University of Virginia Library

The King's Gratitude,
OR,
KING CHARLES II. AND HIS COURT.
1682.

1. CHAPTER I.
SIR REGINALD BELLARMYNE, AN OLD SOLDIER OF THE KING'S.

It was on a fine sunshiny morning of September, 1653, that
Sir Reginald Bellarmyne sat by the wide hearth of the summer
parlor, which he occupied when there were no guests, as was
for the most part now the case in the once hospitable cloisters
of Bellarmyne Abbey.

A small round table at his elbow displayed the relies of a
large hare-pasty—it would have been venison in the good days
of old; and, in lieu of stoups of Malvoisie and Bourdeaux wine,
a solitary silver tankard thrust forward its capacious womb,
mantling with stout English ale recently stirred with the sprig
of rosemary, then held to impart a sovereign relish to the substantial
joint; nor did it appear, from the inroads the good
baronet had made on the contents of both, that his appetite had
suffered seriously from the retrenchment of luxuries which he
had, perhaps, once deemed necessaries to his rank and station.
He was a man of sixty years or upwards, who must at a former

period of his life, have been eminently handsome, and who still
retained in his erect form, clear eye, and nobly cast features,
many traces of the beauty for which he had once been celebrated,
even in the courts of the great and famous monarch. He
had, however, grown of latter years somewhat ponderous and
corpulent; and his sinister leg wrapped in flannels, and bolstered
up on an easy stool, gave painful evidence of that distemper
which is held to visit upon the children the pleasant
indulgences of their forefathers. Otherwise, Sir Reginald's appearance
showed no token of those excesses which were unfortunately
so much in vogue, in those days, among the cavaliers
and courtiers of the king, as to be regarded almost one of their
characteristics. His eye was clear and calm, his complexion
pale rather than flushed; and his frame, though somewhat
unwieldy, was well-knit, and still capable, when he was not
laboring under the attacks of the ancestral enemy, of both effort
and exertion.

His hair, which he still wore long and unpowdered, not having
adopted the new-fashioned abomination of the periwig, was,
indeed, very grey; his brow was deeply wrinkled; and there
was a singular expression, weary and wasted, yet intelligent and
keen withal, and full of eager energy, pervading all the lines of
his face, which seemed to tell a history of cares, and troubles,
and anxieties—perhaps of almost mortal sorrows—encountered,
resisted, combated inch by inch as a man should combat such
things, if not vanquished by him.

He was dressed at all points as became a gentleman, in an
age when the distinctive garb of the different classes was maintained
in all strietness, and when scarcely an article of wearing
apparel was common to the nobly born, and to the next beneath
him in station; but yet so dressed that was evidently rather
a matter of etiquette and self-respect than of convenience with

him to maintain the outward show of his family. His doublet
of uncut velvet was rather suited for the field sports, or out-door
occupations, than for the full morning-dress of a country gentleman
of the day; yet it was evident from the ruffles at wrist
and knee, from the neat russet-leather buskins, and the long
rapier, with its ornamental shoulder-belt, that he were it as his
habitual and distinctive attire.

A slouched grey hat, with a drooping feather, and a dark-green
roquelaure lay neatly folded and brushed on a slab hard by,
together with a crutch-headed cane mounted with a fine reddeer's
antler, and a pair of fringed buckskin gloves, that would
have reached well-nigh to the elbow of the wearer.

A noble deer greyhound, of the great Scottish breed, and of
the largest size, long of limb, long of muzzle, wire-haired, with
deep, earnest hazel eyes, lay on the deer-skin which covered the
hearth-stone, gazing into the face of his master with almost
superhuman intelligence; while a couple of smaller dogs, fine
curly-fleeced water-spaniels, dozed closer to the embers of the
wood-fire, which the autumnal atmosphere, and the thick walls
of the ancient abbaye, rendered anything rather than unpleasant.
The parlor itself in which he sat showed, like its master, something
at least of privation, if not of absolute poverty; the old
oak wainscoting, indeed, was as brightly polished; the old high-backed
chairs and settles, with their quaint carvings and old
tapestried cushions, were as free from any speck of mould; the
antique suits of steel-armor on the walls were as clear from rust;
the modern implements of falconry or the chase were in as
accurate order and arrangement as if a hundred zealous hands
were daily employed in furbishing them. Still there was
nothing gay, nothing lightsome, nothing new; nothing in all
the furniture or decorations of the room which did not wear a
wan and faded aspect, as if they had been coeval at least with

their aged possessor; and as if, like him, they had seen their
better days.

Without, so far as could be seen from the large oriel window,
the stone mullions of which were so much overrun with clustering
ivy and woodbines as to indicate some slackness on the
gardener's part, things did not, on the whole, wear a more promising
or brighter aspect. The fine elm avenue, which wound
away for above a mile, in full view, a broad belt of massive
verdure, had grown all out of shape and rule; the great boughs
of many of the trees sweeping so low as to render the road
impassable to carriages, and difficult even to travellers on horseback.
The lawn, immediately around the house, which had in
its palmier days been so neatly shorn and rolled, and decorated
with trim clumps of evergreens, and marble urns and statues,
was all grown up with coarse, long grass, among which the
hares and rabbits fed boldly as unscared by man; and the wild
park beyond, with all its sunny fern-clad knolls, and rich sheltered
hollows so closely pastured of old by the graceful herds of
fallow deer, showed but a wide expanse of rank untended vegetation,
stocked with no denizens more aristocratical than a flock
of ragged-looking, black-faced, mountain-muttons, a score of
little sharp-horned kyloe oxen, and two or three queer-visaged
Shetland ponies, not much larger and much more ragged than
the moorland sheep with which they kept company.

The fish-ponds, one or two of which were visible among the
trees, scarcely gleamed blue, unless in casual spots, under the
bright sky of autumn, so thickly were they overspread with
water-grass and the green, slimy duckweed; the gravel road
before the door was matted with weeds, as if no wheel-track
had disturbed it for years.

All was a picture of neglect and desolation, yet beautiful
withal, from the very wildness and liberty of the unchecked

vegetation, and the frequency of those unusual sounds, so seldom
heard in the close vicinity of the abodes of men—the incessant
cooings of the hoarse woodpigeons, the crow of the
cock-pheasants from the garden walks, the harsh half-barking
bleat of the moorland sheep, and, most rarely heard of all, the
deep booming of the bitterns from the stagnant morass, into
which the fish-ponds were fast degenerating.

It was not difficult, though sad it was, either to understand
or to explain. Sir Reginald Bellarmyne, of Bellarmyne Abbey,
a baronet and a catholic, as long as there had been catholics
or baronets in England, loyalist and royalist, like all his fellows,
had in his own person, and in that of his fathers before him,
fought always on the wrong king's side, so far as fortune was
concerned, whatever might be said of fidelity.

One ancestor had perished on Crook-back Richard's side, at
Bosworth; his grandson, and Sir Reginald's grandfather, had
fallen under the heavy censure of the man-hearted queen, Elizabeth,
and escaped narrowly with life, for Scottish Mary's sake.
The baronet's own father, most unjustly, as they ever averred,
was mulcted thirty thousand pounds after the gunpowder affair
of Fawkes, with which they denied all participation; and himself,
as he most undisguisedly proclaimed, had fought for King
Charles on every stricken field from Edgehill to Worcester
fight; and when all was lost, had followed the fortunes of his
son in foreign lands, and melted his last ounce of plate to support
the needy parasites of the discrowned and exiled king.

Mulcts, confiscations, forfeitures, in past reigns, had done
much; the sequestrations under the parliament, for confirmed
and inveterate malignancy, all but completed the ruin of that
old, honorable family, as true and as English as the old oaks of
Bellarmyne. The last forfeiture would have completed it altogether,
but that, by a strange chance, the abbey, and a part of

the estates immediately attached to it, being entailed most
strictly on the male heirs of the name for ever, an unknown,
and almost unsuspected cousin of the late Sir Armytage Bellarmyne,
turned up in the very nick of time, in the shape of a city
merchant, and a friend of some among the powers that were,
after justice had been done on the “Man of Blood,” as they termed
it. He interposed the claim of himself and his son, who was
serving at the time under Lockhart against the Spaniards at
Dunkirk; thereby preventing the alienation of the property,
which was sorely coveted by a puritan drysalter of the West
Riding, from the old name of the feudal tenure.

No sequestration occurred, therefore, of the last demesnes of
the House of Bellarmyne; and, at the Restoration, the old, battered,
widowed cavalier returned, with one daughter, who had
been educated in a French convent—his only son, the promise
of his race, had fallen, a boy of fifteen, fighting like a man by
his side at Worcester—to all that now remained of the once
broad possessions; the old abbey, a world too wide for the
shrunken acres that now alone looked up to its time-honored
belfries.

The city cousin, the Bellarmyne of London, like an honest
man and a good Christian as he was, though a heretic in the
parlance of Rome—and a true gentleman, although he smacked
a little of the puritan—had ever remitted the rents of the abbey
to Sir Reginald, whom he constantly acknowledged, though
he had never seen him, as the head of the house during the
whole period of his exile; and, on the restoration of King Charles
II., to which, with others of the eminent London merchants, he
had largely contributed, made over to him, as a matter of right,
and of course, and in no wise as a favor, the mansion and the
remnant of the lands, somewhat neglected, indeed, and out of
order, but neither dilapidated nor exhausted.

It is, perhaps, to be regretted that, at this time, no personal
meeting occurred between the kinsmen, for they were both
men of high character, high minds, and correct feelings; but
having had no intercourse, each had probably in some sort conceived
of the other, something of the character ascribed to his
political party. The protestant merchant took it too much,
and as it proved wrongfully, for granted, that the old cavalier
and inveterate swordsman was more or less the rash, reckless,
rakehelly debauchee and rioter of his day and class; and contented
with having done justice, thought no more about the
matter, nor troubled himself about his cousin, or his affairs.

The old soldier, more naturally, after he had acknowledged
frankly the honorable conduct of his unknown kinsman, and
expressed his sense of obligation, shrank from anything that
could savor of intrusion, or a desire of establishing any sort of
claim or clientelage on his rich and powerful relation. It is
probable that something might have added to this delicacy, in
the shape of the cavalier's distaste to the puritan, the romanist's
aversion to the heretic, and, yet more, of the soldier's distrust
and prejudice against the trader.

Still, none of these motives were very strong—for it was well
known that Nicholas Bellarmyne of the city, though neutral
throughout, and, at the commencement of the troubles, inclined
more to the parliament, had never joined the independents,
much less identified himself with the regicides. Sir Reginald
himself, moreover, though a catholic, was such rather because
he would not abjure the creed of his fathers than that he had
anything in him of the persecutor; and he had seen so much,
in the Low Countries, of the noble merchants of those days, when
merchants were men of patriotism, intelligence, and honor, that
he was unusually free from the prejudices of the noble against
the trader caste.

Neither of the two, in fact, knew much of the circumstances
or character of the other; and neither was, at this time, even
aware that his distant kinsman was a father, though from his
energy in the matter of the entail, Sir Reginald might suspect
that the merchant had some further representative.

