Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/249

. 21, 1863.] “Just so,” Henrietta agreed. He was a man whose words and character corresponded.

“But you know, Henrietta,” Lucy sagely observed, “if he does not think as our papa does, he cannot be right.”

Henrietta made no reply to this; and the children went on with their catalogue.

Was Cousin Oliver one of the wise men? Henrietta was smiling: but they were not considering whether Cousin Oliver was as good-looking as papa, or as merry and handsomely dressed as Mr. Pym, or as dignified and gentle as Lord Falkland, and Lord Say, and Lord Brook. He certainly wore very ugly clothes, and when he came up from the decoys, after his fowling, he might be taken for one of his own boatmen: but he was very good, for all that; and he might perhaps be very wise.

Yes, the cousins, Mr. Hampden and Mr. Oliver Cromwell, were of one mind on the state of the kingdom.

“And Uncle Oliver?” asked Henrietta, with a half-smile.

Lady Carewe thought it would have been kinder not to bring forward the name of Uncle Oliver. Sir Oliver Cromwell was old; he had made some mistakes in life which had compelled him to leave Hinchinbrooke, and retire into the Fens. It was more respectful to an old and unfortunate gentleman to pass him by in silence than to make inquiry about his wisdom.

“O aunt!” Henrietta exclaimed, “you mistake me utterly. I honour Uncle Oliver more, I believe, than all of you together. He has made no mistake in the main point. He is devoted to his sovereign; and, in my eyes, that virtue atones for mistakes which more thrifty men never make.”

“I am sure that is enough about Uncle Oliver, considering that we never saw him,” Lucy declared. “Why cannot the King and Queen, and so many wise men, settle matters so that there may not be all this quarrelling? I am sure, Henrietta, that you and Harry have been quarrelling again. Ah! you may pretend what you like,—and so may Harry; but we know very well when you have been disputing. Kitty will tell you so. Harry’s face is red, and you look—”

“Lucy, I think you are talking very unkindly,” said Lady Carewe, who had been listening in another direction till her son’s name caught her ear. Lucy was duly abashed.

“I will tell you,” said Henrietta, panting with emotion of some sort, “why the King and these wonderfully wise men cannot settle their quarrel. It is because the wise men will not. They cry out for a parliament—”

“There now, Henrietta! you are speaking of a parliament!”

“I am speaking on behalf of the King,” Henrietta said, with dignity, as if this gave her a right to a topic which all others must avoid. “Those who cry out for a parliament choose to forget that when there was one, it refused the King the money he wanted; and that, if there were to be another, it would be obstinate in its own way, and disoblige and check its sovereign in every possible case.”

“That would be very rude and very wicked,” Nathanael sagely declared. This much support animated Henrietta.

“All this talk about the ship-money, and about the soap, and the beer and wine, and the saltpetre and sedan-chairs, and all the rest of the monopolies, is disgusting,” she declared, “when we all know that the King must have money, like any other gentleman, and more of it—”

“Yes, certainly,” said Nathanael, nodding assent.

“And that if the nation will not give him the means of living, he must take them as he can. There is as much stir about the salt, as if the King was doing something wicked on purpose—”

“So he is,” said Edmund. “You should have heard what the fishermen below were saying about that this morning. When the salt becomes as bad as the soap is now, there will be an end of their trade.”

“Then they should ask themselves how the King can call a parliament which would only contradict and vex him. For my part, I think he is only consulting his own dignity, and what is due to the Queen and her family, in making himself independent of his undutiful people, and showing them how he can do without them.”

“That is a point which remains to be proved,” Edmund Eliot observed. Harry was no longer present, to hear or to reply. When Henrietta began to speak her mind, he had pushed his hat from his brow, and slowly walked away from the party.

“I know I am saying what no one else here will believe,” Henrietta declared, with a slight trembling in her voice. Nathanael came round to her and held her hand; and she kissed his forehead, addressing her remaining words to him.

“When everybody is harsh with a sovereign who is above human judgment,” she said, “it is the right and the duty of even the humblest of his subjects to declare for right and duty. It might be easier to be silent—”

“Not to you surely, Henrietta,” said Alice.

“I think it is easier to Henrietta to speak than to be silent,” Lady Carewe observed with a smile. “But I trust we are all willing that everyone should think and speak his or her own thoughts and feelings. When we are strong for the freedom of the whole country, we must see to it that every one has liberty at home.”

“Thank you, aunt,” Henrietta sighed.

“But that there may be liberty on either part, I must observe that everything that Henrietta has taken for granted in what she has said is the very subject-matter of the controversy between the King and his people. Your father, and Cousin Oliver, and Mr. Pym, Henrietta, are strong in one common conviction as they consult together round the lamp at Hampden, or at St. Ives, or in London: and you are confident of the direct contrary, on the lawn here at sunset, by the sea-side. Be faithful to what you believe; but can you really be displeased with those who differ from you? I do not seek an answer, my love—”

“But, aunt, I must answer. If it is right that kings should be obeyed—”

“That is the very question under the circumstances,” Edmund observed. He would have