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.