A Reputed Changeling; Or, Three Seventh Years Two Centuries Ago by Yonge (best short novels of all time txt) 📖

some such expectation.  Nor should she be entirely cut off from her uncle, who was a Royal chaplain; and this was some consolation to the good Doctor when he found her purpose fixed, and made arrangements for her to travel up to town in company with Lady Worsley of Gatcombe, whom she was to meet at Southampton on the 1st of July.

Meantime the Doctor did his best to arm his niece against the allurements to Romanism that he feared would be held out.  Lady Oglethorpe and other friends had assured him of the matronly care of Lady Powys and Lady Strickland to guard their department from all evil; but he did fear these religious influences and Anne, resolute to resist all, perhaps not afraid of the conflict, was willing to arm herself for defence, and listened readily.  She was no less anxious to provide for her uncle’s comfort in his absence, and many small matters of housewifery that had stood over for some time were now to be purchased, as well as a few needments for her own outfit, although much was left for the counsel of her patroness in the matter of garments.

Accordingly her uncle rode in with her to Portsmouth on a shopping expedition, and as the streets of the seaport were scarcely safe for a young woman without an escort, he carried a little book in his pocket wherewith he beguiled the time that she spent in the selection of his frying-pans, fire-irons, and the like, and her own gloves and kerchiefs.  They dined at the ‘ordinary’ at the inn, and there Dr. Woodford met his great friends Mr. Stanbury of Botley, and Mr. Worsley of Gatcombe, in the Isle of Wight, who both, like him, were opposed to the reading of the Declaration of Indulgence, as unconstitutional, and deeply anxious as to the fate of the greatly beloved Bishop of Bath and Wells.  It was inevitable that they should fall into deep and earnest council together, and when dinner was over they agreed to adjourn to the house of a friend learned in ecclesiastical law to hunt up the rights of the case, leaving Anne to await them in a private room at the Spotted Dog, shown to her by the landlady.

Anne well knew what such a meeting betided, and with a certain prevision, had armed herself with some knotting, wherewith she sat down in a bay window overlooking the street, whence she could see market-women going home with empty baskets, pigs being reluctantly driven down to provision ships in the harbour, barrels of biscuit, salt meat, or beer, being rolled down for the same purpose, sailors in loose knee-breeches, and soldiers in tall peaked caps and cross-belts, and officers of each service moving in different directions.  She sat there day-dreaming, feeling secure in her loneliness, and presently saw a slight figure, daintily clad in gray and black, who catching her eye made an eager gesture, doffing his plumed hat and bowing low to her.  She returned his salute, and thought he passed on, but in another minute she was startled to find him at her side, exclaiming: “This is the occasion I have longed and sought for, Mistress Anne; I bless and thank the fates.”

“I am glad to see you once more before I depart,” said Anne, holding out her hand as frankly as she could to the old playfellow whom she always thought ill-treated, but whom she could never meet without a certain shudder.

“Then it is true?” he exclaimed.

“Yes; I am to go up with Lady Worsley from Southampton next week.”

“Ah!” he cried, “but must that be?” and she felt his strange power, so that she drew into herself and said haughtily—

“My dear mother wished me to be with her friends, nor can the King’s appointment be neglected, though of course I am extremely grieved to go.”

“And you are dazzled with all these gewgaws of Court life, no doubt?”

“I shall not be much in the way of gewgaws just yet,” said Anne drily.  “It will be dull enough in some back room of Whitehall or St. James’s.”

“Say you so.  You will wish yourself back—you, the lady of my heart—mine own good angel!  Hear me.  Say but the word, and your home will be mine, to say nothing of your own most devoted servant.”

“Hush, hush, sir!  I cannot hear this,” said Anne, anxiously glancing down the street in hopes of seeing her uncle approaching.

“Nay, but listen!  This is my only hope—my only chance—I must speak—you doom me to you know not what if you will not hear me!”

“Indeed, sir, I neither will nor ought!”

“Ought!  Ought!  Ought you not to save a fellow-creature from distraction and destruction?  One who has loved and looked to you ever since you and that saint your mother lifted me out of the misery of my childhood.”

Then as she looked softened he went on: “You, you are my one hope.  No one else can lift me out of the reach of the demon that has beset me even since I was born.”

“That is profane,” she said, the more severe for the growing attraction of repulsion.

“What do I care?  It is true!  What was I till you and your mother took pity on the wild imp?  My old nurse said a change would come to me every seven years.  That blessed change came just seven years ago.  Give me what will make a more blessed—a more saving change—or there will be one as much for the worse.”

“But—I could not.  No! you must see for yourself that I could not—even if I would,” she faltered, really pitying now, and unwilling to give more pain than she could help.

“Could not?  It should be possible.  I know how to bring it about.  Give me but your promise, and I will make you mine—ay, and I will make myself as worthy of you as man can be of saint-like maid.”

“No—no!  This is very wrong—you are pledged already—”

“No such thing—believe no such tale.  My promise has never been given to that grim hag of my father’s choice—no, nor should be forced from me by the rack.  Look you here.  Let me take this hand, call in the woman of the house, give me your word, and my father will own his power to bind me to Martha is at an end.”

