THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD.

Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of her county and her line, the handsomest of all the handsome women that had graced her race, when she moved, a century and a half ago, down the stately staircase, and through the gilded and tapestried halls of Lilliesford. The Town had run mad after her, and her face levelled politics, and was cited as admiringly by the Whigs at St. James's as by the Tories at the Cocoa-tree, by the beaux and Mohocks at Garraway's as by the alumni at the Grecian, by the wits at Will's as by the fops at Ozinda's.

Wherever she went, whether to the Haymarket or the Opera, to the 'Change for a fan or the palace for a state ball, to Drury Lane to see Pastoral Philips's dreary dilution of Racine, or to some fair chief of her faction for basset and ombre, she was surrounded by the best men of her time, and hated by Whig beauties with virulent wrath, for she was a Tory to the backbone, indeed a Jacobite at heart; worshipped Bolingbroke, detested Marlborough and Eugene, believed in all the horrors of the programme said to have been plotted by the Whigs for the anniversary show of 1711, and was thought to have prompted the satire on those fair politicians who are disguised as Rosalinda and Nigranilla in the 81st paper of the Spectator.

Cecil Castlemaine was the greatest beauty of her day, lovelier still at four-and-twenty than she had been at seventeen, unwedded, though the highest coronets in the land had been offered to her; far above the coquetteries and minauderies of her friends, far above imitation of the affectations of "Lady Betty Modley's skuttle," or need of practising the Fan exercise; haughty, peerless, radiant, unwon—nay, more—untouched; for the finest gentleman on the town could not flatter himself that he had ever stirred the slightest trace of interest in her, nor boast, as he stood in the inner circle at the Chocolate-house (unless, indeed, he lied more impudently than Tom Wharton himself), that he had ever been honored by a glance of encouragement from the Earl's daughter. She was too proud to cheapen herself with coquetry, too fastidious to care for her conquests over those who whispered to her through Nicolini's song, vied to have the privilege of carrying her fan, drove past her windows in Soho Square, crowded about her in St. James's Park, paid court even to her little spaniel Indamara, and, to catch but a glimpse of her brocaded train as it swept a ball-room floor, would leave even their play at the Groom Porter's, Mrs. Oldfield in the green-room, a night hunt with Mohun and their brother Mohocks, a circle of wits gathered "within the steam of the coffeepot" at Will's, a dinner at Halifax's, a supper at Bolingbroke's,—whatever, according to their several tastes, made their best entertainment and was hardest to quit.

The highest suitors of the day sought her smile and sued for her hand; men left the Court and the Mall to join the Flanders army before the lines at Bouchain less for loyal love of England than hopeless love of Cecil Castlemaine. Her father vainly urged her not to fling away offers that all the women at St. James's envied her. She was untouched and unwon, and when her friends, the court beauties, the fine ladies, the coquettes of quality, rallied her on her coldness (envying her her conquests), she would smile her slight proud smile and bow her stately head. "Perhaps she was cold; she might be; they were personnable men? Oh yes! she had nothing to say against them. His Grace of Belamour?—A pretty wit, without doubt. Lord Millamont?—Diverting, but a coxcomb. He had beautiful hands; it was a pity he was always thinking of them! Sir Gage Rivers?—As obsequious a lover as the man in the 'Way of the World,' but she had heard he was very boastful and facetious at women over his chocolate at Ozinda's. The Earl of Argent?—A gallant soldier, surely, but whatever he might protest, no mistress would ever rival with him the dice at the Groom Porter's. Lord Philip Bellairs?—A proper gentleman; no fault in him; a bel esprit and an elegant courtier; pleased many, no doubt, but he did not please her overmuch. Perhaps her taste was too finical, or her character too cold, as they said. She preferred it should be so. When you were content it were folly to seek a change. For her part, she failed to comprehend how women could stoop to flutter their fans and choose their ribbons, and rack their tirewomen's brains for new pulvillios, and lappets, and devices, and practise their curtsy and recovery before their pier-glass, for no better aim or stake than to draw the glance and win the praise of men for whom they cared nothing. A woman who had the eloquence of beauty and a true pride should be above heed for such affectations, pleasure in such applause!"

So she would put them all aside and turn the tables on her friends, and go on her own way, proud, peerless, Cecil Castlemaine, conquering and unconquered; and Steele must have had her name in his thoughts, and honored it heartily and sincerely, when he wrote one Tuesday, on the 21st of October, under the domino of his Church Coquette, "I say I do honor to those who can be coquettes and are not such, but I despise all who would be so, and, in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate and vilify all those who can." A definition justly drawn by his keen, quick graver, though doubtless it only excited the ire of, and was entirely lost upon, those who read the paper over their dish of bohea, or over their toilette, while they shifted a patch for an hour before they could determine it, or regretted the loss of ten guineas at crimp.

Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of the Town: when she sat at Drury Lane on the Tory side of the house, the devoutest admirer of Oldfield or Mrs. Porter scarcely heard a word of the Heroic Daughter, or the Amorous Widow, and the "beau fullest of his own dear self" forgot his silver-fringed gloves, his medallion snuff-box, his knotted cravat, his clouded cane, the slaughter that he planned to do, from gazing at her where she sat as though she were reigning sovereign at St. James's, the Castlemaine diamond's flashing crescent-like above her brow. At church and court, at park and assembly, there were none who could eclipse that haughty gentlewoman; therefore her fond women friends who had caressed her so warmly and so gracefully, and pulled her to pieces behind her back, if they could, so eagerly over their dainty cups of tea in an afternoon visit, were glad, one and all, when on "Barnabybright," AnglicÈ, the 22d (then the 11th) of June, the great Castlemaine chariot, with its three herons blazoned on its coroneted panels, its laced liveries and gilded harness, rolled over the heavy, ill-made roads down into the country in almost princely pomp, the peasants pouring out from the wayside cottages to stare at my lord's coach.

It was said in the town that a portly divine, who wore his scarf as one of the chaplains to the Earl of Castlemaine, had prattled somewhat indiscreetly at Child's of his patron's politics; that certain cipher letters had passed the Channel enclosed in chocolate-cakes as soon as French goods were again imported after the peace of Utrecht; that gentlemen in high places were strongly suspected of mischievous designs against the tranquillity of the country and government; that the Earl had, among others, received a friendly hint from a relative in power to absent himself for a while from the court where he was not best trusted, and the town where an incautious word might be picked up and lead to Tower Hill, and amuse himself at his goodly castle of Lilliesford, where the red deer would not spy upon him, and the dark beech-woods would tell no tales. And the ladies of quality, her dear friends and sisters, were glad when they heard it as they punted at basset and fluttered their fans complacently. They would have the field for themselves, for a season, while Cecil Castlemaine was immured in her manor of Lilliesford; would be free of her beauty to eclipse them at the next birthday, be quit of their most dreaded rival, their most omnipotent leader of fashion; and they rejoiced at the whisper of the cipher letter, the damaging gossipry of the Whig coffee-houses, the bad repute into which my Lord Earl had grown at St. James's, at the misfortune of their friend, in a word, as human nature, masculine or feminine, will ever do—to its shame be it spoken—unless the fomes peccati be more completely wrung out of it than it ever has been since the angel Gabriel performed that work of purification on the infant Mahomet.

It was the June of the year '15, and the coming disaffection was seething and boiling secretly among the Tories; the impeachment of Ormond and Bolingbroke had strengthened the distaste to the new-come Hanoverian pack, their attainder had been the blast of air needed to excite the smouldering wood to flame, the gentlemen of that party in the South began to grow impatient of the intrusion of the distant German branch, to think lovingly of the old legitimate line, and to feel something of the chafing irritation of the gentlemen of the North, who were fretting like stag-hounds held in leash.

Envoys passed to and fro between St. Germain, and Jacobite nobles, priests of the church that had fallen out of favor and was typified as the Scarlet Woman by a rival who, though successful, was still bitter, plotted with ecclesiastical relish in the task; letters were conveyed in rolls of innocent lace, plans were forwarded in frosted confections, messages were passed in invisible cipher that defied investigation. The times were dangerous; full of plot and counterplot, of risk and danger, of fomenting projects and hidden disaffection—times in which men, living habitually over mines, learned to like the uncertainty, and to think life flavorless without the chance of losing it any hour; and things being in this state, the Earl of Castlemaine deemed it prudent to take the counsel of his friend in power, and retire from London for a while, perhaps for the safety of his own person, perhaps for the advancement of his cause, either of which were easier insured at his seat in the western counties than amidst the Whigs of the capital.

The castle of Lilliesford was bowered in the thick woods of the western counties, a giant pile built by Norman masons. Troops of deer herded under the gold-green beechen boughs, the sunlight glistened through the aisles of the trees, and quivered down on to the thick moss, and ferns, and tangled grass that grew under the park woodlands; the water-lilies clustered on the river, and the swans "floated double, swan and shadow," under the leaves that swept into the water; then, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to share her father's retirement, as now, when her name and titles on the gold plate of a coffin that lies with others of her race in the mausoleum across the park, where winter snows and sumer sun-rays are alike to those who sleep within, is all that tells at Lilliesford of the loveliest woman of her time who once reigned there as mistress.

