University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE COURTIER AND THE LADY.

We will now return to Red Beard's cabin
in the foresters' camp, where we left Robert
Burnside, about to make a private communication
to Ringold, of some importance, if we
may judge from the cautious manner in
which he prepared to enter upon it. As we
have seen the rough hut of logs was illumined
by a pine torch stuck in a crevice, and cast
its light strongly upon the two figures of the
men. Red Beard paced slowly up and down
the hard floor, with his hands behind his
back, and his brows knitted, while Ringold
seated upon the end of the chest, watched
the stern aspect of his countenance, and
waited for him to begin. At length Robert
Burnside drew near, and sat down by him.
He laid his hand upon his wrist, and said impressingly,

`I am going to entrust you with the secret
of my life! Can I trust you? or shall I find
you, young and generous as you are, or
seem to be, false like other men. There
are few men to be trusted, boy. One friend
is worth a man's life time to win, and then
he may loose him and be betrayed. I have
tried them and know them.'

`I will not betray your confidence, Captain
Burnside, though I do not ask it. If you
feel that you ought to make this communication
to me I will keep sacredly the trust; and
serve you if in my power. You know I owe
you gratitude; and besides, your language
shows me that you are an educated man—
that you have not always been a raftsman—
and this interests me in you.'

`Curiosity! Well let it be so. Men
can't be expected to be more than human nature,
even the young and honorable, so I
must take them as they are.' This was
spoken in a half-audible tone, being rather
his own aloud uttered reflections, than words
intended to be addressed to another's ear.
Ringold regarded him with surprise and sympathy.
He felt a desire to know his case,
that he might aid in alleviating it. He was
about to repeat that he would be faithful,
when Burnside said in an impressive manner,

`Listen to me now. I will talk. You
see in me, young man, one whom the world
has hardly used. The world said I—no, no!
It was not the world, it was my own house—
my own blood. The world would have been
more charitable, more kind and pitiful, for
there is no uncharitableness, no malignity

like a brother's. But you shall hear me, and
then I will see if you can serve me. I am an
Englishman, a nobleman! I was born to
rank, and title, and honors, and estates. My
ancestors have worn coronets, and sat with
kings at table. You look suprised! Do
you begin to doubt me in the onset?'

`No, I believe you fully:' answered Griffitt.

`I would be believed, for truth is in all I
utter. My father—his name and rank I will
not now give—married a beautiful woman,
of a noble Scotch family, an Earl's daughter.
I have seen her picture, and know that she
was surpassing lovely, though she had sunred
hair. But there was a glory in her eyes,
a splendor in her complexion, and a grace
and charm unspeakable in the classic symmetry
of her amiable and intelligent countenance.
She brought to my father not much
wealth in gold or lands, for the scotch are
richer in worth than piastres; but she
brought him, besides the opulent dowry of
her proud beauty, a loving heart, a sweet
temper, virtue unsullied as the snow, and affections
that scarce knew any other god than
him. He loved her, and if it were possible to
return all her devoted attachment, he returned
it Her charms had first won his admiration,
and her virtues enchained his esteem.
So they were wedded, and he took
her to England, and presented her to court,
where her queenlike dignity blent with bride-like
modesty, drew down upon her the admiration
of the whole court, and awakened the
envy of the ladies.

My father held a high position near the
King, and his Countess was at once placed
very near the person of her majesty. One,
not even a queen, could not be long in the
society of my mother, without loving her; and
so she won the queen's heart, and became
her most intimate companion and friend.
This was a preference that was not easily
overlooked or forgiven by the proud English
dames of the court; for the Scotch ladies are
not held with that estimation by the English,
with which they hold each other. A favorite
of any other land could have been forgiven
easier than one from Scotland.

The jealousy to which the queen's preference
of my mother gave rise to at first showing
itself in glances of the eye, movements of
the lip and head, and an insulting bearing, at
length came to a head, in a systematic conspiracy
to destroy her influence with her
majesty, an influence pending upon love and
goodness only, by destroying her reputation.'

`What wickedness!' exclaimed Ringold
with a burst of indignant surprise.

`You are listening, I perceive! Yes,
wickedness most black and monstrous.'

`I trust that they did not succeed.'

`You shall hear, though I do not know
how I can proceed with composure! but I
will command my emotions. These noble
English dames, unable by the grace of virtue
to rival my mother in the queen's favor,
planned her ruin. This was about four
months after her marriage. There were four
conspirators, three ladies, or rather three
hecates, and one nobleman.'

`A man! a nobleman engage in this.'

`Yes, a nobleman, for so he bore the title.
He was one of the officers near the king's
person, and in daily intercourse with my
father, to whom he professed the most devoted
friendship; but it was the base, fawning,
designing friendship of the libertine, who
wearing the mask of honor would dishonor
him to whom he professes his devotion.
This nobleman was notorious for his profligacy,
a man of splendid person, of various
accomplishments, and gifted with that blandishment
of voice and manner, which characterises
the finished voluptuary. This man
had no sooner placed his adulterous eye upon
the fair beauty of my pure mother, than he
conceived the idea of endeavoring to accomplish
her ruin; for beauty and grace, and
even virtue, long resisting, had fallen before
his power, and he looked upon himself as a
conqueror, who had only to plan to achieve,
only to wish in order to win.'

`What a detestable character.'

`Thou hast seen but little of the world,
Master Griffitt. Thy quick, indignant
speech, at the portrait I have painted you, for
these are pictures without brushes, shows that
you are ignorant of the turpitude that is in the
world: and the more of it there is the higher
one soars in rank and grandeur. If thou
would'st be happy and pure, remain here, or
in thy native valley. The farther thou goest
away from it the deeper thou wilt sin. Yet
I would not curb thy honest ambition to distinguish
thyself; for young men must fight
the battle of life. But to my tale.'

