of the
royal interests, that Edgar fruitlessly endeavoured
to apprize him of the error, and to convince him
of his own sincerity and singleness of purpose.

“Right! right! boy,” he would cry; “never betray
your counsel!—and in good sooth thou hast a
perilous part to play, and a politic—best vote a
few times with the canting knaves—so better to
throw dust i' their eyes, that they discover not thy
game ere it be fit time to disclose it, husbanding
so thy powers as to aid our gracious master in his
real straits, an' it should come—which God avert—
to such an issue!”

For a time, indeed—so utterly abhorrent was
the smallest shadow of deception to his ingenuous
mind and rigid sense of honour—he strenuously
and sincerely strove to make Sir Henry comprehend
his principles—his entire devotion to the laws
and constitution of his country, as established by
the precedent of ages, not as interpreted by the
corrupt and pensioned lawyers of the court—his
firm attachment to the privilege of Parliament, as
opposed to the prerogative of the crown—and,
over all, his absolute disgust at the late proceedings
taken by the king in relation to the claim of
ship-money especially, and to the infringement of

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

the anti-Catholic statutes;—but finding all endeavours
vain to overturn his preconceived opinion, he
abandoned altogether the ungracious task, in an uncertain
state of mind, bordering at one moment on
hope, at another on its opposite extreme, despair;
arguing within himself, when brighter thoughts
prevailed, that, as his father's violence of loyalty
was even now so greatly modified as to permit
him to allow the participation of corrupt men, and
the existence of evil measures, in the councils of
his kingly idol, his own course might so far tally
with his views, or, at the worst, might differ from
them only in so small particulars as to call forth no
very strenuous or lasting reprobation;—and again,
when giving way to gloomier though perhaps more
probable imaginations, foreseeing that the obstinate
determination of the sovereign to dispense with
parliaments; to recognise the laws of the land but
so far as they should further his own imperious
wishes; to rule, in short, as an absolute and arbitrary
monarch—and the noble stand assumed by
the delegates of the people in defence of the people's
rights—would by no means ever be composed
or reconciled except by arbitration of the sword;
and farther, that in such a case, as certainly as he
should be himself found warring in the ranks of
freedom, so surely would Sir Henry arm to buckler
the time-hallowed names of church and king,
although the former should be almost Romish, and
the latter utterly despotic.

Thus was the mind of Edgar balanced during
the interval which elapsed between his first acceptance
of the proffered honour and his departure for
the metropolis—its moods as various as the changes
of an April day, now bright with sunshiny and azure
skies, now blackened with the scudding rack, and
howling with the stormy gusts. The days,

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

however, wore onward—the chase in the morning, with
its heart-stirring sounds and high associations, or
the stroll through the highly-cultivated grounds
about the homestead, or the familiar visit to the
independent yeomen or the sturdy peasantry, consumed
the earlier hours; and, when the mid-day
meal was ended, the ramble in the beautiful broad
park, beneath the autumnal trees, with his sweet
cousin—the ramble, finished, as it seemed to them,
almost before it was commenced—beguiled the
hours till twilight, when the lamps would all be
lighted, and the guests assembled in the lordly hall,
or the smaller circle gathered about the parlour fire,
to cheat the evening with lay and legend, or with
sprightly converse, more pleasantly than with loud
minstrelsey and the gay dance. The days, however,
wore onward—and although none else perceived the
constant cloud that dwelt on Edgar's brow, Sibyl
had marked and understood it; and, as if in sympathy,
her own transparent skin showed less and less
the healthful hues of her elastic blood—and her
deep eye was always dimmer than its wont, and
often tearful, as it would dwell unnoticed on the
overshadowed features of her lover, now constantly
absorbed, as he had rarely been of yore, in fits of
meditation, abstracting him entirely from the business
or the pleasure of the moment. After the
morning following his return to Woodleigh, although
on other topics there had been no reserve
however trivial, no hesitancy or concealment of
action, thought, or motive, neither had again
alluded to the subject of their interrupted conversation—
he shunning it, not merely because he
could have naught agreeable, but because he had
naught definite which to communicate, and therefore
was unwilling, needlessly perhaps, to cloud
her prospects with certainly a distant, and not

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

improbably a causeless, terror!—and she not pressing
it, because, relying with a pure and holy confidence
upon her promised husband—a confidence inferior
only to her trust in her Creator!—because seeing,
that, be his secret sorrow what it might, he felt it
not his duty at that time to impart it to her ear!—
and because she would have scorned herself could
she have entertained the thought but for a moment
of obtaining that from his fondness, which his judgment
would not warrant his bestowing!

