VOLUME 34.

REDGAUNTLET.

A TALE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Master, go on; and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.

As You Like it.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

II.

PARKER'S EDITION,

REVISED AND CORRECTED, WITH A GENERAL PREFACE, AN
INTRODUCTION ΤΟ EACH NOVEL, AND NOTES,
HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE, BY

THE AUTHOR.

PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL H. PARKER, BOSTON, FOR
DESILVER, THOMAS, AND CO.,
PHILADELPHIA.

1836.

REDGAUNTLET.

CHAPTER I.

DARSIE LATIMER'S JOURNAL IN CONTINUATION

I SPENT more than an hour, after returning to the apartment which I may call my prison, in reducing to writing the singular circumstances which I had just witnessed. Methought I could now form some guess at the character of Mr. Herries, upon whose name and situation the late scene had thrown considerable light :-one of those fanatical Jacobites, doubtless, whose arms, not twenty years since, had shaken the British throne, and some of whom, though their party daily diminished in numbers, energy, and power, retained still an inclination to renew the attempt they had found so desperate. He was indeed perfectly different from the sort of zealous Jacobites whom it had been my luck hitherto to meet with. Old ladies of family over their hyson, and grey-haired lairds over their punch, I had often heard utter a little harmless treason; while the former remembered having led down a dance with the Chevalier, and the latter recounted the feats they had performed at Preston, Clifton, and Falkirk.

The disaffection of such persons was too unimportant to excite the attention of government. I had heard, however, that there still existed partisans of the Stuart family, of a more daring and dangerous description; men who, furnished with gold from Rome, moved, secretly and in disguise through the various classes of society, and

endeavoured to keep alive the expiring zeal of their party.

I had no difficulty in assigning an important post among this class of persons, whose agency and exertion are only doubted by those who look on the surface of things, to this Mr. Herries, whose mental energies, as well as his personal strength and activity, seemed to qualify him well to act so dangerous a part; and I knew that, all along the western border, both in England and Scotland, there are so many Nonjurors, that such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless it becomes, in a very especial degree, the object of the government to secure his person; and which purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early intelligence, or, as in the case of Mr. Foxley, by the unwillingness of provincial magistrates to interfere in what is now considered an invidious pursuit of the unfor

tunate.

There have, however, been rumours lately, as if the present state of the nation, or at least of some discontented provinces, agitated by a variety of causes, but particularly by the unpopularity of the present administration, may seem to this species of agitators a favourable period for recommencing their intrigues; while, on the other hand, government may not, at such a crisis, be inclined. to look upon them with the contempt which a few years ago would have been their most appropriate punishment.

me.

That men should be found rash enough to throw away their services and lives in a desperate cause, is nothing new in history, which abounds with instances of similar devotion-that Mr. Herries is such an enthusiast, is no less evident; but all this explains not his conduct towards Had he sought to make me a proselyte to his ruined cause, violence and compulsion were arguments very unlikely to prevail with any generous spirit. But even if such were his object, of what use to him could be the acquisition of a single reluctant partizan, who could bring only his own person to support any quarrel which he might adopt? He had claimed over me the rights of a guardian; he had more than hinted that I was in a state of mind

which could not dispense with the authority of such a person. Was this man, so sternly desperate in his purpose, he who seemed willing to take on his own shoulders the entire support of a cause which had been ruinous to thousands-Was he the person that had the er of deciding on my fate? Was it from him those dangers flowed, to secure me against which I had been educated under such circumstances of secrecy and pre

caution?

pow

And if this were so, of what nature was the claim which he asserted?-Was it that of propinquity?-And did I share the blood, perhaps the features, of this singular being?-Strange as it may seem, a thrill of awe, which shot across my mind at that instant, was not unmingled with a wild and mysterious feeling of wonder, almost amounting to pleasure. I remembered the reflection of my own face in the mirror, at one striking moment during the singular interview of the day, and I hastened to the outward apartment to consult a glass which hung there, whether it were possible for my countenance to be again contorted into the peculiar frown which so much resembled the terrific look of Herries. But I folded my brows in vain into a thousand complicated wrinkles, and I was obliged to conclude, either that the supposed mark on my brow was altogether imaginary, or that it could not be called forth by voluntary effort; or, in fine, what seemed most likely, that it was such a resemblance as the imagination traces in the embers of a wood fire, or among the varied veins of marble, distinct at one time, and obscure or invisible at another, according as the combination of lines strikes the eye, or impresses the fancy.

While I was moulding my visage like a mad player, the door suddenly opened, and the girl of the house entered. Angry and ashamed at being detected in my singular occupation, I turned round sharply, and, I suppose, chance produced the change on my features which I had been in vain labouring to call forth.

1* VOL. II.