On his diminished estates, then, which barely now gave returns
sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his child,
with a household the most limited, and on the narrowest scale
compatible with his rank and name, Sir Reginald settled himself
quietly, afar from the tumult, the dissipation, and the heartlessness
of courts; perceiving at once that he had nothing to expect
from the gratitude or generosity, much less from the justice of
the sovereign, whose seal and sign-manual he held, as well as
that of his unhappy father, for sums advanced as loans, the
repayment of which would have more than redeemed all the
recent losses of the Bellarmynes, and enabled them to resume
their appropriate station in the country.

Had he been alone in the world, it is more than probable
that Sir Reginald would have resigned himself contentedly to
his diminished circumstances, and would have ultimately sunk,
more or less graciously, and with more or less repining, into the
condition of the fox-hunting, ale-consuming squire of the day,
something above the farmer, but far from equal to the country
gentleman of England. The great nobles who in past reigns,
up to the unfortunate days of the unhappy Stuarts, had been
used to live on their own estates, in their viceregal castles,
during ten months of the year, holding cour-plenière of the
lesser gentry, and collecting around them the intelligence, the
civilization, and the splendor of their several shires, no longer
lived—like their forefathers—independent nobles on their own
hereditary principalities.

During the troublous times, which had scarcely passed over,

most of them wandering as exiles in foreign lands, France more
especially, they had contracted the false and pernicious usage
of abandoning their demesnes and rural residences to bailiffs
and intendants; and wasting profligate, dishonorable, useless
lives about the precincts of the royal court; parasites of kings;
loungers at the Exchange; gamblers at Tonbridge Wells or
Newmarket; fribblers and coxcombs, almost as free from any
manly vice, as from any grace or virtue.

At this time England had lost entirely that strong and living
feature of her social and political character—her rural aristocracy,
the greatest men of the land living among and with their
people, as if themselves of the people; and regarded rather by
the throne in the light of allied or kindred princes than as
mere subjects—much less as mere flatterers and courtiers.

From the accession of King James the First to the death of
Queen Anne, England was virtually Frenchified; she had no
longer a great nobility, but she had in lieu of it a little noblesse
of the court elique, of favorites of the great man, of favorites of
the bad woman of the day.

The lodgings of the metropolis were crowded with great lords,
crouching and crawling, and doing unutterable basenesses at
the feet of a minister, whose grandfathers their grandfathers
would have hung from their battlements!—the country was
deserted to rude boors, drunken ignoramus squires, time-serving,
grotesque parsons, who thought it an advancement to marry
the lady-of-the-manor's waiting-woman.

Coxcombry, profligacy, infidelity, insolvency, false refinement,
and favoritism at court, had reflected themselves in grossness,
ignorance, brutality, and want of all refinement in the country.
In the reign of Charles II. there was scarce a gentleman in all
England; and if there were one, he was something out of place,
ridiculous, and obsolete, without honor at court, or influence in

the country. And such, in sooth, was Sir Reginald Bellarmyne.

2. CHAPTER II.
MISTRESS ROSAMOND BELLARMYNE; A MAID-OF-HONOR OF THE
QUEEN'S.

But save the news itself, all was thrown away on the stout
Yorkshire baronet. The promotion was, to his honest, trustful
soul, as honorable as it was in a worldly view acceptable—less
an advantage than a distinction. An advancement, in short, so
splendid, as far to exceed his wildest wishes.

Educated from his childhood to a belief in the divine right of
kings, and in the impossibility of a son of the royal martyr
doing wrong, as entire as his faith in the infallibility of his
church, he would have regarded it no less treason to doubt the
one, than sacrilege to question the other.

Accepting, therefore, joyously all that there was acceptable
in the tidings, and pshawing, in his secret heart, at the cautions
which he regarded as old womanish scruples, he wrote
gratefully and with a full heart to his kinswoman, at her Cornish
manor with the unpronounceable name; and, proudly communicating
to Rosamond the news of her glorious prospects,
set about making such preparations as the narrowness of his
means permitted for sending, or conducting rather, his daughter

to her future abode under the shelter of the wing of England's
royalty.

Many of the herd of Bellarmyne cattle were driven to Ripon
markets, many of the ancestral oaks of Bellarmyne chase came
lumbering to the earth with all their leafy honors, destined
thereafter to ride, under England's red-cross flag, the briny
waves, scarce salter than the tears shed by their stalwart owner,
as he saw their old places vacant, and the green park dismantled
of its noblest ornaments.

Even by dint of these sacrifices, little of splendor was effected
in the outfit of the queen's young maid-of-honor, and when the
aged baronet, presented himself at court by his old colonel the
noble Duke of Ormond, had delivered up his fair child to the
royal circle, and left her as a member of the household under
the care—nominal care—of the mother-of-the-maids, and the real
guardianship of her own delicacy and virtue, he returned alone
to the ancient abbey, which was now more solitary, sadder,
stiller, than ever before, to pass his old days alone, in increasing
poverty, increasing infirmities, increasing despondency, and,
alas! decreasing vigor and elasticity whereby to endure them.

His out-door enjoyments were now limited to an occasional
day's coursing in the park, with his still choicely nurtured greyhounds,
which he followed on a stout, gentle hackney; falconry
and the chase had become enterprises of too much pith and
moment for the war-worn cavalier; while his fireside relaxations
were limited to the study of his two books, the Bible and William
Shakspeare, with an occasional game of chess and a cool
tankard with the vicar, and—greatest delight of all—the perusal
of a letter from Rosamond, when three or four times a year
the tardy and irregular post brought down the stirring news of
the loud and licentious city to the quiet hills and pastoral dales
of Yorkshire.

These letters for some time, until above a year had passed,
were all bright and sparkling. Everything seemed to wear
the couleur de rose veritable; his majesty's wit, his majesty's
courtesy and frank kindness; the affectionate and genial graces
of the pretty, interesting, foreign queen, the loveliness of the
maids-of-honor, the belle Jennings, and the belle Hamilton, and
the lovely Miss Stewart, and the merry, witty, gipsy Miss Price;
and the graces and accomplishments of the unrivalled courtiers
of the day, the admirable De Grammont, and the unapproachable
Anthony Hamilton, and Sedley and Etherege, and the
gallant Buckhurst, and the princely Buckingham—these were
the subjects of her first epistles, and their burden, that all and
every one were so good-natured and so kind to her, little Rosamond
Bellarmyne, that she felt herself there, in that splendid
court of Whitehall, or in those merry-makings under the superb
elms of Hampton court, or in those rantipole junketings at Tonbridge
Wells, or in those grand hunting matches at Newmarket,
or races on Epsom Downs, every bit as much at home, every bit as
safe, and almost—but no, not quite—as happy as she used to be
with her birds and flowers, her pigeons and her pheasants, and
her ponies, and her poor pensioners, at dear old Bellarmyne.

And the old man rejoiced and exulted as he read them; and
formed strange fancies and high hopes, hardly admitted even
to himself, as he conned them over in his own mind; and then
rehearsed, in the intervals of their peaceful chess, to his good
old friend Dr. Fairfax, how his little girl had been chosen to fill
such or such a place in such a masque or revel; and how the
young Marquis of Ossory, or this or that more illustrious countier,
had sought her hand in some figure dance, which had been
performed with such good fortune as to elicit royal approbation
—and above all, how the same little girl's head was entirely
proof against all the flatteries and frivolities of the great world;

and how her heart was still in the right place, honest and true,
and frank and candid; and how, in a word, the admired and
toasted, and already famous belle, Mistress Rosamond Bellarmyne,
the queen's maid-of-honor, was still the same, the very
same good little Rosamond, who had been the life of the old
abbey, and with whose departure so much of that life had departed.

By and bye, however, the letters were changed, though the
writer still seemed to be unchanged—what was said was, beyond
doubt, said truly; but much appeared to be left unsaid. There
were no more praises of the maids-of-honor, no more eulogies
of king and courtiers; but much pity for the queen.

At length came mention of annoyances, almost of insults, by
a person not named. It was evident even to Sir Reginald, not
usually too acute, that she was unhappy, ill at ease. Sometimes
he fancied that she felt herself in danger; but he never
dreamed that she concealed half her grievances, from her
knowledge of his inability to aid her, and fear of his hot temper
and violent resentments.

After a protracted silence, came a wild, sad, anxious letter,
containing a dark tale, darkly told, of imminent peril from the
same unnamed person; of timely rescue by a young gentleman,
likewise nameless—rather than a letter, it was an earnest imploring
cry, to be removed from that accursed place, or ere it
should be too late. And, therewith, the old man's eyes were
opened, and all his dreams vanished. He would have set forth
that day, that hour, to fetch her home at all risks; but his infirmity,
rendered more acute by the excitement of his mind,
forbade locomotion.

So he sat in his old hall alone, as we have seen him, and
chafed and fretted himself almost into madness, from consciousness
of his own impotence to assist the jewel of his old heart,

and by fears for her safety, worse almost than the worst reality.
One wise measure he took promptly. He wrote at length,
inclosing his child's innocent appeal, to their good kinswoman
of Throckmorton, praying her aid and counsel in this their extremity.
Rosamond he advised of what he had done; commended
her courage; praised her; and promised, as soon as
his distemper would permit, to be with her in person.

A second measure, wiser yet, he took some days later; for
it cost his pride many a pang, and to do it at all was a great
self-conquest. He wrote to Nicholas Bellarmyne, in the city,
stating the whole case—asking nothing. That done, he could
no more; he waited, in darkness, for the dawn.

3. CHAPTER III.
CAPTAIN BELLARMYNE; A YOUNG SOLDIER OF THE EMPEROR'S.

A beautiful autumnal day had drawn to its close some three
weeks previous to the little incident which produced Rosamond's
letter, and caused so much anxiety and suffering to the old
cavalier; and she was sitting alone and despondent at the window
of her apartment which looked over the gardens, in those
days extending from the rear of the exquisite palace of Whitehall
to the banks of the brimful silver river.

But she had no eyes for the shaven lawns, the tufted parterres,
or the moonlighted bosom of the argent Thames; no
ears for the sounds of merriment and music which came, at
times, swelling on the gentle air from the returning barges of
pleasure parties and homebound revellers.

She thought of herself only, of her perplexities, her trials,

her undefended situation, her offended virtue, her menaced
honor.

For she had discovered, in season, both the offence and the
menace; and while resenting the one, and fortifying herself
against the other, had learned that, in the path of virtue, she
might hope for neither encouragement among her beautiful
companions, the fair, frail maids-of-honor; nor for the chivalric
defence of one noble heart among the corrupt, licentious courtiers.
To the king an appeal for support would have been
worse than absurd; since his smiles, his encouragement, his
good wishes, were all with the offender.

The queen, alas! could have given sympathy and tears only,
had she chosen to give these; but, short as was the space since
her espousals, she had learned already the sad lesson that, to
preserve even the outward semblance of her husband's respect,
she must turn a consenting eye to his foibles, and interfere with
no one of his unroyal pleasures.

