Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/coombeabbeyhistoOObunbricVi COOMBE ABBEY PRINTED BY "if. S. FOLDS, SON, AND PATTON, 5, Bauhelor'B-walk. COOMBE ABBEY ^n J^istorical Cale THE REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST. BY SELINA BUNBURY, AUTHOR OF ** A VISIT TO MY BIRTH PLACE," " RECOLLECTIONS OF IRELAND,' ETC. ETC. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVED ON WOOD. DUBLIN: WILLIAM CURRY, JUN^ AND COMPANY. MDCCCXLIT. C C • • I • • • • • • • • •• l« • • • • c • • • , • • • • • • • * TO THE EARL CRAVEN/ THE PRESENT POSSESSOR OJ?' THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. M87886 INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE THE PUBLISHERS. Gentlemen — It is I believe unusual for authors to address an introduc- tory epistle to their publishers. Nevertheless, one who seldom follows in the wake of fashion may be allowed to adopt an miusual practice ; more especially since, as few persons think of reading the introduction to a book, it permits me to write to you, in the confidential and easy style so desirable in epistolary correspondence, a letter which will probably lie invisible to other eyes between an uncut leaf of " Coombe Abbey." I do not design to write a preface, with a view to propitiate public favour, to deprecate public censure, or to account to the public for having written a book. The latter offence is now of too common occurrence to demand an apology. I write to you, not to tell why it was written, but how it was written — not why it was published, but how its publication came to be so long delayed. Many years ago I entertained the idea of such a work. A friend suggesting the apparent difficulties of the undertaking, deterred me from commencing, but did not induce me to resign VI INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. it. A long residence in Warwickshire brought me, undesignedly, into scenes and circumstances which revived my early project, and furnished me with much information I had not formerly possessed. " Coombe Abbey " was commenced, and had pro- gressed some way, when domestic anxieties and numerous occu- pations suspended its completion. The work was either discon- tinued or carried on at intervals through many interruptions. Finally, as it approached its close, and some kind friends were pressing me on by copying out its chapters, I was one day startled at beholding in a Leamington library the unexpected apparition of " Guy Fawkes " in " Bentley's Miscellany." Had I encountered him beneath the parliament-house, the shock could not have been greater. I seized some odd numbers of the work, and carried them home with all that little irritation a forestalled author feels at finding his ground pre-occupied. A very cursory glance, however, convinced me my field was yet my own ; that there was room enough in the world for " Guy Fawkes" and " Coombe Abbey ;" or, if they should choose to come into contact, the opposite prin- ciples contained in the composition of each would effectually prevent the risk of an explosion. Still the latter was not yet to make its debut. The cause of another delay is too sacred to be touched upon. During the heaviest calamity of my life, the manuscript of the work was left in another kingdom. It was not until accident brought me, after a lapse of many years, to re-visit Ireland, that it was recovered, and found its way into your hands. Change in many things was visible to one so long absent from INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. VU Ireland and the Irish ; but of all changes, that which affects the native literature and genius of the land was to me the most apparent — I might say, the most surprising. I know not whether I can be controverted in the idea I have, that almost the first copyright work published in Dublin after the Union was published by Messrs. Curry and Company, and that work was my first. Although in every sense the little book might be deemed a childish effort, its publication at the period was considered an enterprise for a Dublin publisher. Now, an ardent friend to Ireland as I profess to be, when I see " Coombe Abbey " issue from a Dublin press, in a style that would not disgrace the first houses of London, embellished chiefly by Dublin artists — and thus, thankfully do I record it, the means of drawing forth and em- ploying native genius — and sent forth into the world through the medium of Dublin enterprise and talent, truly from my heart do I wish that the progression of all things else in Ireland — moral, domestic, or commercial — bore some affinity to that which the printing-press has made. May it yet do so ! You, who have led the van in raising the depressed genius of Erin from her low estate, will respond to my wish. I have only a few words more to say. It waf not my intention to anticipate objections or suggest merits in my work ; but two of the former haunt my imagination. I am between two parties — one of which will think the book is not enough of a novel, the other that it is too much so ;-^one, that I have appeared too friendly to Popery — the other, that I have not denounced either the system or its adherents, but suffered history to tell its own VIU INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. tale, and carry its own moral. To neither objection am I prepared with an answer, and the judgment of both must go by default. " Coorabe Abbey " received in manuscript a commendation it can never receive in print — the only commendation for which I was ever really solicitous. I say it not in ungraciousness to the few perhaps too partial friends who still constitute my public : but to the anxious parent, the young, and the scrupulous, it may be a guarantee for the purity of its sentiments and the right ten- dency of its narrative to know that a mother's latest sanction rested on the work ; and to its author the happiest reflection connected with it is, and for ever shall be, that the perusal from time to time of its chapters cheered the hours of languor ; and the hope of its success — amid the brighter and better hopes of a glorious immortality — drew forth again the smile that encou- raged my earliest and sanctioned my latest literary efforts. I am, Gentlemen, Your faithful and obliged servant, S. B. Dublin, February, 1843. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. Containing descriptions of old scenes and new characters . . 1 CHAPTER II. Still retrospective, and containing the previous history of William de Lacy 22 CHAPTER III. An introduction to Compton Revel — Lord St. Clare and his daughter — A story and an arrival ........ 49 CHAPTER IV. Stoneleigh, Kenilworth, and other renowned places — An arrival at St. Leger's 65 CHAPTER V. A mystery 82 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Being only the conclusion of what went before, and leaving a lady still involved in a mystery . 97 CHAPTER VII. Leamington Priors in 1641 — Its vicarage and vicar — A rather grave discussion connected therewith ....... 105 CHAPTER VIII. A brother and sister's meeting . . . . . . . 116 CHAPTER TX. Political and matrimonial speculations — Gloomy anticipations con- cerning both — And the chapter concluded . . . . . 125 CHAPTER X. A lover's quarrel .......... 139 CHAPTER XI. Coombe Abbey — Glimpses of sundry new characters — A royal pro- cession is projected 145 CHAPTER XII. A visit to Coombe Abbey — Though anticipation is not always real- ized, Lady Edith meets with more there than she expected — History anticipated — The levee of the Princess Elizabeth — It commences with disappointment to her guardsman . . . , .155 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XIII. The remainder of the day at Coombe Abbey — De Lacy's reminis- cences are rather mal-apropos — Tlie princess unintentionally causes another disappointment to her guardsman . . . 169 CHAPTER XIV. The royal visit to the ancient city of Coventry — Lord St. Clare fancies he sees an apparition, and his daughter a rival — The princess experiences at table some of the difficulties attendant on an exalted situation — The procession arrives at the abbey under circumstances which are left to the reader's imagination . . ' 179 CHAPTER XV. De Lacy renews the acquaintance commenced at the broken bridge of Leamington Priors — Blanche Cunnyngham evinces some roving propensities which surprise her fair cousin . . . . .193 CHAPTER XVI. De Lacy encounters an apparition in the cloisters — A scene beneath the old oak of Coombe Abbey, which leads to further perplexities 203 CHAPTER XVII. Critical moments interrupted — An affecting explanation between Lord St. Clare and his daughtei* — De Lacy has nearly run out his Irish birth-right of hope . . . . . . . . 216 CHAPTER XVIIl. A midnight scene on the Thames — A peep under ground — Sketches of characters that are to be supposed now extinct in the world — More matrimonial speculations, which exceedingly alarm Blanche Cunnyngham 222 Xli CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER XIX. The princess is presented with a petition, which is hereafter to lead to important results ; but in this chapter only causes Lady Edith to faint, and Herbert Cunnyngham to make an emphatic de- claration 236 CHAPTER XX. Being merely a continuation of the preceding chapter . . . 241 CHAPTER XXI. William de Lacy repents of his discontent — Gets into company he did not expect, and meets a tragical adventure .... 249 CHAPTER XXII. A chapter of strange events ...... 262 CHAPTER XXIII. Proceedings with respect to De Lacy — His sword affords an unex- pected relief 276 CHAPTER XXIV. A conspirator's initiation . . . . . . . . 289 CHAPTER XXV. Blanche is ennuyee — Percy is overjoyed — A meeting of the con- spirators ; and afterwards a meeting of another description . 298 CHAPTER XXVI. Herbert Cunnyngham's horrors commence, and perplexities there- upon arise to others , . . . . . . . .315 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XXVIT. Containing "William de Lacy's adventures after escaping from Henlip Hall 32G CHAPTER XXVIII. Thje Vicar of Leamington is unsuccessful in negotiation — De Lacy rambles back to Loudon, and finds an old comrade turned Puritan 337 CHAPTER XXIX. The Puritan family 347 CHAPTER XXX. The mission of Alice Hazelden ; and its results .... 356 CHAPTER XXXI. Containing a scene of a different character from the foregoing — Lady Edith finds the guardsman in another employment . . 364 CHAPTER XXXII. Our hero rescues Blanche Cunnyngham from persecution . 378 CHAPTER XXXIII. Containing more about De Lacy, Blanche, and Father Garnet 386 CHAPTER XXXIV. The scene changes from Compton Revel, Coombe Abbey, and all appertaining to, or at all resembling them 395 CHAPTER XXXV. More about the prisoner . . . . . . , 406 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER XXXVI. Affairs are approaching a crisis . . . . . . .414 CHAPTER XXXVII. De Lacy makes a double discovery — He finds it easier to get into a conspirator's house than to get out 423 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Containing a fearful encounter 433 CHAPTER XXXIX. De Lacy is not yet out of danger — The princess is carried off, but by other conspirators 441 CHAPTER XL. De Lacy's knight-errantry continues — He carries off another fair lady from danger 450 CHAPTER XLI. Lady Edith awakes to recollection — A parting scene — And other matters 463 CHAPTER XLII. Lord St. Clare and the Vicar of Leamington are greatly distressed . 470 CHAPTER XLIII. What followed among the party De Lacy left in the Strand . . 475 CHAPTER XLIV. The catastrophe . . 481 CONTENTS. XV PAGE CHAPTER XLV. More about Blanche Cunnyngham — De Lacy repairs to a different scene ........... 493 CHAPTER XLVI. A death-bed scene ......... 604 CHAPTER XLVII. Lord St. Clare consigns his daughter to the protection of William de Lacy 512 CHAPTER XLVIII. A return to Coombe Abbey 622 CHAPTER XLIX. William de Lacy forms an unexpected re-union — Receives the honour of knighthood, and makes a poor figure on the occasion . . 629 CHAPTER L. Henlip Hall ; and a full and true account of all that took place there 536 CHAPTER LI. The scenes at Henlip Hall continued ...... 642 CHAPTER LII. Scenes of sorrow ; and comfort therein — Lady Edith St. Clare be- comes penitent 550 XV CONTENTS. CHAPTER LIU. Saddening I'etrospections, and happy anticipations — An ambassadress- extraordinary appears at Coombe Abbey CHAPTER LIV. The scene closes on Coombe Abbey 570 CHAPTER LV. A farewell 678 CHAPTER LVI. Last scene of all, which ends this strange eventful history . . 685 COOMBE ABBEY, CHAPTER I. CONTAINING DESCRIPTIONS OF OLD SCENES AND NEW CHABACTEBS. Towards the latter end of a gloomy day in the middle of February, 1604, two travellers were slowly riding along the road leading from the famous old town -of Warwick, to the ancient and renowned city of Coventry. It was evidently not their purpose to proceed direct to the latter place, or they would have chosen the usual and better road in preference to that they pursued, leading through the pretty little hamlet of Leamington Priors. Of this peaceful and secluded spot, now grown up into the fashionable, pleasant, and well-known town of that name, the most prominent objects then were the mill and the church. The former, to which precedency has been in- advertently given, might claim it at least so far as circum- stances of time and place are concerned ; for, from the time of the Norman conquest, and how long before we know not, it had adorned and disturbed the sluggish waters of the Leame, as they slowly wound through the green and quiet meadow to the foot of the thick and sloping woods of Newbold Comyn, and being bestowed, with the chapel of All Saints and lands adjoining, on the rich priory of Kenil worth, obtained for Leamington the sirname it still bears. At the time we speak of, the dwelling of the two priests, for whom, in still more distant days, the chantrey of Leamington Priors was NO. I. B I COOMBE ABBEY. founded, had fallen to decay, or been a partaker in the violent fate of the splendid priory to which it was appended ; and a little simple cottage was the retired abode of the Pro- testant pastor who had succeeded the priests of Rome in the charge of the small chapel, now known as the parish church 'cf;'i^eaming|;cKif' and noted in old chronicles for the fact that '''riigh io'' t^e* east' 'end of it, not a stone's throw from the riv^i : LfeaM^, lis ^ sl;»rirfg; of salt water, whereof the inhabitants make much uee for seasoning of meat" — a circumstance which, whatever else may have served to bring the said church into notoriety, certainly had that effect with regard to the place where it is situated. May healing streams of moral health and peace be found still to issue from the same venerable walls ! The travellers had passed the then depopulated village of Miton, once a village in a wood, as Leamington has aptly been termed a town in a garden. The thick wood which then overgrew the spot thinned gradually away until an opening to the valley of the Leame* was afforded. That peaceful little vale, shut in by the wooded hill and pretty grassy slopes of Newbold Comyn in front, presented to them a small and level space of beautiful green, which the river, emerging from the woods and moving through a straggling fringe of willows, divided into nearly equal parts, leaving the mill, the church and little vicarage on one side, and on the other the demesne of Newbold Comyn, which, in the reign of Elizabeth, had passed from monastic possession into that of the family of Willys,f and some of whose stately trees the axe has yet spared to adorn the modern mansions that have sprung up amongst them. An accident barred our travellers' progress, which, peaceful as was the scene, seemed to fill them with dismay. A frost of some weeks' continuance had given way recently, ♦ The state of this river now, tends neither to the beauty nor health of this place of Jephsonian celebrity. f The ancient orthography of this respectable name is given. COOMBE ABBEY. 6 and the liquification of the ice and snow had caused the Leame, as — although the spirit of rapid movement common to these our times has not affected its waters — it still on such occasions does, to overflow its banks. Whether the bridge that crossed it was as ancient as its neighbour on the road to Kenilworth, is not now to be ascertained; and for all that concerns our history, it is sufficient to say that this inundation of the river stopped our travellers on their way by breaking down the bridge of Leamington Priors. From such small accidents do great events arise ! They stopped beside it, apparently in anxiety and doubt. One was a man rather advanced in life, at least beyond the middle age, whose dress and aspect were of the descrip- tion to leave his station in society, as well as his profession, in a doubtful position. He might be a travelling mer- chant, pursuing a journey of business; and to this opinion, if inclined to form one, a stranger of that day would probably incline; yet, to a close observer, there was upon his brow, and in the quick and commanding turn of a cool, suspicious, and penetrating eye, something that seemed not quite accordant with the plodding spirit of such a man of peace ; while the manner in which he sat his heavy spiritless horse, his dress, and broad-rimmed, high-crowned hat, drawn low over his face, so as to meet the collar of the long dark cloak he wore, agreed as little with the air of one who followed the profession of arms. That he had, however, mixed in the stirs and jars of active life, that the politics of nations and intrigues of cabinets might not be unknown to him, could be read in the lines of a marked and very thoughtful countenance ; the deep com- posure of which seemed rather the attainment of an habitual mental mastery than the natural expression of a mind at rest. His companion was a female; and little more could be said. Her person was muffled in a large dark mantle, and her head enveloped in a veil, which, for aught that a 4 COOMBE ABBEY. beholder could discern through its thick yet not ungraceful folds, might conceal a beauty of Spain or Italy, or shroud the homely features of an English maiden. Her age, too, might not be easily conjectured : she seemed to sit heavily on the small stout animal that bore her, yet there was -in the bend of her veiled head, and almost distinguishable through the folds of her ample mantle, a gracefulness that seemed to render it probable that anxious and depressing care, and not the dull hand of age, had repressed the elas- ticity that distinguishes the figure of youth. They had stood some minutes in deliberation, perhaps about as many as we have occupied in describing them, and were about to turn their horses' heads in order to retrace their path, when another horseman approached at a much more rapid pace, and soon reined a highly-mettled steed beside them. There was nothing of either mystery or concealment in the aspect or bearing of the new comer: he might have already numbered foiu* or five and twenty years ; his finely moulded figure united gracefulness to strength; his dress and accoutrements betokened a military profession; and be- COOMBE ABBEY. O neath the steel cap he pushed back on joining them, was seen a quantity of dark chesnut hair, with which nature had plentifully adorned a manly head, and open forehead that was several shades fairer in complexion than the rest of his face. His large blue eyes, much resembling the wild violet when the sun shines full upon it, were remarkable for a laughing expression that seemed habitual to them, and the beholder seldom looked into them without a smile. He checked his horse suddenly, and there was something not altogether English in the accent in which he exclaimed — "Ho! old Leame, hast broken thy bounds again? And now, master traveller," he added, " whither wend ye your way ? There is no crossing here.'' " We are on a matter of business," returned the other, who seemed by no means to relish the encounter, yet desirous to show all civility ; " but we must e'en back again." " Back again ! Nay, that is a term I like not to use. My horse can pass a wider stream than this ;" but while speaking, the young soldier cast his eye on the female figure, and, recollecting that his proposal of fording the Leame would not be suitable to her, added — " But yonder is a bridle path that leads by the way of Milverton to Guy's Cliff; thence by Blacklow Hill you can rejoin this road : if you fear not the shade of Piers Gaveston, you may pursue that path.'?* i " It is well said," the traveller gravely replied ; "we thank thee for thy direction, and bid thee and thy brave steed a safe passage over the flood." So saying, the pair put their horses again into motion, directing their heads in the direction pointed out ; but their new companion wheeled his about, and, to the evident annoyance of his more sober fellow-traveller, remarked, that a brave man met danger, but a fool sought it, therefore he would keep the path of safety and their good company. * We have been confidently assured, by a kind old dame we met with in that locality, that this road is not now anywhere discoverable ; therefore we warn Leamington visitors, not, on the faith of our usual historical veracity, to spend their time in seeking it. COOMBE ABBEY. A slight compression of the lips, and the least possible cast of those keen eyes to one side, might convey the intimation to a close observer, that this addition to their society was not well or cordially received, but an humble bend of the head was the only answer returned by the male traveller, who seemed quite at a loss how to act by his unceremonious and unreserved companion; while the latter, reining his high-spirited horse to the pace of theirs, maintained his place beside him ; with an air of good- humoured carelessness, pointing out any little objects of interest that lay within view. The romantic building of Guy's Cliff soon opened to their sight, and a low murmur of admiration from the muffled female fell on the young man's ear : it was sudden, involuntary, and soon repressed; but the sweet, yet enthusiastic tones, whose modulations seemed to be caught from the music and poetry of another land, reached a breast that vibrated to the feelings they breathed, and the deep suffusion of his dark and laughing eyes told of deeper thoughts than his careless exterior might lead a casual observer to imagine had dwelt there. At the moment, a loud peal of thunder shook the louring sky, and his horse, bounding aside, carried him considerably in advance of the party. By the time he had got it under his control, the clouds discharged a torrent on the travellers. The rain was so exces- sively violent, that their horses, stupid as they were, became unmanageable ; and the female being carried by hers close to that of the soldier; he seized her bridle-rein, and calling aloud — " Forward, sir traveller, with all speed ; I will guide you to shelter" — dashed on, exhorting his companion to keep her seat firmly, and leave her steed to his control. She did so silently, and in a few minutes, breathless and almost unconscious of her progress, she was carried within an open shed, attached to the mill of the renowned Guy's Cliff. Here, hastily dismounting, he lifted her from her seat, and with that prompt feeling which entered into her obvious desire of preserving an incognito, placed her silently on the ground, and ran out to look for her companion. He soon appeared, but heavy with wet, and unaccustomed to horsemanship, he made his way with less rapidity. COOMBE ABBEY. On entering the shed, they found the lady standing on the spot wherein she had been placed, leaning against the horse, with her head pressed on the sad- dle. Her companion, with a look of much tenderness and some alarm, advanced towards her, and the young soldier, hastily saying he must see for their host, and tell him what grist he had brought to his mill, again went forth under the deluge that was falling? and soon returned with that notable personage, the miller of Guy's Cliff. He was a man who had numbered, or nearly so, his threescore years and ten, yet his height of six feet had not lost the fourth part of an inch by the power of time. His thick, black locks were even still but slowly yielding to the same ; and like a fine autumn, his manhood gradually retreated before the winter of age, and seemed to dispute still the ground it yielded, and resolute to prolong its stay until its retreat should be nearly unnoticed. His complexion was as ruddy, and his broad, open forehead as unwrinkled and white, as the skin of childhood, and his round, black eyes shone with a light, which told that within him dwelt that merry heart which is a continual feast. " So please you, my masters," he cried, " this is but a sorry welcome ye meet to the cliff of Sir Guy of Warwick. Will ye in, sirs, and, though this is no hostelry, partake of such cheer as we can provide ?" " If thou canst afford this lady the use of an apartment, and a fire, good friend, for the night," said the elder traveller, " it will be a service we will be thankful for, and gladly repay. She has come far, and could ill brave such an evening as this." 8 COOMBE ABBEY. The miller glanced one of his merry eyes towards the young soldier ; and, perhaps, reading an answer in his to the question he would have proposed, at once accorded the boon ; and, saying, the only second apartment the house possessed should be warmed with a pan of charcoal, called for his daughter, and consigned the drooping, and still veiled female to her care ; then delivering the horses to one of his men, to be conveyed to the stables at the cliff, he attended the two other travellers into his house, where a good fire promised speedily to relieve them from the discomforts of their ride. The addition of a large tankard of ale, eggs, cheese, and cakes hot from the hearth, might not be unpalatable to weary travellers, and the younger heartily partook of the fare set be- fore him The elder tasted it sparingly ; and it was observable, COOMBE ABBEY. y that the attention both of eye and ear was given to what might be passing in the little ante-chamber whither his companion had retired. Plis anxiety did not escape the notice of the young soldier ; who, probably with a view to relieve it, inquired of the miller if the lady had been cared for as they had been. ** She is unused to such cold and fatigue as we have experienced to-day," said the other quickly. " May I, with thy leave, prepare a posset to prevent its ill eifects ?" This was done accordingly, and the girl who was summoned to convey it, brought intelligence that the lady had retired to rest and felt quite at ease. Rendered equally so by the tidings, the party drew nearer to the fire, the comfort of which the elder traveller seemed unwilling to enjoy while uncertain of her state ; and the younger who seemed disposed to be both as merry and comfortable as circumstances would admit, addressed his host in the following terms : — " Certes, sir miller, it were ill done of me to bring guests to your hospitable mansion, which truly boasts of better viands than, if we may credit old tales, the famous Guy of Warwick ever regaled himself withal, and never once inform you who these guests may be. Know then, most renowned Knight of the 10 COOMBE ABBEY. Millj that this stranger, whom the chance of travel hath brought within your territorities, is a stranger who is travelling — and as most men travel either for business, pleasure, or the necessity of transmigration, I conjecture that one or other of these three-fold causes hath made him a traveller ; and thus have I given you the information concerning him which, as his herald or squire for the time being, I am in duty bound to afford, when demanding his entertainment at the mill of Guy's Cliff." It must have been evident that this wild speech was merely a covert challenge to the person alluded to, to make known more particulars respecting himself than the speaker professed to be acquainted with ; but either impenetrable dulness or cool-judg- ing policy, rendered him apparently unconscious of this, and seeming to consider it as a matter-of-fact introduction to his host, he briefly thanked the speaker for taking the trouble of this ex- planation on himself, and added — " And now, fair sir, not being able to do the same good ser- vice by you, that you have done for me, it remains for you to introduce yourself also." •' That is quickly done," said the youth : " few words answer where there is little to be told and nothing to be concealed. For profession, I am a soldier ; for worldly goods and chattels, I possess my horse and my sword ; for all rents, tithes, and in- comings, my pay in his majesty's service." " A soldier of fortune !" said the other, glancing his cold, keen eye with an inquiring expression, for a moment, on his open, careless countenance. " Of misfortune, mayhap ; for I have been but an unfortunate soldier ; and if I serve fortune, my pay hath been misfortunes ; for never yet did I, as our famous play-writer says, attempt to * Pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,' that I did not pluck down a blow upon my own poor pate instead." " That meaneth that you were moon-struck, sir soldier," said the miller. COOMBE ABBEY. 