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Calamity never leaves us where it finds us. It
either softens or hardens the heart. With some, the
wounded spirit subsides into cold insensibility, and
every blow serves only to harden it into stern resistance,
accompanied by a disregard to the sufferings of
others; with some, it finds its best solace for the loss
of the dead in administering to the happiness of the
living. There are those who, smarting under the recollection
of the loss of some beloved being, retire, as it
were, within themselves, and shrink from forming new
ties, lest they should be again severed by the angel of
death, who seems to shoot his arrows at random, careless
whose heart he splits asunder; and there are
others, who only cling more closely to what is left,
from attachment to what is gone forever.

Harold Habingdon belonged to this latter class; and
from the period of Susan's death, seemed to concentrate
his worldly thoughts and affections on his

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daughter. No longer the stern, unbending father, sacrificing
everything to what he called his principles, he became
the tender, affectionate guardian, the confidential
friend. When, after months had passed away, he saw
little if any mitigation in the calm, settled melancholy
of Miriam, and sometimes observed traces of those
secret tears that always come from the heart; when
he marked her struggles to be cheerful only followed
by increasing paleness and dejection he became convinced
there was a deeper cause at work than grief for
the death of her mother. He, too, had learned the
melancholy fate of Langley; and now that death had
placed the barrier of the grave between him and his
daughter, his heart softened towards him, and he
sometimes caught himself regretting that he had so
sternly opposed a union that might at the same time
have secured her happiness, and brought her a protector
when her father was no more. He thought that,
perhaps, instead of becoming a convert to his faith,
Miriam might gradually have brought him to adopt
her own. But it was now too late, and the very impossibility
of the marriage ever taking place increased
his regrets for his past opposition. Had Langley been
living, and at hand, it is probable his former dislike
might have continued, and increased; but being now
forever removed beyond the possibility of giving offence,
Harold sincerely desired an opportunity of making
atonement by sanctioning what he had so sternly
opposed. Mankind are never so anxious to make
amends for injury or unkindness, as when the time for

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doing so is past forever. They can forgive the dead,
but not the living. Influenced by these new-born feelings,
he one day questioned Miriam on the subject of
her continued depression

“I do not wish,” said he, “to prevent your weeping
over the loss of what can never be restored either to
you or to me—a faithful wife, and tender mother. But
sorrow, like joy, should have its limits; and if time
did not cure, or at least alleviate our griefs for the loss
of those we love, the world would be clothed in perpetual
mourning and sadness. I do not wish to prevent
your indulging your sorrow, since it is not for us
to expect to pass through this vale of tears, without
adding our tribute to the waters of bitterness. Happiness,
my daughter, soons becomes tired of the same
companion, and seeks new associates. We may have
happy days, but not happy lives. If thy mother is
permitted to look down upon us, she will grieve to see
thee unhappy so long.”

“Father,” said Miriam, with her usual frank simplicity,
“I have other cause of grief than the loss of
my dear mother. There is another grave for me to
weep over.”

“I understand thee, Miriam; and if it can be any
consolation to thee to know it, I declare that were
poor Langley Tyringham alive, I would now trust
your faith and your happiness to his keeping; for
Heaven only knows how long it may be before you
require a protector in this wild region.”

“Dear father!” cried Miriam, with tears of

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gratitude, “you have taken a load from my heart. What
though I can never be his, that I shall see him no
more, it is a sweet consolation for me to know that
my father at last thinks of him with kindness, and
would accept him as a son. I shall be happier now,
for I can think of him without offending you.”

As she said this her face brightened, her deep pensive
eye sparkled as if with a flash of newly-awakened
hope, and a long absent stranger appeared in the likeness
of a flush on her cheeks. From that time her
depression gradually subsided into something like
patient cheerfulness, and she went about her household
duties with new vivacity.

The stern winter of that northern region had now
passed away, and the joyous spring, which had only
awaited the melting of the snow, now leaped forth as
if full grown from under the shelter of her frozen
canopy. The sweet south wind, the most balmy
breath of nature, gently curled the surface of the glad
river, now released from its icy fetters, and murmuring
as if enjoying its newly-acquired freedom; the
fresh meadows put forth their brightest verdure; and
now and then a chirping bird, just returned from its
southern tour, chaunted his joyous song among the
buds and expanding leaves, whose foliage seemed as
soft and fleecy as the reflection of the woods in the
bosom of some glassy lake.