It was not long, however, before Sibyl had
another and a surer reason for her silence; for,
with that wondrous shrewdness which a woman's
heart possesses in divining and discovering any
thing that may affect it in its own particular
province, she fancied herself ere long to be the
mistress of the causes of his hidden grief. She
saw the struggle in his heart between his love for
her and for his father, and his devotion to his country.
She knew that in the heart of such a man the
struggle could last but for a single hour ere it must
be decided—she suffered no diminution of her self-respect,
no fretting of her vanity, as she acknowledged
that her own claims to his affection must
surely yield to the overruling amor patriœ—and,
while she sorrowed with the deep sincerity of a
true and loving heart over the election which, she
was assured, he had already made, she yet thought
she hardly could desire that he had decided otherwise!—
And even yet there was another cause!—
a lingering hope—that she might yet have been in
error—that she might falsely have interpreted the
outward workings of his mind—a fear of banishing
that lingering hope, by questioning of that which
she most yearned to know—a dread of learning
that, which even now almost knowing true, she
would have given worlds to know unreal.

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

The days wore onward, and the last morning
broke, and the last sun arose, which was to shine
on Edgar a dweller in his father's house. It was
a clear, bright, cheerful morning—a slight touch
of frost on the preceding evening had imparted
just enough of coldness to the atmosphere to render
it more pure and bracing, but the sun shone
warmly out, and the dew sparkled laughingly upon
the shrubs and grass, and the rooks clove the liquid
firmament with their exulting wings at an immeasurable
pitch—all nature seeming to rejoice with a
more healthful and elastic joy than in the fullest
flush of summer. It was, in short, just such a
morning as would make the careless and unburdened
heart sit lightiler on its throne—as would
impel the mounted traveller to give his horse the
spur, and let his spirits loose by a free and fearless
gallop—as would swell the pedestrian's chest, and
plant his stride more firmly on the sod, and perchance
unclose his lips with something of a song—
but it was such a one withal as would cause one
departing from some loved and lovely scene, to
need a stronger effort to tear himself away than he
would have been called on to exert had the skies
been lowering, and the day in nearer unison with
his own sad sensations. Accordingly, the tone of
Edgar's feelings were depressed beyond their
wont, even as the aspect of all visible things was
fairer than the promise of the season—his mien
was careworn, and at times it scarcely would have
been too strong a term to call it haggard—his gait
was various and irregular, hasty at times and hurried,
and at times unusually slow—his eye was
often fixed on vacancy, and those who would address
him were compelled to speak their wishes
more than once ere they appeared to reach his understanding.
The earlier hours were consumed in

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

preparations till high noon came round, and he
sat down to the last meal he was for many a
month to taste in fellowship with those who sat
beside him, while the unwelcome thought would
still intrude itself, that it might be verily the
last. In silence then, if not in sorrow, dinner
went by, until the board was cleared of all save
cup and flagon, and the old servitors withdrew,
and Sibyl vanished—to attend, perchance, her
household duties, or, more probably, to give in private
vent to the gushing feelings which she in
public was compelled to smother—and sire and
son were left without companions. For a while
the old man spoke not, resting his head upon his
hand as if in anxious thought; and, although once
or twice he raised it and made as if about to
speak, he yet seemed at a loss for words—at
length, as if with something of an effort, he
aroused himself, filled up his goblet from the stoop
of Bordeaux wine before him, and, pushing it
toward his son, motioned that he should follow the
example—gazed for a moment wistfully upon the
clouded features that met his eye, and with a nod
and smile that vainly struggled to be lightsome,
emptied his winecup.

