For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution, Brady [acx book reading .TXT] 📗

the birthright of every Englishman, was eloquently portrayed by the other. When to the last plea was added the personal preference of Katharine Wilton, the balance was overcome, and the hopes of the mother were doomed to disappointment.

For his own hopes, however, the decision had come too late, and it may be safely presumed that his hesitation was one of the main causes through which the woman he loved escaped him; for Katharine's heart was given to young Seymour, after a ten days' courtship, almost before his eyes. In any event, a wiser man would have seen in Seymour a possible, nay, a certain rival by no means to be disregarded. An officer who had devoted himself to the cause of his country in response to the first demand of the Congress, who had been conspicuously mentioned for gallantry in general orders and reports, who had been severely wounded while protecting Katharine's father at the risk of his life; as well bred and as well born as Talbot, of ample fortune, and with a wide knowledge of men and things acquired in his merchant voyagings as captain of one of his own ships in many seas,—Seymour's single-hearted devotion eminently fitted him to woo and win Miss Katharine Wilton, as he had done.

Nevertheless, a friendship had sprung up between Seymour and the unsuspecting Talbot which bade fair to ripen into intimacy; and it may be supposed that the stories of battles in which the older man had participated, his attractive personality, the consideration in which the young sailor was held by men of weight and position in the colonies, as a man from whom much was to be expected, had large influence in determining Talbot in the course he proposed taking, and which he had not yet communicated to his mother.

The evening repast had just been finished, and the mother and son were walking slowly up and down the long porch overlooking the river in front of the house. There was a curious and interesting likeness between the two,—a facial resemblance only, for Madam Talbot was a slender, rather frail little woman, and looked smaller by contrast as she walked by the side of her son, who had his arm affectionately thrown over her shoulder. She was as straight, however, as he was himself, in spite of her years and cares, and bore herself as proudly erect as in the days of her youth. Her black eyes looked out with undiminished lustre from beneath her snowy-white hair, which needed no powder and was covered by the mob cap she wore. She looked every inch the lady of the manor, nor did her actions and words belie her appearance. The subject of the conversation was evidently a serious one. There was a troubled expression upon her face, in spite of her self-control, which was in marked contrast to the hesitating and somewhat irresolute look upon the handsome countenance of her son.

"My son, my son," she said at last, "why will you persist in approaching me upon this subject? You know my opinions. I have not hesitated to speak frankly, and it is not my habit to change them; in this instance they are as fixed and as immutable as the polar star. The traditions and customs of four hundred years are behind me. Our family—you know your father and I were cousins, and are descended from the same stock—have been called the 'loyal Talbots.' I cannot contemplate with equanimity the possibility even of one of us in rebellion against the king."

"Mother—I am sorry—grieved—but I must tell you that that is a possibility I fear you must learn to face. I have—"

"Oh, Hilary, do not tell me you have finally decided to join this unrighteous rebellion. Pause before you answer, my boy—I entreat you, and it is not my habit to entreat, as you very well know. See, you have been the joy of my heart all my life, the idol of my soul,—I will confess it now,—and for you and your future I have lived and toiled and served and loved. I have dreamed you great, high in rank and place, serving your king, winning back the ancient position of our family. I have shrunk from no sacrifice, nor would I shrink from any. 'Tis not that I do not wish you to risk your life in war,—I am a daughter of my race, and for centuries they have been soldiers, and what God sends soldiers upon the field, that I can abide,—but that you should go now, with all your prospects, your ability, the opportunity presented you, and engage yourself in this fatal cause, in this unholy attack upon the king's majesty, connect yourself with this beggarly rabble who have been whipped and beaten every time they have come in contact with the royal troops,—I cannot bear it. You are a man now. You have grown away from your mother, Hilary, and I can no longer command, I must entreat." But she spoke very proudly, for, as she said, entreaty was not so usual to her as command.

"Oh, mother, mother, you make it very hard for me. You know the colonists have been badly treated, and hardly used by king and Parliament. Our liberties have been threatened, nay, have been abrogated, our privileges destroyed, none of our rights respected, and unless we are to sink to the level of mere slaves and dependants upon the mother country, we have no other course but an appeal to arms."

"I know, I know all that," she interrupted impatiently, with a wave of her hand. "I have heard it all a thousand times from ill-balanced agitators and popular orators. There may be some truth in it, of course, I grant you; but in my creed nothing, Hilary, nothing, will justify a subject in turning against his king. The king can do no wrong. All that we have is his; let him take what he will, so he leaves us our honor, and that, indeed, no one can take from us. It is the principle that our ancestors have attested on a hundred fields and in every other way, and will you now be false to it, my boy?"