Miriam, one afternoon, pointed out these newly-arrived
strangers to her father, and proposed a walk to
the high-peaked mountain, heretofore noted, which

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rose gently from the river until it suddenly changed
its aspect, and shot like a pyramid into the skies. It
was not difficult of ascent in one part, and was now
free from snow. Harold gladly assented, and the
mountain being nigh at hand, they reached the summit
in time to see the setting sun in all his glory,
giving his evening farewell to a world which lay
beneath their view in all directions. It was a scene
of most enchanting beauty and sublimity. The river
gracefully winding, and turning, and lingering with
sweet delay among the broad meadows; the vast
expanse of waving woods, undulating hills, and towering
mountains peering among the blue skies, as blue
as them, and almost as transparent; the sublime distance
of the horizon, and the endless variety of objects
spread out before them, all formed a scene that elevated
the soul to the loftiest conceptions of infinite
power and infinite wisdom. Both for a while paid it
the homage of silence. At length Miriam exclaimed—

“What a beautiful world! and what a pity it cannot
last for ever.”

“True,” answered the father—“all that we see
around; all that is, and all that shall ever be, is destined
to perish, how soon no one knows, no prophet
can predict. But the time will surely come, when
this earth shall crumble into a heap of smoking ashes;
the sea exhale in scalding steam; and the sun consume
in his own fires. Of all created things, animate
and inanimate, visible and invisible, in this vast

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uncircumscribed universe, there is nothing immortal but the
soul of man.”

“Thou sayest truly, Harold Habingdon,” answered
a strange voice, as he ended this burst of pious enthusiasm;
and turning round, he beheld an aged man
with white hair and beard, leaning on his staff.

“You seem to know me, my friend,” said Harold,
“but I cannot recollect ever seeing you before.”

“That I do not wonder at,” answered the old man—
“for since you saw me, I have been hunted like
a wild beast from my lair in the Old World only
to be hunted in the New. I have lived in forests
and in caves; above ground, and under ground; and
for years past have not dared to enjoy the light of day,
save when I sometimes crawl forth like a fox from his
hole, to breathe the pure air of this mountain, and
contemplate a world that has forsaken me.”

Miriam was awed by the looks and words of the
white-haired old man, and Harold now felt a strange
conviction that he had seen him before. Again he
asked who he was.

“One of the judges of kings,” answered he proudly.

“Hah!—I know you now, though it is long since
we met. You are—”

“Hush!” said the old man—“breathe not my
name, even in the solitudes of nature, least the very
echoes should betray me. You know me, that is
enough.”

“Yes—though you are greatly changed since I last
saw you on Marston Moor.”

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“True—years have done much, and hardships
more. I need not tell my story, for you have mixed
in the world, and know it all. If not, I will one day
tell you, that you may learn how surely it is the destiny
of man to be a slave. If he does not carry the
yoke on his neck, he will wear the ring in his nose; if
not driven, he will be led; and if he casts off the chains
of one tyrant, it is only to put on those of another.
Wretched were they who toil and shed their blood, to
emancipate their fellow-creatures, had they not within
them an approving conscience, which is its own
reward. I sat in judgment on a king, who was
guilty of treason against his people; who conspired
against their rights; who made war on them in support
of his unlawful pretensions, and caused England
to smoke with the blood of her children. In my inmost
soul, I believed him worthy of death; and I thought
that such a high example of justice might serve as a
warning to those who profanely call themselves the
vicegerents of Heaven, by showing them there was an
earthly tribunal to which they were amenable—that
the justice of man might overtake them even in this
world.”

“Yet he is called a martyr,” said Harold.

“Martyr to what?” cried the old man vehemently.

“Was he a martyr to his religion when leaguing with
the Irish Papists against the Church he had sworn to
protect? Was he a martyr to liberty when he raised
his standard against those who were striving to secure
it to the people? Or was he a martyr to his country

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when he pointed his sword at her bosom and stabbed
her to the heart?”

“I said not he was a martyr, my friend,” resumed
Harold; “for though he may not have suffered according
to the forms of law, I think he suffered justly. I
am not one of those who hold that kings are the vicegerents
of Heaven, and govern by divine right. Nor,
if they did, do I believe that God delegates any power
to kings, but that of doing good, since he does not
possess the power himself of doing evil, and therefore
cannot confer it on others.”

“Assuredly you are right,” replied the old man;
“and what if there be no legal tribunal established,
to punish the crimes of kings? Shall they, therefore,
be permitted to abuse their power and oppress the people
without punishment; and must they wait patiently
till the hand of Heaven interposes, and puts a period to
their mortal existence, by course of nature? No,
Harold Habingdon, the just vengeance of an injured
people is as much an instrument of the Most High,
for His great purposes, as plague, pestilence, and
famine, the tempest and the earthquake. Such was
my creed. I may have been mistaken; if so, I have
paid the penalty, by being exiled from my country,
my home, and all I loved, to become a wanderer on
the face of the earth.”

“It is a hard fate, and I pity you.”