“Come, Edgar, come!” he said, “this gloom
will never do!—Cheer up, kind heart, cheer up!—
Thou takest on more sadly now methinks than
when thou left us for thy three years term of service
in the Low Countries! but I can see how sits
the wind—old though I be, and past these toys
this many a winter's day—I mind when I was a
young cavalier, and not—although I say it who
should not—the most unlikely in the court of good
Queen Bess, we ne'er shall look upon her like
again—I mind how I was wont to droop at parting
from—poor Alice!—Sibyl, though passing fair, is

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

naught for beauty to what she was!—Well—too
well! do I mind it.”

Ardenne, who had shaken off his air of abstraction
for a moment as his father drank to him, was
again relapsing into the same listless mood on perceiving
that his words were rather unconnected
musings than such as called for answer or remark—
but when the name of Sibyl caught his ear, his
eye lightened, and the colour rushed to his brow, as
he perceived that his inmost thoughts were about
to be subjected to the keen probe of mental surgery!
“Ay! ay! I can see plain enough how
sits the wind,” continued Sir Henry, without pausing
for a reply; “though why you should be so
cast down, I may not comprehend so readily.
Your cousin Sibyl, I do know right well, has long
possessed your love, and as long too returned it.
That I have in all things approved of this, I need
not tell you now, seeing that you must well conceive,
that knowing this and not prohibiting was
to all needful ends consenting. That you should
be cast down at leaving of so sweet a girl as Sibyl,
is—I gainsay it not—right natural; nathless I cannot
but imagine that you do apprehend some greater
evil than a mere temporary separation. Now, boy,
to the point!—You would espouse your cousin
Sibyl—she says not nay!—and if my interference
be a cause of dread to you, I say but this, that you
have cruelly misjudged your father's heart! My
benison on you both! I know no sweeter balm
for all the manifold griefs of age, than to make,
and to see, the youthful happy. So set your soul
at ease—brave boy—you shall wed Sibyl when
you will; and the more quickly—the more gladly
and more surely shall I witness it. You start for
Westminster to-night; and I have meditated somewhat
often now of late on passing this next

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

Christmas-tide in London. Sibyl, poor child, hath seen
naught of court-gayety nor of the world as yet, and
this is but a lonesome place in winter—the more
so now that half the gentles of the land will, as it
seems too likely, be detained till spring in the city
by these protracted sittings of the Houses, which
men speak of. I have determined now to give
you a commission—choose me a fitting mansion—
whether to rent or purchase I care not a maravedi—
in the Strand if thou mayst, if not in Westminster
or Charing!—see it right nobly furnished, and
write me when 'tis done. I will bring Sibyl thither
straightway, and, sith you may not spend these
holydays with us, why we will keep them up with
you, I warrant me. And now away to Sibyl; say
to her all that I have said to you, and what beside
seems fitting to your melancholy mood. Thou
needst not me, I trow, to woo her. Fix, if you
may prevail on her, your bridal day at once—
whene'er ye list, 'twixt Christmas-tide and Easter.
Be happy, Edgar, be happy, and let me see you
so—such is my only wish this side eternity,—before
I go to my long home.”

“My good—my generous—my gracious father!”
cried Ardenne, affected to the point of weeping, as
he threw himself upon the old man's neck; “too
good! too generous!”

“Tush! tush, boy!—None of this!” exclaimed
the veteran, hemming away the husky weakness
from his throat; “none of this—but away with
you to Sibyl—she is more fitting object for these
raptures than an old weather-beaten trunk like me.
Away with you! but hark ye—here is the ring
that plighted my departed angel. Let me behold
it on her hand, whom I have loved the best—nay,
I might say, the only one—of women, since my
own Alice left me, to drag out my pilgrimage alone,

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

without one hope to cheer it save that of meeting
her once more, when it shall be, O Lord, thy merciful
and blessed will.”