It was, perhaps, wonderful that—beautiful and accomplished
as was Rosamond Bellarmyne; and, moreover, from her very
inexperience, free-spoken as she was free-hearted—she had not
been singled out before in that profligate and ungracious court
for dishonorable and degrading pursuit.

But it had so happened that, when she arrived, the king himself
had eyes or ears for none but La belle Stewart—who, by
her meretricious half-consents and half-denials, kept him sighing
and dangling at her knees longer than his constancy ever endured
for any other maid or matron; the Duke of York, for
whose gross tastes the innocent and lively Rosamond would
have lacked piquancy and vice, was in the chains of the ill-favoured
and brazen Sedley; and of the other courtiers none,
perhaps, dared—so much was there, even in her lightest and
gayest moments, of the true dignity of virtue in her every word

and gesture—to approach the young maid-of-honor with the
suit of dishonor.

To accident, therefore, and in some lesser degree to her own
demeanor, she had owed thus far her escape from persecution.

But one had now come upon the scene—to whom to outrage
dignity, as to ruin virtue, and pollute honor, was but an incentive,
added to the gratification of his passions, and—what with
him stood far higher than his passions—his extraordinary and
indomitable vanity.

Master of all graces, all arts, all accomplishments, which
conciliate one sex and ruin the other, animated by no solitary
spark of honor, courage, manhood, or integrity, though so
skilled in polite and politic dissimulation as to make all the
world believe him the very soul of honor, chivalry, and courteous
courage, De Grammont had resolved to compass her destruction.

And what he had resolved in that sort heretofore, had almost
inevitably come to pass.

His own powers of seduction, should they prove for once
insufficient, were now aided to the utmost by no less an auxiliary
than Charles himself; who lately being deeply smitten
with the charms of a young French coquette—to use no
harsher term—a cousin, it was given out, of the consummate
count himself, had bargained—shameful contract, but most
characteristic of those shameful days—for the facile Frenchman's
favor with his kinswoman by engaging to throw into
his arms the beautiful Bellarmyne.

All this, of course, was a secret beyond the reach of Rosamond;
yet she had already perceived much and divined more
of the iniquities which were plotting against her.

The odious compliments, the resolutely pertinacious attentions,

so marked as to banish all other courtiers from her side;
his insolently graceful importunities—to be repulsed by no
scorn, no coldness, no denials; for these he treated either as
girlish caprices, or as English pruderies—had given way of late
to an assumption of radiant triumph in her presence; to an
affectation of being perfectly in her good graces; to a boastful
and self-sufficient complacency; as if he were, indeed, the admitted
and successful lover—the gorgeous Jupiter of a submissive
Semele.

She heard, too, from the maids-of-honor, who rallied and
complimented her on her victory—as if to be the fallen victim
of that Hyperion's passions were a triumph—that he proclaimed,
almost aloud, by the insinuation of adroit disclaimers and
modest inuendoes, that to him at least the severe Bellarmyne
had lowered her arms ineffectual.

By bribery of her maids learning what would be her dress
at each court festival, he appeared always wearing her colors;
so that to every one not in his secret, it must appear a matter
of concert between them.

By connivance of the king—who played his most unroyal
game with all the zeal of an interested ally; and with an
adroitness which proved that, if he made a less than indifferent
monarch, he would have made an admirable Sir Pandarus—in
every masque, quadrille, riding-party, hunting match, or other
court diversion, in which it was the custom of the day that the
company should be paired, the famous chevalier had as his
partner the unwilling and unhappy Rosamond, whom the rules
of court etiquette, stringent as those of court morality were lax,
prohibited from refusing this detested companion.

Thus all the world of Whitehall, from Charles himself to the
least of his courtiers, either by connivance or from being themselves
deceived, received it as an acknowledged fact that the

Bean Grammont either stood already, or was in a fair way of
standing, as he would with the Belle Bellarmyne.

And she, while she felt this, and perceived no way of avoiding
it, or of disentangling herself from the nets sensibly spreading
their meshes around her, trembled, and wept and prayed,
and feared even herself for herself should this miserable deceit
continue, fatal as the enchantment of some evil genius.

Perhaps had things thus continued had no overt violence
been attempted, no outrage offered, had she been left to the
influence of that evil society in which all the angels around her
were fallen angels, rejoicing and luxuriating in their fall—left
to the imputation of being herself a victim of the same dark
sin—left to doubt and distrust herself, and to despair of being
virtuous alone in the midst of that carnival of vice—she had
fallen.

But, for this time, it was not so ordered; and, as it is often
the case when the darkness of human calamity is deepest, that
the dawn of happiness is nearest, so now events—of which she
had not the smallest suspicion, over which she had not the
least control—were in progress, which effected changes as unexpected
as important both in her present and future condition.

It was the close of a beautiful autumnal day; the sun had
sunk, as he rarely does in summer-time in that humid climate
of England, unclouded over the soft Richmond hills; and a
tender, dusky twilight, mellowed only by the young light of a
crescent moon, was outspread over the city and its suburbs.

On this evening there was no court ceremonial; and dispensed
from attendance on her royal mistress, and yet more
odious attendance in the court circle, Rosamond Bellarmyne
had just wept herself and her sorrows into temporary forgetfulness,
when an affair fell out between Barns Elms and Battersea,

which seeming to have no connexion with her or her
affairs, yet influenced the whole way of her after life.

The country in that direction was, in the days of which I
write, although now so covered with streets and squares of thickly
settled parishes as to be indistinguishable from the metropolis
itself, truly the country; a suburban district, it is true, but
in all its aspects rural; green fields and green groves, and a
maze of green winding lanes, with here and there a country
villa, here and there a country tavern and wine-garden—frequented
for the most part by the dissolute and wanton of both
sexes, the scum of the neighboring metropolis, though visited
occasionally by the petits maîtres and petites maîtresses of the
court—often in disguise, and always on errands no less secret
and illicit than those of the ordinary inmates.

It was, in short, a district presenting all the worst features—
beauty excepted—of both city and country; in addition to
which its character was not greatly improved by being the
favorite resort of seafaring men on a frolic, and of the crews—
then, as now, a most unruly set—of the river craft and
barges.

In the centre of this district, not far from the river bank, to
which extended its overgrown gardens and shrubberies, too
luxuriant from neglect, there stood a pleasant Italian edifice;
once the suburban residence of a foreign ambassador near the
court of the first king James, but for some time past fallen
into disuse and disrepair.

Within the few weeks preceding the date of my narrative,
the minds of the country quidnuncs of the vicinity had been
exercised by the repairs and decoration of the villa; the bringing
thither in many wains overland, in many barges by river,
much sumptuous furniture, mirrors and tapestries, carpets and

couches, cabinets of marquetry and tables of rare carving, suitable
only for the abodes of the great and noble.

On the morning of that beautiful autumnal day the exercised
minds had been strained to their utmost tension by the arrival
—in a grand calêche, drawn by superb Flanders mares, and
escorted by a train of servants of both sexes—of a very young,
and very lovely, though dark-complexioned, foreign lady, without
any visible protector and companion. And the excitement
was relieved only by the announcement made by an English
postillion—all the other servants being French—that the lady
was Mademoiselle de la Garde, of almost royal blood in France;
and that the Italian House, as it was called, had been purchased
for her residence by her kinsman, the celebrated Chevalier
de Grammont.

It was in one of the country hostelries mentioned above that
this announcement was made; a pleasant rustie-looking place
enough, at about half a mile's distance from the villa, and
nearly twice as far from the main London road; lying on a
lonely lane, secluded by thick, bowery hedges, and rendered
almost dark at noon by the overhanging branches of the huge
elms. This inn had a bowling-green, a maze, and a large
garden in the rear, with pleasant apartments, both for day and
night, opening upon them, for the use of visitors of the better
class; while in front were a tap-room, an ordinary with shovelboards,
and a skittle-ground, for the accommodation of the
neighbors and the city roisterers, who mightily affected the
Royal Oak—on Sundays more especially.

At the time when this announcement was made a young
gentleman of good mien was present, having entered the house
casually as a stranger, dismounting from a good horse, and
announcing his intention of tarrying there a day or two, having
some business with a sea-captain of Battersea.

He was a man of some twenty-eight or thirty years, finely
and powerfully formed, with a very deep chest, and muscular
limbs. His present complexion was dark and sunburned;
though the color of his chestnut hair and steel-grey eyes, as
well as the fairness of his forehead—where it had been protected
by his hat—showed that the blackness was the effect of
exposure to the weather, not the work of nature. His carriage
and air, no less than a slight scar as of a sabre-cut on his
forehead, indicated that he had seen service. His garb—rich,
though of grave colors, and of foreign fashion—was half military,
and worn with a martial air; and he bore on his breast
a small foreign order. His name, as he gave it to the curious
barmaid, proved, if it were a true one, the rank and the station
of the bearer—Captain Bellarmyne, from the Low Countries.

This gentleman appeared, indeed, to be something moved, if
not surprised, by what he heard; but he said nothing, asked
no questions, dined privately at noon in one of the garden-chambers,
and after dinner took his cool tankard in an arbor
looking upon the cool, winding lane.

While he was sitting there a superb cavalier came powdering
along the lane, as hard as a splendid English hunter
could carry him, splendidly dressed in a grand peruke, a velvet
coat, and high riding-boots: a man of great personal beauty
and grace; both evidently made the most of, and set off to the
utmost.

“In truth it is himself!” muttered the young man. “It is
De Grammont. Whom shall we see next?”

And therewith he raised himself erect, so that he came into
full view of the passer-by; and lifting his plumed hat bowed
courteously, but coldly.

The chevalier looked puzzled—as if he recognised the face
without recognising the owner of it; looked annoyed at being

recognised; half checked his horse—as if to stop and speak;
then changing his mind, bowed slightly and galloped forward.

“He does not recollect me,” said Captain Bellarmyne;
“that is well, too. And, now—whom shall we see next?”

It was late in the afternoon of that day before the captain
saw any one; yet it was evident that he kept himself in the
way to see what was to be seen.

But when the sun had set, and the moon was almost rising,
two gentlemen rode up to the horse-trough before the door,
accompanied by a single groom; and one of them asked how
far was it to what was called the Italian House.

On receiving the reply they both dismounted; and giving
their horses to their attendant desired him not to wait, as they
would walk home in the pleasant moonlight or tarry until
morning.

That done, they called for a stoup of claret; and stood
chatting while they drank it not far from Captain Bellarmyne,
who soon saw clear enough who had come the next.

One of the two—the most remarkable in all respects—was
middle-aged; something above the middle stature; dark-complexioned
and harsh-featured, with coarse, black hair, partially
redeemed only by a bright, intelligent smile; a quick, vivacious
eye; and an air of innate and unconcealable gentility, if not
dignity, which shone like a diamond through the disguise—
evident to Bellarmyne's eyes, at least—which he wore.

In a word, it was the king; and the captain knew him in
his disguise, as he had known De Grammont in his splendor.

At a glance anyone would have pronounced him, as he was,
more witty than wise; more good-natured than good-principled;
fitter to be a gay companion than a true friend, whether
to himself or to others; fitter to be anything than a king—and
that a king of freemen.