“Hard indeed, and almost more than I can bear;
for the perpetual struggle, to resist and endure what I
have encountered, has almost shaken my reason, and

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made me sometimes a visionary, I fear. The pen of
history is now in the hands of the scribes of kings, and
those who dared to set a high example of justice, at
the expense of a head that wore a crown, will be
handed down to posterity as traitors and regicides.
But”—and here the eyes of the old man brightened as
if with some new hope—“But there is still one consolation
left me. I look to a new world, and a new
people, to do justice to my memory. From all that I
can see and judge, a new race will spring up in this
great region of the west. The people who are daily
flocking hither are destined to be free. They have
been fitted for entering on their rich inheritance in the
preparatory school of England, when great teachers
were abroad. They have suffered too much in the
Old World by civil and religious oppression, ever willfully
to inflict it on themselves. They find no impregnable
bulwarks of oppression here; no greybeard
abuses, hallowed by time, whose roots and branches
are inseparably intertwined with the very vitals of the
social system; no massive castles or splendid palaces
to overawe, or shame the humble cottage; no titled
satraps, or regal pageants to dazzle the eye and subjugate
the mind; no long-cherished consciousness of
inferiority, descending from generation to generation,
until it grows to be a second nature; no great standing
armies of hirelings, that under pretense of enforceing
the law or defending the state, for ever become the
chosen instruments of oppression; no bristling bayonets
pointed at the heart, to quell the throbbings of liberty.

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This New World is destined to be free. It cannot be
otherwise. All those great universal causes that constitute
the instruments of Providence in governing the
world, combine for the fulfilment of my prediction.
Here, at least, I and my fellow-sufferers will have justice
one day done them by millions of freemen, who
will adopt the great maxim, that rebellion to tyrants
is obedience to God. This is the hope that lights my
way, and enables me to support the load of life, now,
thanks be to Heaven, rapidly drawing to an end.”

The old man spoke with all the enthusiasm which
belongs to those animated by a spark of hope lighted
from the darkness of despair. The energy of his language
and the vigor of his thoughts strangely contrasted
with his ghostly appearance, which reminded
Miriam of one just risen from the dead. He might be
likened to one of those pale, sickly plants, which have
lost their natural wholesome color, by being shut up in
the dark, deprived of the cheerful air and bracing sunshine.
Harold had served with him in the civil wars,
and they conversed together, till the evening twilight
warned them that it was time to separate. The old
man told his story; and surely if the act of condemning
a king, whose conduct none living now dare to
justify, originated in erroneous principles or culpable
notions, the penalty was sufficiently severe. From his
arrival in the New World, himself and his companions
in exile were hunted through the Colonies by the
agents of Charles the Second, with a perseverance that
rendered their escape little less than a miracle. After

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living in forests and caves, where they were fed by
some neighboring colonists, who doubted the claim of
Charles to the dignity of a martyr, they at length
found a last refuge in the home of a worthy clergyman,
whose remote situation afforded them a prospect
of security. But even here they were obliged to seclude
themselves within doors, and generally in the
cellar. For a series of years they were entirely lost to
the world. More than a century elapsed from the
period of their disappearance, before it became known
what had become of them; and the fate of the survivor,
after the death of his companions, is still shrouded
in oblivion. Whither he wandered, where he died, or
where he was buried, no one knows, or will probably
ever know. It cannot, however, be denied that they
were men of pith and nerve, for they set an example
that had no precedent in the history of the world, and
taught posterity that the offences of monarchs, like
those of their subjects, may be punished by the sentence
of a court, instead of the sacrifice of the people
they govern. No act on record so shook the thrones
of despots, or so effectually stripped kings of their divinity.
Since that memorable example, the distance
between monarchs and their people has been gradually
diminishing; they are approaching each other, and the
time may not be far distant when they will change
places.

Harold pressed the old man to come and reside with
him. But he shook his white locks, and declined to
accept what might cost his friend his life.

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“It cannot be,” said he, “I am a bird of night, or
rather a beast of prey, who only ventures forth in the
dark, not to hunt his game, but to be himself hunted
if discovered. That I venture out at all is owing to
an irrepressible longing I sometimes feel to breathe
the free air and enjoy a short interval of liberty. I
go forth at night, and ramble through the mountains
all day, when I again return to my lair. I will not
tell you where that is, not that I doubt your honor or
discretion. But I expect secrecy from those I have
trusted, and who have trusted me, and must be secret
myself. I saw and knew you, and could not resist
the desire of meeting an old companion in arms in the
same cause. But it is time to part, and for this young
maiden to be at home. Farewell, and may you find
all you sought in the New World.”

They separated each to go his way. On their
return towards home Miriam asked her father the
name of the old grey-headed man, but he shook his
head and only said—

“Thou knowest he is one of the Judges of Kings,
for such he has announced himself. Thou knowest,
too, that his life is in danger, and only depends upon
the secrecy of others. I know I could count securely
on you, but I have no right to call on you for the
exertion of a discretion which I could not myself practice.
Ask me then no more to tell his name.”

Miriam was satisfied, and nothing was said on the
subject, at that or any future time.

p316-392

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