"I must be true to myself, mother, first of all, in spite of all the kings of earth; and I feel that duty and honor call me to the side of my friends and the people of this commonwealth. I have hesitated long, mother, in deference to you, but now I have decided."

"And you turn against two mothers, Hilary, when you take this course,—old England, the mother country, and this one, this old mother, who stands before you, who has given you her heart, who has lived for you, who lives in you now, whose devotion to you has never faltered; she now humbly asks with outstretched arms, the arms that carried you when you were a baby boy, that you remain true to your king."

"Nay, but, mamma," he said, calling her by the sweet name of his boyhood, taking her hand and looking down at her tenderly with tear-dimmed eyes full of affection, "one must be true to his idea of right and duty first of all, even at the price of his allegiance to a king; and, after all, what is any king beside you in my heart? But I feel in honor bound to go with my people."

The irresolution was gone from his expression now, and the two determined faces—one full of pity, the other of apprehension—confronted each other.

CHAPTER VII

The Loyal Talbots

"Your people, son?" she said after a long pause. "Come with me a moment." She drew him into the brilliantly lighted hall. As they entered, he said to the servant in waiting,—

"See that my bay horse is saddled and brought around at once, and do you tell Dick to get another horse ready and accompany me; he would better take the black pony."

"Are you going out, Hilary?"

"Yes, mother, when our conversation is over, if there is time. I thought to ride over to Colonel Wilton's. The night is pleasant, and the moon will rise shortly. What were you about to say to me?"

She led him up to the great open fireplace, on the andirons of which a huge log was blazing and crackling cheerfully. Over the mantel was the picture of a handsome man in the uniform of a soldier of some twenty years back.

"Whose face is pictured there, Hilary?"

"My honored father," he answered reverently, but in some surprise.

"And how died he?"

"On the Plains of Abraham, mother, as you well know."

"Fighting for his king?"

"Yes, mother."

"And who is this one?" she said, passing to another picture.

"Sir James Talbot; he struck for his king at Worcester," he volunteered.

"Yes, Hilary; and here is his wife, Lady Caroline Talbot, my grandmother. She kept the door against the Roundheads while the prince escaped from her castle, to which he had fled after the battle. And over there is Lord Cecil Talbot, her father; he fell at Naseby. There in that corner is another James, his brother, one of Prince Rupert's men, wounded at Marston Moor. Here is Sir Hilary, slain at the Boyne; and this old man is Lord Philip, your great-uncle. He was out in the '45, and was beheaded. These are your people, Hilary," she said, standing very straight, her head thrown back, her eyes aflame with pride and determination, "and these struck, fought, lived, and died for their king. I could bear to see you dead," she laid her hand upon her heart in sudden fear at the idea, in spite of her brave words, "but I could not bear to see you a rebel. Think again. You will not so decide?" She said it bravely; it was her final appeal, and as she made it she knew that it was useless. The sceptre had departed out of her hand.

He smiled sadly at her, but shook his head ominously. "Mother, do you know these last fought for Stuart pretenders against the house of Hanover? George III., in your creed, has no right to the place he holds. Do I not then follow my ancestors in taking the field against him?"

"Ah, my child, 't is an unworthy subterfuge. They did fight for the house of Stuart, God bless it! It was king against king then, and at least they fought for royalty, for a king; but now the house of Stuart is gone; the new king occupies the throne undisputed, and our allegiance is due to him. These unfortunate people who are fighting here strive to create a republic where all men shall be equal! Said the sainted martyr Charles on the scaffold, ''T is no concern of the common people's how they are governed.' A common man equal to a Talbot! Fight, my son, if you must; but oh, fight for the king, even an usurper, before a republic, a mob in which so-called equality stands in very unstable equilibrium,—fight for the rightful ruler of the land, not against him."

"Mother, if I am to believe the opinions of those whom I have been taught to respect, the rightful rulers of this colony, of our country, of any country, are the people who inhabit it."

"And who says that, pray, my boy?"

"Mr. Henry."

"And do you mean to tell me, a Talbot, that you have been taught to look up to men of the social stamp of Patrick Henry, or to respect their opinions?" she said with ineffable disdain.

"Mother, the logic of events has forced all men to do so. Had you heard his speeches before the Burgesses at Williamsburg, you would have thought that he was second to no man in the colony, or in the world beside; but if he be not satisfactory, there is his excellency General Washington."

"Mr. Washington," she replied with an emphasis on the "Mr." "Now there, I grant you, is a man," she said reluctantly. "I cannot understand the perversion of his destiny or the folly of his course."

"And, mother, you know his family was as loyal as our own. One of his forefathers held Worcester for King Charles with the utmost gallantry and resolution. And he had as a companion in arms in that brave attempt Sir George Talbot, one of our ancestors.