It would have been of no avail—so bent was the
old knight on his benevolent design—it would have
been of no avail, even had Edgar been so minded,
to strive to alter or oppose his projects. They were
not such, however, as to leave a possible desire to
his son, which would not be, by their accomplishment,
at once achieved. He had no words to
answer—but the hot blood rushed tumultuously
through his veins—and his strong frame quivered
visibly with the excitement of his spirits, as he
hurried from the hall to seek his beautiful betrothed.
“Once mine, and all beside is nothing!
once mine, there will be no more struggle! Duty
and pleasure will go hand in hand! Once wedded,
and no difference of opinion then may put those
asunder whom God has joined together!” Such
were the thoughts that thronged with irresistible
impetuosity, and with the speed of light, upon his
busy brain—but he had not made six steps beyond
the threshold before reflection changed the prospect.
“Would it be noble—honourable—upright”—
thus did he commune with himself; “would it be
worthy of an Ardenne—the supporter of an unblotted
fame of generations—nay, rather, would it not
be sordid—base—dishonest—and degrading to the
lowliest gentleman, to win a credulous confiding
woman by a fraud—by an implied, if not a spoken,
lie?—To let her wed, believing him she wedded a
supporter of the cause she deemed most holy, a
soldier armed for the warfare which alone to
her seemed just and sacred—to let her wed in
haste, and then find out at leisure that she had
been deceived—vilely deceived—by him she had
just sworn to honour?—Not so!” he cried aloud,

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

“It shall not be, by Heaven! She shall know all—
all—every thing! Knowing, she shall accept
my hand—or knowing, cast me off, but not at least—
despise me!” And, as his mind arrived at its
mature though swift conclusion, he reached the
door of Sibyl's oriel parlour—with a hesitating
hand he struck the panel, and so slight was the
sound that it conveyed no tidings to the inmate—
at least it was unanswered—again he knocked, and
louder than before—he listened, and still all was
silence. Supposing her he sought to have gone
forth, he had already turned away to follow her,
when a faint noise, as of a person breathing
heavily, or perhaps gently weeping, attracted his
attention; he knocked a third time, and then—
though still unbidden—entered. She was within—
she was alone!—in the prostration—in the absolute
abandonment of feminine and hopeless grief!
Her face was buried in her hands, as she lay
stretched at length on the broad pillowed settle
which encircled the bay window. Her light brown
hair, which had broken loose from the confinement
of her silken headgear, flowed in redundant waves
over the voluptuous outline of her shoulders, trailing
down even to the ground. Her features were,
of course, concealed; but the large pearly tears,
forcing their way one by one between her fingers,
had already left a visible trace of moisture on the
damask cushions, while the convulsive starts that
agitated her entire frame told even more the depth
and anguish of her sorrow than all her weeping.

“Sibyl,” he whispered, stealing with noiseless
steps over the three-piled Persian carpet till he
was close beside her; “my own—own Sibyl!”
there was a deep fond pathos in his musical accents
which no description could express—a liquid,
melancholy tenderness, that sank directly to the

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

heart; “My own—own Sibyl.” And with the
most respectful delicacy he lifted her from her
recumbent attitude; “and weeping too for me!
but weep no longer, dearest one—I come—I
come! Oh grant it, God, that it may be so—to
wipe those tears away—to make you mine—for
ever!”

She gazed upon him for a second's space,
wildly—distrustfully—then, as she perceived his
earnest air, and marked the hope that kindled in
his smile—then brighter thoughts prevailed; and
with the sudden strange revulsion, abandoning
herself to the full tide of her warm, passionate
feelings, she sank half fainting on the bosom of
her lover.

“Oh grant it, Father of all mercies—grant it,
that this too mighty treasure shall indeed be
mine!” he murmured fervently, as he supported
her, and with considerate expressions of calm
fondness recalled her gradually to her self-possession,
suppressing every sentiment that might embarrass
her returning consciousness—that might in
any wise offend or agitate her girlish sensibilities;
holding her hand in his the while, but with a quiet,
unimpassioned pressure, liker to the expression of
a kind brother's love than to the rapturous devotion
of a youthful suiter; soothing her with the
gentlest tones of his familiar voice, till she was at
the least sufficiently composed to listen to his self-restrained
and self-accusing pleadings.