The country was in its glad green midsummer beauty, and the musk-rosebuds bloomed in profuse luxuriance over the chill marble of the terraces, and scattered their delicate odorous petals in fragrant showers on the sward of the lawns, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to what she termed her exile. The morning was fair and cloudless, its sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in the woodlands, the thickest shroud of the ivy, the deepest-hued pane of the mullioned windows, as she passed down the great staircase where lords and gentlewomen of her race gazed on her from the canvas of Lely and Jamesone, Bourdain and Vandyke, crossed the hall with her dainty step, so stately yet so light, and standing by the window of her own bower-room, was lured out on to the terrace overlooking the west side of the park.

She made such a picture as Vandyke would have liked to paint, with her golden glow upon her, and the musk-roses clustering about her round the pilasters of marble—the white chill marble to which Belamour and many other of her lovers of the court and town had often likened her. Vandyke would have lingered lovingly on the hand that rested on her stag-hound's head, would have caught her air of court-like grace and dignity, would have painted with delighted fidelity her deep azure eyes, her proud brow, her delicate lips arched haughtily like a cupid's bow, would have picked out every fold of her sweeping train, every play of light on her silken skirts, every dainty tracery of her point-lace. Yet even painted by Sir Anthony, that perfect master of art and of elegance, though more finished it could have hardly been more faithful, more instinct with grace, and life, and dignity, than a sketch drawn of her shortly after that time by one who loved her well, which is still hanging in the gallery at Lilliesford, lighted up by the afternoon sun when it streams in through the western windows.

Cecil Castlemaine stood on the terrace looking over the lawns and gardens through the opening vistas of meeting boughs and interlaced leaves to the woods and hills beyond, fused in a soft mist of green and purple, with her hand lying carelessly on her hound's broad head. She was a zealous Tory, a skilled politician, and her thoughts were busy with the hopes and fears, the chances for and against, of a cause that lay near her heart, but whose plans were yet immature, whose first blow was yet unstruck, and whose well-wishers were sanguine of a success they had not yet hazarded, though they hardly ventured to whisper to each other their previous designs and desires. Her thoughts were far away, and she hardly heeded the beauty round her, musing on schemes and projects dear to her party, that would imperil the Castlemaine coronet but would serve the only royal house the Castlemaine line had ever in their hearts acknowledged.

She had regretted leaving the Town, moreover; a leader of the mode, a wit, a woman of the world, she missed her accustomed sphere; she was no pastoral Phyllis, no country-born Mistress Fiddy, to pass her time in provincial pleasures, in making cordial waters, in tending her beau-pots, in preserving her fallen rose-leaves, in inspecting the confections in the still-room; as little was she able, like many fine ladies when in similar exile, to while it away by scolding her tirewomen, and sorting a suit of ribbons, in ordering a set of gilded leather hangings from Chelsea for the state chambers, and yawning over chocolate in her bed till mid-day. She regretted leaving the Town, not for Belamour, nor Argent, nor any, of those who vainly hoped, as they glanced at the little mirror in the lids of their snuff-boxes, that they might have graven themselves, were it ever so faintly, in her thoughts; but for the wits, the pleasures, the choice clique, the accustomed circle to which she was so used, the courtly, brilliant town-life where she was wont to reign.

So she stood on the terrace the first morning of her exile, her thoughts far away, with the loyal gentlemen of the North, and the banished court at St. Germain, the lids drooping proudly over her haughty eyes, and her lips half parted with a faint smile of triumph in the visions limned by ambition and imagination, while the wind softly stirred the rich lace of her bodice, and her fingers lay lightly, yet firmly, on the head of her stag-hound. She looked up at last as she heard the ring of a horse's hoofs, and saw a sorrel, covered with dust and foam, spurred up the avenue, which, rounding past the terrace, swept on to the front entrance; the sorrel looked wellnigh spent, and his rider somewhat worn and languid, as a man might do with justice who had been in boot and saddle twenty-four hours at the stretch, scarce stopping for a stoup of wine; but he lifted his hat, and bowed down to his saddle-bow as he passed her.

