The Lord Protector was seated beneath a royal canopy in the lofty parliament-chamber of England. At his left stood Thurloe, his secretary, on his right was seated a part of the bold Puritan band who had dared affix their signatures to the death-warrant of Charles Stuart. There was Bradshaw, the intrepid judge who wrote his name first on that fatal paper; there was Ireton—the fiery-hearted Ireton—who had come up in defense of Protestantism fierce and raging “as a lion from the swelling of Jordan;” Goffe, and Whalley, and Dixwell, too, were there, whose ashes repose in our own quiet “City of Elms,” and many others of that fearless band of regicides that three years after were fleeing from home and country, to escape the block or gibbet. Ambassadors from every nation were there—princes and courtiers, officers of the army, judges, petitioners, all helped to make up the illustrious Protectorate Assembly of 1655.

Seated side by side, and discoursing in low tones of the projected treaty, were Sir Matthew Hale and Milton, the world-renowned bard; and in a listening posture near them, was the accomplished Lambert. No purple robe or kingly crown distinguished the chief of this august body, but nature had stamped a seal on him that could not be mistaken, for Oliver Cromwell bore in the parliament-hall the look and bearing of a man born to command, while at the same time the most unconquerable determination and the highest-wrought enthusiasm were traced on every lineament of his face. But to our story.

A gentleman, in the splendid dress that distinguished the court of Louis Fourteenth, approached the Lord Protector, and bending low, presented a paper to his highness. It was Bordeaux, the French ambassador, and the treaty so long in contemplation between the two nations, was this day to receive the seal of the Protectorate. The hand of Cromwell was already on the paper, when some confusion near the door arrested his attention, and a frown was gathering on his brow, when his piercing eye detected a youth with foreign air and aspect boldly striving to make his way through the guards that were stationed near the entrance of the hall.

“Silence, guards!” shouted the deep, nasal voice of the Protectorate, “stay not the boy; let him approach our presence if he have petition to offer.”

The guards gave way, and a slender but graceful-looking youth of some fourteen years came forward, and, knelt at the feet of the sovereign. Every eye was fastened upon him, and a deep silence came over the throng as he knelt there with clasped hands, his dark, earnest eyes fixed on the stern-looking, shaggy-browed Puritan in mute supplication—for no word fell from the boy’s lips. A heavy mass of raven curls were gathered back from the snowy forehead of the strange youth, and fell in singular beauty over his shoulders, and his simple peasant garb, had forced the idea of some wandering minstrel-boy, but for the deep and earnest pleading of the eyes, which told of excitement and anguish too deep for the utterance of the lips.

The silent but impassioned pleading of the poor youth touched the susceptible heart of Cromwell, and he laid his hand kindly and caressingly on the locks of the fair stranger, and said, in his gentlest accents,

“Whence come you, my son, and how can the Protectorate aid you? Be calm,” added he, noticing a nervous tremor on his countenance, “you have nothing to fear here—speak your errand plainly.”

“I am come from the valley of Piedmont, my noble lord,” replied the youth, “and the snow was red with the blood of the poor Vaudois;” and a cold shudder passed over his pale face.

“Hell and furies!” shouted Cromwell, in momentary wrath; “Are the cursed heretics on their track again?” Then bursting into tears, he added, in a subdued tone, “Poor martyred saints of the Most High, ye shall wear a glorious crown, in spite of your persecutors, and your blood shall not redden the Alpine snows in vain! If there is might in human arm, your enemies shall be humbled, and know that the Lord of Hosts will avenge his elect.”

Then taking up the paper on which the sovereign seal was not yet fixed, he delivered it to the French ambassador, saying somewhat haughtily, “Take it back to your monarch, and tell him that Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, rejects the treaty, until the King of France, and his prime minister, shall pledge their assistance in succoring the persecuted Protestants of Piedmont! Until such pledge shall be given, our negotiations are ended.”

Bordeaux reddened with resentment as he folded the rejected paper. “The war is then inevitable,” he muttered. “Shall I say, sire, that you refuse the treaty?”

“Say I will wage war with all Europe but this persecution of Christians shall cease!”

“But the King of France can do nothing, my lord,” persisted Bordeaux. “The Duke of Savoy may make laws for his subjects as independently as your highness; and no foreign force can be brought to bear upon them in those mountain wilds.”

Cromwell stamped his foot with impatience. “My word has gone forth, and ‘the ships of England shall sail over the Alps,’ sooner than another hair of their heads shall perish! Tell both your masters that this is my decree.”

The Frenchman was indignant at this speech of the Lord Protector, for although every Frenchman understood that Mazarin, the prime minister, was the real monarch, they could not endure to have it thus thrown in their teeth, and he angrily asked permission to retire, which was readily granted; and the parliament was soon after adjourned.

That same evening young Francois Waldo—for that was the name of the Vaudois youth—sat in the palace of Whitehall, with the Protector and his family; and though but a simple peasant-boy, he looked with a calm indifference upon the courtly splendor that surrounded him; for he had been bred amid the wild magnificence of the snow-capped Alps, and they pictured to his youthful imagination the “everlasting hills,” of which he had early been taught to sing, as he sat with the pious shepherds tending their flocks in the evening starlight.