“Sibyl,” he said at length, as her deeply-drawn
sighs subsided, and her tears ceased to flow in
such unnatural profusion; “Sibyl—dear cousin;
soon—soon, I trust, to be addressed by a far dearer
title, I have much—much that I would say to you
before I go from hence, never unless at your permission
to return!—much from my father—for

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

myself yet more!—Dry your tears, dearest, dry
them, I beseech you—it is agony to me to look on
them!—dry them, and listen to me, that we may,
if it be Heaven's pleasure, be happy as the happiest
of earth's inhabitants.”

“Say on,” she difficultly faltered forth the words,
“say on, dear Edgar—with my whole soul I do
attend you.”

“Not here,” he answered, “not here, sweet one—
and not yet! But do your mantle on, and walk
forth with me for a little space. You are too
greatly agitated yet, calmly to hear, and freely to
decide on that, which, for your happiness'—for your
life's—sake, you must consider warily and well!
The pleasant sunshine, the fresh grateful air, and,
above all, the peaceful and quiescent scenery, will
tranquillize your mind. Moreover, I would not
that this sun should set unwitnessed by us twain
together. You will go forth, then, dearest—will
you not, Sibyl?”

A smile, exquisitely sweet, glancing from out
her tears, was her sole token of assent, as she disengaged
herself half blushingly from his supporting
arms, and, gathering her dishevelled tresses, folded
them simply, but in the most perfect taste, around
her classically moulded temples.

“Wait for me in the vestibule,” she said—“I
will be there ere you shall have the time to miss
me;” and vanished from the room, leaving a stronger
hope in Ardenne's breast than he had entertained
for many a day. He was assured in his own mind,
beyond the possibility of doubt, that she had
marked the secret conflict of his soul, that she had
penetrated his sole mystery, and was aware already
of his apprehensions, as to the part which it might
ere long be his duty to sustain, whether it should
lie in the grave and subtle forum, or in the

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

lamentable field of civil strife; and he now listened to
the flattering voice within, which whispered that it
might well be, a maiden so affectionate, so warm,
and, above all, so deeply and devotedly attached,
would overlook the difference in their political
creeds, as counterbalanced, rendered nugatory, and
a thing of naught, by their entire harmony of soul
on every other subject. It might well be, that one
so strong herself in principles of honour and integrity,
would find more to admire in the inflexible
and stern uprightness which will not sacrifice one
particle of conscience—one straw's bulk of that
which it considers duty—before the shrine of its
most intimate and near affections, than to rebuke
or reprobate in the opinions or the principles on
which that duty hinges. But he had not long time
to waste in thought or speculation; for, as he
reached the entrance of the hall, the form he loved
so well to look upon came gliding down the staircase,
wrapped in her walking-robe—fitted above the
waist with accurate precision to the mould of her
unrivalled shape, but full below and flowing—of
dark velvet, furred at the cape and cuffs with the
most costly minever; and wearing on her head a
cap of ermine, its silken crown and lining protruding
from above the border of deep fur, and hanging
gracefully down, with a white ostrich-feather drooping
over it, so as to flush one delicate cheek more
warmly than its sister with a teint borrowed from
its own bright crimson. With a passionate and
fitful light, far different from the calmness of their
wonted radiance, the eyes of Edgar dwelt upon
the finely-modelled person, and the features, not
the less exquisitely fair that they now wore a melancholy,
downcast aspect, of her, on whose acceptance
or denial of his present suit his all of hope
was fearfully suspended. So long, indeed, and

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

evident was that fixed gaze of admiration, and so
much was she pained by its expression, that the
bashful blood rushed like a torrent to brow, cheek,
and neck, with blushes scarcely natural, so vivid
was their hectic colour. Perceiving instantly the
cause of her confusion, with an air of deep humility
he lowered his offending eyes, and, as he took her
hand to lead her forth, “Pardon,” he whispered, in
low, reverential tones—“pardon me, gentle cousin,
my most unwitting and involuntary fault!—if fault
it be—” he added, with a voice that faltered, and
then abruptly paused, as if he were unable to complete
the sentence. A quiet pressure of the fingers
that yet lingered in his tender grasp, replied at
once, and reassured him; and in the silence caused
by feelings or by thoughts too powerful for utterance—
how widely different from that of apathy or
dulness!—they for the last time wandered forth
into the pleasant solitudes of the broad sylvan
chase.

