The Loyalists, Volumes 1-3 | Page 8

never could be another's. The lover poured forth
protestations of gratitude. "No," answered she, "I deserve no thanks; for,
to tell you the truth, I have endeavoured to see you with indifference,
but find it is impossible. You have lived in courts, Mr. Evellin, where
women are hardly won and quickly lost; but do not therefore despise a
Lancashire girl who dares not play with Cupid's arrows, but loves in
sad sincerity, or rejects with steady courtesy; yet if you suspect that you
cannot meet my devoted constancy with equal singleness of heart, leave
me now, good Evellin, ere yet my life is so bound up in your sincerity,
that I shall want strength of mind to dissolve the bond. At present I am
so much more disposed to respect you than myself, that I may think
what you have said was only meant for gallantry, which my ignorance
of the world has misconstrued. If after this warning you still persist in
your suit, you must either be, till death, my faithful lover, or virtually

my murderer."
"My own betrothed Isabel," answered Evellin, "to love, pourtrayed with
such chaste simplicity, I owe a confidence as unbounded as thy own. I
will put my life in thy keeping, by disclosing the bosom-secret I have
concealed even from thy saint-like brother. 'Tis the pledge of my
constancy. Mark me, dearest maiden, though a proscribed wanderer
wooes thy love, thy hand may be claimed by a peer of England, and
those graces which adorn thy native village may ornament the palace of
our King."
He paused to see if the glow of ambition supplanted the virgin blushes
of acknowledged love; but Isabel's cheek displayed the same meek
roseate hue. No hurried exclamation, no gaspings of concealed delight,
no lively flashings of an exulting eye, proclaimed that he was dearer to
her now than before he acknowledged his high descent. Her objections
to a speedy marriage were even confirmed by this discovery. "I must
know," said she, "that there is no one who possesses a natural or
acquired right to control your choice. People in eminent stations owe
many duties to the state, and must not soil their honours by unworthy
alliances. Perhaps under your tuition I might so deport myself as not to
shame your choice, but I must be well assured that I shall be no
obstacle to your moving in your proper sphere, or I will die Isabel
Beaumont, praying that you may be happier than my love could make
you."
Evellin rewarded this generous attachment by telling her his assumed
name was an anagram of his real one, Allan Neville, presumptive heir
to the earldom of Bellingham, the honours of which were now
possessed by an elder brother, whose declining state of health made it
probable that Allan would soon be called from the obscurity in which
he lived, and compelled to clear his slandered fame or sink under the
malice of his foes. As a younger brother, he was expected to be the
founder of his own fortune. His education, therefore, had been most
carefully conducted; he had had the best tutors in every branch of
learning; and he had travelled under the guidance of an enlightened
friend. The pacific character of King James furnishing no employment

in arms, he had sought the court as his sphere of action; but while he
was displaying the accomplishments he possessed, and acquiring the
knowledge of mankind which is necessary to a statesman, he at once
attracted the notice of Princes and the envy of their favourites. That
fearless candour, and that self-depending integrity which generally
attends the finest qualities and noblest dispositions, rendered him
careless of the frowns of those whom he discovered to be rather crafty
rivals than generous competitors, and determined him rather to despise
opposition than to conciliate esteem.
The haughty Duke of Buckingham was then in the zenith of his power.
By bringing Prince Charles back from Spain he had relieved the
national anxiety; and the short-sighted multitude, forgetting who had
endangered the heir-apparent's safety, heaped on him undeserved
popularity. Hence his extraordinary good fortune in pleasing all parties
so elated him as to make him shew in his conduct that contempt for his
benefactor, King James, which he had long secretly entertained. By the
impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex, a confidential adviser and
personal favourite of the King's, from motives of private pique, and by
hurrying the nation into a war with Spain, for which the Parliament had
not provided resources, he laid the foundation of the pecuniary
difficulties, and created those evil precedents which ultimately
contributed to overthrow the regal authority. These fatal results of his
pernicious measures formed an awful lesson to Kings on the mischiefs
incident to favouritism, and on the folly of erecting