"Was it the long-looked-for messenger with definite news from St. Germain?" wondered Lady Cecil, as her hound gave out a deep-tongued bay of anger at the stranger. She went back into her bower-room, and toyed absently with her flowered handkerchief, broidering a stalk to a violet-leaf, and wondering what additional hope the horseman might have brought to strengthen the good Cause, till her servants brought word that his Lordship prayed the pleasure of her presence in the octagon-room. Whereat she rose, and swept through the long corridors, entered the octagon-room, the sunbeams gathering about her rich dress as they passed through the stained-glass oriels, and saluted the new-comer, when her father presented him to her as their trusty and welcome friend and envoy, Sir Fulke Ravensworth, with her careless dignity and queenly grace, that nameless air which was too highly bred to be condescension, but markedly and proudly repelled familiarity, and signed a pale of distance beyond which none must intrude.

The new-comer was a tall and handsome man, of noble presence, bronzed by foreign suns, pale and jaded just now with hard riding, while his dark silver-laced suit was splashed and covered with dust; but as he bowed low to her, critical Cecil Castlemaine saw that not Belamour himself could have better grace, not my Lord Millamont courtlier mien nor whiter hands, and listened with gracious air to what her father unfolded to her of his mission from St. Germain, whither he had come, at great personal risk, in many disguises, and at breathless speed, to place in their hands a precious letter in cipher from James Stuart to his well-beloved and loyal subject Herbert George, Earl of Castlemaine. A letter spoken of with closed doors and in low whispers, loyal as was the household, supreme as the Earl ruled over his domains of Lilliesford, for these were times when men mistrusted those of their own blood, and when the very figure on the tapestry seemed instinct with life to spy and betray—when they almost feared the silk that tied a missive should babble of its contents, and the hound that slept beside them should read and tell their thoughts.

To leave Lilliesford would be danger to the Envoy and danger to the Cause; to stay as guest was to disarm suspicion. The messenger who had brought such priceless news must rest within the shelter of his roof; too much were risked by returning to the French coast yet awhile, or even by joining Mar or Derwentwater, so the Earl enforced his will upon the Envoy, and the Envoy thanked him and accepted.

Perchance the beauty, whose eyes he had seen lighten and proud brow flush as she read the royal greeting and injunction, made a sojourn near her presence not distasteful; perchance he cared little where he stayed till the dawning time of action and of rising should arrive, when he should take the field and fight till life or death for the "White Rose and the long heads of hair." He was a soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman with no patrimony but his name, no chance of distinction save by his sword; sworn to a cause whose star was set forever; for many years his life had been of changing adventure and shifting chances, now fighting with Berwick at Almanza, now risking his life in some delicate and dangerous errand for James Stuart that could not have been trusted so well to any other officer about St. Germain; gallant to rashness, yet with much of the acumen of the diplomatist, he was invaluable to his Court and Cause, but, Stuart-like, men-like, they hastened to employ, but ever forgot to reward!

Lady Cecil missed her town-life, and did not over-favor her exile in the western counties. To note down on her Mather's tablets the drowsy homilies droned out by the chaplain on a Sabbath noon, to play at crambo, to talk with her tirewomen of new washes for the skin, to pass her hours away in knotting?—she, whom Steele might have writ of when he drew his character of Eudoxia, could wile her exile with none of these inanities; neither could she consort with gentry who seemed to her little better than the boors of a country wake, who had never heard of Mr. Spectator and knew nothing of Mr. Cowley, countrywomen whose ambition was in their cowslip wines, fox-hunters more ignorant and uncouth than the dumb brutes they followed.

Who was there for miles around with whom she could stoop to associate, with whom she cared to exchange a word? Madam from the vicarage, in her grogram, learned in syrups, salves, and possets? Country Lady Bountifuls, with gossip of the village and the poultry-yard? Provincial Peeresses, who had never been to London since Queen Anne's coronation? A squirearchy, who knew of no music save the concert of their stop-hounds, no court save the court of the county assize, no literature unless by miracle 't were Tarleton's Jests? None such as these could cross the inlaid oak parquet of Lilliesford, and be ushered into the presence of Cecil Castlemaine.

So the presence of the Chevalier's messenger was not altogether unwelcome and distasteful to her. She saw him but little, merely conversing at table with him with that distant and dignified courtesy which marked her out from the light, free, inconsequent manners in vogue with other women of quality of her time; the air which had chilled half the softest things even on Belamour's lips, and kept the vainest coxcomb hesitating and abashed.