11 Something like to a smile glimmered over the pale features of their reserved companion ; but it was as the faint gleam of the distant sun upon a hill of snow, and gone as soon as seen. " " Yet thou art merry withal," he said, turning to the soldier — " But thy country people are ever so !" " How know you my country, sir traveller ?" the other de- manded. "By the speech, for one reason; by the open bearing, for another. We English carry not ourselves with such freedom to strangers ; yet this hath been but a guess of mine, for thy speech savours not strongly of that land ; and in announcing thyself, erewhile, three particulars were passed by which the world usually claims to know of all men — name, rank, and country." " My name," answered the young man, who seemed a ready subject for a wily interrogator, " is William de Lacy ; my rank is, at the present. Captain of the Guard to her royal high- ness the Princess Elizabeth ; and my country, at least the land of my birth, for I can scarcely be said to have seen it since, is the fair and unfortunate island of Ireland, which our gallant and hapless Lord Lieutenant, the late noble Essex, has described briefly as ' the cursedest of all lands !' " " Captain of the Guard !" his hearer murmured, as if inatten- tive to the rest of the communication — " then you are bound to Coombe Abbey." " Yes ; but first I must visit Compton Revel," said the soldier, and as he spoke the last word he turned round and fixed his firm and open gaze full on the face of the man he addressed. There was the slightest possible sensation just perceptible there, and his eye turned with a watchful and rather startled glance towards the thin partition which served as a screen to sight but not to sound between the female traveller and her companions. This movement of the eye was followed by a peculiar motion of the lips ; but De Lacy's attention was engrossed by the following speech from their host : — " Have ye heard," said the miller, " that there is like to be great doings there soon ?" 12 COOMBE ABBEY. " At Compton Revel ?" he demanded, rather anxiously ; " as how ?" " Why, the nephew who had been so long beyond seas, he who lost his title and lands through his father's mishap in the late reign, hath been there these few months back ; and it is said that he and our sweet Lady Edith will contrive a means whereby to settle their right to Compton Revel, to the satisfaction of both parties. Some say that Lord St. Clare will never give his child to a , that is, to one of another faith; but however that may be, there is nothing but hunting, and hawking, and sporting, and the lady is never seen now without Master Cunnyngham by her side. So, if what all men say must be true, he is like to come to his own again." If the eye of the elder traveller momentarily conveyed an inti- mation of any mental emotion, that movement of the lips before alluded to, almost as speedily announced its subjugation. It was an outward habit expressive of an equally constant inward control. *' Your country has indeed been an unhappy, and as men speak, a mismanaged land," said the elder traveller. " Is there hope, think you, that it may fare better under the new reign ?'* " Perchance it may," said the yoimg man with indifference. " King James, they say, is friendly to the Catholic religion." " Friendly!" the other ejaculated, in atone so deep, there was something awful in it. " Odds my life !" cried the miller, " if that be the case we shall have the old times back again. Queen Mary burned the heretics, and Elizabeth burned the Catholics, and James belike will burn the Puritans." " And at which of the ceremonies would the present company most willingly assist?" demanded the elder, in a cool and sar- castic tone. " Why, for the matter of that, if I may turn my mill, and worship God as I please, I do not know that I would much care to burn any of them ; and I think, young sir, you would be much of my opinion," the good-hupoured host replied, leaving, whether COOMBE ABBEY. 13 purposely or not, the inquirer as ignorant of the particular creed of his companions as he was before his question. " You have then no desire to see one creed dominate in the land ?" he added, in a manner that seemed to say the inquiry was casually put. The miller glanced at his younger guest, and seeing only a steady reserve in his countenance, replied in the same sort of negative manner he had before spoken in. " They were right merry times, when the monks of Stoneley* and Coventry held rule in these parts. Heard ye ever, sir sol- dier, in your travels, of Thomas of Coventry ?" There was something in the young man's eye, as leaning for- ward he looked straight into the fire, perhaps to hide in its light the smile that beamed up there, which might appear to imply that he had at all events heard that question before ; but without waiting for an answer which might not have been given without risking a laugh, the merry host proceeded with a true tale, which he was fond of telling. " No man hath ever visited these parts, without having heard withal, of the fame of the city of Coventry, which, above all else, was exalted, by means of its rich and great monastery, founded by the Earl Leofriche and his beautiful lady Godiva, who out of charity to the people of Coventry, rode through the streets with- out other covering than her own flowing hair, which caused that well-known rhyme-— * I, Leofriche, for love of thee, Do make Coventry toll free.* And this same noble lady, with other costly gifts, bestowed on the church they founded there, a rich chain of precious stones, to be hung around the image of the Virgin, so that they who came to devotion there should say as many prayers as there were stones thereon. Now this monastery, which was for nuns at the first, was dedicated to the holy virgin, St. Osburg, whose his- tory hath not reached our time, seeing that none could ever tell * Now written Stoneleigh. 14 COOMBE ABBEY. who she had been. But once on a time, there came an humble petition from the clergy and people of those parts, setting forth that the memory of this blessed virgin, St. Osburg, grew famous by reason of the many miracles wrought at her tomb ; for many weak and infirm people, imploring her prayers and merits, were restored to bodily health and soundness — wherefore they prayed the bishop that her birth-day might be solemnised, and the good virgin reverenced in prayers, and hymns, and other devout suf- frages : whereupon the bishop, calling together his clergy, de- creed in council that the birth-day of St. Osburg should be solemnised, and kept as a double festival every year, for ever. But, alack-a-day ! my masters, there is no certainty in the attainment of any honour and glory, as you, sir captain, in your speech about the pale-faced moon, well noticed ; for even St. Osburg well nigh missed of having her birth-day celebrated in the full and complete manner in which the bishop decreed ; for it so fell out that when this monastery had become very great and rich, and that the monks had large sway and possession of many lands in these parts, they began to incline to the pleasures of this world, and were given, it is said, to more carnal enjoyments than was seemly. In consequence whereof it was represented to the bishop, that the monks of Coventry had broken their rule, and taken to themselves more licence than it allowed. " So after a time the bishop came to the monastery, and held inquiry into the abuses that had grown up there. But while he was in the church, consulting how he was to set these to rights, and to enforce a stricter discipline among the monks, they, hearing of what was going on there to their prejudice, rushed in, and, with the great silver cross, broke the poor bishop's head, and put an end to his reformation. "Tidings of this deed were speedily spread; and it was shown how the monks of Coventry had shed the bishop's blood before the altar : and the case being referred to a notable bishop, who then ruled the land, while Richard of the lion's heart was fighting with the Turks, it was ordained that the monks should be expelled, and secular canons put in their room ; and letters were COOMBE ABBEY. 15 sent to his holiness the pope, telling how the monks of Coventry were contaminated with the pollutions of the world, in such wise that the bishop of the province judged it fit that they should be scattered from the glorious dwelling they so defiled, which the pope agreeing to, they were driven out, and seculars put in their room. "But the story further tells how the bishop dying became very penitent for what he had done against the monks of Coventry ; and not knowing how to make satisfaction except by ending his days in their habit, besought the abbot that, for the shame of the devil, he would give him the habit of the poor monks of Coventry, to the end that they might be his patrons in the next world, whom he had so much persecuted in this — which being granted, he disposed of his silver and gold in atonement for his transgressions, and, condemning himself to the pains of purga- tory, so died. " The bishop's penitence, however, good as it was, was not sufficient to replace the monks in their monastery ; and one of them, known by the name of Thomas of Coventry, much covet- ing to return there, took other means to satisfy himself and brethren. So he journeyed to Rome, and prepared to present a petition to the pope. *' Just at that time the story makes it appear that it was the fasliion for popes to live but a short time ; so that Thomas had no sooner been refused by one, than his petition had to be presented to another. At length he showed it to one of these as he sat in state, attended by all his cardinals, who sent it back, saying to Thomas that his expectation was vain, for the same petition had been made to some of the predecessors of his holiness, and been rejected by them, wherefore it was clear it was not a matter to be listened to. " * Holy father,' then said Thomas, * my expectation is not vain ; for I expect your death, as I have expected your prede- cessor's ; for one shall succeed who shall listen to my petition to purpose.' "Now, this pope being of a quicker wit than some of the 16 COOMBE ABBEY. others, and seeing, perhaps, that the eye of Thomas the monk glanced upon the cardinal who, they said, should next take the chair of his holiness, he gave such a start at hearing the answer that was made him, that, verily, had the poor monk of Coventry been then in the act of saluting his sacred foot, he would have run a great chance of having had his teeth knocked out ; and he cried withal to his cardinals — "* Hear you what this devil hath spoken? "I expect your death, as I have done your predecessor's !" and then turning to Thomas, he said — ' Brother, by St. Peter thou shalt not here expect my death, for thy petition is granted :' and before he would sit down to dinner, he ordered letters to be written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, desiring him to turn out the priests, and put the monks of Coventry into their monastery again ; and so urgent was the command, that at sight thereof the archbishop posted to Coventry, and turning out the new comers, restored Thomas and his brethren to their favourite seat."* At the conclusion of the miller's story, the elder traveller, who towards the latter end of it appeared indulging in a gentle slumber, seemed to have relinquished all intention of ascer- taining the peculiarities of his host's religious creed, and ex- pressed a desire for repose. Less accustomed than his military companion to the hardships of travel, he manifested some reluctance to occupy the comfortless mattress laid for him in the apartment wherein they sat, and where they were both to sleep. What are now so well understood in England by the term cottage-comforts, had rapidly progressed during the improving period of Elizabeth's reign ; but still they were very scanty. An English cottage, previous to that period, was very like what Irish cabins of a low class still are. It consisted of a single apart- ment, shared by animals of all descriptions, including the family and beasts belonging to it. The fire generally was placed in the centre, the smoke escaping through an opening in the roof. * The curious reader will find this story at length, detailed by perhaps a more friendly relator, in Dugdale's " Antiquities of Wai-wickshire." <^OOMB£ ABBEY. 17 Very few of these dwellings were provided with the uncommon luxury of a bed — what were called stretchers and coarse mattrasses laid on the floor, being used in houses of a better class. By a little contrivance, however, on the part of the miller and his daughter, secretly stimulated by the younger guest, a more private, if not more comfortable lodging was made out for the elder, and he retired to it, leaving the host and De Lacy to- gether. As soon as he had done so, the latter drew nearer, and said in a whisper — " Thanks, good friend, for your discretion. I must keep this man in view : but tell me, Lawrence, is what you said of Comp- ton Revel true ?" " True, Master de Lacy ! As true as that water turns the mill. There is no other talk here. But, beshrew my heart, never look so dull for that. Now you are come back matters may take another turn." " Hush !" said De Lacy, with a cautionary movement to the thin partition that divided the apartments, where the lady and they were ; and throwing his cloak around him, as he prepared to retire to his stretcher for the night, added — " We will not talk of this now." And then in a tone that showed he had no objection to be heard, said — " I have no need to be dull about any thing, my good friend. The world is before me, and I may have to make my way through it without a friend. But what matters it? if you have none to love you living, there is no one to weep you dead ; and if you have no sharer in your joy, you grieve no one by your sorrow. So — good night!" A moment after, however, he murmured — " Is the vicar of Leamington there now, think you, Loxley r" And receiving an affirmative answer, he said, in a voice that did not quite corres- pond with the philosophic feelings to which he appeared to be resigning himself — *'He was Edith's tutor, and used to be my friend." The next morning's sun rose with the calm refulgency that often succeeds the discharge of thunder-clouds. The air, al- NO. I. c 18 COOMBE ABBEY. though the season was so early, was balmy ; and the beauty of the scene that lay full before the door which the miller had left open, made De Lacy feel ashamed of having so long yielded to fatigue. He walked forth, and, taking a rustic seat beneath one of the noble trees that sheltered that romantic spot, drew from his breast a small psalter, and there, unobserved, performed his morning devotions. These ended, he strolled on through the scene that still attests that the far-famed Sir Guy, whatever else he might be, 'must have been a lover of nature in her own simple and varied beauty. The great cliff on the western bank of the Avon was made choice of, say old chronicles, by that pious man, St. Dubritius, who in the Briton's time had his episcopal seat at Warwick for a place of devotion, where he built an oratory dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene ; unto which, long after, in the Saxons' days, did a devout hermit repair, who finding the natural rock so proper for his cell, and the pleasant grove wherewith it is backed, yielding entertainment fit for solitude — seated himself there ; which advantages invited also the famous Guy, sometime Earl of Warwick, after his notable achievements having weaned himself from the deceitful pleasures of this world, to retire hither ; where, receiving ghostly comfort from that hermit, he abode until his death. From the spot where De Lacy stood, the white foam of the mill was seen sparkling through the naked branches of the trees ; and its rushing sound was all that mingled with the cheerful voices of the reviving birds. At his feet the soft Avon, quickened by the heavy rain of the preceding night, swept on, more rapidly than usual, beneath the long branches that bent over it, and wandered away into the rich open meadows beyond. Above it rose the ch'ff ; a steep, high scarp of solid stone; embraced, in part, by the arms of a gigantic ivy,' that had clung to it with a constancy which, to William de Lacy, in his present mood, gave it a great degree of value ; for he was disposed to believe, that constancy was a very rare virtue. The roots of the shrubs that covered the sum- mit forced themselves out into rude and fantastic shapes, and the COOMBE ABBEY. 19 efforts they made seemed to have given a corresponding form to the growth of the branches and stems that issued from them. De Lacy crossed the river, and passing slowly beneath the cliif, came to the cell of the hermit, Guy ; and paused on beholding within it the kneeling form of the female Avho had accompanied him on the preceding evening. She held a rosary in her hand, and was apparently so absorbed in devotion, in- spired by that sacred spot, that he might have passed by without disturbing her ; but instinctively he drew back, and with that feeling of respect which unobtrusive piety inspires, however, we may differ as to the mode of its observances, withdrew from observation until she emerged from the cave ; and closely wrapped in her hood and veil, glided quickly, but from the movement of her head, it would seem, admiringly along the path. De Lacy thought there was now no cause why he should not pursue his work, and so he followed in the same direction ; but the flitting figure made another pause ; it was at the sainted well, of which the hermits had drank. She entered the little cell, in which it is cut out of the cliff, and here she extended two purely white, though, by no means, very slender hands, and gathering up the ends of her large veil, slowly rolled it back and laid it on her brow, as she stooped to dip a finger, and cross it with the cold, pure liquid. 20 COOMBE ABBEY. De Lacy gazed with a feeling of perfect astonishment on the face that was thus unconsciously exhibited to him. His step was suspended and his eyes were rivetted upon it for a moment ; it was scarcely more ere she again dropped the veil and glided on with- out knowing that she had been observed. The cause of her rapid movements, and solitary visits to these spots of pious celebrity, was evident, when, on reaching the door of the miller's house, De Lacy found the travellers' horses already prepared for their journey, and the man who had attended her, and been now awaiting the conclusion of this little pilgrimage, in the act of lifting her rather hastily into her seat. He was not prepared for a departure before breakfast ; but with his usual lack of ceremony, approaching them he cried — " What ! so early, fellow-traveller ? You have the start of me ; but I will be with you presently." " Methinks we lose your good company here," said the other, with an humble, yet obviously displeased air. " Nay," said the young man, " our road lies still together, and I see not why we should lose what is desirable to keep." " Our affairs are pressing," returned the other ; " we cannot bide your leisure." " I wish not that you should," said De Lacy ; " my quicker steed will carry me to you ere Blacklow Hill is passed." "Methought you were journeying to Compton Revel," the traveller rejoined. The female turned her head, but the youth quickly an- swered — " Not now ; I will on to Coventry, and thence to Coombe." " Our route hath changed, as well as yours, good sir ; we go not to Coventry, now," said the traveller. " Truly," remarked the soldier, tightening his saddle-girths, for the ready-witted miller had got his horse ready, and brought it up now without being desired ; " and whither is now your road ?" A movement of impatience, almost amounting to anger, shot over the face of the man he thus, with a careless air of indiffe- rence, interrogated ; but prudence evidently controlled the mani- COOMBE ABBEY. 21 festation of its feeling, and the desire of avoiding to create suspicion was doubtless the motive that induced him at once to answer — " To D unchurch." The young man had gained all that he wanted to know ; aware that the person who he suspected was connected with the journey of this man resided in that neighbourhood, he felt con- vinced of his sipcerity in giving the answer he did, and so he replied — " Well, then, for the present, fate separates us ; but we may meet again. I wish you, if not fair speed, a continuance of this fair day." " Thanks, most kindly, thanks," said the traveller quickly; "as for the pleasure of thy company, most gladly had we accepted it, if the similarity of our roads and our affairs had allowed us so to do." De Lacy bowed, and looking for a moment towards the lady, as she sat on horseback, with her closely-covered head turned towards him, he pulled off his cap, and saluting her gracefully, said, with a tone of some significancy — " Fare thee well, lady." She bent with an air of stately dignity, in return ; and in the musical accents he had heard before, repeated — "Fare thee well." ^s^ 22 COOMBE ABBEY. SZILL REIKOSPECTIVE, AND CONTAINING THE PREVIOUS HISTORY OF WIXLIAM J)E LACT. De Lacy Lad thrown his arm over the graceful neck of his noble horse, and, leaning his head almost upon it, stood, or rather reclined in the spot where they had left him, in an attitude of reflection, which gradually assumed the air of deep thought- fulness. But what was he thinking of? He was not very wrong in styling himself the soldier of misfortune, for hitherto even his military career had run in the same channel in which his life began. He was the child of adversity ; and, notwith- standing his laughing eyes and sunny countenance, had been left to her stern guardianship almost all the days of his life. "It is well for a man to bear the yoke in his youth," said t;he wisdom that was not of this world. Yet none, to see the outward demeanour of William de Lacy, would imagine his neck had ever bent to that yoke ; but as his character unfolds itself, perhaps the truth of the proverb will become apparent. COOMBE ABBEY. 23 Sir Redmond de Lacy, his father, was an Irish chief of some celebrity in the days of Queen Elizabeth; not one of the rude and boisterous leaders of a wild, unruly clan, but one who united the grace of English breeding to the open, bold, and generous character of an Irish lord. He married, sorely against her relative's will, the sister of a Mr. Rook wood, of Cubbington Grange, in Warwickshire ; a man of singularly reserved and apparently morose disposition, who lived unmarried and alone, never showing any inclination to share his retirement with any one but her ; the young lady, however, not relishing such a life as he led, preferred accompanying a friend, whose husband was attached to the train of the lord deputy, to Ireland, where she met, and still more deeply incurred her brother's displeasure, by marrying Sir Redmond de Lacy. To those who know any thing (though, perhaps, these are few) of the state of Ireland at that period, it will be easy to supply the blank we leave in our narrative, when we merely say that he became entangled in those unfortunate circum- stances, of such common occurrence in the feudal state of that imhappy, and undoubtedly at the time, mismanaged land : and being brought, contrary to his wish, into collision with the English government, his affairs soon assumed a threatening aspect. His wife, by her influence with him, and interest at the English court, for |^some time acted as a mediator, or obtained temporary peace: but during her illness, the flame broke out, and she had only just recovered after the birth of a second child, which lived but a few moments afterwards, when their castle was besieged by the English troops. Although resistance was worse than useless. Sir Redmond had resolved to surrender only with life ; and his poor wife, careless of her own fate, resigned herself to a melancholy expectancy of his. It was not long delayed; he was borne lifeless from the battlements, and, flying to the room where his body had been carried, she found their little son, then not four years old, vainly trying to withdraw the weapon that was clenched in the dead man's hand, and crying, while he looked wildly terrified at the gashed and bloody corpse — 24 COOMBE ABBEY. "Give me my father's sword, and I will kill the wicked men." The lady caught him in her arms, imprinted one distracted kiss on her husband's still warm lips, and, feeling she had one treasure to save, called on his followers to make terms for them- selves, and surrender the castle with its effects ; and bidding such as chose to wander in poverty and exile to follow her, hastily enclosed in her bosom a small casket of jewels and money, and a written document she had prepared, and then, descending the secret stairs, opened the entrance to the vault, and made her way into the subterraneous passage usually to be found in such dwellings. Of all the attendants, only one had either heard or accepted her invitation : it was the child's nurse. The entrance to the cavern was supplied with a torch and basket of provisions, for the chiefs latest care had been to provide for the retreat of his lady and dependants ; and having spent some time at the further extremity of the dreary passage, they emerged in the stillness of night into the wood on which it opened, about three miles from their late abode. From this place through countless hardships and dangers, the unhappy lady, her boy and attendant, made their way to the coast where they embarked for England; and finally reached Mr. Rookwood's house in Warwickshire. Faint, broken-hearted, and overcome by fatigues and dangers, she had been quite incapable of calculating on the nature of the reception she might meet from her only near surviving relative ; nor was there occa- sion to do so ; for hardly had she placed her manly little boy in her brother's arms and witnessed his look of astonishment, both at the unusual burthen she deposited there, and at her own wretched aspect, than articulating faintly — " For my sake — and God's" — she sank down beside him incapable of a further effort. Lady de Lacy ^ revived for a time ; but it was only to give her brother the statement she had drawn up relative to the part her husband had acted, and which, in the hope it might be the means of restoring her son to his rights, she had brought with her with the intention of transmitting it to the queen. Before the COOMBE ABBEY. 