Part 17 (2/2)
”Sir, if I retract my opinion, which is not my wont, you shall hear of it.-And now, cousin, have you more to say? We keep that worthy clergyman in the outer room.”
”Something I had to say-something touching my cousin Alice,” said Everard, with embarra.s.sment; ”but I fear that the prejudices of both are so strong against me”-
”Sir, I dare turn my daughter loose to you-I will go join the good doctor in dame Joan's apartment. I am not unwilling that you should know that the girl hath, in all reasonable sort, the exercise of her free will.”
He withdrew, and left the cousins together.
Colonel Everard advanced to Alice, and was about to take her hand. She drew back, took the seat which her father had occupied, and pointed out to him one at some distance.
”Are we then so much estranged, my dearest Alice?” he said.
”We will speak of that presently,” she replied. ”In the first place, let me ask the cause of your visit here at so late an hour.”
”You heard,” said Everard, ”what I stated to your father?”
”I did; but that seems to have been only part of your errand-something there seemed to be which applied particularly to me.”
”It was a fancy-a strange mistake,” answered Everard. ”May I ask if you have been abroad this evening?”
”Certainly not,” she replied. ”I have small temptation to wander from my present home, poor as it is; and whilst here, I have important duties to discharge. But why does Colonel Everard ask so strange a question?”
”Tell me in turn, why your cousin Markham has lost the name of friends.h.i.+p and kindred, and even of some nearer feeling, and then I will answer you, Alice?”
”It is soon answered,” she said. ”When you drew your sword against my father's cause-almost against his person-I studied, more than I should have done, to find excuse for you. I knew, that is, I thought I knew your high feelings of public duty-I knew the opinions in which you had been bred up; and I said, I will not, even for this, cast him off-he opposes his King because he is loyal to his country. You endeavoured to avert the great and concluding tragedy of the 30th of January; and it confirmed me in my opinion, that Markham Everard might be misled, but could not be base or selfish.”
”And what has changed your opinion, Alice? or who dare,” said Everard, reddening, ”attach such epithets to the name of Markham Everard?”
”I am no subject,” she said, ”for exercising your valour, Colonel Everard, nor do I mean to offend. But you will find enough of others who will avow, that Colonel Everard is truckling to the usurper Cromwell, and that all his fair pretexts of forwarding his country's liberties, are but a screen for driving a bargain with the successful encroacher, and obtaining the best terms he can for himself and his family.”
”For myself-never!”
”But for your family you have-Yes, I am well a.s.sured that you have pointed out to the military tyrant, the way in which he and his satraps may master the government. Do you think my father or I would accept an asylum purchased at the price of England's liberty, and your honour?”
”Gracious Heaven, Alice, what is this? You accuse me of pursuing the very course which so lately had your approbation!”
”When you spoke with authority of your father, and recommended our submission to the existing government, such as it was, I own I thought-that my father's grey head might, without dishonour, have remained under the roof where it had so long been sheltered. But did your father sanction your becoming the adviser of yonder ambitious soldier to a new course of innovation, and his abettor in the establishment of a new species of tyranny?-It is one thing to submit to oppression, another to be the agent of tyrants-And O, Markham-their bloodhound!”
”How! bloodhound?-what mean you?-I own it is true I could see with content the wounds of this bleeding country stanched, even at the expense of beholding Cromwell, after his matchless rise, take a yet farther step to power-but to be his bloodhound! What is your meaning?”
”It is false, then?-I thought I could swear it had been false.”
”What, in the name of G.o.d, is it you ask?”
”It is false that you are engaged to betray the young King of Scotland?”
”Betray him! I betray him, or any fugitive? Never! I would he were well out of England-I would lend him my aid to escape, were he in the house at this instant; and think in acting so I did his enemies good service, by preventing their soiling themselves with his blood-but betray him, never!”
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