Part 6 (1/2)
”Oh, Hilary, do not tell me you have finally decided to join this unrighteous rebellion. Pause before you answer, my boy--I entreat you, and it is not my habit to entreat, as you very well know. See, you have been the joy of my heart all my life, the idol of my soul,--I will confess it now,--and for you and your future I have lived and toiled and served and loved. I have dreamed you great, high in rank and place, serving your king, winning back the ancient position of our family. I have shrunk from no sacrifice, nor would I shrink from any. 'Tis not that I do not wish you to risk your life in war,--I am a daughter of my race, and for centuries they have been soldiers, and what G.o.d sends soldiers upon the field, that I can abide,--but that you should go now, with all your prospects, your ability, the opportunity presented you, and engage yourself in this fatal cause, in this unholy attack upon the king's majesty, connect yourself with this beggarly rabble who have been whipped and beaten every time they have come in contact with the royal troops,--I cannot bear it. You are a man now. You have grown away from your mother, Hilary, and I can no longer command, I must entreat.” But she spoke very proudly, for, as she said, entreaty was not so usual to her as command.
”Oh, mother, mother, you make it very hard for me. You know the colonists have been badly treated, and hardly used by king and Parliament. Our liberties have been threatened, nay, have been abrogated, our privileges destroyed, none of our rights respected, and unless we are to sink to the level of mere slaves and dependants upon the mother country, we have no other course but an appeal to arms.”
”I know, I know all that,” she interrupted impatiently, with a wave of her hand. ”I have heard it all a thousand times from ill-balanced agitators and popular orators. There may be some truth in it, of course, I grant you; but in my creed nothing, Hilary, nothing, will justify a subject in turning against his king. The king can do no wrong. All that we have is his; let him take what he will, so he leaves us our honor, and that, indeed, no one can take from us. It is the principle that our ancestors have attested on a hundred fields and in every other way, and will you now be false to it, my boy?”
”I must be true to myself, mother, first of all, in spite of all the kings of earth; and I feel that duty and honor call me to the side of my friends and the people of this commonwealth. I have hesitated long, mother, in deference to you, but now I have decided.”
”And you turn against two mothers, Hilary, when you take this course,--old England, the mother country, and this one, this old mother, who stands before you, who has given you her heart, who has lived for you, who lives in you now, whose devotion to you has never faltered; she now humbly asks with outstretched arms, the arms that carried you when you were a baby boy, that you remain true to your king.”
”Nay, but, mamma,” he said, calling her by the sweet name of his boyhood, taking her hand and looking down at her tenderly with tear-dimmed eyes full of affection, ”one must be true to his idea of right and duty first of all, even at the price of his allegiance to a king; and, after all, what is any king beside you in my heart? But I feel in honor bound to go with my people.”
The irresolution was gone from his expression now, and the two determined faces--one full of pity, the other of apprehension--confronted each other.
CHAPTER VII
_The Loyal Talbots_
”Your people, son?” she said after a long pause. ”Come with me a moment.” She drew him into the brilliantly lighted hall. As they entered, he said to the servant in waiting,--
”See that my bay horse is saddled and brought around at once, and do you tell d.i.c.k to get another horse ready and accompany me; he would better take the black pony.”
”Are you going out, Hilary?”
”Yes, mother, when our conversation is over, if there is time. I thought to ride over to Colonel Wilton's. The night is pleasant, and the moon will rise shortly. What were you about to say to me?”
She led him up to the great open fireplace, on the andirons of which a huge log was blazing and crackling cheerfully. Over the mantel was the picture of a handsome man in the uniform of a soldier of some twenty years back.
”Whose face is pictured there, Hilary?”
”My honored father,” he answered reverently, but in some surprise.
”And how died he?”
”On the Plains of Abraham, mother, as you well know.”
”Fighting for his king?”
”Yes, mother.”
”And who is this one?” she said, pa.s.sing to another picture.
”Sir James Talbot; he struck for his king at Worcester,” he volunteered.
”Yes, Hilary; and here is his wife, Lady Caroline Talbot, my grandmother. She kept the door against the Roundheads while the prince escaped from her castle, to which he had fled after the battle. And over there is Lord Cecil Talbot, her father; he fell at Naseby. There in that corner is another James, his brother, one of Prince Rupert's men, wounded at Marston Moor. Here is Sir Hilary, slain at the Boyne; and this old man is Lord Philip, your great-uncle. He was out in the '45, and was beheaded. These are your people, Hilary,” she said, standing very straight, her head thrown back, her eyes aflame with pride and determination, ”and these struck, fought, lived, and died for their king. I could bear to see you dead,” she laid her hand upon her heart in sudden fear at the idea, in spite of her brave words, ”but I could not bear to see you a rebel. Think again. You will not so decide?” She said it bravely; it was her final appeal, and as she made it she knew that it was useless. The sceptre had departed out of her hand.
He smiled sadly at her, but shook his head ominously. ”Mother, do you know these last fought for Stuart pretenders against the house of Hanover? George III., in your creed, has no right to the place he holds. Do I not then follow my ancestors in taking the field against him?”