His comrade Captain Bellarmyne knew likewise; knew for
what he was, the most worthless of men living then—perhaps,
of all men—without one redeeming trait of good by which to
palliate the infamy in which he steeped his really transcendent
talents—John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, the constant companion
of the monarch; one of whose worst faults lay in the
selection of his intimates—for friends they were not.

They tarried but a minute, and then sauntered down the lane
towards the villa; unobservant, but not unobserved by others
than the young soldier of the Low Countries.

A group of bystanders were collected, who had been playing
at skittles when the gentlemen rode up; and one of these, as
they spoke to the groom of walking home in the pleasant
moonlight, nudged his next neighbor with his elbow, and he
cast a meaning glance at a third.

Bellarmyne seeming to see nothing, saw all with his marking
military eye.

One of these was—that common character in the dramas of
those days—the soldado; a brawny ruffian, with a swashing
exterior and a coward's heart within, in a stained plush doublet
with tarnished lace, a broad shoulder-belt and a long rapier
balanced by a great dagger; the second was another genius of
the same order; but of a yet lower class; the third and most
dangerous of the party, was a seafaring man; smuggler, slaver,
or pirate—any, or perhaps all—as times and occasions suited.

“Didst hear that, Ruffling Jem?” asked the latter, scarce in a
whisper, of the soldado, as they strolled back to their interrupted
game.

“Ay, Bully sailor. What'st make of it?”

“That there'll be pickings in the pleasant moonlight, if we
look sharp, this evening.”

“Mum's the word. Sure and steady. Three to two wins
the game.”

“But not so surely three to three,” muttered Bellarmyne,
between his clinched teeth; “and you may meet that, and find
it odds against you.”

4. CHAPTER IV.
KING CHARLES II. AND THE EMPEROR'S YOUNG SOLDIER.

Some hours had passed since the occurrences which had
attracted Captain Bellarmyne's attention at the Royal Oak,
and it was already past ten o'clock, when three persons came
forth from the marble portico of the Italian villa, two of them
bareheaded, and one attired in most sumptuous court costume,
with a huge flowing peruke, impregnating the air with essences,
and giving out clouds of Marechal powder at every motion of
the owner, a French embroidered coat of pompadour-colored
velvet, gold-clocked silk stockings, and diamond-hilted sword,
and diamond aiguillettes and buckles. The other two were
plainly, though handsomely, attired in the usual riding costume
of gentlemen of that day.

It was one of these, who stood covered, receiving the profuse
compliments and thanks of the gorgeous courtier.

“Since, then, your majesty,” he said, in reply to some words
spoken before they left the house, “is so well satisfied with
your reception, and with the fair recipient of your gracious
favors, nothing remains for me but to express my deep sense
of regret at the poor entertainment which I have been able to
offer to so great a king; and to pray, with all humility, that
your highness will be pleased to make use of my poor house,

and all that it contains, at all times and in all manners, as if it
were your palace of Whitehall; which is not, in truth, more
entirely your own.”

“A truce to your compliments, chevalier,” replied the king,
laughing: “your courtesy, like the splendor of your collation,
is almost beyond the power of our gratitude to return. We
shall hope to see your fair cousin, near her majesty, at the next
drawing-room. Meanwhile reckon on me, chevalier, as your
friend in all things wherein I may serve you.”

“Your majesty will remember—”

“The Bellarmyne! So far as I can promise, count, you shall
be as happy— as I have been— as you desire to be. Can I say
more? I give her to you with all my heart.”

“His majesty,” interrupted Rochester, whose caustic wit
never spared his king more than less exalted subjects, “hath
ever had a gracious liberal usage to give away what he hath
not to give. The old cavaliers of his sainted father aver that
it is all he ever hath been known to give.”

“At least, he hath given enough to you, Wilmot,” replied
the king, who was stung as much by the truth as the pointedness
of the hit: “too much, it might be thought, the license to
speak so to your kind master, as, for your life! you durst not
to a private gentleman. But, enough of this: it grows late;
and there were some customers at that Royal Oak as we pass
by, who looked as if it might be their profession, or their pastime,
to cut— throats, or purses. Rochester may fall yet on a
chance, this very night, to prove that his sword is not more
harmless than his pen. Not a step further, chevalier; we
would be incognito; and your splendor, no less than your
courtesies, would betray us. Give you good night, my lord
count, and au revoir.”

And with the word, waiting no further response, the king

took his way, at his own rapid pace— with which few men
could keep up without inconvenience— through the wilderness
of the neglected grounds, into the gloomy windings of the
lane, now almost as dark as a closed room, so feebly did the
young moon and the winking stars penetrate the heavy foliage
which overhung it.

The loneliness and the gloom affected even the rash and
careless mind of Charles. “Odds fish!” he muttered to himself,
“a flambeau, and two or three stout lacqueys were not so
much amiss to-night, after all.” And then he added, turning
to his taciturn companion, whose late insolence, with his
wonted facility, he had forgotten—

“This were a rare time and place for your friend Buckingham's
friend, Colonel Blood. If we were to encounter him
now, with two or three of his roaring boys to back him, we
should soon see how much that divinity would avail us, which
Will Shakspeare says `doth hedge about a king.' ”

“Think not of it, sir,” replied Wilmot, whose teeth were
half-chattering in his head already, with the self-suggested
thought of what Charles had spoken. “Think not of it, sir;
no one knows of this adventure save myself, the chevalier,
and Tom Hardy, the groom, whom you have proved trustworthy.”

“In great things,” answered the king, “no man is proved
trustworthy till he be tried in great things. But look not so
down-hearted, Wilmot; I did not think, I only jested of it.
See, here are the lights of the Royal Oak; too loyal a sign,
sure, to harbor treason; and within a mile or so we shall be
in the high road, where you will find company enow to rouse
your spirits: or stay, the good folk are a-foot yet here, it
seems; we will tarry, and take a cup to revive them.”

As the two gentlemen came into sight, or rather as soon as

the sound of their quick, light footsteps—so unlike the hobnailed
tramp of the customary foot travellers—was heard, it
was observed that the three ruffians who had lingered about
the tap, gambling and affecting to drink, though eschewing
deep potations, slunk away into the darkness, and hurried off
in the direction of Hyde Park, up the lane by which their
intended prey must pass.

At the same moment the young soldier, who had been constantly
watching them from his station in the arbor, arose,
and entering the house, went to his apartment quickly and in
silence.

No one was left except the landlord, leaning on the hatch of
his door, a green-aproned tapster, and two or three hostler-boys,
lounging about the horse-block and trough.

A cup of burnt sherry, which they first called for, was
speedily supplied; but when Charles himself, who perhaps
felt that he had acted rashly, began to sound Boniface as to
the possibility of hiring, or even purchasing saddle-horses, he
soon found that he might as well have asked for camels; so
making Wilmot pay the scot, who by chance possessed a few
shillings—the royal pockets being, of course, empty, he walked
away with slashing strides, laughing gaily at his own absurdity
in thinking to hire post-horses at a wine-garden.

Scarcely had they departed, following unconsciously in the
steps of the ruffians who had preceded, and were now, doubtless,
awaiting them in ambush, when Captain Bellarmyne passed
the landlord, who was shutting up the house; and without
answering his inquiry, how soon he should return, followed the
pair at such a distance as to keep barely within hearing of
their footsteps.

He had a long, dark cloak thrown loosely over his shoulders;
and besides a stout horseman's tuck hanging on his

thigh, wore a brace of fine pistols, recently loaded, at his
belt.

For about half a mile he followed the king slowly and unseen,
yet having still in ear his firm, rapid, vigorous footstep,
until at length, just at the spot where he anticipated mischief,
the sound suddenly ceased.

It was as fit a spot for ill deeds as ever was chosen by the
clerks of St. Nicholas. The lane here turned at right angles,
a footpath entering it on the right by a turnstile; it was
overhung by two or three heavy-boughed oaks, making it twilight
even at noon; and on the left was flanked by a dark,
thick-set coppice, divided from it by a foul, stagnant ditch,
deep in mire, and mantled with duck-weed and rank aquatic
verdure.

The only gleam of light which entered this thieves' corner,
came faintly through the opening of the footpath, and was
reflected a little more brightly from the water, on the surface
of which seemed to be concentrated all the feeble glimmer of
the starlit skies.

As the tread of the king ceased, Bellarmyne flung away his
cloak, and rushing forward, heard a rough voice exclaim—

“Come! come! No nonsense! Your purses, cavaliers—
or your lives; and you may think yourself in luck if the weight
of the first redeem the second.”

“Odds fish!” cried Charles, “mine won't; for there's not a
groat in't, I'll be sworn. How runs yours, Jack Wilmot? for,
if it's not the fuller, we must make steel redeem our lives
instead of silver.”

And he drew as he spoke, and put himself on guard, facing
the sailor and the soldado; who, though with their points
advanced, still paused, awaiting the courtier's reply, as preferring

a sure ransom to a doubtful conflict; but the bolder
ruffian cried—

“But silver won't do, my noble roisterers; we must get
gold, an' you are to go skin free.”

“Hold your hands!” exclaimed Wilmot, losing all self-possession
from the extremity of fear; “this is treason—it is the
King!”

A loud, coarse laugh replied, in scorn, “The king—a likely
king, indeed; without a maravedi in his purse!—down with
the lying beggars, if 'twere but for their impudence. Treason,
quotha! and not a groat in 's pocket! Together, boys—have
at them.”

And the clash of steel followed sharp and continuous. All
this had passed so rapidly, and the minds of those engaged
were so intent on the work in hand, that Bellarmyne's approach,
swiftly as he hurried up, was unperceived till he was
close beside them.

“Stand to it, cavaliers!” he cried; “aid is at hand! We
are stronger than the ruffians—pink them home!”

At his shout the thieves fell back a little; and had the true
men stood their ground stoutly, would have fled without more
ado. But Rochester, though he had fought tolerably well for
a moment, fear lending him a desperate sort of courage, when
he heard a step and shout close behind him, misunderstood
their import; and, losing all heart, threw down his sword,
leaped the foot-stile with singular agility, and ran away as
hard as he could across the fields toward London.

Seeing this cowardly desertion, the rogues rallied; and the
sailor, who was their best man, facing Bellarmyne, the other
two pressed the king home. Had there been any light, the
ruffian could not have kept his life ten seconds against the
practised weapon of the Imperialist; but, as it was, scarcely

the glimmer of the points could be discerned, like glow-worms
in the gloom; and the antagonists struck, thrust, and warded,
by feeling the contact of their blades, not by seeing their
direction.

After a minute or two, finding that the men were resolute—
that in the dubious darkness he had little or no advantage
over his immediate antagonist—while the king's hard breathing,
and his breaking ground once or twice, told him that he
was overmatched—the young soldier changed his tactics.
Still keeping up his guard against the sailor, he quietly drew
a pistol with his left hand, cocked it, and springing back with
a quick bound to the side of Charles, who had been pushed a
pace or two behind him, discharged his weapon within a
hand's breadth of the head of the tallest ruffian.