Throughout the greater part of its extent, this
ornamented tract, although diversified enough by
change of dale and upland to redeem its beauties
from the charge of tameness or monotony, was
rather of a level than a broken character; its
charms were chiefly of that tranquil and composing
cast which is found rather in expanses of deep
meadow-land, carpeted by a sward so fresh and so
luxuriant as to lose little of its verdure even in the
dead months of winter—in the massive foliage
of the scattered clumps, or more continuous groves
of stately timber-trees—and in the sheets of limpid
but unrippled water, than in the features of a scenery,
which, if more romantic, is far less alluring;
if more enchanting to the first astonished glance,
bears not so well the test of daily and familiar observation.
Towards its northern and northwestern

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

boundaries, however, the ground was swelling and
uneven; the hills heaved up more boldly from the
valleys, which were in places so abrupt and narrow
as almost to deserve the name of glens, or dingles,
and often wore a coronet of gray and rifted sandstone
above the purple heather, that clothed their
flanks with a dark russet mantle wheresoever the
soil was too poor or too shallow to support the
taller growth of hazel, birch, and mountain ash,
which clustered round their bases, or straggled up
their sides where any casual streamlet had worn a
channel to protect them from the western gales,
and afforded by its waters a grateful although
scanty nutriment to their dwarfed and thirsty roots.
Imbosomed in these rugged eminences, at a short
mile's distance from the manor, there lay a little
tarn or mountain lake, scarce larger than an artificial
pool, but so deep that its glassy waters shone
black as polished jet even beneath the azure skies
of June. Narrow, however, as it was, it yet could
boast its islets—two, fringed from the water's edge
with tangled underwood, above which waved some
three or four tall trees; the third, a bold and
barren rock, whereon some feudal ancestor had
perched his solitary fastness, dismantled now and
roofless. On every side but one the hills sank
steeply down to the lake's brink, leaving no space
for the adventurous foot of man, feathered with
coppice springing from every rift or crevice of their
rocky sides; but on that one a turfy glade sloped
gently to the marge, where it was bordered by a
stripe of silver sand, which formed a bright and
sunny frame to the dark mirror it enclosed. Just
where the turf and sand united, a single and gigantic
oak, known as the “friar's tree” for miles
around, reared its short massive trunk, garnished
with limbs as tortuous and forked as the antlers of

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

the wild herds that loved to rub their budding horns
against it in the early springtide; but supporting,
even in the flush of summer, only a sparse and
scanty garland of green leaves, which rustled now,
all sere and yellow, in the melancholy breath of
autumn. Immediately beneath the shadow of this
forest patriarch, and partly overlapped by the encroachment
of its twisted roots, lay a huge block
of deep-red freestone, bearing the marks of rude
and half-obliterated sculptures, in which some village
antiquarian had traced or fancied a resemblance
to a cowled and sandalled figure, whence
the prevailing appellation of the tree; which, ancient
as that relic evidently seemed, had probably
been in its prime already when there it had been
placed—placed only to survive the memory of the
event or actor it had fondly been intended to immortalize.
It might have been the cover of a tomb—
it might have been a monument designed to celebrate
some great or wonderful achievement—but,
whatever was its pristine use or destination, it
afforded now a pleasant seat, cushioned with soft
luxurious mosses, and sheltered equally from summer
heat and wintry gales by the huge stem and
gnarled boughs that overhung it. A lovely and
romantic spot this was—so still, so lonely, so sequestered
from the eye by intervening thickets,
that, although situate at scarce a bowshot from the
most frequented walks, it yet was rarely visited but
by some passing forester, or some true lover of the
undecorated face of nature. For this cause, perhaps,
it had ever been a favourite haunt of Sibyl,
who, when a fairy maiden of fifteen, was wont to
resort thither with book, lute, or pencil, as the
fancy of the moment prompted, and for no other
reason had it been the usual termination of her
young wooer's wanderings. What was the aim of

