Page:Tale of the Rebellion of 1745, or, The broken heart (2).pdf/7

7 parent’s—she who was to be his wife, to whom his hand was plighted, and his heart given. Fanny Lester was a young and gentle being, and she had known James Dawson from her childhood. Know- ledge ripened to affection, and their hearts were twined together. On the day on which she came to know of his imprisonment, she hastened to London to comfort him—to cheer his gloomy soli- tude—at the foot of the throne to sue for his pardon.

She arrived at the metropolis—she was guided to the prison-house, and admitted. On entering the gloomy apartment in which he was confined, she screamed aloud—she raised her hands, and spring- ing forward, fell upon his neck and wept.

“ My own Fanny!” he exclaimed, “you here!— weep not my sweet one—come, he comforted— here is hope—every hope—I shall not die—my own, be comforted.”

“ Yes !—yes there is hope, the King will pardon you,” she exclaimed, “he will spare my James—I will implore your life at his feet.”

“ Nay, nay love, say not the King,” interrupted the young enthusiast for the house of Stuart; “ it will be but imprisonment till all is over—the Elector cannot seek my life.”

He strove long and earnestly to persuade her that his life was not in danger—that he would he saved—and what he wished she believed. The jailor entered and informed them that it was time she should depart, and again sinking her head upon his breast, she wept, “good night.”

But each day she revisited him, and they spoke if his deliverance together. At times too she told him with tears of the efforts she had made to ob- tain his pardon—of her attempts to gain admission to the presence of the King—of the repulses she met with—of her applications to the nobility con-