“Come ye hither my 'six' good sons,
Gallant men I trow ye be,
How many of you, my children dear,
Will stand by that good Earl and me?”
“Five” of them did answer make--
“Five” of them spoke hastily,
“O father, till the day we die,
We'll stand by that good Earl and thee.”
The Rising in the North.
On the morning when we were to depart from Glasgow, Andrew Fairservice
bounced into my apartment like a madman, jumping up and down, and
singing, with more vehemence than tune,
The kiln's on fire--the kiln's on fire--
The kiln's on fire--she's a' in a lowe.
With some difficulty I prevailed on him to cease his confounded clamour,
and explain to me what the matter was. He was pleased to inform me, as if
he had been bringing the finest news imaginable, “that the Hielands were
clean broken out, every man o' them, and that Rob Roy, and a' his
breekless bands, wad be down upon Glasgow or twenty-four hours o' the
clock gaed round.”
“Hold your tongue,” said I, “you rascal! You must be drunk or mad; and if
there is any truth in your news, is it a singing matter, you scoundrel?”
“Drunk or mad? nae doubt,” replied Andrew, dauntlessly; “ane's aye drunk
or mad if he tells what grit folks dinna like to hear--Sing? Od, the
clans will make us sing on the wrang side o' our mouth, if we are sae
drunk or mad as to bide their coming.”
I rose in great haste, and found my father and Owen also on foot, and in
considerable alarm.
Andrew's news proved but too true in the main. The great rebellion which
agitated Britain in the year 1715 had already broken out, by the
unfortunate Earl of Mar's setting up the standard of the Stuart family in
an ill-omened hour, to the ruin of many honourable families, both in
England and Scotland. The treachery of some of the Jacobite agents
(Rashleigh among the rest), and the arrest of others, had made George the
First's Government acquainted with the extensive ramifications of a
conspiracy long prepared, and which at last exploded prematurely, and in
a part of the kingdom too distant to have any vital effect upon the
country, which, however, was plunged into much confusion.
This great public event served to confirm and elucidate the obscure
explanations I had received from MacGregor; and I could easily see why
the westland clans, who were brought against him, should have waived
their private quarrel, in consideration that they were all shortly to be
engaged in the same public cause. It was a more melancholy reflection to
my mind, that Diana Vernon was the wife of one of those who were most
active in turning the world upside down, and that she was herself exposed
to all the privations and perils of her husband's hazardous trade.
We held an immediate consultation on the measures we were to adopt in
this crisis, and acquiesced in my father's plan, that we should instantly
get the necessary passports, and make the best of our way to London. I
acquainted my father with my wish to offer my personal service to the
Government in any volunteer corps, several being already spoken of. He
readily acquiesced in my proposal; for though he disliked war as a
profession, yet, upon principle, no man would have exposed his life more
willingly in defence of civil and religious liberty.
We travelled in haste and in peril through Dumfriesshire and the
neighbouring counties of England. In this quarter, gentlemen of the Tory
interest were already in motion, mustering men and horses, while the
Whigs assembled themselves in the principal towns, armed the inhabitants,
and prepared for civil war. We narrowly escaped being stopped on more
occasions than one, and were often compelled to take circuitous routes to
avoid the points where forces were assembling.
When we reached London, we immediately associated with those bankers and
eminent merchants who agreed to support the credit of Government, and to
meet that run upon the funds, on which the conspirators had greatly
founded their hopes of furthering their undertaking, by rendering the
Government, as it were, bankrupt. My father was chosen one of the members
of this formidable body of the monied interest, as all had the greatest
confidence in his zeal, skill, and activity. He was also the organ by
which they communicated with Government, and contrived, from funds
belonging to his own house, or over which he had command, to find
purchasers for a quantity of the national stock, which was suddenly flung
into the market at a depreciated price when the rebellion broke out. I
was not idle myself, but obtained a commission, and levied, at my
father's expense, about two hundred men, with whom I joined General
Carpenter's army.
The rebellion, in the meantime, had extended itself to England. The
unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater had taken arms in the cause, along with
General Foster. My poor uncle, Sir Hildebrand, whose estate was reduced
to almost nothing by his own carelessness and the expense and debauchery
of his sons and household, was easily persuaded to join that unfortunate
standard. Before doing so, however, he exhibited a degree of precaution
of which no one could have suspected him--he made his will!
