Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/436

428 a gentleman who was a mere layman spoke of the Old and of the New Testament, and of a new religion which a man might live and die for. The audacity with which this was adventured proved, Her Majesty thought, that these Puritans were given over to Satan: an opinion strengthened by the observation of some of Her Majesty’s attendants, who declared that neither Mr. Pym nor Mr. Hampden looked as they were wont. There was a fierceness in their countenances and in their discourse which made their own friends remark that they were now the King’s irreconcileable enemies.

With Henrietta, however, Mr. Hampden was not severe. Grave he now was always; stern a man might well be who had been so often trifled with and fierce any Puritan gentleman might be who had seen the word of a King so broken, and the purposes of the highest gentleman in the realm so easily shaken and so deeply depraved by the influence of a woman of strong passions, herself in the hands of a clique of Popish conspirators.

“You see, my daughter,” said Mr. Hampden, when he took Harry’s seat by Henrietta’s couch, “you see what it is to trust persons to whom superstition is more dear than the most indispensable and common virtue. You see what it is to be the messenger and tool of persons to whom power is worth any perfidy. I speak not as one guiltless in this particular. There are but few who have not been beguiled, at one time or another, into some trust or hope that the enemies of our country were repentant, or were becoming reasonable; and of those few I am not one. It is not many weeks since it seemed to me possible that this sore quarrel might be appeased, and even turned to a good use by the yielding of the King to God’s clear Providence; and I might then, but for that mode of Providence which we call accident, have become a minister of the King’s. Therefore I am far from thinking harshly of some things that you have done through a too confident trust in unworthy claimants of our trust. And as for the spirit,—the temper—”

Henrietta bowed her head, and Harry implored that that misery might never be spoken of again. Mr. Hampden replied:

“Far be it from me to speak severely of any loss of the Christian gentleness and candour and grace which are so easy in quiet days. I have trouble enough with my own spirit to pity others who are under the same temptation. Only this, my children,—this one word for you and for myself,—such passion is unholy: it must never prevail again.”

Both thought it never could. They had suffered too much. Harry added in his own mind that the King and Queen were too far disgraced to serve as idols any more; and Henrietta settled it with herself that, as her family could never hear any side but their own, and would never be able to enter into the King’s reasons and feelings, her part was utter silence on royal affairs. She did not herself understand some recent proceedings, and probably she never should. She would withdraw to the country, read no news-letters, interdict political discourse in her own house, devote herself to her child, and never offend her husband more. She must teach her child to pray for the sovereign and the royal house. Nothing could absolve her from that duty: but it should be done in secret, and so as never to offend Harry.

“How does it go with our father, do you think?” Harry asked, when the door had closed upon Mr. Hampden. “How does he look in your eyes, after being hunted for a week as a traitor?”

“Harry,” whispered she, “his looks are such that I was glad when he took this child upon his arm. I hoped the gentle feelings which he seems to have lost would come back again. Surely, Harry, they cannot be lost for ever.”

“I know not,” said Harry. “It is said that where civil war is possible there mercy dies with the first drop of blood that is drawn.”

“Civil war! Is that inevitable? And when and how will blood be drawn? Does Mr. Pym think civil war certain?”

“Not only Mr. Pym, but every sane man thinks so. The first blood does not remain to be shed. Colonel Lunsford cast the die when he drew his sword on the apprentices at Westminster. Yes, it was a low and unworthy beginning; but our trial is that precisely,—the task of contending with the low and unworthy on behalf of what is to every religious citizen noble and precious.”

Henrietta sighed; and hour by hour the best delights of her present happy days were mingled with fear and grief at the thought of civil war. Her father’s happiness did not now depend on his children as it had done: and, as for the rest, she would not think about it.

! will thy grief cease never? Must each sad word that shall remind thee Of fathers’ love for children blind thee With tears for ever?

Thy sorrow for thy darling yonder— Is it a maze where thy soul, trying In vain to still its ceaseless crying, Shall always wander?

Death ever strikes in cruel scorning The fairest flowers; thy rose so cherished, Thy rose, that like the rest hath perished, Bloomed but one morning!

Black death, our little life’s span weighing, Sternly works out his dread commission, And spurning peers’ or pawns’ petition, Disdains our praying.

Thou weepest, father! There is weeping In lonely homes, where Squalor crouches. Hosts cannot banish Death from couches Where kings lie sleeping. B. J.

and ferocious, however, as he was on ordinary occasions, an unbuttoned coat, or a collar an inch too high, would make the General-in-Chief bellow with rage, and strike,