“Oh, no!  It would be a sin—never.  Besides—” said Anne, holding her hands tightly clasped behind her in alarm, lest against her will she should let them be seized, and trying to find words to tell him how little she felt disposed to trust her heart and herself to one whom she might indeed pity, but with a sort of shrinking as from something not quite human.  Perhaps he dreaded her ‘besides’—for he cut her short.

“It would save ten thousand greater sins.  See, here are two ways before us.  Either give me your word, your precious word, go silent to London, leave me to struggle it out with my father and your uncle and follow you.  Hope and trust will be enough to bear me through the battle without, and within deafen the demon of my nature, and render me patient of my intolerable life till I have conquered and can bring you home.”

Her tongue faltered as she tried to say such a secret unsanctioned engagement would be treachery, but he cut off the words.

“You have not heard me out.  There is another way.  I know those who will aid me.  We can meet in early dawn, be wedded in one of these churches in all secrecy and haste, and I would carry you at once to my uncle, who, as you well know, would welcome you as a daughter.  Or, better still, we would to those fair lands I have scarce seen, but where I could make my way with sword or pen with you to inspire me.  I have the means.  My uncle left this with me.  Speak!  It is death or life to me.”

This last proposal was thoroughly alarming, and Anne retreated, drawing herself to her full height, and speaking with the dignity that concealed considerable terror.

“No, indeed, sir.  You ought to know better than to utter such proposals.  One who can make such schemes can certainly obtain no respect nor regard from the lady he addresses.  Let me pass”—for she was penned up in the bay window—“I shall seek the landlady till my uncle returns.”

“Nay, Mistress Anne, do not fear me.  Do not drive me to utter despair.  Oh, pardon me!  Nothing but utter desperation could drive me to have thus spoken; but how can I help using every effort to win her whose very look and presence is bliss!  Nothing else soothes and calms me; nothing else so silences the demon and wakens the better part of my nature.  Have you no pity upon a miserable wretch, who will be dragged down to his doom without your helping hand?”

He flung himself on his knee before her, and tried to grasp her hand.

“Indeed, I am sorry for you, Master Oakshott,” said Anne, compassionate, but still retreating as far as the window would let her; “but you are mistaken.  If this power be in me, which I cannot quite believe—yes, I see what you want to say, but if I did what I know to be wrong, I should lose it at once; God’s grace can save you without me.”

“I will not ask you to do what you call wrong; no, nor to transgress any of the ties you respect, you, whose home is so unlike mine; only tell me that I may have hope, that if I deserve you, I may win you; that you could grant me—wretched me—a share of your affection.”

This was hardest of all; mingled pity and repugnance, truth and compassion strove within the maiden as well as the strange influence of those extraordinary eyes.  She was almost as much afraid of herself as of her suitor.  At last she managed to say, “I am very sorry for you; I grieve from my heart for your troubles; I should be very glad to hear of your welfare and anything good of you, but—”

“But, but—I see—it is mere frenzy in me to think the blighted elf can aspire to be aught but loathsome to any lady—only, at least, tell me you love no one else.”

“No, certainly not,” she said, as if his eyes drew it forcibly from her.

“Then you cannot hinder me from making you my guiding star—hoping that if yet I can—”

“There’s my uncle!” exclaimed Anne, in a tone of infinite relief.  “Stand up, Mr. Oakshott, compose yourself.  Of course I cannot hinder your thinking about me, if it will do you any good, but there are better things to think about which would conquer evil and make you happy more effectually.”

He snatched her hand and kissed it, nor did she withhold it, since she really pitied him, and knew that her uncle was near, and all would soon be over.

Peregrine dashed away by another door as Dr. Woodford’s foot was on the stairs.  “I have ordered the horses,” he began.  “They told me young Oakshott was here.”

“He was, but he is gone;” and she could not quite conceal her agitation.

“Crimson cheeks, my young mistress?  Ah, the foolish fellow!  You do not care for him, I trust?”

“No, indeed, poor fellow.  What, did you know, sir?”

“Know.  Yes, truly—and your mother likewise, Anne.  It was one cause of her wishing to send you to safer keeping than mine seems to be.  My young spark made his proposals to us both, though we would not disturb your mind therewith, not knowing how he would have dealt with his father, nor viewing him, for all he is heir to Oakwood, as a desirable match in himself.  I am glad to see you have sense and discretion to be of the same mind, my maid.”

“I cannot but grieve for his sad condition, sir,” replied Anne, “but as for anything more—it would make me shudder to think of it—he is still too like Robin Goodfellow.”

“That’s my good girl,” said her uncle.  “And do you know, child, there are the best hopes for the Bishops.  There’s a gentleman come down but now from London, who says ’twas like a triumph as the Bishops sat in their barge on the way to the Tower; crowds swarming along the banks, begging for their blessing, and they waving it with tears in their eyes.  The King will be a mere madman if he dares to touch a hair of their heads.  Well, when I was a lad, Bishops were sent to the Tower by the people; I little thought to live to see them sent thither by the King.”

All the way home Dr. Woodford talked of the trial, beginning perhaps to regret that his niece must go to the very focus of Roman influence in England, where there seemed to be little scruple as to the