'Hem! hem! hem!' coughed the Colonel of the parliamentarian service; and if his lips did not curse his companion's imprudence, I will not answer for what arose in his heart.- Well!' he said, observing that Wildrake had filled his own glass and Tomkins's, 'take that parting glass and begone.'

Would you not be pleased to hear first,' said Wildrake, 'how this honest gentleman saw the devil to-night look through a pane of yonder window, and how he thinks he had a mighty strong resemblance to your worship's humble slave and varlet scribbler? Would you but hear this, sir, and just sip a glass of this very recommendable strong waters?

'I will drink none, sir,' said Colonel Evarard sternly; and I have to tell you, that you have drunken a glass too much already.-Mr. Tompkins, sir, I wish you good night.'

'A word in season at parting,' said Tompkins, standing up behind the long leathern back of a chair, hemming and snuffling as if preparing for an exhor

tation.

'Excuse me, sir,' replied Markham Everard sternly; you are not now sufficiently yourself to guide the devotion of others.'

Woe be to them that reject!' said the Secretary of the Commissioners, stalking out of the room-the rest was lost in shutting the door, or suppressed for fear of offence.

'And now, fool Wildrake, begone to thy bedyonder it lies,' pointing to the knight's apartment.

What, thou hast secured the lady's for thyself? I saw thee put the key in thy pocket.'

'I would not-indeed I could not sleep in that apartment-I can sleep nowhere-but I will watch in this armed chair.-I have made him place wood for repairing the fire.-Good now, go to bed thyself, and sleep off thy liquor.'

Liquor!-I laugh thee to scorn, Mark-thou art a milksop, and the son of a milksop, and know'st not

what a good fellow can do in the way of crushing an honest cup.'

'The whole vices of his faction are in this poor fellow individually,' said the Colonel to himself, eying his protegé askance, as the other retreated into the bed-room with no very steady pace-' He is reckless, intemperate, dissolute; and if I cannot get him safely shipped for France, he will certainly be both his own ruin and mine.-Yet, withal, he is kind, brave, and generous, and would have kept the faith with me which he now expects from me; and in what consists the merit of our truth, if we observe not our plighted word when we have promised to our hurt? I will take the liberty, however, to secure myself against farther interruption on his part.'

So saying, he locked the door of communication betwixt the sleeping-room, to which the cavalier had retreated, and the parlour;-and then, after pacing the floor thoughtfully, returned to his seat, trimmed the lamp, and drew out a number of letters.-' I will read these over once more,' he said, ' that, if possible, the thought of public affairs may expel this keen sense of personal sorrow. Gracious Providence, where is this to end? We have sacrificed the peace of our families, the warmest wishes of our young hearts, to right the country in which we were born, and to free her from oppression; yet it appears, that every step we have made towards liberty, has but brought us in view of new and more terrific perils, as he who travels in a mountainous region, is, by every step which elevates him highest, placed in a situation of more imminent hazard.'

He read long and attentively, various tedious and embarrassed letters, in which the writers, placing before him the glory of God, and the freedom and liberties of England, as their supreme ends, could not, by all the ambagitory expressions they made use of, prevent the shrewd eye of Markham Everard from seeing, that self interest and views of ambition were the principal moving springs at the bottom of their plots.

CHAPTER VI.

Sleep steals on us even like his brother Death-
We know not when it comes-we know it must come-
We may affect to scorn and to contemn it,
For 'tis the highest pride of human misery
To say it knows not of an opiate:

Yet the reft parent, the despairing lover,
Even the poor wretch who waits for execution,
Feels this oblivion, against which he thought
His woes had armed his senses, steal upon him,
And through the fenceless citadel-the body,
Surprise that haughty garrison-the mind.

HERBERT.

COLONEL EVERARD experienced the truth contained in the verses of the quaint old bard whom we have quoted above. Amid private grief, and anxiety for a country long a prey to civil war, and not likely to fall soon under any fixed or well-established form of government, Everard and his father had, like many others, turned their eyes to General Cromwell, as the person whose valour had made him the darling of the army, whose strong sagacity had hitherto predominated over the high talents by which he had been assailed in Parliament, as well as over his enemies in the field, and who was alone in the situation to settle the nation, as the phrase then went; or, in other words, to dictate the mode of government. The father and son were both reputed to stand high in the General's favour. But Markham Everard was con scious of some particulars, which induced him to doubt whether Cromwell actually, and at heart, bore either to his father or to himself that good-will which was generally believed. He knew him for a profound politician, who could veil for any length of time his real sentiments of men and things, until they could be displayed without prejudice to his interest. And he moreover knew that the General was not likely to forget the opposition which the Presbyterian party had offered to what Oliver called the Great Matter

-the trial, namely, and execution of the King. In this opposition, his father and he had anxiously concurred, nor had the arguments, nor even the half-expressed threats of Cromwell, induced them to flinch from that course, far less to permit their names to be introduced into the commission nominated to sit in judgment on that memorable occasion.

This hesitation had occasioned some temporary coldness between the General and the Everards, father and son. But as the latter remained in the army, and bore arms under Cromwell both in Scotland, and finally at Worcester, his services very frequently called forth the approbation of his commander, After the fight of Worcester, in particular, he was among the number of those officers on whom Oliver, rather considering the actual and practical extent of his own power, than the name under which he exercised it, was with difficulty withheld from imposing the dignity of Knights Bannerets at his own will and pleasure. It therefore seemed, that all recollection of former disagreement was obliterated, and that the Everards had regained their former stronghold in the General's affections. There were, indeed, several who doubted this, and who endeavoured to bring over this distinguished young officer to some other of the parties which divided the infant Commonwealth. But to these proposals he turned a deaf ear. Enough of blood, he said, had been spilled-it was time that the nation should have repose under a firmly-established government, of strength sufficient to protect property, and of lenity enough to encourage the return of tranquillity. This, he thought, could only be accomplished by means of Cromwell, and the greater part of England was of the same opinion. It was true, that, in thus submitting to the domination of a successful soldier, those who did so, forgot the principles upon which they had drawn the sword against the late King. But in revolutions, stern and high principles are often obliged to give way to the

VOL. 1.-9

current of existing circumstances; and in many a case, where wars have been waged for points of metaphysical right, they have been at last gladly terminated, upon the mere hope of obtaining general tranquillity, as, after many a long siege, a garrison is often glad to submit on mere security for life and limb. Colonel Everard, therefore, felt that the support which he afforded Cromwell, was only under the idea, that, amid a choice of evils, the least was likely to ensue from a man of the General's wisdom and valour being placed at the head of the state; and he was sensible that Oliver himself was likely to consider his attachment as lukewarm and imperfect, and measure his gratitude for it upon the same limited scale.

In the meanwhile, however, circumstances compelled him to make trial of the General's friendship, The sequestration of Woodstock, and the warrant to the commissioners to dispose of it as national property, had been long granted, but the interest of the elder Everard had for weeks and months deferred its execution. The hour was now approaching when the blow could be no longer parried, especially as Sir Henry Lee, on his side, resisted every proposal of submitting himself to the existing government, and was therefore, now that his hour of grace was passed, enrolled in the list of stubborn and irreclaimable malignants, with whom the Council of State was determined no longer to keep terms. The only mode of protecting the old knight and his daughter, was to interest, if possible, the General himself in the mat ter; and revolving all the circumstances connected with their intercourse, Colonel Everard felt that a request, which would so immediately interfere with the interests of Desborough, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, and one of the present Commissioners, was putting to a very severe trial the friendship of

the latter. Yet no alternative remained.

With this view, and agreeably to a request from Cromwell, who at parting had been very urgent to