All friends shall tasteThe wages of their virtues, and all foesThe cup of their deservings.
All friends shall tasteThe wages of their virtues, and all foesThe cup of their deservings.
All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtues, and all foes
The cup of their deservings.
Shakspeare.
The restoration of the King was speedily followed by the re-instatement of Neville in his family-honours, and the marriage of his son and daughter. Mrs. Mellicent had the unspeakable satisfaction of arranging the ceremony, selecting the dress of the brides, and ordering the nuptial banquet. History does not warrant me in adding, that she afterwards consummated the happiness of Dr. Lloyd, by completing the liberal tokens of regard which his grateful friends showered upon him. But whether this was owing to her own obduracy, or to somewhat of that enmity which often subsists between professors of the same liberal art, I have no means of discovering. It is certain that they continued to be sincere friends, which possibly might not have been the case if Mrs. Mellicent's confidence in the superiority of her own cordials and ointments to the recipes prescribed by the regularly educated practitioner, had not induced her to pass on, "in maiden meditation fancy free," preferring the privileges of "blessed singleness" to the mortification of subscribing to the efficacy of those medical nostrums which were not found in the British herbal.
Morgan fled from Bellingham-Castle with the precipitation of an owl at the sun-rising. When the aged Earl proceeded to take possession, he strained his dim eyes to point out to his son the seat of his ancestors from the most distant eminence which afforded a glimpse of the stately turrets. He fancied he should never be weary in showing Eustace the particular places which were signalized by conspicuous actions; the hall where Walter the Inflexible sat in judgment; the tower from whence Rodolph the Bold overlooked the tournament; the postern where Allan the Magnificent welcomed his princely guests with the courtly subservience of an humble host; or the chamber in which Orlando the Good paid the debt of nature, while the monks told their beads in the anti-room, and the inner court of the castle was crowded by the pensioners whom he supported, and the way-faring pilgrims he relieved. But Neville soon discovered that prosperity has its disappointments as well as adversity its comforts. The woods which Earl Henry planted were cut down, the shield and trophies which Sir Edmund won at Agincourt were defaced, the family heirlooms were carried away, the precious manuscripts burnt, the state-furniture sold. Bellingham-Castle was merely the despoiled shell of greatness, requiring, for its re-edifying, that energy and anxiety which a worn-out invalid could not exercise. The duties of an exalted station overwhelmed him; its business distracted, its state fatigued him. He soon felt convinced, that to those who have long languished in the gloom of sorrow, the brilliant glare of greatness is insupportable. To them ease is happiness, and tranquillity delight.
Determined to spend the residue of his days with his daughter, the Earl resigned Castle-Bellingham to Eustace and Constantia. Happiness and benevolence diffused over the face of the latter charms superior to any it had boasted even in the prime of youthful beauty. This excellent pair continued to deserve each other's affection, being an ornament to their high station, a blessing and an example to their neighbours, faithful to their King, true to their country, and grateful to their God.
Not content with barely doing justice to those who had deserved and suffered so much, the King granted to Lady Isabel Neville the manor of Waverly, which had escheated to the crown by the extinction of that ill-fated family. The title of Lord Sedley had now devolved on Eustace. It was agreed to disuse the dishonoured name of De Vallance, and adopt the endeared appellative of Evellin, to which was annexed the title of Baronet. Waverly-Park was now changed into Evellin-hall. An elegant mansion was erected on the scite of the ruins, exhibiting as marked a contrast in the cheerful munificence of its aspect, as the firm integrity, unostentatious goodness, and amiable manners of Sir Arthur and his Lady did to the contemptible character of its late inhabitants.
Large church-emoluments were offered to Dr. Beaumont; but he, with a lowliness and moderation corresponding to his other great qualities, declined accepting any. He said he had endured too much to become a prominent actor in public affairs at a time which required the most dispassionate prudence to heal discord, and the firmest wisdom to repair breaches. He suspected his understanding was clouded, and his temper soured, by the heavy pressure of affliction. He knew that his health was broken, and his long seclusion from the world had unfitted him for undertaking its direction. It was his prayer to devote the remnant of his days to peace and privacy. He returned to Ribblesdale (now endeared to him by the attachments of its inhabitants, and the change which his truly pastoral labours had produced,) in the same state of respectable mediocrity, with regard to worldly wealth, as he enjoyed before the commencement of the troubles; his worthy heart glowing with the honest pride, that though he had shared in the sorrows, he had not partaken of the spoils, of his country. His return was welcomed with rapture. He found no pseudo-shepherd to dispute his right of reclaiming the church he had wedded with primitive simplicity of affection. Davies had died of an apoplexy; and Priggins, after giving indubitable proofs that conversion was in him merely the turned coat of knavery, while, to weak understandings and bad hearts, he made religion itself contemptible by dressing it in the cap and bells of folly, had gradually lost all his auditors. The return of the King made his spiritual wares wholly unsaleable. He studied the humour of the times; and, conforming to what would gain him a maintenance, he turned his pulpit into a stage-itinerant, and commenced Jack Priggins, a redoubtable Merry Andrew.