25 following day had closed, her life liad ended, and William de Lacy was left an orphan and an alien in the house of a relative, whose disposition, if not naturally amiable, might be less so towards one who had not only the misfortune of being Irish by birth, but was, moreover, the child of a refractory sister. The human heart, however, requires something to love ; even in its most inhuman state it generally has some outlet to the little remnant of its better affections. The most isolated beings usually find some objects among the animate or inanimate, if they had none among the rational orders of creation, which they can think they love. Mr. Rookwood had an endless variety of pets, and among these it is possible he might have put our young 26 COOMBE ABBEY. hero, William ; but the boy's grief for the loss of his mother was of that boisterous description most appalling to the child- secluded bachelor ; and he ordered the sorrowing little fellow to be taken out of the house until his grief was allayed. It so happened that the wife of the Miller of Guy's Cliff, who had been one of his favourite domestics, was then at Cubbington Grange; and as the child's nurse could not be persuaded or bribed to leave him, it was proposed that they should both adjourn to the miller's house, and remain there until the young gentleman should be of an age to understand that it was not his interest to roar so loudly. Thus commenced our youth's acquaintance with the aforesaid miller ; for whether Mr. Rookvvood forgot him, or feared again to encounter the unaccustomed sound of a child's cry, certain it is that William was left a tenant of that humble and beautiful spot for about four years ; when he was taken to Cubbington Grange where he soon ranked as highly in the owner's favour as any of the singular and multifarious pets maintained around it. He was, indeed, full as amusing as any of them ; and his strong Irish accent being maintained by familiarity with his nurse, proved another source of amusement to the master and his household. The combinations of private life are sometimes as singular as the curiously woven and artificial structure of the romance writer. Cubbington Grange chanced to be in the immediate vicinity of the fine old place denominated Compton Revel, to which allusion has been made in the preceding chapter. At this stage of young De Lacy's history, it was occupied by the unfortunate Lady C, the widow of a nobleman who, after several abortive attempts in behalf of poor Mary of Scots, had paid the penalty of his devotion with his life. The enthusiastic and overwrought mind of his wife failed beneath the shock, aggravated as it was by the conviction that her own love to her royal mistress — for her youth had been spent in the Scottish court — had brought her husband to the scafibld. Lord C.'s property was confiscated, and his title attainted ; but the lady, who was to all appearance rapidly hastening to the last narrow house, was permitted to COOMBE ABBEY. 27 retain possession of that which had been her home, for the short remnant of her life. That property was conferred on her loyal brother-in-law, Sir James St. Clare, who, at the same time was raised to the peerage. He accepted it, though with pain, under the idea of being able in future to benefit the orphan children of his wife's sister : but these children — a boy and girl — as remarkable in their appear- ance as they were from their reserved and pensive manner, suddenly disappeared from the neighbourhood upon their poor mother's death ; and at her funeral, even their uncle, and then natural guardian, Lord St. Clare, was unable to give the slight- est intimation of their destiny. Some time afterwards this nobleman's wife followed her more unhappy sister to the grave ; and then Lord St. Clare, accom- panied by an only child, came to reside at Compton Revel with a small and sober establishment. Left a widower when little more than thirty years of age, he had devoted himself wholly to his lovely and only child ; and sought and found in that devotion a pretext both to himself and others, for removing from the conflicting vortex in which the state both of politics and religion, for the one was sometimes but a name for the other, involved those who mingled much in public life. The father and daughter had never since been separated ; and the circumstances of the times, in connection with his own domestic trials, had led him to prefer, for both, a life of great retirement, if not of total seclusion. Many causes had influenced this choice. A disciple, in many respects, of the court of Queen Elizabeth, Lord St. Clare could never stoop to flatter her follies at any time ; and an ardent admirer of her genius, her powers of mind, and her principles, he felt the mortification which the latter years of her reign pro- duced upon those who had shared in its glories. Like many noblemen who still adhered to the court of Elizabeth, he enter- tained the doctrines of the Puritan party, without following the conduct which gave her so much displeasure, and which he con- demned. Attached to the Established Church from principle and preference, he yet, in common with the more religious mem- 28 COOMBE ABBEY. bers of that church, felt to the inimical party the sentiments of brotherhood ; and regretted that things immaterial should cause a schism in the protesting body, which, having obtained liberty from papal bondage, and endured the fiery trial of Mary's reign, was now, by a natural reaction, inclined to exercise that liberty to the full extent of private judgment in all things. Disliking, from his own religious sentiments, the severe mea- sures pursued against the Puritans, and from the family connec- tions and associations of early years, shrinking from all collision with the Roman Catholic party, to which they were so strongly opposed. Lord St. Clare took the happiest, and, perhaps, not the least philanthropic course, and, withdrawing entirely from the contentions of public life, devoted his time to the education and society of his child, and his money and influence to the improve- ment of his numerous dependents, and the promotion of chari- table objects. To avoid civil and religious faction was his chief desire — to shield his lovely girl from all that might injure the pure simplicity of her mind, and, in ignorance of the jars of discordant faiths, to train her in the pure doctrines of the Gospel, and in outward conformity to the observances of a church, which he believed, in her established formularies, adhered to these doctrines, was the great object of his life. To aid him in this, he had obtained the services of a pious and worthy clergyman, whose enlightened mind, freed from sectarianism, was deeply imbued with religious knowledge. He was, after the fashion of the time, both the domestic chaplain and the tutor of little Lady Edith. Although, like the priests of Rome, the sympathies of his nature were not called into kindly play by the tender relationships of life, yet, as the single state in which, through accident, perhaps, rather than choice, he continued, was not, like theirs, compulsory, it checked not nor perverted the natural flow of his affections ; and their bland and kindly influence was felt throughout a household that owned the rule of a master, who was by nature distant, reserved, and haughty. These dispositions were troubles to Lord St. Clare, who feel- ing them to be little in accordance with the religion he professed, COOMBE ABBEY. 29 struggled against them, and rejoiced to see that his meek, hvely, and confiding child was exempted from this portion of the in- heritance which she might have derived from her sire. The circumstances of his early life, and the unhappy termina- tion of Lord C.'s political course, had impressed Lord St. Clare with almost a nervous horror of all such unlawful or treasonable attempts, as were frequent at that period of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and the natural effect of this was, that a degree of caution, nearly amounting to suspicion, became one of the predo- minant features of his character. The results of this on the fortunes of our young friend, William de Lacy, are now to be developed as one of those combinations of which we have spoken. He had never known the children of Lord C. ; but when Lord St. Clare and his pretty child became his neighbours, the case was different between Master William and the occupants of Compton Revel: he had then attained his twelfth year, and the little lady's health being delicate, all active sports and exercises were not only to be pursued because fashion- able, but as being, in her case, peculiarly desirable ; so she was ever to be seen on her beautiful pony, with her hawk on her wrist and her greyhomids at her side. No one could fly a hawk better than William de Lacy, and no eye was quicker in discerning a far-off quarry than the merry one of the Irish boy : it is not, then, marvellous that he should soon become the constant attendant of little Lady Edith's excursions ; and as the children became more and more attached to each other's pursuits, her fond and kind-hearted father finally agreed that his chaplain, who was Edith's tutor, should also assist in im- proving the very deficient education of her little friend. The consequence of all this might have been foreseen ; but such oversights often take place, and many a happy childhood or pleasant youth has been followed by years of disappointment and tears. However, these children had their happy time ; and whether, with hawk and hound, they roamed the woods and fertile plains around them, or pored over the studies their reverend tutor assigned them. Lady Edith St. Clare and William 30 COOMBE ABBEY. de Lacy, happy in the present time, never sent a glance towards the future, except to calculate on some new pleasure. Was the young soldier, now leaning on his horse's neck, thinking of these long past days ? We know not. They passed away all too quickly, perchance he thought, for him ; but thus we all think when our pleasant times have gone by. William de Lacy was very happy both at Compton Revel and in its vicinity ; how could he be otherwise, with such acces- sories to happiness around him. The reputed heir of Cubbington Grange, he had never felt the loss of a paternal inheritance; the almost parental fondness of Lord St. Clare prevented him from experiencing the desolation of an orphan state; and the tacit proofs he received of the good-will of his reserved and singular uncle, afforded him the pledge of a kind and protecting guardian. But we seldom know what happiness is until the fugitive has passed us by. The restless spirit of the Irish^ or the innate desire for arms which he had manifested when attempting to obtain his poor father's sword, led the youth to express one day to his uncle a desire to leave the quiet of Cubbington and enter the army. He did not know the temper of his relative : Mr. Rookwood, apparently so cold, morose, and sullen, was capable, and even felt himself to be capable, of deep attachments ; but his error and unhappiness lay in secretly looking for a return for what he felt, rather than for what he showed. The disposition of his nephew was kind, open, and affectionate ; he did not know that his uncle loved him ; and while showing him every respect and attention, he never imagined that he would care to possess affection : yet Mr. Rookwood wished those who were attached to him at all to be devotedly attached, to prefer him to all else, to be willing to forego all society for his. The moment his young protege expressed a dawning desire to leave him, he sunk rapidly down in the rank of his favourites, until, from being at the very top of the list, he became, for the time at least, the last in order of all the things that fawned and clung around hira. Without saying a word io him on the subject, or COOMBE ABBEY. 31 even knowing if the wish he had expressed was any thing more than a youth's casual observation, he procured for him a com- mission in the troops which, not very long afterwards, sailed with the gallant Earl of Essex to the attack of Cadiz. In that brilliant action the young soldier won the approbation of his leader : it was an unfortunate circumstance for him. ^ The open, generous, danger-seeking Essex, was one not only to command his admiration, but to win his affection ; and William de Lacy would have followed through fire or water if he led the way. But while our youth was animated by the hope of gathering lam-els abroad, the peaceful wreath of domestic joys, which the scenes of Cubbington Grange and Compton Revel had offered him, was sadly withering. Mr. Rookwood had been too much accustomed to his society not to feel its loss, and he had brought a distant relative to his house in the view of sup- plying the void left in it, who remained some time there, and, though their acquaintance only then commenced, left it with a promise of frequently repeating his visit. A letter from his constant little friend. Lady Edith St. Clare, informed De Lacy, in rather ambiguous terms, that it was to be feared, his service abroad would scantily repay him for lack of service at home ; but engrossed by the stirring nature of the life he had entered on, he put these thoughts aside, and only antici- pated the happiness of a return to his home, when he should have acquired that martial glory to which, as the disciple of Essex, he began to aspire. Nearly three years passed away when, being on duty in London, he began to feel desirous of visiting his kinsman, and seeing the friends he had left in his neighbourhood. He had despatched a letter, announcing his intention, to Mr. Rookwood, when a communication reached him, of his appointment to the rank of captain in the body-guards which were to escort the Earl of Essex to Ireland. His former letter was followed by a very hasty epistle, informing his uncle of the change thus produced in his plans ; written in the first elation of his spirits, it expressed rather too little regret on the writer's part at the renunciation of his projected visit to Cubbington, and concluded with an excuse 32 COOMBE ABBEY. for brevity and haste, on the plea of wishing to attend his noble lord's levee, and his hope that this new event in his life would be the means of regaining for him his forfeited inheritance and rank, through the patronage of the queen's distinguished favourite. William de Lacy, therefore, formed a part of the brilliant train that attended the unfortunate first Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to his government in that land. The hapless career there which ended in disgrace to himself, and disappointment to his friends and followers, needs not to be here recounted. Among the few who accompanied him in his precipitate and ill-judged return to London, was the new-made captain of his guards ; who, unable to resist the interest he felt in his fate, remained to watch his progress in the midst of his foes, and in the scene of his former triumphs. Aware of the designs against him, De Lacy, who was not at all in Essex's secrets, apprized him, in a private note, of his danger, and warned him to seek safety by flight, instead of yield- ing to the summons he had received to appear at the council. Ill-informed, however, of his gallant leader's actual designs, our warm-hearted youth became involved in his treasonable at- tempt, and being taken with him in the street, while he was endeavouring to raise the citizens, was thrown into prison. His pardon was soon granted ; or, indeed, at other times it might be said, his acquittal pronounced, for it was known that he had taken no part in the fray, and been merely led into it from a desire to protect the earl, whose sincerity in exclaiming that his life was threatened, and crying, " for the queen ! for the queen !" William most entirely believed. The news of his guilt, however, flew faster than the fact was proved. It reached Cubbington Grange at an unfortunate time ; for, fretted by illness, the effects of solitude, and the belief, that the only person of his own species whom he had ever loved, or found suitable to his humour, had not loved or cared for him Mr. Rookwood, wishing to show an indifference he really did not feel, had made a will, wherein, without once naming his nephew, he left his entire property to the only other relative he had, the distant one before alluded to ; retaining, notwithstanding, in his COOMBE ABBEY. 33 own mind the idea that if William should yet show any affection for him, he would then let him see its reward, by altering this will in his favour. But, alas ! for the fallacy of all such in- tentions ! The poor man was seized with a fit shortly before William's liberation from the tower, and when the young soldier, not knowing what had passed, hastened down to Warwickshire, in the hope of meeting there the balm of sympathy and friend- ship, he found the agent of the new possessor of Cubbington was there to direct the preparations for his uncle's funeral, which he was most respectfully invited to attend. Mythologists will doubtless object to the creed that the fatal box of Pandora was opened in Ireland, and left there with hope, that blessed lingerer, within it, to console its children for all the ills that issued from it. In the sunshine of this hope they still live. Its happy rays illumine the present with a brightness caught from the future. Is it not this that gives the elasticity of an Irish spirit, the lightness of an Irish heart, the bounding of an Irish step, while the iron heel of adversity is pressing that spirit to the dust ? Amidst the gloom of Cubbington Grange, the thoughts of William de Lacy roved to Compton Revel. There he was cer- tain he should find friendship ; there he should meet with comfort. But decency prevented his going there until the funeral had taken place. At it he met Lord St. Clare. Some years had passed since they had met before, and the boy was grown a man, and perhaps the man had grown more considerate. Whatever cause had produced the alteration. Lord St. Clare was much altered to him, and De Lacy sensibly felt the cool- ness, which, in his present circumstances, was doubly wounding. The fact was, that Lord St. Clare, being a staunch loyalist, and strongly opposed to all disaffected movements, entertained a belief very common at the period, that an Irishman and a rebel were synonymous terms ; and though this belief was not influential so long as, a boy, William was hunting and hawking with his pretty little daughter, no sooner was it known that the young man, whose course in arms they had watched with much NO. I. D u COOMBE ABBEY. interest, was lodged in the Tower, than it came powerfully to mind; and the high-minded nobleman, who had ever marked out for himself a line of undeviating principle, felt very glad that a total separation had been effected between them. "And thou, Brutus," the youth might have thought — *• that was the unkindest cut of all." But as he rose from the deep reverence with which he returned Lord St. Clare's con- strained salutation, the varying hues of his dark blue eyes became almost black from the suppression of feelings that oppressed his breast: his coloiu* glowed to crimson, and then grew paler than it had been before. Lord St. Clare observed, and guessed the cause of his emotions ; he yielded, as was sometimes the case with him, at once to feelings that were naturally tender, and hastily extending his hand, said — " Come home with me, William." As the carriage that bore them — ^for his lordship had chosen on this occasion to adopt the new fashion of using such vehicles on state occasions — stopped at the familiar door, where he had always stopped with a joyous heart, De Lacy leant back, with his handkerchief to his face, and his companion being on the step, getting out, prevented his being seen by Lady Edith, who ran to it, crying out — " Have you seen him, my father ? — Have you seen William de Lacy?" " Hush, my child," said the nobleman, cautiously lifting a finger ; " he is here." " Here ! William here ! Oh ! let me see him," was the incau- tious reply. Her desire was soon granted. William was out of the car- riage almost as quickly as her father ; but as he took her two extended hands, a rush of feeling came over him, and pressing them hastily to his breast, he pushed past her, and rushed into the house. Lady Edith stood still on the step of the door ; the hands he had relinquished were folded together, and pressed upon her bosom, and her soft, timid eyes gazed after him with a look of COOMBE ABBEY. 35 surprise or doubt that was almost amusing, while very beautiful to behold. Her face, so perfectly innocent, so childlike in ex- pression, yet so regular in feature, was at that moment a repre- sentation of all a child's artless, unconcealed affection, checked and softened by a woman's sensibility. " Dear father, how he grieves !" she said, slowly, and with a pause between each sentence, " I did not think he loved his uncle so well — and how he is altered — but for his eyes and curl- ing hair I never should know him — and grown so handsome !" " Ladies do not generally express their sentiments of gentle- men so freely, Edith," her father reprovingly remarked. " Do they not ? Why not ?" demanded Edith, looking up with extended eyes in his face. Lord St. Clare could not well answer the question ; but though he knew more of life than his unsophisticated child, he 36 COOMBE ABBEY. was not wise in making this observation. Lady Edith had hitherto thought and spoken of William de Lacy only as the com- panion of her childhood — the sharer of all her young pursuits ; she might have still continued so to think of him, but her father's remark led her to think there must be a difference now — that she ought to regard him with other feelings, and must no longer look at, or speak of him as she used to do in time passed ; and Edith blushed, deeply and consciously blushed, when she met William again, and recollected how she had received him at first — ardently, naturally, without a feeling save those of pure, youthful, sisterly affection, but in a manner which, from her father's look and words, she now felt certain was not in accord- ance with the acknowledged forms of female propriety. Yet, strange to say, that deep and glowing blush pleased, while it embarrassed her young friend, almost more than her former open warmth; and from that moment, if it had not been years before, his fate in all love affairs was decided ; and as a true Irish heart can " love but once and love for ever," he vowed in his that his life should either be spent with Lady Edith St. Clare, or, like his uncle's, in dreary bachelorship. The resolution, perhaps, was rashly made: he should have remembered that he was an alien, an outcast ; an unportioned, unnoticed orphan ; that she he aspired to was a lovely, youthful, titled heiress ; but he acted on the maxim, nothing venture, nothing have; and, as he said to himself — I will have all or nothing — he almost fancied there was something in the sweet, gentle face he gazed on that seemed to second the bold design. A fortnight passed away, as a fortnight in such circumstances may be supposed to pass ; and perhaps it was the possibility of effecting the design already hinted at that occupied the young man's thoughts as he sat in the old hollow beech where he and Lady Edith spent many an hour of their early days ; but, recollecting that it was near the hour for the customary ride, he arose hastily and returned to the house. The library- door that opened on the terrace had been his former mode of entrance, and as he now, with the familiarity of former times, approached it, he beheld the fair girl who was engaging COOMBE ABBEY. 37 SO large a portion of his mind and time, sitting at the Gothic- looking table, reading one of those large and serious volumes which at that time were not an unusual study even for young ladies. Lady Edith was sitting in that at- titude in which William always thought she looked particularly beau- tiful, because it suited the rather madonna cast of her countenance ; the elbow of her small-rounded arm resting on the table, and her fore-finger laid along a cheek to which the deli- cate fairness of a skin only tinted with rose lent a somewhat serious expression. The young soldier had stood for a minute at the open door, when she turned, and, seeing him, exclaimed, with a look of pleasure — " Oh ! I am so glad you are come !" William stood beside the table, and, looking down on her up-raised and ingenuous face, she might have read in his the sincerity which prompted the words — *' Few things could make me so happy as to think my presence gave you pleasure. Lady Edith." " Then indeed you may be so happy as to be very sure of that," the lady replied, shaking her head with a look of assumed wisdom and seriousness. But no sooner were the words spoken, than something perhaps in the manner in which they were heard. 38 COOMBK ABBEY. reminded her of her father's remark respecting womanly reserve in the expression of sentiments ; and, blushing at that recollec- tion, she stopped William's reply, by adding — " My father wants you immediately ; that is the reason I was so glad to see you come." William uttered a lengthened interjaculatory — " Oh !" but Lady Edith's blush certainly mollified his disappointment, and without being conscious of having caused any, she went on — " I cannot think what he wants you for, William ; but he looked so grave and full of business, and was so little inclined to speak to me on the subject, that I am sure it is something of importance to you. Perhaps it is about your uncle's will ; for you know we all thought Cubbington would be yours, and it is such a pity this Mr. Rookwood, whom no one cares for, should get it." " There is only one reason that would make me desire it," William replied. " And what is that, pray ?" " I must riot tell you now." " Will you when you have seen my father ? You used to tell me every thing." William shook his head, and kept his eyes steadily fixed on the floor. " I can hardly think that any thing he can have to say would enable me to do so ; were this to be the case^ I should indeed be impatient to see him," he said. " Oh ! then I will send him directly ; and I will walk in the wood till your conversation is ended." De Lacy understood, of course, that he was then to join her there, so he only smiled his assent ; and having closed the door after her, took the seat she had left, and fell into a very pleasing sort of dream, which was broken by the entrance of Lord St. Clare. How often is it that the current of hope and happiness runs the strongest and highest, just when it is about to be met and driven back by the adverse one of disappointment and trial ; and then the poor voyager is involved in a whirlpool, that effec- COOMBE ABBEY. 