But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man who had lived in many countries and in many courts, was well versed in the tongues of France and Italy and Spain—in their belles-lettres too, moreover—and had served his apprenticeship to good company in the salons of Versailles, in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions of the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished family at St. Germain. He spoke with a high and sanguine spirit of the troublous times approaching and the beloved Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with her humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the airy nothings of Millamont. He was but a soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman who, named to her in the town, would have had never a word, and would have been unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round to hold her fan and hear how she had been pleasured with the drolleries of Grief À la Mode. But down in the western counties she deigned to listen to the Prince's officer, to smile—a smile beautiful when it came on her proud lips, as the play of light on the opals of her jewelled stomacher—nay, even to be amused when he spoke of the women of foreign courts, to be interested when he told, which was but reluctantly, of his own perils, escapes, and adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western terrace at curfew to watch the sunset, of many things on which the nobles of the Mall and the gentlemen about St. James's had never been allowed to share her opinions. For Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply for her day, since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented themselves with skimming a romance of Scuderi's, or an act of Aurungzebe); but she rarely spoke of those things, save perchance now and then to Mr. Addison.

Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and flattery was a honeyed confection of which she had long been cloyed; he even praised boldly before her other women of beauty and grace whom he had seen at Versailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain; neither did he defer to her perpetually, but where he differed would combat her sentiments courteously but firmly. Though a soldier and a man of action, he had an admirable skill at the limner's art; could read to her the Divina Commedia, or the comedies of Lope da' Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin and abstruse Greek into elegant English for her pleasures and though a beggared gentleman of most precarious fortunes, he would speak of life and its chances, of the Cause and its perils, with a daring which she found preferable to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had no better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared for no other weapons than their toilettes and snuff-boxes, and sought no other excitement than a coup d'Éclat with the lion-tumblers.

On the whole, through these long midsummer days, Lady Cecil found the Envoy from St. Germain a companion that did not suit her ill, sought less the solitude of her bower-room, and listened graciously to him in the long twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the cups of the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver on the water-lilies floating on the river below, that murmured along, with endless song, under the beechen-boughs. A certain softness stole over her, relaxing the cold hauteur of which Belamour had so often complained, giving a nameless charm, supplying a nameless something, lacking before, in the beauty of The Castlemaine.

She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of her tartaret falcon Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought her the bird from the ostreger's wrist, with its azure velvet hood, and silver bells and jesses. She would wonder, as she glanced through Corneille or Congreve, Philips or Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how different their strain. And now and then would come over her cheek and brow a faint fitful wavering flush, delicate and changing as the flush from the rose-hued reflexions of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and then she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she ailed, and grow once more haughty, calm, stately, dazzling, but chill as the Castlemaine diamonds that she wore.

So the summer-time passed, and the autumn came, the corn-lands brown with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves turning into reddened gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle, as the nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, strengthened and matured only to fade into disappointment and destruction! Four months had sped by since the Prince's messenger had come to Lilliesford—months that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet delicious dream; and the time had come when he had orders to ride north, secretly and swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster and other gentlemen concerned in the meditated rising, and convey despatches and instructions to the Earl of Mar; for Prince James was projecting soon to join his loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was close at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth's high and sanguine courage, victory seemed certain; failure, if no treachery marred, no dissension weakened, impossible; the moment to which he looked for honor, success, distinction, that should give him claim and title to aspire—where? Strong man, cool soldier though he was, he shrank from drawing his fancied future out from the golden haze of immature hope, lest he should see it wither upon closer sight. He was but a landless adventurer, with nothing but his sword and his honor, and kings he knew were slow to pay back benefits, or recollect the hands that hewed them free passage to their thrones.

Cecil Castlemaine stood within the window of her bower-room, the red light of the October sun glittering on her gold-broidered skirt and her corsage sewn with opals and emeralds; her hand was pressed lightly on her bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there; it was new this unrest, this weariness, this vague weight that hung upon her; it was the perils of their Cause, she told herself; the risks her father ran: it was weak, childish, unworthy a Castlemaine! Still the pain throbbed there.

Her hound, asleep beside her, raised his head with a low growl as a step intruded on the sanctity of the bower-room, then composed himself again to slumber, satisfied it was no foe. His mistress turned slowly; she knew the horses waited; she had shunned this ceremony of farewell, and never thought any would be bold enough to venture here without permission sought and gained.

"Lady Cecil, I could not go upon my way without one word of parting. Pardon me if I have been too rash to seek it here."

Why was it that his brief frank words ever pleased her better than Belamour's most honeyed phrases, Millamont's suavest periods? She scarcely could have told, save that there were in them an earnestness and truth new and rare to her ear and to her heart.

She pressed her hand closer on the opals—the jewels of calamity—and smiled:

"Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safe issue from all perils."

He bowed low; then raised himself to his fullest height, and stood beside her, watching the light play upon the opals:

"That is all you vouchsafe me?"

"All? It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? It is more than I would say to many."