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

Edgar in choosing this fair solitude to be the scene
of that most sacred audience which he had come
forth to demand, he could not have, perhaps, himself
explained. It might be he had formed some
half-confessed and indistinct idea, that here, in the
familiar trysting-place—the home of so sweet recollections,
the shrine of so innumerable hopes—
she would “lean to the soft side of the heart”—would
be more liable to yield herself to fond and passionate
impressions, than to weigh matters with an
equable, calm scrutiny. It might be that habit
merely, and the trick of old association, had conducted
his feet thither, while the mind was far removed
from thought of time or place; or it might
be that, wise and philosophic as his spirit was, there
yet lay dubiously concealed within it one of those
strange superstitious touches—those creeds of the
heart, not of the judgment—from which the bosoms
of so few, even the coolest and most stern inquirers,
can altogether wean themselves—one of those
fancies which we all at times have felt, that some
peculiar spot, or hour, or person, is secretly connected
with the clew and crisis of our destiny—is,
as it were, the hinge whereon the portals of our
fortune turn, opening to our steps the unknown
paths of future good or evil. Whatever were his
thoughts, however, during their silent progress to
the friar's tree, scarcely had he placed her on the
monumental stone, and stretched himself before her
on the dry white sand, ere he poured forth, in a
voice of so sweet harmony as might have well beguiled
the ear and won the heart of the most determined
votary of celibacy, a tide of language fraught
with such eloquence, and yet so practical in meaning—
so deep in sentiment, and yet so pointed in
expression—that few lips, perhaps, but his, could
have delivered it, without incurring some reproach

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

of studied insincerity, or awakening some feeling
of distrust. He told her of his hopes, his doubts,
his terrors—he told her how a cloud, he knew not
wherefore, had overshadowed his horizon, chilling,
as it were, the very sources of his most permanent
and warm affections; he told her how he valued
her the most of all things earthly—the most of all
things, save his God, his country, and his honour!
How to him her wedded love would be indeed the
all in all—capable of making that which else were
misery the highest and most pure enjoyment;—
how, to win it, he would lay down willingly rank,
name, fame, fortune, every thing save virtue! He
told her that, without that crowning gift, he should,
though wealthier than the wealthiest, bear but a
beggared heart—though girt with myriad friends,
be desolate and lonely—though dwelling in his
very birthplace, be a divorced and home-sick
exile! He told her of the violent and ceaseless
strife between his passion and his conscience—of
his profound devotion to herself, battling and
scarcely to be overcome by his more deep devotion
to his country's weal. “It may be,” he continued—
“it may be that I am but a timorous dreamer—
but a trembling visionary, shaking at causeless and
unreal terrors. It may be that the trials, which I
shudder merely at foreseeing, shall never come to
the proof; but this is what I dread—and what,
though dreading, I may not, if it come to pass,
avoid or shrink from, even to win what were to me
a thousand times more dear than life—the miseries
of intestine war let loose to devastate our smiling
country!—a wild and bloody strife, dividing
brother against brother, sire against son, husband—
sweet Sibyl—husband against wife!—A strife
between a king determined to be absolute, a people
to be free! If these things come to pass—though

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

my life be barren, and my deathbed deserted—
yea, though my heart be broken in the conflict—
yet must I be for ever the sworn soldier of my
country's freedom. It may however be—Heaven
grant it so!—that I do falsely calculate the signs
of coming wrath; it may moreover be, that, as I
am, so are you a friend to liberty and justice, more
than a worshipper of kings! and, if so, all shall
yet be well. My father, Sibyl, my old, kind father,
hath proffered freely his consent—hath urged me
to obtain your promise, that you will be my own
before this coming winter shall have made way for
spring flowers—hath implored me `that he may see
us happy—such is his only wish this side eternity—
before he go to his long home!' Be mine, then,
Sibyl—oh be mine, ere the fierce storm of war
shall burst, which may divide us, and for ever—
be mine to cheer, to guide, to comfort, and to bless—
be mine for weal and wo—for time and for
eternity!”

While he had spoken, though her lips quivered
often, and parted more than once, as if she would
have interrupted him—though her colour went and
came in brief and fitful flashes—the lovely girl had
never once withdrawn her eyes from his pale face—
pale with the struggle of contending passions—nor
yet relaxed her pressure of his cold damp hand;
and, as he paused from his deep-souled and eager
pleading, she replied at once, though her voice faltered,
and the big tears slid down her cheeks.