39 tually dissipates all such pleasant illusions as our young soldier was indulging. Lord St. Clare was very kind in his manner, and very sincere in his profession of the interest he felt in his young friend's course of life ; but, though he took a rather roimd-about way of arriving at it, his object in seeking this interview simply was — to request that all further intercourse between De Lacy and his daughter might cease. His reasons for this were excellent ; all such as would influence any prudent and anxious parent ; and William felt their cogency so strongly, that, rising from his seat with a flushed brow and quivering lip, he bowed, and said — " I will leave your house instantly, my lord, and pledge my- self, solemnly, that neither you nor your daughter shall have any further trouble from my acquaintance." This was not 'the really kind-hearted nobleman's wish. He had been very fond of De Lacy as a boy ; and the idea that he might impute his former kindness to the fact, that he was then living under the protection of his uncle, and as his reputed heir, was very painful to him. He liked De Lacy as st man, and had suffered almost as much pain as he inflicted in making this com- munication. But the position of his affairs — his imsettled state of life — and the circumstance, that being an Irishman by blood and birth he was probably possessed of the turbulent spirit which found abundant exercise in that factious time ; all induced the full conviction, that the welfare of his lovely child rendered a total separation necessary. Her simple and ingenuous mind was always open to his inspection ; and he now saw grounds for apprehensions which at an earlier period had never occurred to him, or if they had, would not have appeared so formidable as the change in De Lacy's prospects and actual circumstances now rendered them. The proud spirit of the high-born and pennyless youth rose too quickly to allow him to judge of the feelings of the nobleman who was still willing to act as his patron, though he secretly trembled at the idea of being his father-in-law ; and Lord St. Clare considered that his impetuosity did him wrong, and his 40 COOMBE ABBEY. prejudices were all deepened a thousand-fold by regarding the manner in which De Lacy received his communication, as another proof of the incontroUable temperament of the Irish, which so often led them into dangers and excesses. He was offended, and perhaps justly, with the hastiness of one who was not entitled to show such indignation on such a subject; he, therefore, only replied with some stiffness: — " As you please. Captain de Lacy, it was not my wish to part thus, — but, perhaps it is as well it should be so. I feel I have done right in perhaps saving you and ourselves much future pain and disappointment." He left the room wit^i a low bow as he spoke, and left De Lacy perfectly miserable ; but endeavouring to cherish resentment as a means of escaping regret, he hastily left the house. No sooner had he done so than he was assailed by -^^ the doubt whether it would be honour- able, after what had passed with her fa- ther, to seek Lady Edith in the wood as had been tacitly agreed on; or kind to depart without bidding her fare- well. A verdict, as is usual in many cases of "head ver- sus heart," was given against the latter proceeding ; but de- termined to abide by the spirit of the pledge he had given, as well as the letter, William resolved to conduct the interview with due formality. He found Lady Edith leaning over the little gate which at that COOMBE ABBEY. 41 particular point divided the extensive grounds of Compton Revel from those of Cubbington Grange. Alas ! how fallacious are all our best laid plans! William de Lacy's nicely-arranged parting speech, formal bow, and ceremonious adieu, were all dispersed and scattered from his mind, when Lady Edith pointing her fair finger, with a smile, in the direction of his former abode, said, as he came towards her — " Are you able to tell me now, what is the only thing makes you wish to be the owner of that gloomy place ?" A rapid step placed him beside her, and for one moment he dared not to retain his position. " No, Edith ; neither now nor ever can I be able to do that. Farewell, my only, my dearest friend; may your life be as happy as even I could wish it." His voice faltered ; he pressed her hand quickly to his lips, bounded over the gate, against which she still leaned, and ran off over the field. He heard her anxious, gentle voice call — William — William ; but the sound made him run faster. -■< On gaining a little eminence, crowned by some trees, he did look back ; for he could see her arms extended on the gate, and her head laid down upon them; and he thought, though too distant to distinguish them, that tears had dimmed those hidden eyes ; and he felt safer at a distance, for had he seen Lady Edith St. Clare shed a tear for him, it was possible, notwithstanding all his high resolves, that he might have told her his sole reason for desiring the estate of Cubbington, and tell her something more also which he knew well was better left untold. So he went on, and took his horse from the stables there, and rode to his old acquaintance at Guy's Cliff, and from thence pursued his journey to London. Edith sought her father weeping, to inquire into the cause of this strange proceeding ; and after a long conversation with him, in which no allusion was made to herself, or to any share she had in De Lacy's departure, she was convinced that her father, in this as in every thing else, was right, and that it was desirable that William should not linger at Compton 42 COOMBE ABBEY. Revel, but endeavour to retrieve the reputation for loyalty, which, in Lord St. Clare's opinion, had undoubtedly suflPered by his implication in the movements of the Earl of Essex. So she uttered no more complaints, but assured her father that whatever fate might befall De Lacy, she never would for- get him, nor ever like any other friend half so well; and thus gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had acted with only necessary firmness, and that his parental anxiety was not overstrained; and he became more desirous to remove from her mind the conviction she had artlessly expressed, that no one could ever supply the place which the loss of her earliest companion had left vacant. However this might be. Lady Edith became gradually more and more sensible that De Lacy had sunk in her father's estimation ; and she knew that this proceeded from the fear he entertained lest that young man had imbibed principles which Lord St. Clare held in abhorrence, not only because they were opposed to his own loyal spirit, but because his own family had suffered so deeply through their effects. As the mention of De Lacy, therefore, generally drew forth some allusion to these doubts, and to the introduction of topics which were always avoided in the presence of one who some time after became their guest, it gradually came to pass that his name was never mentioned, and his existence seemed forgotten at Compton Revel, On reaching London, he found the metropolis in great com- motion. Elizabeth was dead : a reign glorious in the annals of England had closed : " the English virago," whose life, while tarnished with personal foibles, was covered with national glory, had ended her days in the discontent and grief which the former had caused : and now courtiers were all eager to outstrip each other in conveying intelligence to her successor, James the Sixth of Scotland, and First of England, of his hoped-for accession to the throne. Little affected by the popular commotion, and occu- pied by his comparatively petty, but to himself perhaps more interesting affairs, De Lacy, thinking no change in the govern- ment would be likely to affect him, and feeling as full of despon- COOMBE ABBEY. 43 dency as he well could be, embarked for the Low Countries, to engage in the service of the Dutch, and aid them in their struggle with their oppressor. But the change in the British government was to be the cause of a change to him which he little expected. That renowned godson of Queen Elizabeth, usually denomi- nated the witty Sir John Harrington, who had been knighted by Essex in Ireland, and whose complaints of his service in that country were so loud, had imbibed a friendship for De Lacy which he maintained by an occasional correspondence ; and, while the latter was endeavouring to lose all remembrance of a home or friends amidst the tumults of arms, a letter reached him from that hapless knight, who complained that Essex had carried him to Ireland, without allowing him time to draw on his boots, informing him that his cousin, recently created Lord Harrington of Exon, having been appointed governor to the Princess Eliza- beth, eldest daughter of King James I. had provided her highness with a large estabUshment at his residence of Coombe Abbey in Warwickshire ; and authorized him to offer De Lacy the post of captain of the guard to the royal child — " a post," continued Sir John, "which mayhap will repay you for your sorry service in that most miserable land, whither our late unhappy lord lieute- nant did convey us, to his loss as well as ours ; and which, more- over, may give you occasion to commend yourself to her highness in such sort as may tend at a future day to further your claim to the lands possessed by your late father in that island, which though a bad possession, may be to you better than none. King James much inclines to the friends and followers of the late earl, whom he ever styles his martyr ; and though I do not much incline to the politics of this time, yet I would say, be ruled by me in this matter, and accept an office which may lead to your own advancement, and to the good of our gracious princess, who is a right merry and most admirable child ; and methinks my lord cannot place her royal person in safer keeping than in that of so brave a soldier." This proposal awoke many thoughts in De Lacy's mind ; but these all converging to one point, gradually led him in the end 44 COOMBE ABBEY. to agree with his friend Sir John, and to prepare for a return to England. At the seaport where he was awaiting the readiness of a vessel by which he was to sail, an incident occurred which finally had been the means of leading to the scene we described at Leaming- ton and the mill of Guy's Cliff. While waiting in a small hos- telry for the hour of embarkation, two persons entered the apartment, which was formed by running a slight wooden parti- tion across that in which he sat. Occupied by his own thoughts, he had been quietly musing in a corner, unconscious of what was passing in the other division of the apartment, when the magic word of " Compton Revel " caught his ear. He started : and, listening, heard the suppressed voices of two men conversing in English. The planks which formed the par- COOMBE ABBEY. 4^ tition were so loosely put together, that in many places wide openings were to be found ; and peeping through one of these, he discovered a Jesuit priest and a Spanish soldier, whose per- sons were distinctly visible. The countenance of the priest was not one to be soon forgotten. He was small in stature ; his features regular, and complexion pale ; half a century of years might have passed over his head, but they seemed to have brought a century of care and thought. It was a cool, collected, yet intellectual thoughtfulness, that made his countenance so remarkable. The mastery of the mind was stamped in every lineament ; the predominance of the spiritual over the animal nature was legibly inscribed on his pale impressive features ; and in the cool penetrating glance of his dark luminous eye, there was a power expressed that seemed to qualify him for a place in that order which under the singularly mistaken title of The Society of Jesus, exercised so wonderful an influence on the destiny of nations by their secret guidance of the councils of princes. The soldier was a stout-built, gloomy -looking man, also be- yond the middle age of life, bearing the aspect of one who lived without any thing to love, to hope, or to fear. This man De Lacy had sometimes encountered before, and recognised him as a wandering adventurer or soldier of fortune, who, although an Englishman, had been for some time in the service of Spain. They spoke in so low a tone that De Lacy only caught an occasional word; but the mention of Lord St. Clare, and the property which they seemed to think ought by right to be in other hands, filled him with an alarm that almost deprived him of the power of hearing even as well as he otherwise might. At length, in answer to a question from the soldier, he heard the priest say — " He is now at Lord St. Clare's ; his sister is with me, on her way to England — Dunchurch is not very far from Compton Revel: we may soon, I trust, communicate with thee again 46 COOMBE ABBEY. on this matter — the tyrant must fall ; our people shall be delivered." "And the faith shall triumph," the soldier concluded, in a tone deeper and more devotional than that of the priest. "Amen, my son! We part now. I have entered on my tablets the direction by which to find thee — when thou shalt hear from me, let " The rest of the sentence sunk so low, that De Lacy, though his ear strained till the sensation was agonizing, could not distinctly make it out, but he fancied the words were — "let James tremble." He could not, however, feel certain whether King James of England, or Lord St. Clare only, was the threatened person; and he had no opportunity of discovering this, for almost at the words the soldier knelt, and the priest, having pronounced a blessing, hastily withdrew: the same moment a dulcet voice, which the latter had perhaps been expecting to hear, in the softest Italian tones, inquired if the hour of departm'e were not at hand. De Lacy had risen with the intention of pursuing the soldier, and forcing him to confess the nature of the scheme which they had in view ; but the voice he heard made him pause, and he held back his step in almost trembling expectation of hearing something further. In this he was disappointed ; and after waiting a few minutes in silence, he applied once more to the crevice in the panel, and perceived the room was left empty. He hastened into the street, but no sign of its recent occupants was visible ; instead of these, he encountered a sailor, who came with the intelligence that the vessel was on the point of sailing ; and De Lacy hastened on board, rejoicing in the only consolation he could feel, that of being able, through his fortunate acceptance of the post offered him, in some degree at least, to watch over the safety of the inhabitants of Compton Revel ; for of treason on a more extensive scale than that which affected this beloved spot, he did not think. He was detained in London some days waiting for orders COOMBE ABBEY. 47 which were to be conveyed to the deputy-lieutenant of War- wickshire, Sir Fulke Greville, at Warwick Castle, which place he was directed to take in his way to Coombe Abbey : and he was in the act of dispatching a hasty dinner at an inn in that town, when, accidentally looking up to the window, he beheld those remarkable eyes he had seen at Flushing, The person now appeared under the character of a tra- velling merchant, but De Lacy felt certain that he was not mistaken; and had he wanted any thing to convince him that Garnet, the superior of the English Jesuits, was before him in one of the many disguises he could so readily assume, he would have been satisfied of the fact when the same sweet voice he had before heard met his ear. A closely-veiled female appeared at the moment, and was lifted on one of the stout common horses which stood prepared at the door ; her companion mounted the other, and they rode slowly off. Devoutly thankful that this man had once more come in his way, and resolving to keep him in view, William hastily concluded his meal, and, calling for his noble, though weary horse, rode slowly after him, until, perceiving that the dilemma in which they were involved at Leamington bridge afforded him an opportunity of joining their com- pany, he did so in the imceremonious manner already de- scribed. The careless gaiety of his manner was partly natural, partly assumed in the hope of throwing the Jesuit off his guard ; he wished, with the same object, to conceal his religion ; and probably, had the priest been travelling alone, he might not have let the opportunity pass of gaining so useful an auxiliary to the cause he had so much at heart, but would have tried, in the case of the yoimg captain of the guard, the effect of that persuasive eloquence which had often been successfully exerted. As it was, however, the danger of his own position, and his anxiety to convey his companion in privacy to her destination, caused him to forego this prospect, 48 COOMBE ABBEY. and to desire to get rid of De Lacy's unasked-for com- pany. But now, it is surely time to release our poor captain, whom we have left, while recounting his history, leaning, in a rather comfortless manner, on his horse's neck : we shall, therefore, give him leave to mount and proceed to Coombe Abbey. COOMBE ABBEY. 49 CHAPTER III. AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPTON BEVEL LOBD ST. CLARE AND HIS DAUGHTER A STORY AND AN ARRIVAL. In that part of the now fine and agricultural county of War- wick wherewith the scene of our liistory is connected, which abounds with relics of feudal and monastic greatness, and, from very different causes, possesses in our unromantic times a por- tion of the celebrity of former days,* there might perhaps be yet discovered by the curious, the remains of the old baronial residence, that in our pages bears the denomination of Compton Revel. The much-changed mansion is surrounded by an ancient park, still boasting the possession of some of those noble trees for which that county is remarkable ; and now displays in its aspect the combination of antique grandeur with what is con- sidered modern improvement. * The neighbourhood of Leamington ; of fashionable and medical cele- brity. NO. II. E 50 COOMBE ABBEY. The old-fashioned avenue — broad, short, and straight, bor- dered with magnificent trees — is closed up, and its former ancient purpose indicated by the Gothic archway, flanked by what was once a deep wide moat ; a portcullis once defended that passage, and beneath that arch the knights and squires of other days approached or issued from the large open court that then lay before the house, but now, converted into a flower gar- den, is to be found at its rear, for a modernized front has been made to correspond with the modern circuitous avenue; and thus the whole front of the mansion contrasts most strongly with what is now its back. And certainly the ancient, heavy, and noble aspect of this part of the building would be more in unison with its former boundary of the old court, telling of armed men, glittering spears, waving banners, and all the by-gone et ceteras of feudal times in old England, than it is with that of the trim and modern little garden which at once brings us, from the region of romance, to the orderly, quiet, and comfortable period of modern English realities. But we have to do with its former history — not its pre- sent appearance. Something more than two hundred and thirty years ago, the history we are to present to the reader, will take up Compton Revel at a season when the fine trees which give to that district the aspect of an almost continuous forest, were nearly stripped of their foliage by the rude autumnal wind in which they tossed their half-denuded arms, while every blast sent a cloud of brown and yellow leaves flying in sad procession from the stately branches they had clothed. The scene we are now going to introduce our readers to, it must be premised, is of an earlier date in our story than those already described ; that is to say, it took place previous to the meeting of De Lacy and the travellers at the bridge of Leam- ington ; and as it contains the key to much that goes before and follows after, this is, though not an introductory, a very essential chapter. In one of the most agreeable apartments of Compton Revel, that denominated the library, Lord St. Clare and his daughter COOMBE ABBEY. 51 on this cold autumn evening were seated near a blazing fire of large logs of wood; and seemed to be realizing the comforts which at such a season are derived from shutting out the gloomy scene beyond the walls of the house, and enjoying the con- solatory feeling that though summer with its laughing train has swept us by, and autumn, like an ill-humoured herald, is pro- claiming the approach of its stern successor, we can provide ourselves with accessories to enjoyment in the winter which in summer must be gratuitously received. Lord St. Clare was seated in a large high-backed chair at one side of the wide fire-place ; his head thrown a little back and an 52 COOMBE ABBEY. arm lying over each elbow of his roomy seat ; and just before him on a low but high-backed seat, very like those now in fashionable use, sat his gentle daughter; her hands folded in each other resting on her knees, her person slightly bent forward, and her face turned up to her father listening with rapt attention to some tale he was telling. " Your uncle, Lord C , my love, was a gallant and noble gentleman," he was saying, "and one whom we might have thought worthy of a better fate than he met. The late Lord Morley, who suffered so deeply for his attachment to the popish faith, had two daughters — one was your blessed mother, Edith : she was taken by my good mother when an infant from the troubles that befell her house, and being brought up among those who professed and loved the reformed religion, she became a Protestant before our marriage took place. Her sister was sent at an early age to a relation at the Scottish court, and re- mained ever a rigid Catholic. She was soon presented to the unfortunate Queen Mary, and her beauty and talents gained her that favour which the remarkable devotedness of her nature caused her to retain : she was one of Queen Mary's most faithful and devoted followers. Not even her marriage with Lord C. broke the connection between them, and though she came to reside in England with her husband, the interests of her royal mistress lay near her heart, and I think, although I have always forborne to speak to you on the subject, that you already know that your poor uncle finally suffered on the block for his ill- judged attempts to rescue and restore that unhappy lady. " The proud heart of his wife broke beneath the stroke ; her trials had attached her more strongly to the religion she pro- fessed : and her last words declared her unshaken fidelity to its cause, and her desire that her children might live to promote it." " But surely, my aunt lived here, in this house, my father ? I remember her, methinks, quite well," said Lady Edith : " and my two sweet cousins — Blanche, with such dark eyes and such a serious face, and gentle little Herbert." " Yes, Edith, this place belonged to Lord C ; his treason COOMBE ABBEY. 6^ forfeited it, and it finally came into my possession ; his title was attainted, and the favours which our late gracious and glorious queen bestowed upon me, were, God knows, the source of more pain than pleasure, when they seemed to flow from her majesty's desire to make her approval of my course as evident as was the severity with which she visited my unhappy relative's errors." Lord St. Clare sighed, and concluded by saying, " I have indeed felt deeply the misery that is caused by civil feuds." " And Blanche and Herbert, father, what became of them ? I have never seen or heard of them since," Lady Edith again rejoined. Her father sighed again, and moved his figure upon his seat. " This has always been a distressing point to me, love ; but it was this led me to speak to you on the subject now. The case was this, Edith. Your dear mother, whose health had been for some time declining, suffered great anguish on account of her sister, to whom she had been fondly attached, although they had been so much separated : her sufferings were not lessened by the painful fact that in the course of my duty I was obliged to assist in the apprehension of my brother-in-law : she was very ill, in- deed drawing near to her latter end, when a messenger arrived in town requesting her to come here with all speed to see her sister, who was on her dying bed. As this was impossible, I accompanied the messenger, being anxious to receive any charge your aunt wished to leave. Though I travelled as quickly as possible, the state of the roads rendered it a journey of three days from London to Warwickshire ; late in the evening I reached this house, and hearing the poor lady's death was ex- pected, I went at once to her room. The scene it presented was singular. It was lighted only by the blaze of the large wooden logs that heaped the fire-place, making each object in the apart- ment distinct, yet, as it danced in fitful alternation, casting light and shadow around it that added to the wildness which that bed of death presented. " The countess was supported up in the bed by pillows ; her large eyes, once resplendent in beauty, glared with a light that was 54 COOMBE ABBEY. fearful to look upon: in her hand she held a small crucifix. Beside her, kneeling on the bed, but reclining back almost in a sitting posture, was young Blanche, her daughter, then about eleven years old, her arms folded on her breast, her large black eyes, so like what her poor mother's were, fixed with a deep and awe-stricken gaze upon her face ; and in her attitude and in every feature of her strong marked countenance, affording evidence that the scenes in which she had been niu'tured had stimulated her mind into a state far beyond that of simple, happy childhood. Her brother, who was a year younger, knelt beside her, regarding the scene before him with a look in which affection was mingled with a slight shade of fear; a sort of ex- pression that clearly bespoke a mind far inferior to hers in power, but perhaps as capable of the natural affections. " At the foot of the bed a man, whom I once knew well, one who had lately joined the society of Jesuits, was standing, be- holding the scene with that cool and steady eye for which he was ever remarkable : I knew him again ; it was Henry Garnet, with whom I had studied at Winchester school, and whose wild conduct had drawn upon me his enmity ; for I warned him that if he attempted to enter New College at Oxford, which scholars whose moral character is unimpeachable while at Winchester, generally aspire to, I would not conceal my knowledge of circum- stances that would impede his object. At the head of the bed stood a monk. "No one heard my entrance, and I remained for a moment un- observed : the dying woman seemed to be exacting some promise from her children in confirmation of which she extended to them the cross to kiss. The girl pressed it devoutly to her lips and murmured with firmness, but with deep emotion, the words her mother dictated, of which the concluding sentence, " even unto death," was all that I overheard ; and the boy with some appear- ance of mental shrinking from the solemn and awe-imposing act, yet with a look of reverence, did the same. "When this had passed. Lady C raising the head she had declined over them, beheld me, and uttered a shriek that tingled COOMBE ABBEY. 