"Your pardon—it is more than I should claim if prudence were ever by, if reason always ruled! I have no right to ask for, seek for, even wish for, more; such petitions may only be addressed by men of wealth and of high title; a landless soldier should have no pride to sting, no heart to wound; they are the prerogative of a happier fortune."

Her lips turned white, but she answered haughtily; the crimson light flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless and hereditary, like her beauty and her pride:

"This is strange language, sir! I fail to apprehend you."

"You have never thought that I ran a danger deadlier than that which I have ever risked on any field? You have never guessed that I have had the madness, the presumption, the crime—it may be in your eyes—to love you."

The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her brow, and then fled back. Her first instinct was insulted pride—a beggared gentleman, a landless soldier, spoke to her of love!—of love!—which Belamour had barely had courage to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of her in return. He had ventured to feel this for her! he had ventured to speak of this to her!

The Envoy saw the rising resentment, the pride spoken in every line of her delicate face, and stopped her as she would have spoken.

"Wait! I know all you would reply. You think it infinite daring, presumption that merits highest reproof——"

"Since you divined so justly, it were pity you subjected yourself and me to this most useless, most unexpected interview. Why——"

"Why? Because, perchance, in this life you will see my face no more, and you will think gently, mercifully of my offence (if offence it be to love you more than life, and only less than honor), when you know that I have fallen for the Cause, with your name in my heart, held only the dearer because never on my lips! Sincere love can be no insult to whomsoever proffered; Elizabeth Stuart saw no shame to her in the devotion of William Craven!"

Cecil Castlemaine stood in the crimson glory of the autumn sunset, her head erect, her pride unshaken, but her heart stirred strangely and unwontedly. It smote the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless exile should thus dare to speak of what princes and dukes had almost feared to whisper; what had she done—what had she said, to give him license for such liberty? It stirred the other with a tremulous warmth, a vague, sweet pleasure, that were never visitants there before; but that she scouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the Last of the Castlemaines.

He saw well enough what passed within her, what made her eyes so troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, and he bent nearer towards her, the great love that was in him trembling in his voice:

"Lady Cecil, hear me! If in the coming struggle I win distinction, honor, rank—if victory come to us, and the King we serve remember me in his prosperity as he does now in his adversity—if I can meet you hereafter with tidings of triumph and success, my name made one which England breathes with praise and pride, honors gained such as even you will deem worthy of your line—then—then—will you let me speak of what you refuse to hearken to now—then may I come to you, and seek a gentler answer?"

She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent towards her in the radiance of the sunset light, the hope that hopes all things glistening in his eyes, the high-souled daring of a gallant and sanguine spirit flushing his forehead, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the stillness around; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quivered for an instant.

Then she turned towards him with queenly grace:

"Yes!"

It was spoken with stately dignity, though scarce above her breath; but the hue that wavered in her cheek was but the lovelier, for the pride that would not let her eyes droop nor her tears rise, would not let her utter one softer word. That one word cost her much. That single utterance was much from Cecil Castlemaine.

Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy of lace, embroidered with her shield and chiffre; he stooped and raised it, and thrust it in his breast to treasure it there.

"If I fail, I send this back in token that I renounce all hope; if I can come to you with honor and with fame, this shall be my gage that I may speak, that you will listen?"

She bowed her noble head, ever held haughtily, as though every crown of Europe had a right to circle it; his hot lips lingered for a moment on her hand; then Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her bower-room, her hand pressed again upon the opals under which her heart was beating with a dull, weary pain, looking out over the landscape, where the golden leaves were falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly dead branches on its waves, was bemoaning in plaintive language the summer days gone by.

Two months came and went, the beech-boughs, black and sear, creaked in the bleak December winds that sighed through frozen ferns and over the couches of shivering deer, the snow drifted up on the marble terrace, and icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk-rosebuds had nestled. Across the country came terrible whispers that struck the hearts of men of loyal faith to the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold terror and despair. Messengers riding in hot haste, open-mouthed peasants gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for a breathless rest at alehouse-doors, Whig divines who returned thanks for God's most gracious mercy in vouchsafing victory to the strong, all told the tale, all spread the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of the surrender under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. The tidings came one by one to Lilliesford, where my Lord Earl was holding himself in readiness to co-operate with the gentlemen of the North to set up the royal standard, broidered by his daughter's hands, in the western counties, and proclaim James III. "sovereign lord and king of the realms of Great Britain and Ireland." The tidings came to Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaine clenched her white jewelled hands in passionate anguish that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of Argyll, instead of dying with his face towards the rebel crew; that men had lived who could choose surrender instead of heroic death; that she had not been there, at Preston, to shame them with a woman's reading of courage and of loyalty, and show them how to fall with a doomed city rather than yield captive to a foe!