It was a sad story he told of his poor, persecuted people, how, in the very heart of winter, six stout Catholic regiments had broken in upon their quiet homes, to overpower and destroy; how the innocent children had been dashed from the icy pinnacles—the fathers and mothers beheaded—their villages burned to the ground—and those who fled for safely to the mountain-caverns, were hunted like wild beasts by the Pope’s minions; and Cromwell—the lion warrior and the dauntless regicide—the unflinching patriot, and the powerful sovereign, clasped the poor fugitive to his heart, and loudly bewailed the fate of these martyred Christians.

“Had you parents, and were they victims of this terrible slaughter?” weepingly inquired Mary Cromwell, one of the Protector’s daughters.

“Yes, lady—parents; and a sweet little blue-eyed sister, like the little girl by your side;” and he pointed to a beautiful child that had been listening with a sorrowful face, and eyes brimfull, to his sad recital. “We called her our mountain violet; but in one night I was left alone—for they burned our cottage, and slew both parents and child. I was away, but came next morning and sat awhile by the mouldering embers of my home, and then rose up determined to seek the shores of Christian England, and plead for succor. I hid myself among the rocks and cliffs by day, and at night wandered, hungry and alone, until I reached the sea-coast, lest I should fall into the hands of the soldiers, and none escape to carry aid to my suffering nation.”

“You are a brave, blessed boy, and you shall not go hungry any more,” said little Anna Temple, forgetting her childish timidity; and going up close to him, she gazed earnestly and lovingly in his face. “Stay here, and we will all love you, because you have no sister—wont we, Mary?” said the child, in the warmth and innocency of her heart.

“Yes, darling,” replied she, “and he shall go to school, if he wishes, with you and Robert, and Eugene.”

The heart of Francois Waldo was nigh to bursting, as the gentle accents of the child fell on his ear—so like the tones of his own Christine, which had so often gladdened him in their happy home—and he bowed his head and wept for the first time since his bereavement; and every member of that lordly household wept in sympathy.

Months went by, and the Vaudois youth was still an inmate of the Protector’s family—a calm, intellectual, devoted student, destined as a preacher of that faith for which his kindred had suffered martyrdom. He went not back to his native valley, for here he might better fit himself for the work of the glorious mission he felt desirous of fulfilling; and Cromwell had been true to his word—the arm of oppression had been unnerved, and peace and plenty secured to the faithful survivors.

Anna Temple was the only earthly being that withdrew his thoughts for a moment from the prosecution of his great and holy purpose; but when her soft blue eyes pleaded, as they often did, with her lips, for an hour’s relaxation and amusement in the park or garden, he would sometimes unbind the mental chain for a little space, and go forth with spirit unfettered and free. Then he would talk to the fair child of his lost home—of the icy palaces of the Alps, pure as spirit-haunts—of the wild-flowers springing from their rocky beds, and of the holy starlight of the mountains, until the enthusiastic creature would regard Francois as a being of purer mould, more spiritual and good, than any other person with whom she held companionship.

And thus years passed; Francois still saw in the beautiful Anna Temple, or fancied he saw, the image of his lost Christine; and the young girl read in the large, soul-earnest eyes of the Vaudois student, the first mysterious leaf of womanhood—and they were both happy.

Meantime a shadow was darkening the sky of England—a storm-cloud, destined to shake from its foundation her political fabric, and place another Stuart on the throne. Cromwell, the Protector—the hero of the seventeenth century, was summoned to repose! Bravely had he borne his armor on the great battle-ground of life, and his valiant heart had not fainted in the heat of the conflict. The humble plebian had dared boldly to take up arms against his country’s foes in defiance of his king; and subsequently, at the same country’s call, and in defense of her liberties, with the Book of God in his hand, and a psalm on his lips, to affix his signature to the death-warrant of the sovereign traitor. Ever, where duty called, was he found foremost in the ranks of the faithful, battling for the right; and when in the maturity of manhood the sun of glory brightened his gray hairs with the splendor of royalty, he turned coldly away from the crown of a king, preferring the simple title of Protector of the Commonwealth. His sword was still girded against the Lord’s enemies, when a voice from above summoned him from earthly glory to heavenly rest; and on the third of September, one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight, Oliver Cromwell stood girded for his last conflict.

Historians have recorded that as a fearful night when the Lord Protector lay struggling with the final enemy. Wildly wailed the wind around that earthly palace; but the eye of the dying was on the eternal mansion, and so amid the fury of the elements, the great spirit of Cromwell achieved its final victory.

A loud wail burst from the whole army of Puritans, for well they knew there was none powerful like him to cope with their adversaries. The master-spirits among their opponents would not reverence his son, because the father had held them in check; and the inefficient Richard Cromwell had nothing to claim for himself. He beheld the country rent by faction, and having no power to quell insubordination, and, moreover, fearing the result to himself, he quietly resigned his Protectorate, and all that had been gained to England by Cromwell’s life, was lost in his death. Whither would now flee the fifty-nine judges who had decreed Charles Stuart to the scaffold, or where the friends of the Protector find safety?

——