55 long in my ear. She had never seen me during her widowhood till that mihappy moment. Her words, her look, the very tone of the wild cry she uttered, confirmed me indeed in the belief that her senses were gone ; but that belief scarcely lessened the pain they gave me. "'Is the time then come ?' she cried : * are my children already in the hands of the persecutors? — Be firm — be faithful — remem- ber, even unto death — shun, resist the oppressors of your coun- try, the enemies of your faith, the murderers of your father — you have sworn it on his yet warm blood I' " Overcome by violent exertion she fell back, and, in a fainter voice, stretching her hands forward towards the priest, said, * where is Edith ? it is her alone I want — she who abjured her faith.' — The man whom she addressed while thus inquiring for her sister, your dear mother, had turned round and was. looking ear- nestly at me. 56 COOMBE ABBEY. " He knew that if I had had at that moment the power, I had the right to deliver up both himself and the monk to pmiish- ment ; for they were Englishmen, who, having taken orders in a foreign land, had retm*ned here contrary to law as missionary priests, who at the time were the great, if not the only fomen- tors of sedition, and who left no means untried to subvert the existing government, and bring in a popish sovereign. " Garnet, who had been already implicated in many conspiracies of this kind, might under other circumstances have felt some alarm ; but even had I been disposed to take measures against him, he was safe in a house, where all the inmates were on his side. Had the reverse been the case, he might have been equally secure, for my feelings were quite overwhelmed by the wild yet painful speech I had heard, and the strange and exciting scene I beheld. The anxiety I might have felt for the poor children, on whose young minds an impression, so likely to be of lasting and most unhappy consequence, was thus awfully made, was lost for the time in grief for their once lovely and beloved mother ; one formed by nature to shine in the brightest circles of society, and bless the scenes of domestic life, and who had thus fallen a sacrifice to unrestrained feeling, warm and mis- directed passions, and perhaps falsely stimulated zeal. Garnet probably read my feelings, for he was ever of a quick discern- ment; and turning round, he laid his hand upon my arm, and politely, but with much earnestness, entreated me to leave the room, and not increase, by my unexpected presence, the agitation that prevailed within it at that solemn time. I complied without hesitation, and was shown into this very room, where refreshments were brought to me ; but my inquiries after the countess were briefly and unsatisfactorily answered. I felt that my situation was a delicate one, after having ob- ^ tained the knowledge of a proscribed priest being in the house ; he was safe, however, even under other circumstances, so far as I was concerned, and I resolved not to appear to her to have no- ticed his presence. But when a servant announced that a sleeping COOMBE ABBEY. 57 apartment was prepared for me, if I wished to withdraw to it, I saw that I was not to be again admitted to see my poor sister-in- law, at least, for that night ; and concluding that it would be unadvisable to ask to do so, I retired to rest : I did not feel inclined to sleep, and through the night I could distinctly ascer- tain that I was, probably, the only member of that now reduced household, who had sought repose. The sound of feet moving quickly, but as noiselessly as possible, along the passages, and the various noises which are more or less heard when a household is in commotion amid the stillness of night, kept me disturbed, as I naturally imputed this to the illness of the mistress of the mansion. " When light began to dawn, I fell asleep, and, as I was weary, continued to sleep till day was advanced : I was not dis- turbed, and on waking and finding it was past ten o'clock, I made all haste to get down stairs : the stillness of the house as I descended, made me think that the household had acted the same part, and partook of my slumbering. I found breakfast, not- withstanding, awaiting me, and summoning the servant, inquired for his mistress, and was briefly told that she was dead. " The shock the intelligence gave me, required some time to get over, and I remained alone, not wishing to see any one. When this emotion had subsided, I requested to see one of the priests who had attended the dying lady. The servant to whom I expressed this desire, bowed and withdrew : I waited a long time, and no priest appearing, I summoned the man again, and repeated it ; and then, saying he would inquire if it could be granted, he went away and left me for about an hour, when he returned with the tidings that both had left the house. " As it now appeared that I was left in sole charge of all affairs relating to the funeral and family of the late countess, I said I would visit the chamber of death. I found the body laid out, and saw that death must have taken place about the time when I had been there before ; perhaps at the moment she fell back in the manner I have described. The imhappy lady was laid calm and peaceful there ; and now that the wildness, which I firmly 58 COOMBE ABBEY. believe insanity had given to her features, was departed, the natural character of her once beautiful face was restored, and I sat long gazing upon it, and reflecting on her melancholy history. " I had shrunk from asking to see the children, for I felt that the mother's dying words must have impressed their minds, and that they would naturally look on me with an aversion which their young hearts would, most probably, resign in time. I therefore resolved to win them gradually and gently over, to take them home with me, and educate them together with you; and so to fulfil a father's part by that poor boy who had lost his inheritance, that he should never have cause to think I had wished to see him deprived of it. " I did not ask to see them that day : the next, when I hoped their feelings had a little subsided, I did ; then, I suppose, the cautious domestic who attended me, thought he might speak with safety, for, bowing low, in his customary laconic style, he informed me that they had departed with the priests on the night of their mother's death. " You may imagine my consternation : but nothing could be done : I waited to see the funeral performed, and then hastened back to London. I found your beloved mother near to her end ; and the anxiety and grief into which I was plunged on her account, tended to diminish that which I felt for your cousins, who, I concluded, had been consigned to the care of the priests, with a view to their being educated abroad, in the unrestricted exercise and tenets of the Romish faith. What may have been their course since then, I know not, for until this day I have never heard any thing of our young relatives." " And you have now ?" Lady Edith cried, relaxing the fixed and almost breathless attention she had given to her father's recital. " Yes, Edith, this letter reached me to-day from my nephew ; it has much surprised me ; I rejoice to find he has so far renoimced the prejudice I feared he would entertain, as to desire our acquaintance : he is evidently a simple, honest-minded youth." As he spoke. Lord St. Clare drew from his pocket a small COOMBE ABBEY. 59 packet, and, unwrapping the ribbon that secured it, read a few lines from his nephew, stating, that his mother's friends having led him to cultivate his talent for painting under the Italian artists, with a view to his gaining a livelihood thereby, he had come to London in pursuance of the profession he had chosen ; and wishing to take advantage of his return to England, to make the acquaintance of his relations, he had resolved to visit War- wickshire, and, if agreeable to his uncle, would trespass on his hospitality for a few days. " For as many as he likes, poor boy ; or till the end of mine, if he will," said the good nobleman, as he closed the short epistle. " A painter, forsooth ! — No, no, he may paint as much as he will to amuse himself, but for a profession! — we will not allow of that, Edith. Alas ! he has been nurtured, probably, in strong religious prejudice ; but be it ours to avoid increasing it." At this moment a loud ring at the court gate announced an arrival ; and soon after, the subject of their discourse, who had set out directly after his letter, made his appear- ance. He had dropped off the large outer cloak he used in travelling, and appeared in the dress worn by persons of ordinary rank in Italy, the country of his education, if not of his choice. There was something altogether in his appearance that agreed with the idea his relatives might have formed of the votary of the arts, and the youth of genius. His long, undressed hair, of that delicate colour which seems a medium between the palest shade of auburn and a light brown, hung gracefully from the head, and curled round the upper part of his neck ; his figure was tall, slight, and graceful, and the eyes of a light hazel, regular features, and general cast of countenance, bore a gentle- ness of expression amounting almost to effeminacy. His uncle sprang from his seat, and, extending both hands, with the exclamation — " My dear, dear nephew," welcomed him as a son. The young man evidently recoiled from the warm salutation, but being "graced with all good grace to grace a gentleman," re- covered himself to return it, though with distant courtesy. 60 COOMBE ABBEY. " Edith," said Lord St. Clare, rather mortified at his coldness, " do you not see your cousin ?" " Yes," she replied, and smiling extended her hand, " but I waited for my cousin to see me." ^S<^ Herbert Cunnyngham bowed very low, and, accepting the offered place near the fire, made a remark on the state of the weather and roads. Lady Edith viewed him meantime from head to foot with a smile that caused her father, who felt embarrassed by the manner of their guest, to inquire its meaning. " It seems so strange," she answered, almost laughing as she did so, " to think this is the little cousin Herbert, whom I recol- lect, the very last time I saw him, riding the rocking-horse in the gallery." " Do you remember Edith, nephew ?" COOMBE ABBEY. Gl "No, sir — no, my lord," said Herbert briefly, and Edith blushed very deeply, and did not again look at the ungracious visitor. Whether this circumstance, by allowing him to look at her without observation, induced him to do so, is not clearly ascertained; but for the first time Herbert Cunnyngham did look at his fair relative, and only withdrew his eyes to look again. Hers was indeed a face that any eye might dwell on with pleasure, save that of one who plotted against her peace. Though in point of stature above the middle size, the light and delicate style of her figure, together with the smallness of a beautifully-formed face and features, generally caused the epithet " little" to be applied to the name of Lady Edith St. Clare ; but she was just one of those persons who cannot be well described. You could not tell what made her face so lovely, but when you looked at it you felt its loveliness in your inmost heart. The soft clear eyes, so light they could hardly be termed hazel, were not only lovely, but seemed to speak of love, and peace, and happiness to all they looked on ; the mouth was not only beauti- ful, but on the full-rounded lips seemed even in silence to hang the law of kindness, the accents of peace and good- will to all ; the beautifully-moulded forehead was as calm and resplendent with the mind's sunshine as the bosom of the summer lake ; and over the entire of a face, whose delicate fairness was just tinted with the purest rose, was diffused the radiant reflection of a simple, happy, ingenuous, and gentle spirit. Countenance was in Lady Edith, as it should be in all, es- pecially woman — mind made visible : her face was the mirror in which even her passing thoughts were depicted to the beholder. Nurtured without art, and untaught by the world ; unschooled, even by other female society, into the common modes of thinking and feeling, while almost instinctively led by her nature, rank, and the example of her father, into all the retiring proprieties of female life, hers had for nineteen years glided smoothly away, leaving no further ruffle on her mind than was imprinted on that sweet and happy countenance. 62 COOMBE ABBEY. It has been before said that Lord St. Clare, like many other people, loved his fair child the better because she differed from himself. Seldom indeed were father and child more devotedly attached, and perhaps seldom, too, have father and child been in most respects more unlike. His lordship, tall, slight, dark, dignified, and reserved : unboundedly kind, when kind ; confiding slowly, but entirely and with partiality, where he confided at all : his daughter such as we have described her — gentle, timid, affec- tionate, and trustful ; willing to believe every one in the world better than herself, and ready to grieve at finding any one worse. Certainly, although man has in great degree a power over cir- cumstances, circumstances have in great degree a power over him. The cautiousness of disposition, which always seems to act as a retainer on the affections of another, for which Lord St. Clare was remarkable, was not perhaps so much a natural dis- position as an acquired habit of the mind ; for it is somewhat singular that this prevailing trait in his lordship's character, was not at all called into exercise by the unexpected and rather sus- picious manner of his nephew's return to his native place ; and in this instance it was evident that where affection or feeling was engaged, caution was forgotten. Lord St. Clare's was a deeply, though silently-feeling mind. Such a mind cannot enjoy a sense of personal acquisition or exaltation procured at another's expense. The public situation which Sir James, now Lord St. Clare, had held, imposed upon him the distressing duty of arresting and delivering to justice the husband of his wife's beloved sister ; and the very act, though a compulsory one, had mentally placed him under a bond of service to the orphans of Lord C. which he really longed to discharge. The rewards and honours which the queen bestowed upon him shortly afterwards, only added to the pangs he had endured ; for the rank and influence he even then possessed, made Elizabeth desirous to secure his loyalty, more especially since many of his connections were either secretly or openly ranged at the time on the side of her fair foe — the queen of Scots. We must, however, now leave the history of the three person- COOMBE ABBEY. 63 ages we have thus introduced, to develop itself as our narrative advances, merely remarking for the present satisfaction of the reader, that some time passed away after the evening we have now described, and Herbert Cunnyngham appeared to be then domiciled in Compton Revel. All the offers made to him, and at first almost sternly rejected, had been gradually, or tacitly accepted ; and his visit was silently protracted, until his departure was no longer expected. A studio had been fitted up for him there ; and he certainly spent a portion of his time over his palette ; but it often happened that his gentle cousin occupied a couch directly opposite to it, and the book she read might have more interest than the subject on which he worked, for undoubtedly the colours he mixed remained very long undiminished; and the kind-hearted nobleman who sometimes came in to look at the artist's labours, began mentally to remark that they would be likely to yield him a scanty liveli- hood were he to be dependant on them. Lady Edith, too, dis- covered with some surprise that the artist's skill was very far beneath what she had expected to find it, and though she was careful not to let him perceive this, she felt conscious that her own proficiency would not be increased by the powers he pos- sessed. There were points of mystery about her cousin which her pene- tration could not solve : to her he had become kind, sometimes even affectionate, but he was still impenetrably reserved. Of his own affairs or futiwe prospects he never would speak, and was equally silent as to the past period' of his life : nor was he more communicative respecting his sister : the only information he ever afforded in answer to Edith's inquiries being, that she had been educated in a convent, but contemplated a retm*n to Eng- land. Towards Lord St. Clare his manner was marked by a repulsiveness that seemed to forbid all approaches to a friendly and confidential feeling, and yet was evidently produced by an effort resulting from an acquired, rather than a natural disposi- tion of mind. The upright-minded nobleman accounted for all this by 64 COOMBE ABBEY. recollecting that his nephew had been brought up in a con- vent under the training of priests ; but Edith remembering the frightful tale she had heard of his dying mother, often thought the remembrance of that terrible vow dwelt within his breast, and caused him to struggle against every kind and friendly feeling towards them as against a sin ; and her open and tender heart ever prompted her by all the gentle means she could devise, to seek to draw away the sting she believed was still rankling in the closed and unhappy one of her seemingly friendless, but sen- sitive cousin : and the very unwillingness he showed to receive them led her still more to load him with proofs of affection, sympathy, and confidence. And finally Herbert Cunnyngham seemed to yield to her win- ning power, and when he gazed on her, the cold suspicion or dull indifference that had dwelt there left his eye, and his heart appeared to open to sensations of happiness it had never known before. COOMBE ABBEY. 65 Keoilworth Castle.-1842. CHAPTER IV. STONELEIGH, KENILWOBTH, AND OTHER RENOWNED PLACES AN ARRIVAL AT ST. LEGER's. We have left our travellers long upon their road, and must follow them ere our readers shall have quite forgotten "the priest and the lady fair." Notwithstanding the excuse with which the former had de- clined De Lacy's company, on the plea of pursuing a different road from his, they had held on their way in the same direction ; deeming it most probable that he would linger at Guy's Cliff when they had once left him ; they did not take the direct road to Dunchurch, but advanced by the foot of the eminence known by the name of Blacklow Hill, and famous as the spot whereon the favourite of Edward I., the unfortunate Piers Gaveston, whose beauty cost him his head, was put to death ; and so on through that line of wood leading towards Coventry, which, NO. II. F 66 COOMBE ABBEY. while it still boasts of some noble and ancient trees, is much changed in character since the period when six acres of gromid were cleared of underwood for the safety of passengers. Passing over the old bridge of Chelsford, for the repairs of which the abbot of Coombe was distrained by the sheriff of the county in the reign of Edward I.,* they approached the abbey of Stonely, which in the time of Queen Elizabeth passed into the possession of the family who now retain it.f It was then the abode of " the charitable Lady Alice," niece to Sir Rowland Hill, an opulent merchant who, having "bred up Sir Thomas Leigh, and made him his factor beyond sea, and having no child of his own, matched his niece, whom he much affected, to him." The abbey of Stonely, now written Stoneleigh, was founded by a colony of monks, who, complaining to their patroness, the Empress Maude, that the foresters of Staffordshire much dis- turbed their devotions, were permitted (says Dugdale) to choose another scene more adapted to them ; and finally made choice of a place a little below the confluence of the Stour and the Avon, almost environed by the river, and having that thick wood called Echelsf on the north," and here, under the patronage of the Empress Maude, wife of King Stephen, founded their monastery in the reign of her son, Henry H. These particulars the priest detailed to his companion, point- ing out to her the fine gate-house built by the fifteenth abbot of that place, Robert de Hockell, in honour of their founder. King Henry ; but passing over many strange stories of other jovial priests who had there held rule, he called on her to lament with him that their goodly and beautiful houses, wherein their fathers worshipped God, were destroyed, and all their pleasant things laid waste. * This ancient bridge is still kept in repair by the noble owners of the abbey. f Lord Leigh. \ An old Saxon uord, I believe signifying oaks. C00M3E ABBEY. 67 The course they held afforded abundant opportunity for such observations : perhaps few countries were more abundant in religious houses than that of Warwickshire; and if woods, rivers, and level country, offer the site usually deemed most desirable for the erection of such, it is not marvellous that their relics are so numerous in the district we are describing. But the attention of his companion was soon called away even from the interesting theme of monastic spoliation. The proud towers of Kenilworth Castle, rising above the dense mass of wood, caught her view ; and as the scene opened, she dropped the reins upon her palfrey's neck, and clasped her hands with an exclamation of delight. The waters of the lake, about two miles in extent, were glittering in the sun ; the extensive park, occu- pied nearly twenty miles of the adjoining country, laid out in woods, rich lawns, and noble plains ; the chase, stocked with red deer and stately game; the pleasance, the ornamental garden hanging on the bank below the castle wall, and the vast pile of the building itself, presented altogether an appearance of princely magnificence which held the unprepared beholder in mute amaze. " That is Kenilworth Castle, daughter," said her fellow- traveller. " Near to it stood the venerable priory, long famous in these parts, as well for the extent of its possessions as for its piety ; and which with those you have already seen, was destroyed by the ruthless and execrable Henry. His daughter, our late female tyrant, Elizabeth, bestowed it on one of her favourites and pro- fessed admirers, the Earl of Leicester ; who, courting her favour with such adulation as suited a vain and idle mind, invited her to this castle, and here entertained her with excessive cost and all sorts of carnal and worldly shows. " There was a floating island upon the pool, bright blazing with torches, and on it was the Lady of the Lake, and two who passed for nymphs and made a long speech to the woman whose heart seems to have been equally set on the vain pleasures of the world, and the destruction of the church; at the end of which there was a flourish of cornets and loud music. A bridge, was 6s COOMBE ABBEY. set up for her to walk on, and on each side of it were posts, on which were put gifts such as she was ever fain to receive of all men; but these affected to be from the old heathenish gods: one, to represent Sylvanus, presented the queen with a cage of wild-fowl ; another, like Pomona, brought rare fruits ; Ceres gave corn, and Bacchus wine ; but that which might suit her best was the offering of all instruments of war by Mars. For the seven- teen days of her stay none passed without some rare show or sport, such as ill becomes me to tell of. There was a country bridal enacted here ; and in the chase was one to represent a savage man attended by satyrs; there were bear-baiting, fire- works, tumblers from Italy, and Morris-dancers. There was on the pool a triton on a mermaid eighteen feet long : and a figure of Arion on a dolphin, with rare and strange music : here too came the Coventry-men, and acted their famous play called Hock's Tuesday, setting forth the slaughter of the Danes in King Ethelred's time : the subject whereof took the lady's fancy so mightily, that she gave the players a brace of goodly bucks and five marks in money." " I love not to speak, or to hear of that bad woman, father," said his sweet-voiced companion. " Tell me rather who ojvns the noble mansion now ?" " Sir Robert Dudley ; but I hear he is about to yield it to Prince Henry, the king's eldest son. A strange story hath come to light, which shows that this young gentleman may be another who shall suffer through that tyrannical queen. The Earl of Leicester, his father, made his court to her by affecting such admiration of her person as would lead him to seek her hand in marriage ; and it seems the queen was not unwilling to grant it, could she have brought her mind to forego that desire for ab- solute rule which she could indulge more freely in a single state ; but as she would not allow herself to wed her favourites, so she would not hear of their wedding others. Thus when the earl married the Lady Douglas of Sheffield, fearing the queen's in- dignation, he made her vow to keep the marriage secret ; and so COOMBE ABBEY. 69 his son, Sir Robert, was never owned to be his lawful heir ; and after a time the earl affecting another lady, chose to disown the Lady Douglas, and wedded Lady Lettice, the daughter of Sir Francis Knowles ; and then, desiring to remove his son out of the way, endeavoured by means of bribes to withdraw him from his mother's charge, and have him conveyed to the Isle of Wight ; which Lady Douglas resisting, there were, it is said, foul prac- tices used against her life ; for ill potions were given her, whereby her hair and nails fell off, and she narrowly escaped with her life/'* " And now that Sir Robert Dudley, who hath married the daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh, would establish his claim to be the lawful son and heir of the Earl of Leicester, all this hath been brought to light ; but the government of this unhappy land caused the inquiry to be stopped, and the ini- quitous council of the star-chamber hath issued a bill charging him and divers others with combination and conspiracy to defame the Lady Lettice, the earl's second wife. Therefore it is said that Sir Robert having taken much disgust at these proceedings, designs to journey into foreign lands, and will yield to the prince's desire, who, though so young in years, much covets to possess this princely abode." As this discourse ended, the travellers, who had made a slight detour, again retraced their steps, and turned into the road leading to the retired and peaceful village of Stoneleigh ; whence they proceeded by an unfrequented, and now not existing road, by the borders of Dunsmore heath to the small town or village of Dunchurch, situated almost at the extremity of Warvdck- shire, where the county joins that of Northampton. Without halting in it, they advanced into the latter county, and approached a gloomy-looking, neglected habitation, possessing that half-fortified aspect which many private houses then bore. The gateway, leading into the court of this mansion, was surmounted * The original we suppose of the lovely Amy Robsart, 70 COOMBE ABBEY. by a curious building, constituting a large apartment, a sketch of which will be more interesting than a description :* a bell hung, very visibly displayed, for the purpose of summoning the porter ; but the traveller, declining this common mode of announcing an arrival, alighted from his horse, and walking a few paces to one side, discovered a small opening in the wall, just sufficient to allow the mouth to be applied to a horn, so fastened at the other side, that a blast could be blown without taking it into the hand ; and while the orifice on the one side ♦ A view of the exterior and interior of this remarkable room is pre- sented to the curious historical reader, as deriving interest, from the fact, that within it was concocted the plan of the famous Gunpowder Plot, divulged first by its owner to his friend Percy, in the way herein described ; and in this building, and not in the mansion belonging to it, were held the meetings connected with that aflPair, which took place in this part of the country. COOMBE ABBEY. 