Perhaps amidst her grief for her Prince and for his Cause mingled—as the deadliest thought of all—a memory of a bright proud face, that had bent towards her with tender love and touching grace a month before, and that might now be lying pale and cold, turned upwards to the winter stars, on the field of Sheriff-Muir.

A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled since the gilded carriage of the Castlemaines, with the lordly blazonment upon its panels, its princely retinue and stately pomp, had come down into the western counties. The bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower, and the skulls over Temple-bar had bleached white in winter snows and spring-tide suns; Kenmuir had gone to a sleep that knew no wakening, and Derwentwater had laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause; the heather bloomed over the mounds of dead on the plains of Sheriff-Muir, and the yellow gorse blossomed under the city walls of Preston.

Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, over England; none the less fair for human lives laid down, for human hopes crushed out; daisies powdering the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling their song over graves of heaped-up dead. The musk-roses tossed their delicate heads again amidst the marble pilasters, and the hawthorn-boughs shook their fragrant buds into the river at Lilliesford, the purple hills lay wrapped in sunny mist, and hyacinth-bells mingled with the tangled grass and fern under the woodland shades, where the red deer nestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery wings down by the water-side, swallows circled in sultry air above the great bell-tower, and wood-pigeons cooed with soft love-notes among the leafy branches. Yet the Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole owner of the lands that spread around her, stood on the rose-terrace, finding no joy in the sunlight about her, no melody in the song of the birds.

She was the last of her name; her father, broken-hearted at the news from Dumblain and Preston, had died the very day after his lodgment in the Tower. There was no heir male of his line, and the title had passed to his daughter; there had been thoughts of confiscation and attainder, but others, unknown to her, solicited what she scorned to ask for herself, and the greed of the hungry "Hanoverian pack" spared the lands and the revenues of Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning, the fairest beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to the solitude of her western counties, and tarried there, dwelling amidst her women and her almost regal household, in the sacred solitude of grief, wherein none might intrude. Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than of yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled King, she would hold converse with none of those who had had a hand in drawing down the disastrous fate she mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or Gabrielle the falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked her folded wings. She stood on the terrace, looking over her spreading lands, not the water-lilies on the river below whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together. Perhaps she repented of certain words, spoken to one whom now she would never again behold—perhaps she thought of that delicate toy that was to have been brought back in victory and hope, that now might lie stained and stiffened with blood next a lifeless heart, for never a word in the twelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as tidings of Fulke Ravensworth.

Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else; she had spoken as was her right to speak, she had done what became a Castlemaine; it would have been weakness to have acted otherwise; what was he—a landless soldier—that he should have dared as he had dared? Yet the sables she wore were not solely for the dead Earl, not solely for the lost Stuarts the hot mist that would blind the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours swelled to days, and days to months, and she—the flattered beauty of the Court and Town—stayed in self-chosen solitude in her halls of Lilliesford, still unwedded and unwon.

The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the morning but weighed with heavier sadness on her heart; the song of the birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell round her pet fawn's neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping boughs—none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood looking over her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his hiding-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the terrace before her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have ventured thus abruptly into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine; still it was with some touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her.

"Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though I watched till midnight."

"Your master?"

A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her words, but went on in an eager whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a hare would glance fearing the hunters.

"And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, but only to give you this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot his honor nor your will."

Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took it—her own costly toy of cambric and lace, with her broidered shield and coronet.

"Your master! Then—he lives?"

"Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his message; I must tell no further."

She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow-white hand, yet one that held him now in a clasp of steel.

"Child! answer me at your peril! Tell me of him whom you call your master. Tell me all—quick—quick!"

"You are his friend?"

"His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!"

"He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger; but if you are his friend, I sure may speak what you should know without me. It is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or living!"

The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched face, she signed him on with impetuous command; she was unused to disobedience, and the child's words cut her to the quick.

"Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night," the boy went on, in tremulous haste. "He was left for dead—our men ran one way, and Argyll's men the other—on the field of Sheriff-Muir; and sure if he had not been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, untended, on the bleak moor, with the winds roaring round him, and his life ebbing away. He was not one of those who fled; you know that of him if you know aught. We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid him in a shieling; he was in the fever then, and knew nothing that was done to him, only he kept that bit of lace in his hand for weeks and weeks, and would not let us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we wondered often, but 'twas a magic, mayhap, that got him well at last; it was an even chance but that he'd died, God bless him! though we did what best we could. We've been wandering in the Highlands all the year, hiding here and tarrying there. Sir Fulke sets no count upon his life. Sure I think he thanks us little for getting him through the fever of the wounds, but he could not have borne to be pinioned, you know, lady, like a thief, and hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs sheep in the shambles! The worst of the danger's over—they've had their fill of the slaughter; but we sail to-morrow night for the French coast—England's no place for my master."