By this document he devised his estates at Osbaldistone Hall, and so
forth, to his sons successively, and their male heirs, until he came to
Rashleigh, whom, on account of the turn he had lately taken in politics,
he detested with all his might,--he cut him off with a shilling, and
settled the estate on me as his next heir. I had always been rather a
favourite of the old gentleman; but it is probable that, confident in the
number of gigantic youths who now armed around him, he considered the
destination as likely to remain a dead letter, which he inserted chiefly
to show his displeasure at Rashleigh's treachery, both public and
domestic. There was an article, by which he, bequeathed to the niece of
his late wife, Diana Vernon, now Lady Diana Vernon Beauchamp, some
diamonds belonging to her late aunt, and a great silver ewer, having the
arms of Vernon and Osbaldistone quarterly engraven upon it.
But Heaven had decreed a more speedy extinction of his numerous and
healthy lineage, than, most probably, he himself had reckoned on. In the
very first muster of the conspirators, at a place called Green-Rigg,
Thorncliff Osbaldistone quarrelled about precedence with a gentleman of
the Northumbrian border, to the full as fierce and intractable as
himself. In spite of all remonstrances, they gave their commander a
specimen of how far their discipline might be relied upon, by fighting it
out with their rapiers, and my kinsman was killed on the spot. His death
was a great loss to Sir Hildebrand, for, notwithstanding his infernal
temper, he had a grain or two of more sense than belonged to the rest of
the brotherhood, Rashleigh always excepted.
Perceval, the sot, died also in his calling. He had a wager with another
gentleman (who, from his exploits in that line, had acquired the
formidable epithet of Brandy Swalewell), which should drink the largest
cup of strong liquor when King James was proclaimed by the insurgents at
Morpeth. The exploit was something enormous. I forget the exact quantity
of brandy which Percie swallowed, but it occasioned a fever, of which he
expired at the end of three days, with the word, _water, water,_
perpetually on his tongue.
Dickon broke his neck near Warrington Bridge, in an attempt to show off a
foundered blood-mare which he wished to palm upon a Manchester merchant
who had joined the insurgents. He pushed the animal at a five-barred
gate; she fell in the leap, and the unfortunate jockey lost his life.
Wilfred the fool, as sometimes befalls, had the best fortune of the
family. He was slain at Proud Preston, in Lancashire, on the day that
General Carpenter attacked the barricades, fighting with great bravery,
though I have heard he was never able exactly to comprehend the cause of
quarrel, and did not uniformly remember on which king's side he was
engaged. John also behaved very boldly in the same engagement, and
received several wounds, of which he was not happy enough to die on the
spot.
Old Sir Hildebrand, entirely brokenhearted by these successive losses,
became, by the next day's surrender, one of the unhappy prisoners, and
was lodged in Newgate with his wounded son John.
I was now released from my military duty, and lost no time, therefore, in
endeavouring to relieve the distresses of these new relations. My
father's interest with Government, and the general compassion excited by
a parent who had sustained the successive loss of so many sons within so
short a time, would have prevented my uncle and cousin from being brought
to trial for high treason. But their doom was given forth from a greater
tribunal. John died of his wounds in Newgate, recommending to me in his
last breath, a cast of hawks which he had at the Hall, and a black
spaniel bitch called Lucy.
My poor uncle seemed beaten down to the very earth by his family
calamities, and the circumstances in which he unexpectedly found himself.
He said little, but seemed grateful for such attentions as circumstances
permitted me to show him. I did not witness his meeting with my father
for the first time for so many years, and under circumstances so
melancholy; but, judging from my father's extreme depression of spirits,
it must have been melancholy in the last degree. Sir Hildebrand spoke
with great bitterness against Rashleigh, now his only surviving child;
laid upon him the ruin of his house, and the deaths of all his brethren,
and declared, that neither he nor they would have plunged into political
intrigue, but for that very member of his family, who had been the first
to desert them. He once or twice mentioned Diana, always with great
affection; and once he said, while I sate by his bedside--“Nevoy, since
Thorncliff and all of them are dead, I am sorry you cannot have her.”