71 was imperceptible to those who knew not where to look for it, the horn itself was carefully concealed on the other, so that for the initiated alone was its use reserved. This private signal was no sooner sounded, than the gate was thrown open, and the travellers, wearied by a long, anxious, and harassing journey, gladly found themselves at its termination, and were ushered up a flight of steps, into the large and gloomy room that surmounted the gateway. The light that streamed through the stained glass of a large bow window at one end of it, was in unison with the aspect of the apartment, which was lined with oak panels, possessed a large stone chimney-piece, and was furnished with little attention to comfort or appearance. Two gentlemen already occupied this apartment: one was a man whose age might be nearly equal to that of his visitor ; but if the countenance of the latter bore the impression which a mind long, deeply, and intently wrought upon, can stamp on the out- ward features, the whole person of the former as plainly bore evidence to a life of restless agitation or reckless dissipation. His companion might be about ten or twelve years younger, and his open countenance and fiery eye spoke of the impetuous pas- sions and love of hasty and decisive action, which might cha- 72 COOMBE ABBEY. racterise the descendant of Harry Hotspur, and one who would echo the speech, " I will ease my heart, Although it be with hazard of my head." Catesby, the elder gentleman and owner of the house, utter- ing the words "Father Garnet! welcome — most welcome!" advanced and bent his knee for the blessing of the disguised priest. The younger, with even more alacrity, drew near to his companion, and saluted her with a reverence almost as devout as that, which in accordance with the tenets of his faith, he might pay to a patron saint. She was behind the priest as they entered, and at the door had lifted the thick veil which in the gloom of the apartment rendered those who were in it almost as invisible to her as she was to them. A face of singular, yet perfect beauty was thus exhibited; the same that had struck on De Lacy's wondering gaze at the well of Guy's Cliff. A face whose clear transparent paleness was of that nature which seems derived from intel- lectual, not constitutional causes, and which contrasted strongly with the bright vermillion of her beautifully cut lips, and the deep blackness of her glossy and redundant hair. But the most remarkable and expressive part of her face were the deep and pure eye-lids, fringed with long lashes, which by curving up- wards, added considerably to the peculiar and impressive cast of her countenance ; these beautiful lids, whether from the reflective character of her mind, or their own conformation, generally drooped downwards, and rose like the gradual withdrawing of a veil, unclosing the very large and deep black orbs within them, that seemed only by degrees to expand to their full extent, and indeed but seldom attained it. Her hair, black as the raven's plume, fell in dark drapery around her, and nearly reached a waist, which, though her person was far from being slight, was small and gracefully rounded ; a circumstance that joined to the extreme flexibility of her form and elegance of her movements, took from her figure the air of heaviness it might COOMBE ABBEY. 73 otherwise have possessed : it was altogether a face and form such as the statuary might covet to model in pure white marble in order to represent, not the young and happy girl, but the deep-feeling, impassioned woman : three or four and twenty years she might have numbered; and looking at her as she stood raising those deep lids to regard the scene before her, one might be led to wonder what changes this number of years repeated would make in that form and face ! Would they bear the impress of feeling rendered morbid, and stagnating in its source ; of passion, mis- directed and embittered, preying on the heart and soul which now it warmed? or should these find their legitimate channel, and the lawful captive of a destroyed world and an erring nature be delivered ? No medium state seemed assigned to the being whose very voice uttered the tones of an enthusiastic and impassioned soul ; its cadences, even before she was seen, pre- pared you to behold one who must be happy or miserable. The first words she uttered were simply — " I did not expect to see you here, Mr. Percy," and the slightest tint of rose flitted for an instant over her cheek and disappeared. 74 COOMBE ABr.EY. " I cannot plead ignorance of your visit as an excuse for being so, Lady Blanche," Percy replied. " Blanche Cunnyngham," she said, gently bending her graceful head : " I claim no title now." And Mr. Catesby advancing towards them, offered to escort her within the mansion ; where he summoned the females of his household to receive her, with whom, pleading excessive fatigue, she retired, leaving the gentlemen together. " The wrongs of that noble lady," said Catesby, as she left the room, " were alone sufficient to raise a nation in her behalf," and his eye glanced with a scarcely perceptible movement to Percy. " It is what all our suffering people are subjected to, my son," said the priest ; " we must not regard an individual case only." " They shall be retrieved, however," cried Percy, in an earnest tone. " You have failed in attempting to retrieve them already," Catesby remarked : " your mission to Scotland has proved fruit- less ; and the promises you say were made to you by the mean- spirited king, he has at least shown no desire to fulfil when his need of partizans was over." " Taunt me not with this old tale, Catesby," Percy hastily interposed. *' Peace, peace, my sons," said the priest interfering ; " let no vain taunts or idle jars intrude into a discourse which hath for its purpose the high and holy end of the redemption of our country, and the restitution of our faith. We entertain no distrust of you, Mr. Percy ; although the king hath in all respects acted dif- ferently from what you led us to expect, still we believe that he did make to you the promises you repeated to us, touching the toleration at least of our religion ; and as for your zeal in be- half of the Lady Blanche and her brother, of that we are well convinced ; and are persuaded that in the hopes you held out of the reversion of the sentence of attainder and restoration of their father's estates and rank, forfeited through his love for the royal mother of this degenerate king ; which hope led the Lady Blanche to renounce the peaceful life she had led in the convent COOMBE ABBEY. 75 of St. Beatrice, and her brother to " the priest paused with a rather uneasy expression, and added thoughtfully — " to come to England — you were yourself rather the deceived than the deceiver," " Deceiver !" cried Percy. ^' The blood of the false-hearted tyrant shall prove that !" " What mean you ?" Catesby demanded. " That James shall fall by my hand," replied Percy, " Such an act our holy church will approve. Father Garnet, you know- that by the bull which you burned after James' accession, his holiness the pope declared it to be our duty to prevent any monarch from reigning in England who did not profess and maintain the Catholic faith." " That such an event were for the glory of God there is no room to doubt, my son," returned the reverend adviser ; " but its policy, not its propriety, is now to be questioned: would the death of James in itself be for the good of the church ? — for that is the great end we have in view — would it lead to the establishment of our religion ? Prince Henry, if no other steps were taken, would then be king, and the intense hatred he bears to the faith is already matter of notoriety : he would, in conse- quence of his tender age, most certainly rule by the same ministers who now are in power; the heretical nobility would maintain their usurpations ; the church lands would still be in their possession ; no good would be effected, and, in my opinion our case would be much worse." " But my conduct would be justified 1" said Percy hastily. " I should have at least obliterated the stain that has been cast upon my character, and revenged the insult I received in being made the dupe of fair professions, and the reporter of hollow pro- mises." " Nay, nay, Tom," said Catesby, " thou shalt not adventure thy life, or sacrifice it rather, to so little purpose ; a nobler blow must be struck : one that shall accomplish all ends, obliterate all injuries, and bring our matters to a safe and speedy conclu- sion." 76 COOMBE ABBEY. Father Garnet turned his penetrating eye on the speaker, and it dwelt some moments in thoughtful inquiry on his countenance ; withdrawing it he said — " You may confer on this matter again, my sons ; at present I would be alone :" and Catesby rose to conduct him to another room. On entering it Garnet bolted the door, and looking round to see that all was safe within, said — " In these times, dear son, the duties of our holy religion are often neglected ; I have been absent some time, and much may have passed in thy mind which needs to be told ; confess, there- fore, and receive the benefit of the church." " I have matter to confess, holy father," said Catesby : " for the mind will not be idle if the hands perforce are so. Yet my offence hath lain in working on the hints I had from you ; for, when we last conversed, you expressed the opinion, that any attempt now made for the recovery of our rights and religion would be ineffectual, unless it embraced in its design the ruler, legislators, and chief heretical nobility of the land." Despite the self-possession for which he was remarkable, the priest became discomposed : a stern, yet angry expression over- spread his usually calm features. To Catesby alone did he ever show himself such as he really was; and, therefore, not adopting with him the soft, unconscious manner beneath which the Jesuit would, from another, have concealed, on such an emer- gency, the feelings of the alarmed and cautious man, he abruptly exclaimed — " Forbear ! — Speak you already of hints from me?" " I crave pardon, father," Catesby rejoined, with a glimmer- ing smile, for he well understood the line of prudent policy pursued. " To yourself alone I speak of hints like these : to none other should all the tortures of the rack divulge them." Garnet's eye gleamed quickly and cautiously around the room, while Catesby stood somewhat fiercely tracking its doubting movement; but ere it was well ended, the head of his companion approached close to his, and in a tone full of import and deep ' anxiety, he almost whispered the words — COOMBE ABBEY. 77 " In the confessional — there only must it be — I hear nought save under its sacred seal." " Here, then, will* I confess me, father," said Catesby, bend- ing his knee to the ground, " of that which is heaviest on my soul, while dearest to my heart." The priest muttered a Latin prayer, and quickly added — " Alas ! son, is it still thus ? — Is thy audacious project still contemplated — the parliament ?" " Even so, father." " But the difficulties — even if the sin stop thee not — be warned in time — an assault would fail — ruin to us all would ensue : the stroke to succeed must be silent, invisible, complete — reflect then, and desist, if thou canst not succeed." " I have thought over all this, holy father," said Catesby, with the facility of one to whom the arguments were not new — " there are vaults beneath the house." " I know it, son." "A mine," resumed the penitent — "a train of powder — a devoted heart, and a firm hand " " Yet not thine ?" said the priest, scarcely uttering the words as a question. " No, father ; mine hath other work. Saw you not Guy Fawkes ?" " His heart is as thine, my son. Yet even still, bethink thee — it is for me only to warn from dangers that may ensue — the blow may fail of its completeness ; the time, the moment — if thou shouldst fail in that — the stroke, to meet thy wishes, must in- clude all, or be far worse than nothing." " When the commons shall be assembled with the lords, to hear the speech from the throne," said Catesby — "when the king, the prince of Wales, the tyrannical and heretical rulers and legislators of the land are met together " " Such is then the time for thy fearful deed, my son ?" " For the benefit of our church, father, the restoration of our faith, the deliverance of our country." " Absolvo te^^ said Garnet, meekly laying his hand on the 78 COOMBE ABBEY. penitent's head ; and after a little more of the formulary of the discipline thus practised, he was dismissed with the priestly benediction ; and the demagogue and man of dissipation retired, leaving, in the solitude of his chamber, the man of thought, of cultivated intellect, learning, and reputed sanctity, to carry to his midnight, and probably wakeful couch, a mind and con- science unburthened by the guilt of which they had been made the depository. The motive sanctified the deed in the estimation of the two men, who had scarcely one feeling or sentiment in common in other respects.* Catesby went back to the room where Percy had been left. He found him pacing the floor, his person apparently moving with the chafing of the impetuous mind, and unconscious of its volition. Catesby silently took his arm and drew him to the table, on which his confidential servant, Bates, had just placed a flagon of wine. *• Shall we always," cried Percy, " talk and do nothing ? My part, at least, is taken : my right' of entrance to the palace as a gentleman pensioner, will afford me the opportunity ; and the man who has belied his word, and caused me to appear to belie mine, king though he be, shall meet the reward of his deeds." " Hah !" rejoined Catesby ; " and what would be the issue of thy brave adventure ? A gallows, high as that on which scribes say a mistaken speculator of the Jewish times preached a lesson of caution, would be thy only reward ; and for ours, a few more penalties, chains, tortures, and imprisonments. Nay, Tom, thy temper runs away with thy wisdom I know a single stroke that would accomplish the personal end thou hast in view, and with it free our country and restore our faith." " Name it," cried Percy ; "and to whatever it may lead I join you in striking it !" * Strange, that from the first formation of a thought, to the almost final completion of a purpose, the question, " shall we do evil that good may come," never was proposed. COOMBE ABBEY. 79 " Swear to me first," said Catesby, " by the holy sacrament, and by the blessed Trinity, and by thy dread of everlasting per- dition, never to name it again to mortal, save in confession to the priest." " I swear by all these," said Percy, crossing himself. And Catesby then commmiicated to him — but with caution, for he feared his hasty temperament — the chief part of the scheme he had been communicating with the priest upon. The plan of redress was slower in its execution, and more extensive in its nature, than Percy's feelings and disposition would have desired ; but the influence Catesby possessed over him, the sense of his own injuries, and his devotion to the church whose ministers sanctioned it, induced him to yield himself a willing. party to a design, which, however startling it might ap- pear to other minds, was not only justified but ennobled in those of the persons concerned in it. But while in one part of this old mansion men were concert- ing schemes like these, in another was a different scene, and a very different actor : for a woman, young, beautiful, and nobly born, emerging from the seclusion of convent life, had made her entrance on a world that was utterly imknown to her, in the singular companionship of the persons we describe. Blanche Cunnyngham had retired to the distant apartments allotted to her use, where the maidens who attended her thither waited to disrobe and serve her ; but only accepting their aid to remove her damp and drooping veil, she dismissed them by a movement of her hand, the articulation of words being stifled by the fulness of a swelling heart. When left alone, she drew from her bosom a small image of the Virgin, and, placing it on a shelf, knelt with arms crossed on her breast and upraised head, in deep, but for some moments, wordless supplication before it. " Mary, queen of heaven," she murmured, " look upon thy child — in the land of my nativity — in England, the home of my heart — beside the hearth of my fathers — near to the grave of a mur- dered father, a sacrificed mother — the exile finds herself. In a 80 COOMBE ABBEY. land polluted by the blood of the martyrs, a prey to the enemies of our faith — give me grace to be faithful, to be firm, even unto death. To thee, again, and on my native, much-loved soil, I dedicate myself. Virgin mother, hear my prayer ; give me thy protection." The suppliant remained some time kneeling, in thoughts too deep for words, perhaps for tears ; then making the sign of the cross upon her forehead and breast, she mm-mured a Latin prayer, and arose. A tray of refreshments stood in the adjoining closet, and slightly partaking of some necessary repast, the beautiful en- thusiast — whose wants were few, and habits simple as those that convent discipline enforced — soon laid down a weary frame to rest, but did not so soon part with the sense of mental activity ; while, unable to anticipate the course of the future that was now dimly opening before her, she suffered her mind, filled with vague images and visionary thoughts, to float along the forward stream of time, and almost lost the mournful memories of the past in pondering on the idea that she was in her native land, almost within view of her childhood's home — the place where she had known a mother's love, an almost more gentle father's care : that the time which was to try her faithfulness to them and to her church, had at last arrived. Some part of the history of Blanche and Herbert Cunnyng- ham has been given in the foregoing chapter ; the remainder shall be developed in those that follow. The brother and sister were as unlike in mind and disposition as in person. Herbert resembled his unfortunate father ; Blanche, her perhaps still more unfortunate mother. The mode of their education or training, rather, had been pretty similar ; but its results were as different as the disposi- tions on which it had been exercised. Blanche — of an enthusiastic, elevated, and noble mind — had been nurtured into a heroic and visionary devotee : her brother — sensitive, inclined by nature to like ease and elegant pursuits, and possessing one of those unhappy hearts which cannot feel COOMBE ABBEY. 81 quite at rest without an object on which to repose its affections — a similar course of training had secretly disgusted, rendered morbid, reserved, and miserable ; while, deeply impressed with religious feeling, and a firm believer in the truth of the priestly precepts he was taught, he shrunk from discovering to himself his internal alienation from much that he outwardly yielded a devoted acquiescence to. A means of keeping alive in the minds of these young persons, the memory of what they were taught to consider the sufferings of their parents for " righteousness sake," had been adopted, which was very usual at the time we write of. A scarf, dipped in the blood of Lord C , as it flowed on the scaffold, had been conveyed to his distracted widow ; it was preserved by the Jesuit who undertook the charge of his orphans, and had often been presented to them as a sacred and stimulating relic. But now we leave St. Legers, and leave Blanche Cunnyng- ham, if she can, to sleep, while, migratory beings as we story- tellers are obliged to be, we fly back again to Compton Revel^ and look after her brother. Lord St. Clare, and the gentle I^ady Edith. NO. II. 82 COOMBE ABBEY. CHAPTER V. A MTSTEBT. It was one of those pleasant days of early spring, on which seems breathed the softness and warmth of new-born smnmer ; when the gladdening and yet uncertain sun calls prematurely forth the banished creatures and buried things of nature, and all living beings, wiser than they are on other occasions, are desirous to make the most of a day of sunshine and pleasantness. The early dinner at Compton Revel was over, and Lady Edith St. Clare, who had spent all the morning among her flowers, and feathered pets, and favourite shrubberies, proposed a ride through the surrounding grounds. " Herbert, then, must as usual be your escort, fair lady," said her father, " for old Humphrey has found occupation for me." " Will you, cousin ?" said Edith, bending over the table, and directing her beseeching eyes to young Cunnyngham. With a look that expressed perhaps involuntary pleasure, and a degree of warmth which of late often mingled in his manner towards his fair relative, he instantly signified his acquiescence. A gallop through a fine park, on such a cheering day, with a lively And lovely companion, might raise any spirits to a tone of gladness ; and the canker-worm of care had ceased to be busy at the young man's heart, and his voice was as cheerful and his looks almost as happy as hers. They had passed the wide and sweeping road beneath the ancient oaks which stood, and still stand, to witness the change and fall of many heirs of that once noble dwelling, and entered a narrow straggling path leading through a thick copse, which was a favourite and almost daily walk, but seldom taken when COOMBE ABBEY. 83 on horseback. Large trees were here interspersed with thick underwood, round which the long withered grass, clinging in yellow wreaths, formed a screen that rendered it a retreat for the numerous animals with which the grounds abounded. Lady Edith's noble stag-hound, one of the race which was then becoming extinct in England, was bounding before her horse, and sprung into this little jungle with the sagacious and cautious gaze of one who was on the point of making a discovery of some moment. " Ho, Luath !" cried Edith, fearing for her deer ; but seeing the dog was unmindful of her warning, she called to her cousin, JC.GOniNSON. who from the narrowness of the path was behind her, request- ing him to come to her aid, and secure the hound in the leash she had allowed him to slip. " Give me your rein, Herbert, and — — but I forgot," she cried, interrupting herself with a merry laugh at recollecting that her cousin was much less used to dogs and horses than she was ; and throwing him hers, she was in the act of springing from her seat, when a figure issued from the copse beside them, and crossing the path a little above where they stood, passed away into the fields at the other side. 84 eOOMBE ABBEY. His dress and appearance were those of a very aged man ; but the old cloak and Spanish hat drawn very low upon the head, conveyed the idea of one who would rather not be recognised ; and Lady Edith, pointing after him, said — " Two or three years ago, cousin, I should have been certain that was a seminary priest in disguise." But looking at her cousin as she spoke, she changed her manner, and cried in real concern, "Forgive me, Herbert, I did not, indeed I did not, mean to hurt your feelings." He did not seem to hear her ; his eyes were strained with a stare that was almost painful after the retreating figure ; and an expression of very uneasy doubtfulness was over his face. Believing she had pained him by her thoughtless remark, and not knowing how to atone further for her inadvertency. Lady Edith rode forward, inviting him to do the same. On their return, however, to the same spot, Herbert Cunnyng- ham stopped again, as if spell-bound by a frightful vision — a deadly paleness overspread his face. " Herbert ! Herbert !" cried Edith, almost as pale with fear, while she saw his parched lips vainly endeavouring to force an articulate sound, and Edith looked in the direction where she saw his eyes were fastened, and saw a small red scarf suspended from the branch of a low tree. Another object at the moment caught her attention, and a low cry of surprise, almost of fear, burst from her lips. Cunnyngham was in the act of dismounting, in order to enter the thicket, and her evident agitation, although he knew not its real cause, obliged him to master his. He therefore hastily snatched down the omi- nous handkerchief, and enclosing it in his breast, quickly returned to Lady Edith, whom he found anxiously and earnestly gazing in the direction where he had gone. " What is all this for, cousin ?" she said in a mournful tone — " do tell me at once." " I cannot," he answered : " it is a matter of consequence — of no consequence, I mean. It is, perhaps, a trick — I have yet to ascertain its meaning." COOMBE ABBEY. 85 " But did you not see any one now ?* Cunnyngham turned still paler. " No — did you ?" he said with some alarm. "Assuredly, when you turned in dismounting, I saw first a soldier, and then recognized in him a form I know well. Do, kind cousin, tell me." " A soldier !" her cousin exclaimed, being now rendered apprehensive from another cause. " Oh, no — you must be mistaken." " I was not mistaken," Edith rejoined firmly ; " he was there : I saw him pass from behind that old hollow beech when you were about to go into the thicket." " Then I must seek for him, for danger may be in the way," said Herbert, who had the habit of uttering his thoughts without reflecting on the prudence of doing so, and thus often increased his own difficulties and his cousin's perplexities ; for while tutored fo concealment and subterfuge, Herbert Cunnyngham was not formed naturally to be an apt pupil. He now thought only of danger to the person who he knew was then in the way ; but on this occasion his words, though calculated to increase the em- barrassment in which he was placed, had the contrary effect ; for Edith, pre-occupied by her own ideas, believed his ignorance con- cerning the person she had seen to be only assumed, and therefore Concluded his words were intended to mislead her. She thought of no third person in this little mysterious drama, and concluding that the soldier and her cousin were the only actors, attributed to the latter a degree of artifice of which, in this instance, he was guiltless. On a moment's reflection it occurred to Herbert that the man whom he now knew to be in the neighbourhood had, in the interval that elapsed during their ride, assumed a military disguise instead of that in which he had seen him issue from the thicket, in order to effect the' preconcerted signal of the handkerchief, in the corner of which a note was to be fastened ; and so he said more calmly — " Cousin, I am sure you must have been mistaken — I had 86 COOMBE ABBEY. alarmed you too mucTfi. I am, you know, of a nervous habit and subject to sudden qualms : the appearance I saw did, I confess, overcome me, you may guess wherefore. Let us now talk no more of this matter ;" and mounting his horse with a grave look and heavy sigh, Lady Edith felt too much pity for him to urge the subject further. On reaching home, as he assisted her from her horse, Cun- nyngham said — " I have been betrayed into unwonted weakness to-day, cousin — will you pledge me your word that no intimation of what has passed shall reach your father? I would not that he should know I am still so affected by the recollections of my child- hood." " I will not speak of it, Herbert," Edith replied in a resolved but rather dejected voice. "I will repose confidence in you — • can you not do the same by me ?" The question appeared to be a painful one. After an evident struggle the young man answered — " Willingly — ^gladly — if I could. At present, Edith, I have nothing to confide." " Well, then, remember when you have you will," Lady Edith responded in a more cheerful tone ; and smiling in her most con- fiding and sweetest style, she entered the house. Although educated in the strictest retirement, and possessing very little knowledge of the world and its ways. Lady Edith St. Clare was not destitute of good sense, and a degree of decision of character, which, little proved as it had yet been, was ready to serve her in time of need. During the entire of their acquaintance there had been some- thing in her cousin's look and manner that often perplexed and always disappointed her ; for even at the moment when she was just expecting the expansion of more generous and, it might seem, natural feelings, these appeared suddenly to close up again within his breast, and the confidence she anticipated was again withheld. Herbert Cunnyngham had not the open, generous bearing to which in her early life she was accustomed, and with which she COOMBE ABBEY. 