It was just in time; for the king's guard was beaten down
by the blade of the other, and the soldado's point was at his
throat. The broad glare of the sudden discharge startled all
who were engaged save one; and he never started more.
The fatal ball crashed through his brain, and he was a dead
man ere his heavy body plashed into the noisome ditch behind
him.

“Fire-arms!” shouted the sailor. “Ware-hawk! Vamos!”
and he, too, leaped the turnstile, and disappeared; while his
companion took to his heels up the lane, and was soon out of
hearing.

“You are not hurt, sir?” asked the young soldier, not
desiring to penetrate the incognito of the king, as he returned
the pistol to his girdle.

“Thanks to you, no, sir,” answered the king, warmly. “But
for you, I had been past feeling any hurt. Your pistol did
good service—it saved my life.”

“It has done me better before,” replied Bellarmyne, laughing;

“for it saved my own at Cracow, when a big Croatian
had me down, with his knee on my chest, and a knife a span
broad at my weasand.”

“That was good service, sir, too,” said Charles, gravely;
“but, perhaps, not better than this.”

“Better for me, I only said,” answered Bellarmyne, gaily;
“but come, sir, if you are of my way of thinking, we were
better to be moving. That pistol-shot will bring out all the
bees buzzing from their hives under the Royal Oak; and,
though not dangerous, they might be troublesome. I should
have used my pistols when I first came up, but that I thought
of this; and I should not have needed to use them at all, had
your friend shown himself a man.”

“You are prudent, sir, as well as brave; rare qualities in
any man. We were better, as you say, to be moving. Add
to the favor you have done me by giving me my friend's sword;
yonder it lies; it might tell tales of him. Thanks! Now,
which way lies your road, sir? Mine takes me towards the
Mall. Will you give me your company?”

“Willingly, sir. Had you not asked I should have offered
it. I have friends in the city with whom I can bestow myself;
although I had intended to pass the night, where, perhaps, you
saw me, sir, at the Royal Oak.”

“Saw you? No! When, sir?” asked the king, quickly;
and then, without giving him time to reply, he added, “One
word more—do you know me, sir?”

“I saw you, sir, as you dismounted at the Royal Oak this
afternoon with your companion, and judged you to be gentlemen
of the court on a frolic; but I have not the honor of
either of your acquaintance. Fortunately, I overheard some
chance words of those ruffians, by which I learned that they

intended to waylay you, and was so enabled to do you this
slight service.”

“Slight service!” answered Charles, with a light laugh; “I
wonder what you gentlemen of the sword think good service?
But come, as that learned thief exclaimed, as he made his exit,
`Vamos.' The rogue patroles, I suppose, will find their brother
thief dead in the ditch to-morrow, and raise a hue and cry of
murder—let them. We can keep our secret.”

And walking stoutly and rapidly along, they soon reached
the high-road; after an hour's active exertion passed Hyde
Park corner—a field on the very outskirts of the town, just
coming into vogue as a court-promenade and riding-course;
and entered Piccadilly—a wide road, lined with the occasional
mansions and gardens of the nobility, but little resembling the
continuous and fashionable street of the present day.

The hour was so late that all the lights in the dwellings and
public places were extinguished; and the watchmen of that
time, like those two centuries later, preferred dozing in their
snug sentry boxes to perambulating the streets, when all
sensible and well-disposed people are sound asleep in their
beds.

Before the guard-house, however, at the entrance of the
Mall, there was a brilliant lamp burning and a sentinel on duty;
here, without approaching so near to the latter as to give him
occasion to challenge or salute, the king paused where the full
light fell on his strongly-marked, swarthy features.

“Now, sir, look at me well: peruse my lineaments; and see
if you recognise the person whose life you have saved? Did
you ever see me before to-day?”

Bellarmyne looked at him earnestly, and replied—

“If ever, it must have been in the Low Countries. Perhaps

at Breda—were you ever there? I trod on English soil but
three weeks since, for the first time these thirteen years.”

“And your name?” asked the king, perfectly satisfied that
his incognito was safe.

“Is Armytage Bellarmyne, late captain of the Emperor's
Life-Guard.”

“A kinsman of my good friend Nicholas Bellarmyne, of the
city? whom men call the English Merchant.”

“His son. Is he your friend?”

“A very old one.”

“And your name?” asked Bellarmyne.

“Is my secret. We shall meet again; then you will know
it. Good night!”

They shook hands, bowed, and parted.

5. CHAPTER V.
THE CHEVALIER DE GRAMMONT; THE FRENCH KING'S EXCOURTIER.

It was some five or six days after the occurrences near the
Italian House, a space during which Rosamond had been more
seriously annoyed than ever by the importunities of the count,
and the scarcely equivocal allusions of Charles to what he was
pleased to call her penchant for the illustrious Frenchman, that
a gay group of courtiers had, at an early hour of the morning,
accompanied the king and his train of spaniels into St. James's
Park; where he amused himself, as was his wont, feeding his
tame water-fowl in the canal, playing with his dogs, and chatting
in his easy unkingly manner, which rendered him so popular,

despite all his ill-government, with such promenaders or
chance-passengers as he chanced to know by sight.

Among the party, who accompanied him rather as equal
associates than as subjects, were De Grammont, Sir George
Etherege, the accomplished Buckhurst afterwards Duke of
Dorset, and wild William Crofts, groom of the stole; with all
of whom, making no distinction of rank, he gossipped and
jested in his loose, idle way, and allowed them to pass their
jokes on himself in return.

In the course of their wild and licentious talk, De Grammont
alluded jestingly, but with a visibly earnest intention, to the
want of progress which he made with the beautiful Bellarmyne,
adding pointedly, “if your majesty were half as energetic
a wooer for others as you are for yourself, and came as briskly
to the point, she would not remain long so perdurably en
garde.”

The king laughed, not less, perhaps, at the effrontery of the
count's jeu des mots on his own kinswoman's dishonor, than on
the coolness with which he seemed to rely on his good offices
in a matter so dishonest; and replied—“Faith! when I do
such things by proxy, I use my good friend Chiffinch; you had
better apply to him, count, and if he do not bring the affair to
a prosperous event, by my honor, I see nothing for it but you
must carry her off vi et armis, as Rochester would have done
fair Mistress Mallet. I dare say, you have many another petite
maison besides the Italian House.”

“But I have heard say, your majesty was very angry with
Rochester; I could not survive my king's anger.”

“Rochester failed, chevalier, and the lady was neither pacified
nor placable. I never heard the name of De Grammont
coupled with the word failure.”

“Not at Basset, sire, nor Lansquenet, nor yet at Ombre,” replied

Etherege, with a mock reverence to De Grammont; “but
fame is more mendacious even than her own ill-report goes, if
fortune be as kind to the chevalier in the affairs of Venus, as
she has shown herself in those of Mars and Plutus. Crofts,
here, has told us some funny tales about his devotion to Mademoiselle
St. Germain.”

“Odds fish!” exclaimed the king, breaking off abruptly, and
looking earnestly towards the Bird-cage Walk, from which direction
two persons were advancing—one an old gentleman of
seventy years of age or upwards, dressed in a suit of plain brown
velvet, with a gold chain about his neck, and a gold-headed
crutch-cane in his hand, in lieu of the sword at his side, without
which gentlemen then rarely went abroad; the other a youth
of a military deportment, in half military attire, whom Charles,
with his usual quickness, recognised at once as his timely assistant
in the lane near Chelsea—“Odds fish! whom have we
here? That should be our worthy friend of the city, good
Master Nicholas Bellarmyne; but who is the stout gallant on
whose arm he leans?—a likely looking lad, with an arm and
leg that might have won favor in bluff King Harry's sight, who
loved, they say, to look upon the thews and sinews of a man!
Who is he? Do none of you know, gentlemen? Then, faith!
I must e'en ask myself.”

Then as the old merchant and his son were passing by, as
was the etiquette, at a respectful distance, merely uncovering
as they went their way, he called after them in his ordinary
blunt manner, “Why, how now, Master Nicholas Bellarmyne,
are we out of favor with our good friends in the city, that one
of their best men gives us the go-by so cavalierly?”

Thus summoned, the persons who had provoked the royal
attention drew near, the father keeping his head erect, though
uncovered, and looking his majesty full in the face, with an eye

as clear and calm as his own; but his son drooping his brow
a little, and having his eyes downcast, as if he were either bashful
or reluctant, and falling back a pace or two as they approached
the presence.

“Not so, your majesty,” replied the merchant, seeing that
the king waited a reply, “you are, as ever, our very good lord
and gracious master, and we desire but to know wherein we
may pleasure your grace, in order to do so. But, seeing that
you were private, we did not dare intrude until commanded.”

“One would think, Master Bellarmyne,” replied the king,
langhing, “that you had attained the years to know that there
is no intrusion, nowadays, possible by men with money-bags
like yours, if fame o'errate them not, especially on kings and
courtiers, who, however much of gold they may bear on their
backs, carry none, on a point of honor, in their purses. But
who is this gentleman you have with you? I have not, I think,
seen his face at court, yet I remember something of the trick of
it. Who is he, that I know him, but cannot call a name to
him?”

“My son, your majesty. Armytage Bellarmyne; he has returned
but of late from Germany, where, and in the Low Countries,
he has had the honor to serve the king and emperor in
twelve campaigns.”

“Twelve campaigns!” replied the king. “He must have begun
betimes. And did he win that medal there, which he
wears on his breast? And wherefore hath he not been presented
to us, his lawful native sovereign, for whom, I presume,
his sword will be drawn hereafter?”

“Whenever need shall be, your grace. But you have indulged
us so long with the blessings of peace that England had
no need of it; and youth is rash, as your majesty knows, and
perilous, and will have its vent in mischief somewhere. Touching

his presentment, he tarried only for the arrival of my lord
of Craven, to whom he had the good fortune to be known
abroad, and who was gracious to promise that he would stand
his sponsor to your majesty.”

“Ha! Craven!” said the king; “gallant and loyal Craven!
Well, we will accept Craven absent, as his sponsor, and elect
you, sir, present, as his proxy. Present him to us. We would
know where we have seen his face before.”

Armytage, on hearing these words, exceeding gracious as
they were, advanced uncovered; and, as his father named him,
knelt gracefully on one knee, and kissed the hand which was
extended to him with a smile, thinking, as he did so, with how
much less ceremony he had grasped it only a few nights previously.
Then, rising to his feet, he stood, respectfully, but
perfectly unembarrassed, before Charles, who, with a twinkling
eye and suppressed smile, pursued the subject, determined evidently
to try his new ally's spirit and discretion.

“How is it, sir,” he said, “that your face is so familiar to
me? It is not your likeness to your father, for you are not like
him. I have seen yourself before—where have we met?”

“So please your majesty,” replied Armytage, himself unable
to refrain from smiling, “once, many years since, I had the
honor to see you ride through the streets of Breda; and, I believe,
your majesty's eye might have fallen on my features. But
I had thought it too small a matter to rest in your memory.”