`It deeply interests me, sir.'

`This base noble, as a first step, for these
seducers are like a serpents, he sought to ingratiate
himself with my father, to cause him
to believe that he was his truest friend; and
he succeeded, for my father was one of those
frank, honest, unsuspecting men, who meaning
no evil, think none; and as it could
never have entered into his upright mind, the
idea of seeking a man's friendship in order
to ruin him, or those dearer to him than life
or honor, he entertained no suspicion of the
motives of this gay noble, in paying such
court to him, and the titled libertine being
a person of wit and mirth, was welcomed
cordially at my father's house and table.'

`But the world, more familiar with vice,
and the snares which it sets for its victims,
and the meannesses, and debasements, and
falsehoods, to which it resorts to accomplish
its ends, saw through the conduct of the nobleman;
for the courtiers knew he never
acted without a motive.

Unsuspecting, my father gave himself up
unreservedly to the pleasing society of this
dangerous man, who carefully avoided all
particular attention to my mother; and even
many times, was careful to decline invitations,
and forego opportunities where my
father's confidence in him would have left
him in her society. But this forbearance
and withdrawal, was only acting a part, that
he might effectually forestall all suspicion on
the part of either, by the outward seeming of
total indifference to her society. But gradually,
when he felt that he had fully secured
the confidence of both, he intended to make
his insinuating and fatal approaches.

`But virtue is Heaven—protected! Woman's
instinct is the shield and defence God
has provided her against danger, and if she is
pure, it is her safe-guard; but if not so, if by
irregular thoughts she has tarnished the
bright shield, it will no longer aid her;
for it defends, by reflecting as in a mirror,
the dangers that lie before and around
her.'

`That is a beautiful thought, and a true
one.'

`The instinctive purity of my mother, had
taken alarm, the first time the nobleman had
been presented to her, when she met his eye
resting upon her form, with a glance that
made her shrink, she hardly knew why, nor
could she have explained what there was in
the look that she did not like. It was the
instinctive fear of the bird, when it catches
the eye of the basilesk. The impression
nothing could efface from her mind, not even
his intimacy with my father, and the latter's
frequently spoken words in his commendation.

`At length having, as he believed, prevented
any danger from suspicion on my
father's part, this man proceeded by the most
artful attentions to ingratiate himself into my
mother's favor. But he found himself met at
the very onset by a barrier that he did not
anticipate, not only the virtue and elevated
purity of her character which he had feared
most from, but an instinctive comprehension,
of his duplicity and hypocrisy. In a word,
he saw in the first five minutes, that she penetrated
his guilty views with the calm and
searching eye of an angel, and he quitted
her presence feeling that he himself, not she,
had been lowered by their brief interview.
He felt that he had been conquered by virtue,
as well as rendered ridiculous by her keen
penetration. Baffled ere he had scarcely began
to put in action his nicely conceived

plans, baffled by being made transparent, he
resolved that he would subdue by force her
whom he could not sue by love.

`It was at this crisis that he became the
willing tool of the ladies, who had become
my mother's enemies. One of these, herself
beautiful and high born, had been degraded
by this very nobleman; and no doubt that
her hatred for my mother was more owing to
her purity, than to her having displaced her
in the friendship of the queen; for a female
fallen, seeks to drag all others to her own
condition of humiliation.'

`What a picture of courts you give me,
sir!'

`Courts, young man, are the hot beds of
vice. Sin matures quicker and more luxuriantly
there than any otherwhere. This fallen
and degraded lady had watched with a jealous
eye the insiduous advances of the nobleman,
and while she hated him for seeking another,
she wished him success that this other might
fall. Such is woman!'

`It is a painful picture. Yet there are
lovely, and true, and good women, who redeem
the bad. The virtue and beauty of
character of the countess, your mother, fully
redeems the baseness of the other.'

`I thank you for the compliment to my
mother. You will see that she needs friends,
ere I am done. The court lady did not long
remain ignorant of the failure of the nobleman,
at the very outset of his attempt to compass
the ruin of the countess; for she had
closely watched them, and had her spies well
paid. Now was the time for her own revenge
to begin. That very day she and two other
noble ladies, who had felt themselves aggrieved
by the royal favor shown my mother,
were secretly conversing upon the subject,
and endeavoring to form some plan for poisoning
the queen's mind against her.

`Let be, till we see how Lord — succeeds,'
answered the former favorite. `His
success will achieve our purposes.'

`She is too proud and pure,' replied one
of the other two; `he will be defeated.'

`If he is, then we must devise some plan
of our own,' was the response.

The next day the three met together
again, and the reception of the false nobleman
by the countess was reported by the ex-favorite.

`How did you hear it?' demanded one
eagerly.

`I heard it from her maid, first, and then
since from his own lips. He is burning with
rage. He says that her confiding husband
had left them together to wait upon the king
who had sent for him, when he approached
her and began in his fascinating way to flatter
her; but he says she fixed her eye as full
and clear upon him as a dove's, and asked
him pointedly, if he had honored her lord in
order to dishonor him; adding that she knew
well his motives, and the character of his
thoughts towards her, saying that she felt it
became her as a virtuous wife and honorable
woman, to let him know ere he proceeded to
insult her, as she well knew he meant to do
in his heart, to unmask him. With this she
rose up from the chair, as he was kneeling
in amazement at her feet, and pointed to the
door. He says he obeyed, for he had not
power to speak a word in his defence, he was
so utterly confounded. But, ladies, it is an
ill wind blows no-body good. I have secured
him to aid our own purposes. He says he
will lend himself to a plan I have proposed to
him, for accomplishing her ruin.'

`But,' added Robert Burnside, `I must be
more brief, with what I have to say, for the
night advances.'