87 was SO often in the habit of silently instituting a comparison. The contrast rendered his reserve more apparent to her than it was to her father ; and while his extreme sensibility and almost womanly gentleness won her affection, she could not at all times feel satisfied as to his real sentiments. Lord St. Clare seemed to take these on trust. He had determined to like, and, if possi- ble, to serve his poor nephew ; and when this was the case, he was generally in the habit of thinking that others felt like himself, imtil he found it otherwise. But Lady Edith, while she checked the desire she habitually felt to know more of her cousin's mind, fearing that it might arise from a merely curious spirit, yet was unable to resist a degree of unsatisfaction, which proceeded from the impression that on his side there was always something concealed or reserved, while on hers all was open and made known. On this day, however, her mind had really received a shock, from which she could not speedily recover, for she was assured of having seen the figure of William de Lacy issue from conceal- ment in the old beech, and proceed to the other side of the wall. He was at a considerable distance from her, and probably thought she could not see him through the intervention of the trees.; but Edith felt very certain that she could not easily mistake another form for his. That the signal of the handkerchief, whatever was its pur- pose, had been made by him, she naturally concluded ; but that he should carry on a secret intercourse with her cousin, whom it was probable he had known when abroad, and while residing under their roof, was almost as incredible as painful to her. And for what purpose could it be ? or how could De Lacy be in the neighbourhood and not come to see them ? Lady Edith rumi- nated in vain. The idea of watching her cousin's conduct was painful — ^the thought that William de Lacy could act an unwor- thy part was far more so. Her only resource, then, was to dis- miss the subject from her mind, and to persuade herself that this apparently mysterious affair arose from some easily explained circumstance which time would bring to light. 88 COOMBE ABBEY. Evening, notwithstanding, found her pensively reclining in one of the deep recesses of a win- dow, looking out on a scene that was becoming very in- distinct in the deepening twilight, and musing again on the same. The window in which she sat opened at the eas- tern end of the mansion, close to which the thick wood at that point advanced, and ab- ruptly diverging, left a view open to pretty fields, through which a tiny branch of the Avon stretched a silvery line of light ; and a narrow path led up to the ruins of a small Gothic chapel, founded by an ancient possessor of Compton Revel, for a chantry of two priests to sing mass daily for his soul. The building had fallen a prey to the depredators in the days of Henry, and another having been erected in those of Queen Mary, immediately adjoining the house, this had never been re- paired : the roof had fallen in and the ivy overgrown its walls ; so that in still later days it was chiefly used as the place where Lady Edith and her more boisterous play-fellow, forgetful, in the giddiness of their mirth, of its sanctity, played at hide-and- seek in its ruins, while the attendants of the latter sat on the grassy slopes discoursing of graver topics. Along the other side of the streamlet the wood still held its way, until it ended in a circlet that surrounded the small emi- COOMBE ABBEY". 89 nence on the site of which the ruined chapel was built, forming there what is called a Calvary, where twelve trees represented the twelve apostles ; and devout persons, frequently moving on their knees, repeated prayers at each. While Lady Edith gazed out on this scene, it became suddenly, almost instantaneously illuminated by the uprising of the full- orbed and resplendent moon ; and every object that had been shaded in twilight became distinctly visible. Almost at the same moment, although probably not in connection with the cir- cumstance, the door of the studio opened, and Herbert Cun- nyngham, passing quickly down stairs, issued out at the private door immediately beneath the window, and rapidly took his way along the path through the fields. Almost as soon as he had passed, the glitter of a steel head- piece was visible at the edge of the wood directly beneath where she sat ; Edith strained her eyes from the window, and looked full on the countenance of De Lacy : it was the same she had ever seen it — a little paler perhaps, but that might be from the light under which it was beheld. He saw her not, for his eyes were fixed on the window of the apartment now appropriated to Cunnyngham, but in which formerly they used to study together under the auspices of her good tutor. A long cloak, in which his arms were folded, concealed his dress, with the exception of the same cap she had seen in the morning ; and after what, poor Edith could even still almost fancy, was like a gaze of fond re- membrance at the window before mentioned, he turned quickly away, and striking into the straggling line of wood which, at the other side of the stream, led in the same direction as Herbert had taken, they soon kept nearly an equal, yet divided course iri the direction of the ruined chapel. At this confirmation of what she had before felt or feared, Lady Edith mournfully sunk back into the window-seat. That De Lacy was acting a dangerous or dishonourable part with her cousin, she saw every reason to fear. All that her father had said of the disaffected and restless spirit of the turbulent Irish — all the remarks she had heard at the time of the insurrec- 90 COOMBE ABBEY. tion of Essex arose to her mind ; and her cousin's circumstances, religion, and political feelings, allowed ample room for the supposition, that a connection existed between them, which would probably issue in danger or disgrace. Deeply did she lament having pledged herself to be silent to her father : the first secret she ever had kept from him was likely to be a serious one ; and, covering her face with her open hands, Edith first burst into tears, and then, falling on her knees, prayed in her heart to Him who ruleth among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth ; and devoutly besought the divine Providence to avert the danger she feared — to have mercy on those who had erred and were deceived — to raise up them that had fallen, and to grant to those for whom she prayed, the spirit of unity, peace, and concord. Trained in the principles of piffe religion, Edith found then the consolation it can give in time of need ; and proved that faith is not a chimera of the imagination, but a blessed and fortifying principle imputed by God himself to his feeble and sinful creatures — ^that in his Son they should have peace, while in the world they have tribulation. Herbert Cunnyngham, meantime, unconscious that prayer was then made for him, pursued his way to the ruined chapel, and entered it with feelings he dared not seek to examine. Some parts of the ruined building lay in deep shadow, and others were bathed in the silvery moonlight. From the former a figure came forth, disguised like an old wandering pedlar ; but the eye was not to be mistaken, and the young man bent his knee, and taking the hand that was extended to him, pressed it to his cold, damp forehead. " Benedicite, my son — my dear son !" said the Jesuit, soothingly : " wherefore this emotion ?" « The signal, father " " Was to be one that summoned to action," said the priest ; " but it is not so yet, Herbert." " Thank God I" burst from the lips of the still kneeling youth ; and as if a reprieve from instant death were announced, he COOMBE ABBEY. 91 arose with a much-relieved aspect. The priest was silent ; but while he compressed his thin, tight lips, a look of anger or bitter contempt passed over his usually cool, collected features. Father Garnet was more of a politician than a bigot or enthusiast. He had placed young Cunnyngham in a situation he now saw he was incompetent to fill; but he could not remove him without injury or danger to that great cause, to which, though not indifferent to these, he would willingly sacrifice the ties of kindred or friendship. It therefore only remained to manage him in that situation, so as to turn him to the best advantage, and prevent him from being the cause of injury. Garnet well knew the nature he had to deal with— from childhood it had been chiefly under his guidance; but in order to direct it as he wished, it was necessary he should know the state of the young man's mind at the present period. A slight insight into this had been afforded to him by the con- versation of the miller at Guy's Cliff; and to act on this hint, without appearing to desire to dive into his secret feelings, was now his object : so avoiding any remark on the ejaculation he had heard, he said calmly — " Thy sister is come, Herbert." " Blanche ! where ? Shall I see her ? Will she come here ?** Herbert inquired. " She is at Mr. Catesby's for the present. I would not wish you to come there now; Lord St. Clare,'* the priest added satirically, "might consider him a dangerous acquaintance for you. Blanche will shortly remove to Sir Everard Digby's; there you must visit her, and Lord St. Clare, if he wishes it, can also do so. But, my dear son, time presses. I have risked much to see you, and yet have little to communicate : one hing, however, it would ill become me to leave unsaid. In these times, when our holy religion is proscribed and persecuted, even the most faithful are compelled to be remiss in their spiritual duties: thus the conscience becomes burthened, and not being guided by ghostly counsel, and purified by confession, and relieved by absolution, — error, unbelief, and sorrow dwell withm the soul, and often lead to lamentable lengths of sin and 92 COOMBE ABBEY. guilt, if not to utter and final ruin. For this end chiefly have I sought thee, son, that I might afford that ghostly comfort which is specially needed whilst thou art living in a nest of heretics. Come, then, to confession, and receive my blessing." Herbert Cunnyngham shrunk from the duty to which he was urged — he trembled at its performance, but he could not decline it. Finally, the secrets and feelings of his inmost heart were as well known to the Jesuit as to himself. The questions judiciously put, and exhortations awfully given, which on other occasions might excite indignation at their prying and searching character, or their uncompromising nature, must now be con- sidered as proofs of priestly zeal and anxiety for the penitent's spiritual good. And, after all, when Herbert thought the pain- ful task was over, the priest inquired if there was nothing he had left untold. The emphasis on the word awoke a very imeasy sensation ; and, while silent, he feared his silence would be inter- preted into an admission of what he dared not distinctly deny. " Consider yet again, my son," said the priest. " I know thou wilt be faithful, but thou hast long been living in a dangerous state ; the conscience, unabsolved, becomes hardened, and the mind darkened : it is possible that all has not been told ^t once, and no absolution is valid unless free confession be made. Before, therefore, the pardon of the church can be pronounced, it is needful to repose all that weighs upon your mind within her faithful bosom.'* A sigh — almost a groan — burst from the young man*s strug- gling heart; for that which lay heaviest there he dared not utter to the confessor. " I know it, son — I know it," Garnet said, after a short silence ; " but I would fain give thee the benefit of free con- fession. It matters not, however, for I know thy heart would not conceal that which thy lip trembles to utter. You love this Edith St. Clare ?" " I may have sinned, father," he replied, " yet penance is in vain ; for in this instance 1 cannot repent." Soft and yielding natures, when peculiarly attracted to one particular point, often exhibit a tenacity that stronger dis- COOMBE ABBEY. 93 positions do not. Herbert Cunnyngham's was one of these. To him female society might have peculiar charms ; but he had been brought up, under the guidance of priests, in a state of perhaps more than monkish seclusion. Even the society of his en- thusiastic sister, which he was sometimes allowed to enjoy, had given him little idea of the happy, softening, and gladdening influence that was breathed around a circle, of which such a girl as the home-trained Edith St. Clare was the centre. Life had ever presented to him a stern and barren prospect, and all the softer affections his nature possessed had found no object whereon to rest, while trained in the idea of devoting himself tvholly to a purpose for which that nature was ill adapted. The restitution of his fallen religion, the avenging of what were termed his father's wrongs, and recovery of his own rights — these were the objects which Garnet, who acted as his guardian, laboured, either in his own person or that of his coadjutors, to impress upon his mind ; and though so wholly devoted to the interests of his church as to allow no secular feeling to come into competition with these, he had not entirely lost sight of his own personal animosity against Lord St. Clare. Their boyish feuds at Winchester, and their subsequent collisions, were not forgotten: the remembrance of these were stimulated by after, occurrences, and embittered by the fact that as the nobleman jose the Jesuit fell ; and the idea that he had now acquired an influence over a mind that had been from boyhood prejudiced against him, was as wounding to the feelings, as it was disap- pointing to the hopes, of the priest. But Garnet possessed too keen an insight into character generally, and too full a knowledge of Cunnyngham's in par- ticular, to let this be apparent to the erring disciple, whom afteir all his careful nurture, he saw himself in some danger of losing. The state of the young man's mind was open to his gaze, and while deep displeasure and even contempt were excited by the view, he quietly replied — " They who are most superior to human weaknesses are ever the most lenient to them. As to thy fair cousin I ask thee not to repent of that — it may be a boyish whim which would be re- 94 COOMBE ABBEY. linquished as soon as the prospect of gratifying it appeared ; yet circumstances might render such an union as thou wouldst desire perhaps expedient ; the ties of affinity, it is true, would require a dispensation, but this might be obtained as a reward of thy obe- dience, and in consideration of the advantages gained to the great cause for which alone, in these times, we ought to live, and for which we should ever be prepared to die. " It is true that thou, my son, hast lost sight of that high and holy mission for which thy life was a preparation, and to fulfil which alone was the object of thy return hither : it is true, Herbert, that the memory of thy father's tragic end — of thy equally murdered mother's dying charge — have faded away amid the softening pleasures of that abode which was thy own ances- tral home, of which the heretical tyrants of this once glorious but now fallen land have deprived thyself and noble sister, and from which the present possessor would ever exclude thee save as a temporary dependant on his charitable hospitalities. This is true : yet for this I blame thee not ; nature is frail, and the temptation to ease, to forgetfulness, to the enjoyment of present pleasure, great ; in this thou hast fallen ; but of this I feel thou wilt repent, nor suiFer the silken net of present pleasure, the soft seductions of carnal gratifications, to cause thee to wander blindfold into the blackness of darkness for ever, exposing thy- self to the withering malediction of the church in this life, and everlasting perdition in the life to come — the irremediable woe reserved for those who, in wilful disobedience, wander from the only true fold." A thrill of unspeakable anguish shook the young man's frame. " Father," he said, after a pause at the end of Garnet's speech, " I have been weak, but I have not fallen away so much as you appear to think. I have not, even in thought, abandoned the church or its cause." " The saints be praised, my dear son, that your thought has not sinned," replied the priest. " But henceforth beware of the snares of Satan, for they are thickly spread around you. Remember the power that is given to the church for the destruc- tion of all evil, and watch over your secret heart lest such COOMBE ABBEY. 95 poisonous seeds should be sown therein as must hereafter cause thee pain and grief in exterminating. For this end mortification is needful ; and for the past penance must be undergone, or the safety of your soul be endangered.'* The penance, which was not slight, was then prescribed, and sundry directions for future observance were given ; after which Garnet inquired if Lord St. Clare was acquainted with the pre- ference Cunnyngham felt for his daughter. The tone in which the question was asked — notwithstanding his habitual caution — rendered his anxiety respecting the answer apparent ; for if Lord St. Clare sanctioned Herbert's wishes, he was well aware that his desertion would probably ensue ; and he was relieved even by the muttered, and rather sullen assurance he received from him, that, to the best of his belief, that nobleman had no idea that such a sentiment existed. " It is well for you it is so," Garnet replied ; " for rest assured that you would be banished from his house if it were once sus- pected. I know Lord St. Clare well ; he will never suffer that fair girl to match with one whose name is attainted, and whose portion is poverty and disgrace : while he lives your hopes can never be fulfilled, at least unless the perfect triumph of our cause should reverse your present situation. The consideration of your private happiness, therefore, as well as of your public duty, binds you to the furtherance of the objects to which you are solemnly pledged. Lord St. Clare must fall before you can rise to the height you aspire to. We must part now; Herbert, but, ere we do so, tell me if thou hast ever heard, among thy new friends, of one De Lacy ?" Herbert replied in the negative ; and afterwards added, that he thought he had heard the name casually mentioned about 'Compton Revel. The priest related to him the adventure that had occurred at the bridge of Leamington ; and it appeared that, not being in the least aware of De Lacy's motives, or real sentiments, he had imbibed a strong prepossession in his favour, and was much disposed to make him a convert to their party. " He is a fine, manly youth," he said, " and one whose spirit 96 COOMBE ABBEY. would much serve our cause ; but I know not how he is inclined. I have since heard that he is the orphan son of one of the Irish rebels, as they are called, and, therefore, should certainly be- long to the true faith : but he was brought up by that whimsical man, the late Mr. Rookwood, who suffered him almost to reside at Compton Revel ; and it appears that Lord St. Clare retained him as a sort of companion or attendant to his daughter, and cast him off when he found Mr. Rookwood disappointed his expectations — others say that the young people had formed an attachment which the father sanctioned, but this De Lacy being involved in the Essex affair, and honoured with a lodging in the tower, the noble lord dismissed him from his society. I know not how the ease stands with regard to Lady Edith — perhaps in this respect you are better informed than I am — but if De Lacy's fortunes are as bad as he made them appear, he can stand no chance with Lord St. Clare, and might be fain to cast in his lot with us ; and as his wrongs and provocations appear nearly equal to your own, methinks he might readily be made an auxiliary to our cause." " Whither do you go to-night, Father ?" said Herbert moodily, for Garnet's observations had given him little satisfaction, and he felt unwilling to reply to them. " To Cubbington Grange — Mr. Ambrose Rookwood is our friend." " I will see you thither," the other rejoined in a voice of deep melancholy. " Nay ; I shall be as safe without thy company, my son," the priest replied, while the dawning of a sarcastic smile glimmered round his lip. " We may, you know, be watched." As he uttered the word, a very strange sound was heard, as if from the ground they stood on, and something like the click of* a pistol was instantly followed by the rolling down of a large stone which blocked up an opening in the broken wall. COOMEE ABBEY. 97 CHAPTER VI. BKINa ONLY THE CONCLUSION OF WHAT WENT BEFORE, AND LEAVING A LADY STILL INVOLVED IN A MYSTERY. Impressed with superstitious terrors, Herbert Cunnyngham was rivetted to the spot where he stood ; but the Jesuit, alive to bodily danger, had no thought of visionary fears. Quickly spring- ing from his side, he darted through an opening in the wall, and escaped into the wood ; while his companion, stealing a fearful glance around the building, which was lying in the pale moon- shine, apparently untenanted, uttered an Ave Maria, and with an awe-struck and debilitated mind retreated as rapidly as he could, and pursued the priest, who he found had decamped with too much expedition to be overtaken. As soon as they had both disappeared, William de Lacy issued from one of the many hiding-places known in the days of yore NO. III. H 98 COOMBE ABBEY. to him and Lady Edith St. Clare ; and with folded arms paced several times along the interior of the building. " I have banished them from this quarter for a time, I hope," he said to himself ; " it were well to have their meeting-places more in my own direction, or I may get into a scrape for being off duty. A long day's watching he has given me ; but no matter, I will watch over you, Edith, and your proud but still worthy father." That another plot — which had for its object the subverting of the Protestant government, the overthrow of the Protestant hier- archy, and the re-establishment of the papal religion — was pro- jected by the Roman Cat^iolics, and that on a formidable scale, was an idea very generally entertained, not only by many consi- derate persons in England, but on the Continent ; and intelligence to that effect was imparted to the British government by King James's newly-made ally, the king of France. De Lacy was aware that something of the kind was appre- hended, but still he did not suppose that it had its principal seat in the very neighbourhood in which he was most interested, and that the lives and fortunes of those dearest to his heart, instead of being as he feared individually threatened, were in fact only to be involved in the common ruin. That the priest, though the prime mover in this, was only one of a party, he plainly understood ; and though it would have been easy for him to have seized and delivered him to the justice of the government, he felt that he was unfurnished with proof to substantiate his charges ; and were he even able to do this, the loss, though great to his party, would be easily supplied, and effect no alteration in their scheme, while he should lose this singular means of tracing their proceedings. With regard to Cunnyngham, while satisfied that he was made a tool in the hands of more designing persons, he felt much embarrassed how to act. Nothing had transpired in the interview he had just wit- nessed, that threw any light on the liature of the plot, or the pro- bable time of its execution. The discourse — at least such parts of COOMBE ABBEY. 99 it as had reached his ear — had been on private topics, and these were of a nature that made De Lacy feel it a delicate matter for him to lay them before Lord St. Clare ; who, while he could produce no evidence of his sincerity, might impute his zeal against his nephew to a wrong cause, and believe he was actuated by personal and interested motives in seeking to remove him from the family. " So I must act, and not talk, for the present," said William ; and then looking out over the quiet fields to where the dark walls of Compton Revel rose up in the clear light that rested on the top of the thick wood, a smile, like that of calm and fond affec- tion, dwelt on his countenance, as he sighed the words — " Poor Edith ! — even that weak, half-monkish youth cannot help loving thee — is it marvellous that I, who have never known other affec- tion — I, who am separated from all the kindred ties of life — that I should have no earthly object but to live for thee, or with thee?" But William started on remembering the hasty promise he had given her father, and which he had already mentally broken in spirit a thousand times, although steadily resolved to adhere to it in the letter. " Well, Master Cunnyngham is now breathing after his race, and beginning to hope no spectre is at his heels ; so I will join poor Loxley, who, mayhap, is still more tired of his day's work than I am ; and a hard ride will scantily bring me to Coombe in time to appear at prayers, which ought to be the case when, as good Lord Harrington and our little lady say, * if God be for us, who then can be against us ?' " And away went De Lacy, with as light a step and cheerful a bearing as if no weighty care lay at his heart, and a prospect not enveloped in gloom, but beaming hope, security, and gladness, lay before him and his friends. The usually cheerful meal of supper — which, in those primi- tive times, at Compton Revel, was between seven and eight o'clock — was delayed in expectation of Herbert's joining it ; he 100 COOMBE ABBEY. came not, however j but when Lady Edith, who had been too full of anxiety either to partake of it, or to converse as usual with her father, was leaving the room, she encountered him in the passage, as he was stealing away to his own apartment. The taper she carried showed his pale and haggard countenance, to which his long, silken hair, now damp with the evening air, gave an expression of almost womanly softness ; his head was bent down upon his breast, and a look of sorrow was coupled with with one that almost amounted to a sense of self-degradation. On meeting her abruptly, he started, and would have retreated, but the conflict his mind had undergone almost deprived him of the power of doing so ; and leaning his back to the wall, he pressed his hands upon his forehead, and appeared so ill, that all his cousin's anxieties and displeasure were converted into sym- pathy for his state. Catching his arm she drew him within the door of the room beside which they stood, and was about to summon the servants, when Herbert prevented her purpose, and requested to be left alone. " Not alone, cousin," said Edith, soothingly ; " if you will have no other attendants let me stay by you a little time," and she bent over the couch on which he reclined, and bathed his temples from a bottle of water that stood near. " Dear Herbert, do trust in me," she continued, as, kneeling on the fauld-stool, she looked with a face full of pleading and earnest affection into his. " Tell me what it is that thus oppresses you ? you will find me faithful, if you require faithful- ness." " Edith," cried Cunnyngham, '< if you would not deepen a thousand times the anguish I endure, forbear such language. I must hate you." " Alas ! alas !" cried Lady Edith, wiping away her tears, " it is as I feared ; that dreadful scene is not forgotten ; and you cannot — perhaps dare not — love those who love you. Oh ! Her- bert, surely the feelings of nature and religion both argue against the contiimance of such unhappy thoughts ? God requires us to COOMBE ABBEY* 101 love all men, even those who di^er-frcra us-in, faith f and, surely, the blessed religion of Jesus Christy wliicH sl'on^ we aro ^all Miind to follow, does not teach us to hate even those who despitefuUy use and persecute us. Do not, then, do not, I conjure you, suffer your heart to be steeled against those who would receive you into theirs." A groan was Herbert Cunnyngham's only answer ; and Lady Edith, who felt for him all a sister's kind fondness, was totally unconscious of the manner in which her words were felt, or the construction that might be put upon her ardent language. "Edith," he said, in a tone whose depth told of a powerful struggle within his breast, " leave me, or you will plunge me into endless ruin !" Horror-struck, the poor girl sprang from her kneeling posture. " Let me call my father !" she cried. " No !" was the answer. " Give me leave, then, to tell him what passed this morning," she demanded, seeming almost as much offended as alarmed. " No : you have promised not." " Well, Herbert, I will speak no more," said Edith, recurring to all her former doubts. " You know your own heart better than I do : but this I must say, if you draw me into any error through this concealment — if you deceive me, and thus make me an involuntary means of furthering what I would prevent, you will never know a peaceful mind. You may doubt me, cousin, and probably mistake my motives, imputing to woman's idle curiosity my importunity to be admitted into your secrets ; whereas it proceeds solely from the anxiety I feel for your safety and welfare — an anxiety that must be felt while I know you carry on a secret intercourse with one who ought to come openly to see you here ; — one for whom I once felt a very peculiar — a very sincere regard. I mean one " "Whomc?o you mean?" Herbert demanded, uncovering his 102 COOMBE ABBEY. face; and loqkjng^up.in seme ajiarm? wondering how she could ha^e ielt' this rega/d tor tha^ Jesuit. " I mean William — Captain de Lacy," replied Lady Edith. " De Lacy !" he ejaculated : but the priest's conversation occurred to him, and with some displeasure he added, " What know you of De Lacy, Lady Edith ? and why is he the object of such regard ?" Lady Edith cast down her eyes and blushed, before she answered — "He once was, cousin — that is, he possessed the regard both of my father and myself : but he left us, I believe, in some little displeasure, because my father felt it right to acquaint him with his sentiments respecting the course he feared he was inclined to pursue. My father once seemed as fond of him almost as he is of me ; but latterly he imagined he was of an unsettled disposition, and very likely to join in the schemes which, in these unsettled times, cause so much trouble in the land, and of which my father entertains so much horror. The only ground I know of for such ideas is, that he suffered himself to be in some degree involved in danger, through his love for the gallant Earl of Essex. I thought that, had he remained with us, or, at least, preserved our acquaintance, he might have been safe from any further implication in these wild and wicked schemes ; but my father thought otherwise, I suppose, or else William was too much offended with what he said — I know not exactly how it was that he so quickly and entirely withdrew from us ; but I thought he was still abroad, until I saw him at the edge of the close this morning, when you, I suppose, were attracted to meet him by the signal of that red handkerchief which made you at first so nervous : but I did not think he woidd have acted a secret, or un- worthy part — at least, not with any one so connected with us." Lady Edith ceased ; and her cousin, who had never withdrawn a fixed and anxious gaze full into a face that usually expressed COOM3E ABBEy. 