Though the royalists, while in expectation of the restoration, had promised to abstain from all suits of law on account of the injustice they had suffered, the extortions of Morgan had so much out-heroded Herod, that justice claimed a right of stripping the daw who had long stalked in stolen trappings. Reduced, by repeated fines for misdemeanors, to his primitive meanness, the little man lost all the self-importance which had been the appendage of his greatness; and, from being a happy, joyous person, who thought the world a very good world, and all things going on as well as could be wished, he became a discontented reviler, complaining that industry was unrewarded, and talents left to perish on a dunghill. He gained a scanty support by practising the basest chicane of his profession; and, after being stripped of the affluence he had extorted from the rich, he contrived to pick up the means of a bare existence, by inflaming the animosities, and adding to the necessities of penury. Whether his death was hastened by a want of the luxuries which indulgence had made indispensable, or by a more summary process, is uncertain.
The prejudices which Barton had imbibed against the Liturgy and discipline of the Church seemed to increase from a conscientious apprehension that worldly motives might influence him to conformity. In vain did Dr. Beaumont advise him to follow the example of the apostolical Bernard Gilpin, who, "though he doubted as to some of the articles to which he was required to subscribe, considered that, without subscription, he could not serve in a Church which was likely to give great glory to God, and that what he disliked was of smaller consequence." His extraordinary integrity prevented his compliance; and he told Dr. Beaumont that, finding himself incapable of refuting the learning and weight of his arguments, he suspected that a secret desire of worldly advancement had blunted his faculties; but of this he was certain, that since he had refused assisting the Church, considered as a civil institution, in the night of her calamity, he had no right to bask in her sunshine. After this declaration, Dr. Beaumont's respect for the rights of conscience made him for ever renounce the character of a disputant; but during all the hardships to which Non-conformists were exposed he steadily supported that of a friend. Barton found, in the parsonage at Ribblesdale, a safe, honourable, and happy asylum from the tempest which fell upon his party. His peaceable and friendly disposition restrained him from every mark of enmity to the Church from which he dissented; nor did he ever confound the mistakes of her governors, or the faults of her officials, with the essentials of her institution. Dr. Beaumont avoided every topic that might give him pain, with a delicacy which proved that the gratitude of an obliged pensioner mingled with the feelings of a generous host. Even Mrs. Mellicent never abused Round-heads in his presence; and, as to fanatics, Barton thought them as disgraceful to his sect as they were dangerous to the hierarchy. He had the singular honour of escorting the venerable spinster, in her purple camlet riding-hood, whenever she visited her niece Lady Evellin, at the Hall, or her nephew Lord Sedley, at Bellingham-Castle; and the cordial welcome he ever received from both families, proved their just sensibility of his former kindness.
The wretched Walter De Vallance, when released from prison, went into voluntary exile, supported by a pension from the Earl, who imposed that duty on himself as a memento of his own errors. His sole care was to prolong his contemptible life; but his solicitude was unavailing. He lived to hear that his son had renounced his name, and that an heir was born to the House of Neville. As contrition had no share in his previous humiliation, envy at the flourishing state of his rival's family hastened his death.
This history, however, has still to record a true penitent. Nothing could exceed the indignation of Jobson at finding himself deceived by Monthault. He was one of the first to ask forgiveness of the right Earl of Bellingham, and of His Reverence the Doctor, who, he was sure, deserved to be made a Lord also. "I don't come to your honours," said he, "because you are become great men, or to ask you to speak to the King about me; for I know I have no right now to be a Beef-eater, or any thing else; but I must just tell you how it was. Sure as you are alive I thought all the while I was fighting for His Majesty; for those generals, as they called themselves, turned, and twirled, and swore backwards and forwards till nobody knew what side they were of. And that smooth-faced knave, Monthault (as pretty Mrs. Isabel said he was), told me all was going on as it should be; and that Lambert would bring the King back presently. So I fought furiously, thinking I was on the right side, till that deceiver had his deserts from the honest general who did fetch the King home. Bless his sweet face! though I don't deserve to look at it again."
Neville admitted that the perplexing changes which had lately happened might confuse a clearer head than Jobson's, and promised to retain him in the family, offering him the choice of being his personal attendant, or porter at Castle-Bellingham. Jobson's joy and gratitude were unbounded. He preferred the former office. "Because," said he, "such a blundering fellow as I, who cannot tell rebels from honest men, may let pickpockets and gamblers into a true Lord's house, if they happen to have smooth tongues, and shut plain honesty out of it, which I hope will never be the case in Old England. But if I live always under Your Honour's eye, you will keep me from doing wrong; and a simple man, like me, is always best off when directed by those who know better than himself."
Lord Bellingham is reported to have commended this opinion so warmly as to say, he hoped the race of the Jobsons would never be extinct among the British peasantry. But as this wish implies his persuasion, that principle rather than information is the great desideratum in the lower classes, I dare not affirm that my hero was so very illiberal, though, as a Loyalist and a Churchman, I admit that he must have been adverse to the generalizing philanthropy of that admired sentiment, "Education untainted by the bigotry of proselytism," which, if it be any thing more than a brilliant scintillation of wit, intended, by its happy antithesis, to revive the dying embers of festive hilarity, must mean that the ends of education are destroyed if they produce any effect; or, in other words, that though the lower classes are to be taught every thing, great care should be taken that they do not improve by any thing they learn—a discovery equally profound with that of Dogberry, who thought "writing and reading came by nature, but that to be well-favoured was the gift of fortune."
I have only to add, that Lady Isabel Evellin long continued "to rock the cradle of reposing age;" and, to the last hour of her life, enjoyed the serene satisfaction which is the portion of those who, with true and disinterested magnanimity, devote their abilities to the calls of duty instead of wasting their lives in self-indulgence.
THE END.
Strahan and Preston, Printers-Street, London.