The expression affected me much at the time; for it was a usual custom of
the poor old baronet's, when joyously setting forth upon the morning's
chase, to distinguish Thorncliff, who was a favourite, while he summoned
the rest more generally; and the loud jolly tone in which he used to
hollo, “Call Thornie--call all of them,” contrasted sadly with the
woebegone and self-abandoning note in which he uttered the disconsolate
words which I have above quoted. He mentioned the contents of his will,
and supplied me with an authenticated copy;--the original he had
deposited with my old acquaintance Mr. Justice Inglewood, who, dreaded by
no one, and confided in by all as a kind of neutral person, had become,
for aught I know, the depositary of half the wills of the fighting men of
both factions in the county of Northumberland.
The greater part of my uncle's last hours were spent in the discharge of
the religious duties of his church, in which he was directed by the
chaplain of the Sardinian ambassador, for whom, with some difficulty, we
obtained permission to visit him. I could not ascertain by my own
observation, or through the medical attendants, that Sir Hildebrand
Osbaldistone died of any formed complaint bearing a name in the science
of medicine. He seemed to me completely worn out and broken down by
fatigue of body and distress of mind, and rather ceased to exist, than
died of any positive struggle,--just as a vessel, buffeted and tossed by
a succession of tempestuous gales, her timbers overstrained, and her
joints loosened, will sometimes spring a leak and founder, when there are
no apparent causes for her destruction.
It was a remarkable circumstance that my father, after the last duties
were performed to his brother, appeared suddenly to imbibe a strong
anxiety that I should act upon the will, and represent his father's
house, which had hitherto seemed to be the thing in the world which had
least charms for him. But formerly, he had been like the fox in the
fable, contemning what was beyond his reach; and, moreover, I doubt not
that the excessive dislike which he entertained against Rashleigh (now
Sir Rashleigh) Osbaldistone, who loudly threatened to attack his father
Sir Hildebrand's will and settlement, corroborated my father's desire to
maintain it.
“He had been most unjustly disinherited,” he said, “by his own
father--his brother's will had repaired the disgrace, if not the injury,
by leaving the wreck of his property to Frank, the natural heir, and he
was determined the bequest should take effect.”
In the meantime, Rashleigh was not altogether a contemptible personage as
an opponent. The information he had given to Government was critically
well-timed, and his extreme plausibility, with the extent of his
intelligence, and the artful manner in which he contrived to assume both
merit and influence, had, to a certain extent, procured him patrons among
Ministers. We were already in the full tide of litigation with him on the
subject of his pillaging the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham; and,
judging from the progress we made in that comparatively simple lawsuit,
there was a chance that this second course of litigation might be drawn
out beyond the period of all our natural lives.
To avert these delays as much as possible, my father, by the advice of
his counsel learned in the law, paid off and vested in my person the
rights to certain large mortgages affecting Osbaldistone Hall. Perhaps,
however, the opportunity to convert a great share of the large profits
which accrued from the rapid rise of the funds upon the suppression of
the rebellion, and the experience he had so lately had of the perils of
commerce, encouraged him to realise, in this manner, a considerable part
of his property. At any rate, it so chanced, that, instead of commanding
me to the desk, as I fully expected, having intimated my willingness to
comply with his wishes, however they might destine me, I received his
directions to go down to Osbaldistone Hall, and take possession of it as
the heir and representative of the family. I was directed to apply to
Squire Inglewood for the copy of my uncle's will deposited with him, and
take all necessary measures to secure that possession which sages say
makes nine points of the law.
At another time I should have been delighted with this change of
destination. But now Osbaldistone Hall was accompanied with many painful
recollections. Still, however, I thought, that in that neighbourhood only
I was likely to acquire some information respecting the fate of Diana
Vernon. I had every reason to fear it must be far different from what I
could have wished it. But I could obtain no precise information on the
subject.
It was in vain that I endeavoured, by such acts of kindness as their
situation admitted, to conciliate the confidence of some distant
relations who were among the prisoners in Newgate. A pride which I could
not condemn, and a natural suspicion of the Whig Frank Osbaldistone,
cousin to the double-distilled traitor Rashleigh, closed every heart and
tongue, and I only received thanks, cold and extorted, in exchange for
such benefits as I had power to offer. The arm of the law was also
gradually abridging the numbers of those whom I endeavoured to serve, and
the hearts of the survivors became gradually more contracted towards all
whom they conceived to be concerned with the existing Government. As they
were led gradually, and by detachments, to execution, those who survived
lost interest in mankind, and the desire of communicating with them. I
shall long remember what one of them, Ned Shafton by name, replied to my
anxious inquiry, whether there was any indulgence I could procure him?
“Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, I must suppose you mean me kindly, and therefore
I thank you. But, by G--, men cannot be fattened like poultry, when they
see their neighbours carried off day by day to the place of execution,
and know that their own necks are to be twisted round in their turn.”
Upon the whole, therefore, I was glad to escape from London, from
Newgate, and from the scenes which both exhibited, to breathe the free
air of Northumberland. Andrew Fairservice had continued in my service
more from my father's pleasure than my own. At present there seemed a
prospect that his local acquaintance with Osbaldistone Hall and its
vicinity might be useful; and, of course, he accompanied me on my
journey, and I enjoyed the prospect of getting rid of him, by
establishing him in his old quarters. I cannot conceive how he could
prevail upon my father to interest himself in him, unless it were by the
art, which he possessed in no inconsiderable degree, of affecting an
extreme attachment to his master; which theoretical attachment he made
compatible in practice with playing all manner of tricks without scruple,
providing only against his master being cheated by any one but himself.
We performed our journey to the North without any remarkable adventure,
and we found the country, so lately agitated by rebellion, now peaceful
and in good order. The nearer we approached to Osbaldistone Hall, the
more did my heart sink at the thought of entering that deserted mansion;
so that, in order to postpone the evil day, I resolved first to make my
visit at Mr. Justice Inglewood's.
That venerable person had been much disturbed with thoughts of what he
had been, and what he now was; and natural recollections of the past had
interfered considerably with the active duty which in his present
situation might have been expected from him. He was fortunate, however,
in one respect; he had got rid of his clerk Jobson, who had finally left
him in dudgeon at his inactivity, and become legal assistant to a certain
Squire Standish, who had lately commenced operations in those parts as a
justice, with a zeal for King George and the Protestant succession,
which, very different from the feelings of his old patron, Mr. Jobson had
more occasion to restrain within the bounds of the law, than to stimulate
to exertion.
Old Justice Inglewood received me with great courtesy, and readily
exhibited my uncle's will, which seemed to be without a flaw. He was for
some time in obvious distress, how he should speak and act in my
presence; but when he found, that though a supporter of the present
Government upon principle, I was disposed to think with pity on those who
had opposed it on a mistaken feeling of loyalty and duty, his discourse
became a very diverting medley of what he had done, and what he had left
undone,--the pains he had taken to prevent some squires from joining, and
to wink at the escape of others, who had been so unlucky as to engage in
the affair.
We were _tete-a'-tete,_ and several bumpers had been quaffed by the
Justice's special desire, when, on a sudden, he requested me to fill a
_bona fide_ brimmer to the health of poor dear Die Vernon, the rose of
the wilderness, the heath-bell of Cheviot, and the blossom that's
transplanted to an infernal convent.
“Is not Miss Vernon married, then?” I exclaimed, in great astonishment.
“I thought his Excellency”--
“Pooh! pooh! his Excellency and his Lordship's all a humbug now, you
know--mere St. Germains titles--Earl of Beauchamp, and ambassador
plenipotentiary from France, when the Duke Regent of Orleans scarce knew
that he lived, I dare say. But you must have seen old Sir Frederick
Vernon at the Hall, when he played the part of Father Vaughan?”
“Good Heavens! then Vaughan was Miss Vernon's father?”
“To be sure he was,” said the Justice coolly;--“there's no use in
keeping the secret now, for he must be out of the country by this
time--otherwise, no doubt, it would be my duty to apprehend him.--Come,
off with your bumper to my dear lost Die!
And let her health go round, around, around,
And let her health go round;
For though your stocking be of silk,
Your knees near kiss the ground, aground, aground.” *
* This pithy verse occurs, it is believed, in Shadwell's play of Bury
Fair.
I was unable, as the reader may easily conceive, to join in the Justice's
jollity. My head swam with the shock I had received. “I never heard,” I
said, “that Miss Vernon's father was living.”