103 all the feelings of the mind, covered his again with his hand, drew a long breath, but was silent. Edith waited for some observation, and rather 4^y provoked at his determined secrecy, added — " Did he not tell you he had been on intimate terms with us ?" " No," was the only re- ply- " Strange ! yet you saw him twice here to-day ? — owcc, certainly ; did you not, cousin ?" Herbert was silent; and Edith, deeply mortified, hastily said — " Pardon my solicitude : it shall not again annoy you. It is to you — you only, I would show it ; because I would not have you led into what is wrong by means of — of — Captain de Lacy." Edith at last articulated the word, and something like a sob followed it. A deadly pang of jealousy was gnawing at Herbert's heart ; for all the time she was speaking he could not help fearing the interest she showed in him might be for the sake of another ; and he persuaded himself, that Garnet's safety obliged him to leave her in doubt as to whether De Lacy was the person he met this evening, and under the idea that the signal of the morning had been made by him ; and so he replied ambiguously, but in a kinder manner — " Fear not for me, sweet cousin, on this man's account ; trust me, it is not likely he will lead me wrong : and for thyself, accept all I can offer — the deep thanks of a miserable, but most grate- ful heart." Lady Edith pressed the hand he extended between both of 104 COOMBE ABBEY. hers, and, in further token of reconciliation, received a fervent kiss on them ; and then hastily withdrawing to her chamber, she again sought relief in pouring out her heart to One who, knowing it better than she did, was able to guide her in the way she ought to go. COOMBE ABBEY. 105 CHAPTER VII. LEAMINGTON PBIOBS IN 1604 — ITS VICARAGE AND VICAE — A BATHER GRAVE DISCUSSION CONNECTED THEBEWITH. William de Lacy began to find himself in a very unpleasant predicament. A little knowledge is very seldom of much utility ; and the knowledge that matters are going wrong, without sufficient knowledge to set them right, is nearly useless, and altogether unpleasant knowledge. The knowledge that your dearest friends are in danger, without the knowledge requisite to save or warn them, is just sufficient to render you miserable without rendering them more comfortable. We might multiply aphorisms, but these are enough for our purpose — which is, to show that William de Lacy was in a very unpleasant predicament. Two steps he might take — First, he might seize the persons who, he knew, had evil designs in view, and deliver them over to justice ; but how was he to substantiate his charges ? or what charges had he to substantiate ? Here his knowledge failed him. There was mischief afoot, but what it was he knew not. The next step was, to acquaint Lord St. Clare. But of what ? — that his nephew was a designing person. But where was the proof ? Lord St. Clare would find it in the fact that William de Lacy was jealous of Herbert Cunnyngham ; and all the evidence that the aforesaid William de Lacy could furnish would only go to establish the point, that he had heard it currently reported that 106 COOMBE ABBEY. the said Herbert Cunnyngham was now the protegi of his lord- ship, and the ^he knew not what, of his daughter. Thus reasoned William with himself, and his reasonings ended where they had begun — in perplexity. Now, there are in the world very many characters whose existence is scarcely recognised by the society around them, until some events of distress, embarrassment, or difficulty, bring them before individual minds as the best person to have recourse to for assistance, comfort, orwdirection. Just such a character was the vicar of Leamington Priors ; and to him did the thoughts of William de Lacy turn as the best, or indeed the only person in whose friendship he could confide, and by whose advice he might safely be guided. Mr. Villars was one of the improved order of lower clergy which, in the latter days of Queen Elizabeth, began to be common in the Church of England. It followed, as a necessary consequence of a reformation at best in part compulsory, being established by law, that many of the clergy of the Romish church changed their creed in order to retain their benefices ; and thus with them retained much of " the old superstition," as the exploded mode of worship was generally designated. Perhaps, in many cases, the most really conscientious of the secular clergy, if not among the monastic orders, were those who refused conformity and were expelled. Enlightened and intelligent men were not always found to fill benefices thus vacated, before Oxford and Cambridge sent forth a clergy trained from youth in the principles of Protestantism ; and between a secret leaning to the former worship on the part of many who conformed to the new, and an ignorance of nearly all religion on that of many who supplied the places of the expelled clergy, the state of the church in general undoubtedly contributed to the extensive progress of the sect known by the term of Puritans, and who usually have been obliged to bear COOMBE ABBEY. 107 all the odium of events with which later sectaries are more justly chargeable. Among these, as they existed in the reign of Elizabeth, some of the best divines and writers of the day were to be found ; many of them at that period only desired to see a more complete change effected in the dress and ceremonies of the Established Church ; which they said their adversaries considered as things indifferent, and therefore might dispense with, but which they regarded with horror as remnants of what they termed popish abominations and idolatry. The surplice, the use of the sign of the cross in baptism, and the ring in marriage, they loudly denounced, affirming that if these and such like things were exploded, they were ready to subscribe to the Articles and close up the Protestant schism. It would have been well had their language continued always as moderate even as this. We did not, however, mean to write a polemical discussion. The mists of controversy would be still darker to enter into than those in which William de Lacy was involved when we wandered away from the path which should have led us by this time to the vicarage of Leamington. What link in the curious chain of thought are we now to return to ? What were we speaking of that led us to the puri- tans ? Oh ! it was that the good vicar was one of the improved order of lower clergy. And such we are sure our readers will find him. The age that produced Jewel, Hooker, Hall, Andrews, Whit- gift, and many other luminaries, cannot be deemed destitute of learning and piety in the church ; but the body of men now known in England by the term of " the working clergy," became very different when, after having studied at the universities the doctrines of the reformed religion, they preached them of good- will ; and this desirable state of things progressing, enabled Elizabeth's successor to complete the most glorious work of his reign, the translation of the Holy Scriptures. A specimen of this improved order was the vicar of Leaming- 108 COOMBE ABBEY. ton. That small hamlet was only a dependency on the neigh- bouring parish of Wooton, but it suited the tastes of Mr. Villars, a man of humble and deep piety; much devoted also to learning and retirement ; who, when his fair pupil no longer needed his learned labours, found there, as the pastor of a very small and simple flock, sufficient leisure to attend to the studies he loved, without neglecting the souls committed to his pastoral charge. Such is, perhaps, the natural and original description of a pastor's state. In the increase of population and extension of spiritual charges, the office of pastor has been nearly lost in that of minister. De Lacy stopped at the door of the humble cottage that was then the vicarage of Leamington Priors. It was a pretty little cot, with a wide lattice window at each side of the door, and a third smaller one peeping out from an angle in the roof. It stood a very little distance from the lowly church ; opposite to which, on the bank of the river, lay the ruined dwelling of the COOMBE ABBEY. 109 priests ; and a little in the rear of both was the old mill, rushing on with its pleasant noise, and scattering white spray over the willow-boughs that bordered the bright green meadow. It was a place for peace — a place, thought William de Lacy, wherein tranquilly to prepare for heaven, without knowing aught of the world that makes its rest and purity so dear. He alighted, and, bending beneath the portal, found seated in a small room, covered in all directions with books and papers, a man whose mind and acquirements might adorn a mitre. Mr. Villars was sitting in the clerical dress then always worn by ecclesiastics, (it is to be regretted it was ever disused,) before a table, just opposite to the door, with a large book laid open upon it. He gazed in some surprise at the rather stately figure that stood before him. He arose, still looking doubtfully ; years had passed since they had met, for at De Lacy's last visit to Cubbington Grange he had been absent. But as he looked into those eyes, their smile was the same it had been years ago, and the vicar murmured — " My dear little boy, is this you ?" The tone of voice, as well as the epithets bestowed on him, changed De Lacy's smile to a laugh, as he clasped the good man's hand, and cried — " It is, indeed, your little boy, most valued and revered sir ; and thankful am I to see one countenance that looks upon me as it did when I was a happy boy." This remark led, sooner than might otherwise have been the case, to some inquiries and explanations concerning the visitor's career since the period to which he alluded. And the vicar, who had heard a rather unsatisfactory account of his proceedings and misfortunes, was pleased to hear his own straightforward recital. This ended, William explained the object of his visit, relating the adventure at Flushing, and all that had since occurred in connection with that affair. Mr. Villars listened with an interest that deepened as the speaker proceeded; and when he ended, inquired what purpose he supposed those persons had in view. IIO COOMBE ABBEY. De Lacy replied that the only purpose he could attribute to them was in some way to destroy Lord St. Clare, and perhaps his family, and then, by means unknown to him, to have young Cunnyngham put into possession of his property, and perhaps restored to his rank. "No William," said the vicar, after a moment's thought, " something, perhaps, of private malice or of private interest may mingle in this aifair, whatever it be ; but of this I am per- suaded, there is far more in it than you suppose; although I admit that your apprehension is replete with interest and alarm to us both, on account of those we so justly value. But my opinion is, that these mysterious proceedings are connected with some scheme far more extensive and important in its nature than the ruin or the restitution of one or two individual families." " I am aware," De Lacy answered, " that a belief is generally entertained on the Continent that another plot for the subversion of the government is at present brooding ; but all is so peaceable, the most irksome restrictions withdrawn, and the king apparently so amicably disposed towards the complaining party, that I am slow to believe that, of all times, the present would give rise to such." " Your life, young friend," said the vicar, "has been too stirring to allow of much reflection upon the aspect of the times, or permit you to trace the probable result of things. Though withdrawn entirely from the atmosphere of politics, and civil as well as ecclesiastical intrigues, I have watched with an interest, I trust not unbecoming my sacred calling, the late and present course of affairs, and thus, if you will, 1 would give you my view of them." De Lacy bowed respectfully his acquiescence, and the vicar went on. " The inflexible policy of Elizabeth was the means, under Divine Providence, of preserving her kingdom, promoting its glory, and maintaining the Protestant religion. The time-serving policy and narrow principles which dictate present measures COOMBE ABBEY. Ill appear as much opposed to those which have rendered her reign glorious in the annals of our country, as does her character to that of her successor/' " The timidity of our most gracious sovereign," said De Lacy, smiling, " is a matter of too much notoriety to be gainsayed, even by those who serve him." " Yet that very timidity should warn him from the course he has pursued," resumed the vicar; "he has flattered into new vigour a spirit long and harshly repressed, and then ventured to disappoint it. But let me treat this subject in order, William, and I will give you my opinion of past and present politics, that you may see in what position oiur country stands, and thus, per- haps, discover a clew to the reports you have heard on the Con- tinent, and to the mysterious circumstances you have witnessed. " The genius of England is Protestant ; its people are essen- tially the children of freedom ; the shackles of papal power were often resisted, and even gladly thrown off. Queen Mary had much greater difficulty in re-establishing popery than her sister found in re-establishing Protestantism. The names of the martyrs and confessors will testify to this : for while, during three years of the former reign, about three hundred persons were burnt for what was termed heresy, it is the boast of the late government that notwithstanding the imperious, hasty, and unfeminine dis- position of the queen, not one person suffered death solely for religion, but for treason. None of the martyrs of Mary had plotted against her crown or life ; all who suffered under Elizabeth were implicated in such practices. Her accession was hailed with joy by almost all classes : her sentiments were well known, but mildness and prudence directed her first move- ments ; and for the first eight or ten years of her reign she met no opposition. The pope and the king of Spain, afterwards her inveterate enemies, sought to conciliate her ; Paul IV. and Pius IV. were both deaf to the arguments of those who wished her to be excommunicated, as a heretic and usurper. " Matters then went on peaceably in England ; there were 112 COOMBE ABBEY. few, if any, recusants; the people. Catholics and Protestants, attended the churches, and joined in the same prayers. During one session of parliament the whole form of religion, without clamour or violence, had been altered ; the mass abolished, and the liturgy, as arranged under King Edward, established by law, which forbade all persons to absent themselves from the service of the church under fear of penalty. One of the first acts of Pope Pius V. in, I think, the tenth year of her reign, was to fulminate a sentence of excommunication against the queen of England ; and to decree it lawful to kill her, or deprive her of her crown. From this time one conspiracy followed another, and in all some of the priests and emissaries of Rome were implicated. This fairly accounts for the seemingly tyrannic power by which she kept down the influence that would have been fatal to her. " The house of Tudor was distinguished by a love of arbitrary sway, yet Elizabeth loved to rule on the principles of justice ; and while with an iron grasp she repressed the spirit of popery, her wisdom was manifested and her safety ensured. Had she temporised, herself, her kingdom, and her religion would have been lost. " If her name, then, in future years shall be branded with some acts of severity, let her also have the glory of placing England high among the nations, not only because she displays to them the wreath of victory, but because she unfurls before them the banner of Protestantism." In our own times it is very curious to see how the arena of controversy at once seems to transform men, whatever be their trade or calling, into military champions and death-dealing heroes. To hear the speeches or read the fulminations of con- troversial divines, we fancy the gown and the Bible exchanged for the casque and " sounding shield." The gaimtlet is thrown ; the challenge given ; the trumpet sounded ; the lance couched — nay, a whole " broadside" is generally poured, or to be poured, by one single combatant against one single adversary. COOMBE ABBEY. 113 Tropes and figures borrowed from war and battle appear identified with discussions that have the investigation of religious truth for their object. It is very strange that it should be so, and very strange to see a reverend divine or learned doctor trans- formed for the time being into the champion of a long-past epoch. The days of Coeur de Lion are recalled to our fancy when we read in our papers or hear on our platforms the address of the Rev. Mr. to the Rev. Doctot . Now, this being the case in our unwarlike times, it is just possible that had the good vicar of Leamington, although a man of refined taste, pro- ceeded a little further in the cause of " Elizabeth against Mary," William de Lacy might have heard more military sounds echoing through that little apartment than he had done before the walls of Cadiz. As it was, the "wreath of victory" and "banner of Pro- testantism" had brought a brightness to the reverend speaker's eye and a flush to his cheek: but, happily for his listener — for men seldom like their own profession trenched upon, and men of war speak less bravely and with less excitement of what' attaches naturally to their calling — the old housekeeper, who, because she had a little of the palsy in her head, and was therefore unfit for any other service, the vicar retained as his sole charge d'affaires, slowly opened the door at his back, and not being able at all to comprehend the unusual occurrence of her master having a visitor when his dinner was ready, mumbled the announcement of that homely fact, just as the vicar, warming with the view of Elizabeth's glory, was in danger of forgetting that his object simply had been to give his young friend his opinion of the political aspect of the present day. Deprecating the simplicity of his meal after the royal viands he now shared in, he yet invited De Lacy to partake of it. " A soldier's meal is usually a changeable one, worthy sir," said the latter ; " they say we eat horse-flesh in Ireland, though NO. III. I 114 COOMBE ABBEY. in truth I cannot boast of that ; but whatever be the fare before me, seasoned with such discourse it must be acceptable." " Hah ! boy, thou hast learned to flatter in foreign parts," said his host, and with the words led the way to his board of primitive simplicity. But we shall neither describe the meal nor the discourse with which it was seasoned to De Lacy's taste, because some old chronicles might assert that, notwith- standing the guest's political anxieties, he found it more sea- sonable to draw that discourse to more private topics, wherein the name of Edith St. Clare occurred more frequently than those of Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, or even King James. We, however, shall convey our readers from the dinner-table of the vicar of Leamington, and from all its accompaniments, to a very different scene, and rather different conversation. COOMBE ABBEY. 115 CHAPTER VIII. A BROTHEE AND SISTER S MEETING. After his interview with the priest, Herbert Cunnyngham became much more reserved and solitary in his habits and manners than he had been before. At times, indeed, there would be a sudden reverse in these : he would seem, at some moments, to give way to bursts of feelings usually restrained, if not suppressed, and on other occasions to yield himself to the enjoyments that surrounded him ; but after these relaxations his gloom would be tenfold, and breaking away from the society of his cousin, he would either shut himself up in the solitude of his own chamber, or wander into that of the adjacent woods. To her his behaviour was both perplexing and distressing; and she resolved to express to her father the fear she felt that some painful cause existed for the singularity of his demeanour. Lord St. Clare was totally unaffected by her apprehensions : good-naturedly resolved to like his nephew, he saw nothing in his manner but what might justly be attributed to the unhappy circumstances of his birth and education; and fully resolved to befriend him, only waited the opportunity of doing so in the best way. Her father's indifference to her representations did not in- 116 COOMBE ABBEY. duce Lady Edith to resign them ; yet she was relieved by knowing he did not participate in them. Although still quite ignorant of the true reason of De Lacy's precipitate departure from Compton Revel — at least, so far as it in any degree related to herself, some unknown cause made her always forbear to mention his name. On the present occasion she could not without imperative necessity do so; for she knew her father's prejudice, and unless it were certain that he held a dangerous as well as secret intercourse with her cousin, she could not bear to strengthen a dislike which until now she had always believed time would remove. Lady Edith had too much good sense to resign herself to sorrow ; but she certainly did not feel so happy as she used to do when she believed in full simplicity that "William's character was all that her good and able tutor had wished to render it, and that the establishment of that character would sooner or later force her father to resign his doubts, and restore her to the society which she undoubtedly did greatly miss. Her cousin, so far from supplying, made her feel that loss continually ; for while Lady Edith was conscious that the only pleasures Herbert appeared to enjoy were those which were in some way connected with herself, and while she saw that to give her pleasm*e was the only thing that brought a ray of happiness to his face, the contrast between him and De Lacy was so strong as continually to force back recollections of her former friend, even after these recollections ceased to be purely pleasurable. The idea that De Lacy was in the neighbourhood, and in the habit of meeting her cousin, was strongly fixed in her mind : for Herbert wishing, in consequence of what passed with the priest, to absent himself as much as possible from the too- pleasing society he found at Compton Revel, now seldom joined her in her usual walks or rides, but spent hours together in COOMBE ABBEY. 117 the thick woods which at that time nearly covered the sur- rounding country ; and not knowing how he was engaged, Edith became so apprehensive of meeting him with De Lacy, especially when in company with her father, that she suspended her customary active exercises, and confined her rambles to the immediate vicinity of the house. It was a soft sunny day in the very beginning of April: the primroses were thickly peeping up through the withered leaves that covered the matted grass of the wood, where, with folded arms and head declined, Herbert Cunnyngham sauntered slowly, feeling that dark and dismal contrast in the little world within, which makes the glad reviving spring of external nature appear more melancholy than its decay. The noble stag looked at him boldly, ere it bounded away, but did not attract his notice; the quick : . „^ patting step of the gen- tle deer continually passed him unheard ; the squirrels twisted, and twirled, and chat- tered in the boughs over his head ; — - all created things were alive and joyful, and he was lost in the re- gion of his own mind. It was at that moment divided by the two most powerful and engrossing emotions that can agitate human nature — natural affection, or human love ; and spiritual fear. Educated, partially from infancy, and decidedly from his ninth year, as the slave of superstition ; — taught that an im- plicit or blind obedience to his spiritual masters ensured sal- vation ; — accustomed to tremble at the church's denunciations, and to fear a priestly malediction as that which cast the 118 COOMBE ABBEY. deadliest, most withering blight over every temporal and eternal hope, — he had fallen, for the first time, a prey to a passion that threatened to expose him to all the evils he had learned to dread, and to urge him to the disobedience he had been taught to shun. There were yet darker and heavier thoughts even than these presented to him ; for conscience said he loved one whom he had vowed to hate, and he would die to preserve those whom he had been trained to believe it a merit to destroy. It is written in the book of eternal truth — " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth on him might not perish, but have everlasting Hfe." And had that very heart received this message of reconciliation, how different would have been its feelings in all temporal and all eternal things ? He would have known that the Gospel which brought peace to earth and proclaimed good-will to men, never inculcated those precepts, on obedience to which he was taught to think present and everlasting peace depended. Seated on a fallen tree, Herbert continued, not to think, but - .-. to abandon his mind to its own --.-^^^^i "^V.) "