“More things rest in my memory,” said the king, significantly,
“than men think for. It must have been in Breda,
then. Well, sir, you see I have not forgotten; and you shall
see I will not forget you. I hear you have served, sir—where
and under whom? And where did you win that medal which
you wear? I see it is imperial.”

“I have served, sire,” replied the young man, modestly, “both

in the Low Countries and in Transylvania; besides one campaign
in Denmark. I have fought under Turenne and Montecuculi,
and had the good fortune to be at the foreing of the
Prince of Condé's lines at Arras, at the defeat of Ragotsky's
Transylvanians before Cracow, and at the relief of Copenhagen.
It was before Cracow, where I served as the general's aide-de-camp,
that I had the honor to receive this decoration.”

“You have, indeed, been fortunate, sir,” answered the king,
graciously. “Whether to have fought under such heroes as
Montecuculi, or against such heroes as Condé and Gustavus
Adolphus, were enough to satisfy the most ambitious of glory.
And what propose you to do now, sir?”

“To lay my sword at your majesty's feet, if it can serve you.
I should have done so earlier, could I have quitted the emperor's
service with honor, before peace was declared. If not, and
these rumors of war between the empire and the Turks prove
true, I may have your license, sire, to take a turn against the
Ottomans, under my old commander.”

“No, no, sir. For the present, you have had fighting enough,
methinks, without getting your ears cut off by some janizary,
and sent up in salt to the Sublime Porte. We shall try to find
something for you to do here in England. Meantime, her
majesty holds court to-morrow night; we shall command your
attendance, desiring to know how our English ladies compare
with the fair Austrians, and the Polish beauties, of whom we
have heard wonders.”

And a slight bow indicating that the interview was finished,
Armytage and his father retired with due reverence, the latter
marvelling much to what they could owe so unusual a reception
from the king.

As they withdrew, Charles sauntered away towards the palace
playing with his dogs; and, reverting to the matter uppermost

in his mind, asked De Grammont carelessly, “Well, chevalier,
what think you of our new-found subject?”

“A bold youth!” answered De Grammont, shortly—for he
had observed the community of names between the young imperialist
and his charmer, and foreboded no good from his
arrival. Moreover, he foresaw a rival favorite near the throne,
and his vanity could brook nil simile aut secundum.

“Odds fish!” cried the king hastily, “a brave one, rather,
and a modest, and a discreet! I should like to see one of you,
gentlemen, who—” he checked himself abruptly, and added
with a low bow to De Grammont, “but I forget that I speak
to the comrade and sharer of the great Condé's glory at Sens,
Norlinguen, and Fribourg, and of the no less great Turenne's,
at the foreing of those same lines at Arras.”

The chevalier could but bow low to the gracefully turned
compliment of the king, though he half suspected some latent
meaning in the king's reticence. He remained, however,
silent, and something discomposed during the remainder of the
promenade.

The king was also, contrary to his wont, absorbed in thought,
grave, and taciturn.

“What's a-foot now, Buckhurst?” whispered Etherege to his
friend, as they lagged a step or two behind the party. “And
who's the new Bellarmyne?”

“Some one,” replied Buckhurst, profanely, “whom either the
good Lord or the foul fiend has sent to spoil the Frenchman's
game with the other Bellarmyne.”

“The good Lord, then,” replied Etherege, laughing, “the
good Lord, for a rouleau! The foul fiend would have helped
the Frenchman. I don't like this selling or swapping of English
ladies' honors—not being over nice myself, or squeamish.”

“Nor I—an English king being salesman,” said Buckhurst.

Yet these were two of the wildest and most licentious gallants
of that unscrupulous time; but there are things so foul as must
needs make the most corrupt gorge rise against them, if the
heart thrill to any latent sense of honor.

The queen's court, on the following night, was more superb
than usual; more decked with flowers of female loveliness, than
usual, it could not be; for probably no such assemblage of
beauty and grace—alas! that modesty and virtue may not be
added—was ever brought together.

There was the superb Barbara of Castlemaine, radiant in
almost incomparable beauty, but dressed, or undressed rather,
to a degree calculated to excite disgust, rather than any warmer
feeling, and brazen with more than cynical effrontery; yet the
poor, broken-spirited queen smiled on her, and exchanged compliments
with her, in the face of all the sneering court.

There was Frances Stuart, for whose love it was rumored that
Charles would fain have been divorced from Catharine of Braganza,
“the greatest beauty,” as quaint old Pepys says, “I did
ever see in all my life, with her cocked-hat and red plume, with
her sweet little Roman nose, and excellent taille.”

There was the fair and languid Middleton, with her soft insipid
smile and love-lorn look askance. There was the beauteous
and virtuous Miss Hamilton, with her commanding form, and
swan-like neck, her open, smooth, white forehead, and her
round arms, the loveliest in the world. There was little Miss
Jennings, with her complexion the fairest and brightest that
was ever seen; her abundant flaxen hair, her exquisite mouth,
with that nez retroússé, and that animated arch expression, that
redeemed her from the charge of insipidity—reproach of blonde
beauties; Miss Bagot, with her regular, calm features, her
“brown complexion, of that sort so unusual in England, and the
continual blush which she had ever on her cheek, without having

anything to blush for;”[1] Miss Temple, with her fine and languishing
eyes, wreathed smile, and lively air; and, though the
last, the most lovely, the best, the purest of them all, innocent
Rosamond Bellarmyne, with her clear blue eyes revealing every
sentiment of her frank and candid soul, her cheek pale from
annoyance and agitation, yet sweeter from the purity of its very
pallor, and her rich brown hair flowing, as it were, in mingled
masses of chestnut silk and gold, over her marble shoulders.

That night the king did not tease her, nor did his face once
wear that malicious smile, or his lip once syllable the Count De
Grammont's name. On the contrary, his countenance was
grave, and his voice calm and kind, when he told her that he
had found her a new cousin, whom he would present to her
that evening. And when she started, and blushed crimson,
and looked fluttered and frightened, he answered her look by a
reassuring smile, and said, “A very honorable one, Mistress
Rosamond.”

No man in England knew the family histories of all his subjects
better than Charles, long as he had resided in a foreign
land; nor was the name of Bellarmyne so common of occurence
but that so soon as he knew the name of the emperor's
young soldier, he knew also his relationship to the queen's maid-of-honor.
To day he had thought—not a common thing for
Charles to do—he had thought of all that those Bellarmynes,
of old race, had done and suffered for his unlucky house, and,
as he thought, his conscience smote him—for he had a conscience,
at times, when anything pierced deep enough to wake
it into life—and he paused and repented.

He did present Captain Bellarmyne to Rosamond, after he
had presented him, with much distinction, to the queen, and

took care that he should be her partner; which then implied
association not for a single dance, but for the whole ball, and
the banquets that followed it; and once or twice during the
evening, as he went round among his guests, joking and drinking
with them like anything rather than a king, he found time
to say a passing word or two good-naturedly, and winked most
unroyally at Armytage, and clinked his glass of champagne
with Rosamond, as he drank to her “with his eyes.”

Grammont was furious. Finding himself balked of Rosamond,
he had attached himself to Miss Hamilton, to whom he
was always very attentive, and whom he afterwards married—
being brought back from Calais for that purpose by dislike to
her brother's pistols—but he was abstracted and rude, and tore
her enamelled fan to pieces in his fretful mood; and when Miss
Jennings quizzed him on his discomposure, he answered her so
sneeringly and shortly, that the saucy gipsy turned her back full
in his face, and did not speak to him again for a month.

Once he attacked the king, bantering, but evidently sore.

“Odds fish! chevalier,” Charles answered testily, “win her
yourself, and wear her. If you can't win her yourself, send
Chiffinch, or your man Termes, who lost your fine coat in the
quicksand at Calais. But for your reputation's sake, chevalier,
don't lisp to them at Paris what dirty work you asked a king
to do for you!”

“Or did for a king,” said Etherege, in a low voice, as he
chanced to stand near him.

“Sir!” cried De Grammont, turning on him furiously.

“Sir,” replied Etherege, quietly. “I call you so, because it
is the English for chevalier”—and, with a low bow, he turned
his back, and walking away, asked some one to present him to
Captain Bellarmyne.

So incensed was De Grammont, now, that he lost all command

of himself; and though he felt it was impossible to quarrel
in the very banqueting hall of the palace, he still could not refrain,
when the ball was ended, and his self-constituted rival was
looking for his hat and cloak in the ante-chamber, from walking
up and addressing him, in a manner anywhere haughty and
unbecoming, but surpassingly so in a royal apartment.

“Captain Bellarmyne, I believe?”

“At your service, Chevalier de Grammont.”

“Will you permit me, then, to inquire the meaning of your
attentions to Mistress Rosamond Bellarmyne?”

“Certainly, count, to inquire anything you please; and,
being myself the lady's poor cousin, on learning your superior
pretensions, I shall gladly answer you.”

“Then, sir, I have another question,” De Grammont began
fiercely; when Bellarmyne as calmly interrupted him, “Which
I shall also gladly answer, sir, anywhere but within the precincts
of my sovereign's palace.”

“Good-night, Count de Grammont!” said a deep voice
behind them. Both turned; it was the king, with a mien of
unwonted dignity, if severity were not the better word. The
proud Frenchman could but bow and retire.

The face of Charles relaxed, as he asked, “Where did you
learn to be so discreet, so young, Captain Bellarmyne?”

“Under General Montecuculi, sire. He made me once stand
on guard, all steel from my teeth to my toes, from the rise to
the set of a July sun, for saluting my superior officer when he
wished to be incognito.”

“He did very right, sir,” answered Charles, laughing; “and
he seems to have made you a pretty good soldier. Now, if you
will wait on Major-General Craven, at eight o'clock to-morrow
morning, he will be very glad to see Major Bellarmyne of the
Coldstream Guards. Pleasant dreams to you, major.”

6. CHAPTER VI.
BLACKHEATH; AN ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE.

Three days succeeding the queen's mask flew away, to Rosamond,
on wings of the swiftest—perhaps the pleasantest three
days she had ever known. The court, meanwhile, was full of
rumors, the least definite and the most singular imaginable.
The sudden and incomprehensible advancement of a young,
unknown soldier; representing no interest, urged forward by no
favorite, seemingly without recommendation beyond a foreign
order of merit, to a grade in the favorite regiment of the service
which great lords coveted, would have been in itself a nine
days' wonder. But to this were added the retirement of Rochester
from court, no one knew whither, no one pretended to
conjecture on what cause—the quasi disgrace of the Chevalier
de Grammont; who, though he was still constant in attendance
on the royal person, still sulked and held himself aloof, while no
one, Charles the least of all, appeared to notice his ill-humor, or
to regret his withdrawal, who a little while before had been the
magnus Apollo of Whitehall—the preferment of Major Bellarmyne
not only to his military grade, but to something nearly
approaching to familiarity with the easy monarch, who distinguished
him on every occasion, constantly required his presence,
selected him as the companion of his private walks, and would,
it was evident, have promoted him to the questionable honor of
favoritism, had not Armytage shown himself utterly intractable
and repugnant, as unfitted alike by temper and principle for the
envied but unenviable post—and last, not least, the reticence of
the king, who, usually so garrulous and free of access, held perfect
silence, and was entirely unapproachable on this subject, demeaning

himself in all other respects as if nothing had occurred
out of the ordinary course, and appearing even gayer and more
lighthearted than his wont.