“It is, then,” she said, “it is, then, as I dreaded!
and our young hopes have been but as a morning
vision! Oh, Edgar, Edgar—I have thought, I
have hoped, I have prayed that these things might
not be, and yet too—oh, too surely—have I known
they must!” and she hurried onward with her
speech, as if she feared that she should lack the

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

strength to act up to her resolution. “Men will
say,” she went on, with increasing passion—“men
will say, and say truly—but I care not—that it is
unmaidenly in me to speak in words how madly,
how devotedly I love you. My hope of hopes
has been—you cannot doubt it, Edgar, no! no!
you cannot—to know myself your wife; and now
my hopes are anguish and despair. But think not
that I blame you—that I love you, honour you,
adore you, one thousandth part the less—when I
say—God grant me strength to bear it—when I
say, that we can never—never now—be one.
Your father has to me been as—nay, more—more
than a father. To his heart your defection—such
will he term and feel it—your defection from the
loyalty of your high race will strike a wound, that
but one other blow could aggravate or deepen.
Were I to fall off likewise, he would die, Edgar;
die, and leave to us his sole bequest—a father's
malison. No, no! I must stay with him—must
console the old man in his barren and unfriended
sorrows; must sooth his cares, and turn aside his
anger, lest it wax hotter and more deadly than
you, you, Edgar, shall be able to endure. Nor is
this all. I am a poor, weak girl—a frail, confiding
creature, of a sex whose duty and whose nature is
obedience—obedience to our king, our husband,
our God! I argue not!—I hope not, fancy not,
that I can change your judgment, founded, as it
must be, on firm conviction; nor would I change
it if I could! That which in women is nature,
virtue, may well in men be cowardice and crime!
Your intellect is strong, and wise, and wonderful—
mine womanish and weak! Nor should I love
and venerate you as I do, could you surrender up
your wisdom at the bidding of my weakness.
Then, as I respect your scruples, respect mine

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

also. The sapling bends, indeed, to the wild blast
that bows it; but, when the hurricane is overpast,
it stands no less erect than the proud oak that
yielded not an inch to the storm's fury. I in my
weakness—you in your strength—we are alike immoveable.
Yours I can not be now—may not be
ever! But of this be certain—wedded or single,
royalist or republican, living or in death, you only
shall I love, you only honour—honour and love
more deeply, that I know you greater in adherence
to that which I must deem fancied and erroneous
duty, than did you think as I. There is one hope
for us! Edgar, my Edgar, one! If this wild
storm pass by—if the green homes of England be
unstained with native blood—and how more fervently
than ever shall I now pray they be so—then
may we yet be happy.”

The blood rushed coldly to his heart as he
heard her out, nor, though he had expected every
word she uttered, was the shock less stunning or
the anguish lighter than if the stroke had fallen on
him unaware. Too well, however, did he know,
and too entirely respect, the principles which
doomed him to eternal and unutterable sorrow, to
speak one syllable in answer or entreaty. “One
kiss,” he murmured, through his set teeth—“one
last kiss, my own lost Sibyl.” And she fell upon
his bosom unresisting, and her white arms were
twined about his neck with a convulsive clasp,
and their cold lips mingled in a long embrace that
had no taste of passion or of pleasure, and their
tears flowed together in that gush of unchecked
misery.

Before an hour elapsed Ardenne had left the
mansion of his fathers. The old knight wondered,
and was grieved, but silent; he saw, at an eye's
glance, that his own hopes—his first-born's

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

happiness—had been dashed rudely down; but, to imagine
wherefore, conjecture was itself at fault. He
wept upon his neck, blessed him, and sent him
forth! A pale form, indistinctly seen through the
fast gathering twilight, stood in the oriel window
as Edgar slowly mounted—but the burst of agonizing
sobs that followed his departure was distinctly
audible. Enough! Timanthes veiled the
face, on which the extremity of sorrow was engraved
in characters so fearful as to defy the
utmost skill of human portraiture.