Cecil Castlemaine let go her hold upon the boy, and her hand closed convulsively upon the dainty handkerchief—her gage sent so faithfully back to her!

The child looked upon her face; perchance, in his master's delirium, he had caught some knowledge of the story that hung to that broidered toy.

"If you are his friend, madame, doubtless you have some last word to send him?"

Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing softened, bowed her head at the simple question, her heart wrestling sorely, her lips set together in unswerving pride, a mist before her haughty eyes, the broidered shield upon her handkerchief—the shield of her stately and unyielding race—pressed close against her breast.

"You have no word for him, lady?"

Her lips parted; she signed him away. Was this child to see her yielding to such weakness? Had she, Countess of Castlemaine, no better pride, no better strength, no better power of resolve, than this?

The boy lingered.

"I will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruined have no friends?"

Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of her face; she raised her stately head, haughtily as she had used to glance over a glittering Court, where each voice murmured praise of her loveliness and reproach of her coldness; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in the boy's hands.

"Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage that their calamity makes friends more dear to us than their success. Go, he will know its meaning!"

In place of the noon chimes the curfew was ringing from the bell-tower, the swallows were gone to roost amidst the ivy, and the herons slept with their heads under their silvery wings among the rushes by the riverside, the ferns and wild hyacinths were damp with evening dew, and the summer starlight glistened amidst the quivering woodland leaves. There was the silence of coming night over the vast forest glades, and no sound broke the stillness, save the song of the grasshopper stirring the tangled grasses, or the sweet low sigh of the west wind fanning the bells of the flowers. Cecil Castlemaine stood once more on the rose-terrace, shrouded in the dense twilight shade flung from above by the beech-boughs, waiting, listening, catching every rustle of the leaves, every tremor of the heads of the roses, yet hearing nothing in the stillness around but the quick, uncertain throbs of her heart beating like the wing of a caged bird under its costly lace. Pride was forgotten at length, and she only remembered—fear and love.

In the silence and the solitude came a step that she knew, came a presence that she felt. She bowed her head upon her hands; it was new to her this weakness, this terror, this anguish of joy; she sought to calm herself, to steel herself, to summon back her pride, her strength; she scorned herself for it all!

His hand touched her, his voice fell on her ear once more, eager, breathless, broken.

"Cecil! Cecil! is this true? Is my ruin thrice blessed, or am I mad, and dream of heaven?"

She lifted her head and looked at him with her old proud glance, her lips trembling with words that all her pride could not summon into speech; then her eyes filled with warm, blinding tears, and softened to new beauty;—scarce louder than the sigh of the wind among the flower-bells came her words to Fulke Ravensworth's ear, as her royal head bowed on his breast.

"Stay, stay! Or, if you fly, your exile shall be my exile, your danger my danger!"

The kerchief is a treasured heirloom to her descendants now, and fair women of her race, who inherit from her her azure eyes and her queenly grace, will recall how the proudest Countess of their Line loved a ruined gentleman so well that she was wedded to him at even, in her private chapel, at the hour of his greatest peril, his lowest fortune, and went with him across the seas till friendly intercession in high places gained them royal permission to dwell again at Lilliesford unmolested. And how it was ever noticeable to those who murmured at her coldness and her pride, that Cecil Castlemaine, cold and negligent as of yore to all the world beside, would seek her husband's smile, and love to meet his eyes, and cherish her beauty for his sake, and be restless in his absence, even for the short span of a day, with a softer and more clinging tenderness than was found in many weaker, many humbler women.

They are gone now the men and women of that generation, and their voices come only to us through the faint echo of their written words. In summer nights the old beech-trees toss their leaves in the silvery light of the stars, and the river flows on unchanged, with the ceaseless, mournful burden of its mystic song, the same now as in the midsummer of a century and a half ago. The cobweb handkerchief lies before me with its broidered shield; the same now as long years since, when it was treasured close in a soldier's breast, and held by him dearer than all save his honor and his word. So, things pulseless and passionless endure, and human life passes away as swiftly as a song dies off from the air—as quickly succeeded, and as quickly forgot! Ronsard's refrain is the refrain of our lives:

Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame!
Las! le temps, non; mais nous nous, en allons!