The least of these events would have sufficed, even in busier
circles, where luxury and leisure are less prolific of idle surmises
and flippant scandal, to set the drones a-buzzing, and the whole
hive humming angrily, if not yet stinging. Dire, therefore, in
Whitehall, was the confusion of tongues; wonderful in Spring-Garden
the ruin of characters. Yet, for all this, seeing that
Major Bellarmyne was, not dubiously, the rising man of the day,
and in favor both with the king's and the queen's circles, it is
wonderful how soon all the handsomest women of the court discovered
a thousand manly charms and graces in his person, a
thousand attractions in his air and conversation, of which no
one had ever before suspected him; and how all the men
reported him a person of parts no less shining than solid, a
fellow of infinite wit, in short the most desirable of companions,
although a week before they would have passed him in the Mall
with a contemptuous wonder who that tall fellow might be, or
a sneer at the soldier of fortune.

Nor is it much more easy of explanation how Rosamond, who
had for months been left almost alone, in the midst of an unsympathizing
crowd, to endure persecutions which she could not
avoid, now that she was connected, both by similarity of name
and by the intimacy which the king undoubtedly fostered
between them, with the new hero of the minute, became the
object of so much friendly regard and attention, that it would
have been impossible, had he attempted it, for the count to
renew the importunities which had rendered her past life almost
insupportable.

Neither Rosamond, however, nor her newly acquired friend
and cousin—of whose existence she had never even heard

a week since—attached much importance, or paid much
regard to the fickle favors of the courtier crowd. To both of
them it was a new phase of existence; to her who had never
known one of her own blood, except her father, too far removed
from herself in years to be more than a tenderly loved
and dutifully reverenced parent, it was a new delight to find a
kinsman on whose strength she might repose, in whose honor
she might confide, in whose conversation she might find—
something long sought but undiscovered—truth blended with
wit, sincerity undivorced from the lighter graces, to whom she
could disclose much which it had sorely galled her to conceal,
almost as if he had been a dear elder brother.

And for him whose life had been spent for the most part
in the tented field, in the actual shock of the heady fight, or in
the dull monotony of the camp, who had mingled but little in
female society, and that little only ceremoniously according to
the formal routine of the continental courts, now to find himself
thrown, as if naturally, into close and intimate association
with one so beautiful, so frank, so charming in her innocence
and artless graces, one whom nothing should lead him to
regard as a stranger, but rather to protect and cherish as his
nearest of kin on earth, except those of the elder generation, it
possessed a pleasure greater far than the mere fascination of
novelty.

All those who have travelled or sojourned long abroad, know
well what a void they have felt about the heart on returning
to the old home and finding that for them it is no longer home
—that they are gone, all gone, those old familiar faces; that
the old friends are dead; the young friends dispersed, estranged,
occupied with new friends, new ties, new pleasures,
new associations; that, in quitting the land of the stranger

they have in truth broken off the later, though without recovering
the older, bonds of companionship.

Particularly had this been the case with Armytage Bellarmyne.
He had left England when little more than a mere
boy; his mother he had never known; brothers, sisters,
kinsmen, and kinswomen, he had none. Sir Reginald and his
daughter, who were, though his nearest relatives, but distant
cousins, had been in exile from a time beyond the date of his
earliest memory; in truth, he remembered not ever to have
heard of them at home.

But he had heard much, pitied much, sympathized much
abroad; for he had learned there, on all sides, of the doings
and the sufferings of the elder branch of his house, of the unfaltering
loyalty and faith, of the extreme poverty and unbending
integrity of the old cavalier, and something of the beauty
and high qualities of his daughter.

Having left home, known to no relations, and to few friends
beyond mere school-companions, the weariness, the void, the
sense of strangeness he experienced, finding himself, not figuratively,
but indeed a stranger in the land of his birth, were so
overpowering that he had indeed meditated returning—as he
had informed the king he wished to do—to take arms under
his old commander, who was in hourly expectation of being
called into the field against the redoubtable forces of the Turk,
who was then held in awe by the strongest powers of continental
Europe.

Here, then, were two young persons thrown together into
that most perfect and confidential of all solitudes, the solitude
of a crowd; because it is solitude without having the air of
being such, and, as being liable to slight interruptions, which
do not in truth interrupt it, awakens no sense of strangeness,
no idea of alarm, or suspicion of impropriety.

Far otherwise, indeed, for it seemed to be agreed by common
consent of all around them that they were to be partners,
companions on all occasions together; and who that has ever
been so placed, knows not how strongly that operates in facilitating,
almost in creating, intimacy.

Inclined from the first to be pleased—to like each the other
—every moment drew them nearer and nearer together;
topics of mutual interest were not wanting, for the young
soldier never wearied of listening to his artless companion's
descriptions of the old ivy-mantled abbey, grey and neglected
among its unshorn woods and fern-encumbered chase, a world
too wide for its shrunken demesnes; and the deep sympathy
he evinced for the aged, honorable veteran, sitting alone, in
his old age, in the grand gloom of his ancestral halls, brooding
over the ruins of his dilapidated fortunes, with no child, no
dear friend, no veteran companion, to fill his cup or smoothe
his pillow, or soften the downward path of his declining years;
with nothing to look forward to on earth but a deserted death-bed,
and the care of menials, would alone have bound Rosamond
to him with chains of steel, had there been nothing else
to draw them together.

But she, too, like Desdemona, would seriously incline her
ear to what he had to relate of foreign climes and customs,
and to the chances and romances, the gleams of chivalry and
touches of sweet mercy, which are the redeeming tints in the
black hue of battle-histories, the “one touch of nature” which
indeed makes the “whole world kin.”

And from liking, they imperceptibly glided on into loving,
without being led at all to examine into the nature of their
feelings, without suspecting or inquiring how things went with
them, until Armytage awoke and found that he had been
dreaming how pleasant it would be, and how excellent a use

of his father's hoarded stores and ponderous money-bags, to
redeem the sequestered acres and restore the antique glories of
Bellarmyne Abbey; and to cheer the sad and solitary days of
old Sir Reginald, by giving him a stout and soldierly son's
arm whereon to prop his tottering steps; and then, by an
easy transition, to fancy how delightful it would be to see
Rosamond presiding as the household deity, serene in youthful
beauty, the cherished daughter, adored wife, and charming
mother.

And Rosamond, too, began to count the minutes when
Armytage was absent, and to look wistfully for his tall figure
in the crowded ball or banquet-hall; and to thrill and blush
and tremble when she saw him coming; and to wonder why
she was such a little fool to shake and quiver like an aspen
leaf at his approach, when she was so glad to have him come.

And the good-natured king chuckled and laughed within
himself, perfectly content and delighted at the success of his
plans. He knew how the elder branch of the Bellarmynes
had lost all in his own and his father's cause; and now that
he had begun to think about it at all, he both thought and
felt strongly. If he could easily have redressed their grievances,
he had done so eagerly; but, in truth, he had not the
power to redress them by any means. The sequestered lands
had been sold to innocent third parties, and these were secured
by amnesty at the restoration. There were no means of indemnifying
the impoverished and ruined cavaliers; the court
was needy, thriftless, improvident, indebted, and, between his
ladies, and his favorites, and his pleasures, the king was for the
most part penniless.

But he had conceived this plan of rewarding his staunch
old veteran, and of building up his broken fortunes by means
of the vast wealth of the London merchant; making, at the

same time, two very charming young persons happy, bringing
together a dissevered family connection, reinstating a fine old
hereditary estate, a fine old hereditary name—in a word, if not
of doing a good action, at least of bringing about a good
result. To effect this he was willing—yes! he was even
willing to take some personal trouble. It was rather amusing,
by the way, than the reverse. He had made up his mind,
if he could bring it about, to create a new peerage, in which
Sir Reginald should be first baron, with remainder to the
citizen's son, if that might facilitate matters; and, as he saw
all things in progress as he would have them, he began to wax
proud and happy in self-approbation, and to fancy himself a
sort of Deus ex machinâ, descending to solve a knot indissoluble
by the efforts of his faithful subjects.

It occurs, not so seldom as we are apt to imagine, however,
that some sudden incident or occurrence—accidents, perhaps,
in the true sense of the word, are not—will often either produce,
or mature and expedite results which the most skilful
management and the wisest counsels would have failed to
bring to so felicitous a termination. Times will occur when all
things appear to keep in one consentient current, accidentally,
as it were, tending—yet with a purpose so evident, a direction
so manifest, that it is impossible to doubt the interposition of
an unknown, overruling will—to one desired or dreaded event,
one favorable or disastrous end; and so it fell out in this
instance.

A grand stag-hunt was to be held in honor of some foreign
prince of one of the small German states, who happened to
be on a visit at Whitehall; and all the court circle were
ordered to attend on an appointed day, the court itself adjourning
for the time to Windsor Castle, and those who were
not so fortunate as to be of the royal party taking up their

quarters, wherever they might find them, in the town of
Windsor, or the adjacent villages, as Datchet, Egham, Staines,
and Kingston-upon-Thames, all of which were crowded with
gay guests and splendid retinues of horses, livery servants, and
followers of all kinds.

Major Bellarmyne was one of the fortunate few who were
ordered to attend at the castle; and, on the eve of his departure,
received his appointment as chief equerry to his majesty,
which of course relieved him from duty with his regiment.

The day appointed for the hunt—a rare occurrence for fête
days—dawned auspiciously, warm, soft, and slightly overclouded,
precisely such a day as huntsmen love, and lady equestrians do
not hate, as there was neither sun enough to offend their fair
complexions, nor wind to disturb their plumes, or ruffle their
flowing draperies.

At an early hour the heath was alive with gay and animated
groups; large tents were pitched on a rising ground, with the
royal banner floating above them, in which a superb collation
was to be served at noon; while the bands of the Lifeguards
and Oxford Blues, then as now the magnificent household troops
of the British sovereign, made the wild echoes ring with the
symphonies of their brazen instruments. Deer, which had been
taken in toils in Windsor forest, were on the ground in carts,
to be released and coursed by the fleet and superb English greyhounds,
a breed of dog which had already been brought to a
high degree of perfection by Lord Oxford and others; and the
wide, open, undulating stretches of the heath being excellently
appropriate to the sport, and the day in every light propitious,
great sport was anticipated. Nor did the result deceive the
expectation. Course succeeded course, proving alike the speed
and strength of the noble red deer, and the unrivalled ardor,
courage, and condition of the gallant greyhounds.

