Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/505

 24, 1863.] “He would be a madman who should trust the exiles in Holland,” observed a grey-headed man who sat under the pulpit. “How many of them have betrayed members of the late plot whom they had first incited to conspiracy, keeping from them the aim against the lives of the Popish princes?”

“Hear me!” Florien continued: “and remember that those exiles are of various quality. John Locke is one of them.”

“Is he one of the movers you tell of?”

“I know not: but I know that he is as malcontent as any. When he learned that, by the King’s order, his name was blotted out of the books of his college, he said that this was equal to a command to take up the work from which Lord Shaftesbury had been released by death; and that he was an Englishman no more till an Englishman’s birthright of liberty was restored. It was not of him, however, that I rose to speak; but of others of whose transactions I will say no further word, if inquiry is made, directly or indirectly, about their names.”

“Speak on,” said the preacher; and his words were echoed by many.

“Certain of those Protestant patriots are now on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, waiting on Edmund Ludlow, to ask him to be their leader in cleansing the throne of England from Popery.”

A murmur of enthusiasm ran through the congregation. A voice here and there said that the Lord’s people would see the face of the Lord Protector’s old friend again before they died; while others feared that Ludlow would not be again brought forth from his retreat.

“He has steadily declared,” said Florien, “that he has fulfilled his part; and that it is for young men, and citizens who cannot be charged with the blood of a king, to save Protestant England, if indeed she may be saved.”

“What next, if he refuses?” asked the preacher.

“There is the choice,” Florien went on, “among the late and present King’s Protestant children. Of these there are three,—yes, three,” he repeated, so loudly that those near him pulled his cloak, to remind him to moderate his voice. He did so; and the more distant hearers stood up and leaned forward, and pressed upon one another, to catch every word.

“Lord Shaftesbury, we know, held information that the late King had gone through a private but legal form of marriage with the mother of the Duke of Monmouth. Some credit this, and some do not. The question is whether to use this uncertainty to press on the demand for the son of Charles being King, or to turn from him to the daughters of James and their husbands. Such was the question; but the King’s death has wrought strongly.”

“Which way?”

“It has brought evidences of the love of the people for the Duke such as might excite and determine a man of another quality of mind; but he has wavered much; and something is said about an oath which is in the way. Nay,—the terms of the oath I know not; nor the circumstances of it. It is rumoured to be in exchange for the countenance of the Prince and Princess of Orange, and for the princely maintenance they have afforded him.”

Here some questions arose, and a few groans, about the unholy fashion of life of the young Duke, as reported by travellers from the Hague, and by Dutch merchants in London,—the masques, the gay skating parties on the ice, the new dances from England, figured forth in painted halls this very winter, and There might have been more of such scandal, but for the peremptory command of silence from the pulpit. The preacher declared that it was not God’s will that England should lapse to Rome, while search was made for a prince who had forsworn courtly vanities and usages; and no one knew but that this young princely soul might be saved by such a task as the redemption of England being appointed to it. The present might be the precious hour for saving prince and kingdom both. But how were the eyes of the Prince and Princess of Orange to be blinded, and their ears to be stopped to these movements at the Hague? The doubt, however, was faithless, and the preacher desired to take back his words. Florien replied that there was no need. The Duke was not now living at the Hague, but at Brussels; and in a retirement which was at present full of grief. One in whom Florien could repose trust had reason to know what the grief had been. Through the long night which had succeeded the arrival of the news of the Duke’s father being dead, and his uncle proclaimed in his place, the groans and sobs of the young man were mournful to hear. Yes, Florien said, his own friend had heard them.

When this point was reached, a common idea seemed to take possession of the preacher and the whole congregation. The discussion was closed by an appointment of three of the elders to meet the preacher to-morrow at a spot beyond five miles from Lyme, to arrange for opening a communication with the exiles,—if not with the highest exile of all. The discourse thus strangely interrupted was resumed for a few minutes,—in order to point out how the Divine blessing had been manifestly bestowed on the opening of this house of prayer,—the congregation having been brought together to hear great tidings of hope in the darkest hour of Popish triumph. An ardent thanksgiving followed; and the general enthusiasm would gladly have found vent in the shouting of a gladsome psalm: but this could not be permitted. Nothing could be allowed in these night meetings but a low chant by a few select voices. It was said that these could scarcely be heard in any neighbouring house; and if they should chance to penetrate to any chamber, they would be as the music of dreams in the ear of the sleeper. Or the devout who solaced the night-watches with prayer might naturally suppose these strains to be the response of spiritual beings, who, as John Milton had said, are wont to walk the earth both when men wake and when they sleep.

The church clock tolled four as the Battiscombes entered their own yard. No one had spoken on the way home; and their hearts were so full that no one seemed inclined to speak in the hall,—except