“It was not our Government's fault that he is,” replied Inglewood, “for
the devil a man there is whose head would have brought more money. He was
condemned to death for Fenwick's plot, and was thought to have had some
hand in the Knightsbridge affair, in King William's time; and as he had
married in Scotland a relation of the house of Breadalbane, he possessed
great influence with all their chiefs. There was a talk of his being
demanded to be given up at the peace of Ryswick, but he shammed ill, and
his death was given publicly out in the French papers. But when he came
back here on the old score, we old cavaliers knew him well,--that is to
say, I knew him, not as being a cavalier myself, but no information being
lodged against the poor gentleman, and my memory being shortened by
frequent attacks of the gout, I could not have sworn to him, you know.”
“Was he, then, not known at Osbaldistone Hall?” I inquired.
“To none but to his daughter, the old knight, and Rashleigh, who had got
at that secret as he did at every one else, and held it like a twisted
cord about poor Die's neck. I have seen her one hundred times she would
have spit at him, if it had not been fear for her father, whose life
would not have been worth five minutes' purchase if he had been
discovered to the Government.--But don't mistake me, Mr. Osbaldistone; I
say the Government is a good, a gracious, and a just Government; and if
it has hanged one-half of the rebels, poor things, all will acknowledge
they would not have been touched had they staid peaceably at home.”
Waiving the discussion of these political questions, I brought back Mr.
Inglewood to his subject, and I found that Diana, having positively
refused to marry any of the Osbaldistone family, and expressed her
particular detestation of Rashleigh, he had from that time begun to cool
in zeal for the cause of the Pretender; to which, as the youngest of six
brethren, and bold, artful, and able, he had hitherto looked forward as
the means of making his fortune. Probably the compulsion with which he
had been forced to render up the spoils which he had abstracted from my
father's counting-house by the united authority of Sir Frederick Vernon
and the Scottish Chiefs, had determined his resolution to advance his
progress by changing his opinions and betraying his trust. Perhaps
also--for few men were better judges where his interest was concerned--he
considered their means and talents to be, as they afterwards proved,
greatly inadequate to the important task of overthrowing an established
Government. Sir Frederick Vernon, or, as he was called among the
Jacobites, his Excellency Viscount Beauchamp, had, with his daughter,
some difficulty in escaping the consequences of Rashleigh's information.
Here Mr. Inglewood's information was at fault; but he did not doubt,
since we had not heard of Sir Frederick being in the hands of the
Government, he must be by this time abroad, where, agreeably to the cruel
bond he had entered into with his brother-in-law, Diana, since she had
declined to select a husband out of the Osbaldistone family, must be
confined to a convent. The original cause of this singular agreement Mr.
Inglewood could not perfectly explain; but he understood it was a family
compact, entered into for the purpose of securing to Sir Frederick the
rents of the remnant of his large estates, which had been vested in the
Osbaldistone family by some legal manoeuvre; in short, a family compact,
in which, like many of those undertaken at that time of day, the feelings
of the principal parties interested were no more regarded than if they
had been a part of the live-stock upon the lands.
I cannot tell,--such is the waywardness of the human heart,--whether this
intelligence gave me joy or sorrow. It seemed to me, that, in the
knowledge that Miss Vernon was eternally divided from me, not by marriage
with another, but by seclusion in a convent, in order to fulfil an absurd
bargain of this kind, my regret for her loss was aggravated rather than
diminished. I became dull, low-spirited, absent, and unable to support
the task of conversing with Justice Inglewood, who in his turn yawned,
and proposed to retire early. I took leave of him overnight, determining
the next day, before breakfast, to ride over to Osbaldistone Hall.
Mr. Inglewood acquiesced in my proposal. “It would be well,” he said,
“that I made my appearance there before I was known to be in the country,
the more especially as Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone was now, he understood,
at Mr. Jobson's house, hatching some mischief, doubtless. They were fit
company,” he added, “for each other, Sir Rashleigh having lost all right
to mingle in the society of men of honour; but it was hardly possible two
such d--d rascals should collogue together without mischief to honest
people.”
He concluded, by earnestly recommending a toast and tankard, and an
attack upon his venison pasty, before I set out in the morning, just to
break the cold air on the words.