The king was in the highest spirits and good humor, for out
of the first five matches his dogs had won three, and the best
of his kennel had not yet been slipped. It was about ten
o'clock—for our ancestors, if they had many vices, had at least
the one virtue of rising early in the morning, and on that day
the beauties of King Charles's court were mounted and a-field,
radiant in fresh beauty, almost as soon as Aurora herself—when
the king observing that Bellarmyne, according to the duties of
his office, followed closely at his heels, called to him, pointing
as he spoke to a fair bevy of maids-of-honor with their attendant
cavaliers, among whom the graceful figure of Rosamond
Bellarmyne was conspicuous.

“Major Bellarmyne,” he said, “for all we have named you
our equerry in chief, it is not with the purpose of tying you to
our horse's tail, or keeping you dangling after us from matins
to midnight. Away with you, sir; yonder is metal more
attractive, if I be not the worse mistaken, than the best stag
that ever ran upon four legs over lifted lea or mountain heather.
Away! we will summon you, if we need your presence.”

De Grammont, with a group of other gentlemen and nobles,
was about the king and his princely guest when the courteous
words were uttered; but Armytage paused not to see who heard
or heard not, but galloped away joyously to join her whom he
had already begun to admit to himself as the mistress of his
heart.

By this time, as was unavoidable from the nature of the sports,
the company had become much scattered, many of the chases
having been long and nearly straight on end; and, as each deer
was taken, a fresh one was driven up, as fast as four horses
could convey the light cart which contained it to the scene of
the last capture, so that there was no general rallying point for
the straggling groups, but the scene of action varied from point

to point, over the wide extent of wild heath, open downs, and
forest land, which was then included in the royal chase of
Blackheath.

In spite of this, however, many minutes did not elapse before
Armytage had found his lady, who, infinitely the best rider of
the whole field of beauties, though but indifferently mounted,
was riding with Miss Bagot, who was but a timid horsewoman,
and a single cavalier only, the young Lord Dynevor, who greatly
affected the society of that graceful nymph; the rest of their
party having just separated from them in order to approach
nearer to the royal presence.

Scarcely had he exchanged the first salutations with his fair
lady before a noble hart, with no less than ten tines to his antlers,
being what is technically called a hart royal, was uncarted,
and, taking their direction, came sweeping gracefully past them,
followed by three choice greyhounds, and close behind these by
the king, his royal guest, and the best mounted of the courtiers.
The fears of Miss Bagot, and the indifference of Rosamond's
hunter, soon threw our party far in the rear; for the stag was
strong and ran wild, pointing towards the Surrey hills, and,
though they contrived to keep the hunt in sight, they were at
least a mile distant when the gallant beast was run into and
pulled down, on a heathery knoll crowned by a single fir tree,
near to which they might see the straggling hunters, as they
came up one by one, gathering towards the person of the sovereign.

It was during the gallop, which they were forcing to the best
powers of both riders and ridden, that the attention of Armytage
was attracted to the strange apparition of a carriage and
six horses, one of the huge, cumbersome wheeled caravans of
the time, followed by two mounted servants, without liveries
or badges, manœuvring hither and thither among the intricate,

deep-soiled, and sunken lanes which intersect the surface of the
heath; but he thought nothing of the circumstance, except to
point it out to the party, with a laughing expression of wonder
as to who could be so fond of the chase as to follow a stag-hunt
in a coach and six.

He had scarce spoken of it, when the vehicle and its train
were lost to sight in the skirts of a wide tract of hazel coppice,
which covered the country for many miles of space, in the direction
of Luckfield and St. Leonard's forest; and almost at the
same moment, a man in the royal livery galloped up at full
speed, exclaiming—“Major Bellarmyne, Major Bellarmyne! His
majesty is instant to see Major Bellarmyne!”

There was nothing for it but, however unwilling, to obey;
and bowing low to Rosamond and Miss Bagot—“I leave you,
my lord,” he said, “even as I found you, one cavalier to two
fair ladies; a grave charge to protect and entertain them.”

And, setting spurs to his fine, thorough-bred charger, which
was quite fresh, he was soon at a distance; while the servant
in royal livery uncovered as the ladies passed, and dropped into
the rear as if to attend them.

Nothing which had passed as yet had excited any surprise
in Bellarmyne's mind; but as he rode up at full speed, with his
horse a little blown, pulled up, and uncovering close to the
king's side stood, evidently waiting orders, the inquiring look of
Charles perplexed him.

“So please your majesty, I am here at your orders.”

“So I perceive, sir,” said Charles laughing. “To what do I
owe the pleasure of your presence?”

“Your majesty sent after me.”

“Not I, sir, on my honor! When? By whom? I have
not even thought about you since I sent you to wait on Miss
Bellarmyne.”

“Not twenty minutes since, by one of the grooms of the
household.”

“There is some trick here, sir; or, at the least, some scurvy
jest. Odds fish! who hath done this, gentlemen?” cried
Charles, looking angrily about him. “I like not such freedoms.”

Bellarmyne's eye glanced half-suspiciously over the group;
the Chevalier de Grammont was no longer near the king's
person. An instinct or intuition made him turn his head and
gaze eagerly in the direction where he had last seen the coach
and six.

He saw it now issuing, at full gallop, from the coppice, about
a quarter of a mile from the spot where he had last seen it,
thundering along amid a cloud of dust towards London. Its
followers had increased to six persons, and one, who rode the
last, was evidently a man of distinction.

“By God!” cried Armytage, forgetful of the presence in
which he stood, and striking his clenched hand on his thigh—
“By God! he has carried her off!”

“Who, sir? Carried whom off? What do you mean?”
cried Charles, too much excited to observe the breach of etiquette.

“Mistress Bellarmyne, sire—the Chevalier de Grammont!
Here comes her horse, and Miss Bagot, and my Lord Dynevor
to tell us of it.”

“Odds fish! he shall repent it,” cried the king, very angrily.
But Bellarmyne had not waited to hear his reply, but had put
spurs to his horse and was already a hundred yards distant,
riding, as straight as a crow flies, toward the heads of the coach
horses, which were forced to describe a sort of semicircle round
the hillock on which the king sat, owing to the intricacies of
the lane, and the difficult nature of the ground.

“After him, gentlemen!” cried the king. “Away with you!
Crofts, Brouncher, Sydney, Talbot, Tollemache—Ride, ride,
my favor to him who stops yonder carriage. Bring them before
us, both; and have all care to the lady. Ride, ride, or we shall
have hot blood spilt.”

But it was in vain that they spurred; for Bellarmyne rode
as if the devil drove him.

Two or three broad, bright, bankfull brooks crossed his line,
but he swept over them in his stroke as if they were but cart-ruts.

Now a white handkerchief was waved from the window of
the carriage. A stiff stone wall, full five feet high, opposed his
progress—in went his spurs, down went his elbows, and, with a
hard pull at his head, the good horse cleared it. There was
now only a smooth slope of two hundred yards, or a little more,
between him and the lane, along which the lumbering carriage
was rolling and jolting at headlong speed; but the servants, who
followed it, were spurring out and drawing their swords as if to
intercept him.

But he gave his good horse the rein and spur, shot ahead of
the foremost, and in a moment he was abreast of the leaders,
calling vehemently on the postillion to stop if he would save his
life. But the boy only spurred on the more fiercely, and struck
at the young officer with his whip.

In virtue of his office of equerry, holsters were at his saddlebow,
with his pistols loaded. He drew one, and, without relaxing
his speed, shot the horse on which the boy rode, through the
heart. It bolted upright into the air and fell dead, the others
plunged over it, one or two stumbled and went down, the coach
was overset.

The next moment De Grammont came up at full speed—

“You have shot my horse—how dare you? You shall answer
for it.”

“Think yourself lucky,” he replied, “that I have not shot
you!”

The chevalier answered by an insulting word in French; and
scarcely was it uttered before Armytage's sheathed sword
crossed his shoulders with a smart blow.

Both sprang to the ground, drew, and their rapiers were
crossed in a moment; but by this time the gentlemen, who had
followed at the order of Charles, galloped in, one by one.

“Swords drawn in the king's sight,” cried Crofts, who came
first. “Fie! gentlemen! hold your hands! You are under
arrest!”

Rosamond had fainted; but by aid of the ladies of the court,
she was soon restored to consciousness, if not to ease of mind.

The first words Charles spoke when the offenders were brought
before him were addressed to De Grammont. “Chevalier,” he
said, “I have heard that my brother, Louis XIV., desires your
return to Paris. Major Bellarmyne, you will surrender yourself
to the authorities. You have to learn, sir, that swords are not
to be drawn in our presence; and that justice and punishment
both belong to the king.”

7. CHAPTER VII.
WHITEHALL; A DOUBLE MARRIAGE.

It scarcely need be stated that Rosamond Bellarmyne's letter,
which, as we have seen, caused so much grief and anxiety to
stout old Sir Reginald, was composed and sent off on the very

morning following the commission of the outrage on Blackheath;
and before the agitated girl had recovered from the consternation
and excitement into which this, not unprecedented, violence
had thrown her, and before she had, indeed, learned anything
accurate concerning the situation of her own affairs, or the
intentions of the king.

All, in fact, that she had heard when she wrote wore an
adverse aspect. The very outrageousness of such an attempt in
the very presence, and almost under the eyes of the king,
seemed to carry conviction with it, that the attempt, if not
made under his direct sanction, was felt by its perpetrator to be
one which would not, at the worst, provoke his anger to evil
consequences.

To this consideration De Grammont's long and insolent importunities,
the king's undeniable allowance and indulgence of
them, until within the last few weeks, were naturally added;
and the helplessness of her own isolated and friendless condition
recurred with tenfold strength.

She had heard nothing, when she wrote, of the Chevalier de
Grammont's honorary exile from the court of England; but she
had heard, so much more quickly does ill news at all times
speed than good, of Major Bellarmyne's imprisonment in Newgate,
for breach of privilege; and to this intelligence was added
the heart-rending information that the penalty of his offence
was no less than mutilation, by the loss of his right hand, and
that in his case there was little prospect of any relaxation, since
in addition to the offence of drawing his sword, constructively,
in the king's presence, he had gone so far as to strike a nobleman
high in the favor of the crown.

Harassed by these feelings, reports, and imaginations, the poor
girl wrote, as may be imagined, a letter which would have
harassed almost to madness a father even less loving and less

irritable than the broken-spirited and failing cavalier. And
little she imagined, as she wrote, that the superb chevalier,
whom she pictured to herself as flushed with triumph, burning
with brilliant hope, ready for new aggression, and backed by
the favor of obsequious majesty, was actually at the moment
when she was penning her doleful ditty travelling, as hard as
post-horses would carry him, towards Calais, without the least
idea whither he should next betake himself; since he well knew
that so far from wishing his presence, Louis XIV. was much
more likely to commit him to the Bastile than to welcome him
to Paris; while the king, whom she supposed the devoted confidant
of De Grammont's pleasures, was in reality plotting
against him the bitterest pleasantry of which that easy, laughter-loving
prince was ever guilty.

Tired in body, for, having no mind to encounter the pleasantries
much less the mock condolences of his fellow-courtiers, he
had taken horse at daybreak on the morning following the
stag-hunt, and ridden post without dismounting, except to
change horses, discomfited in his projects, vexed with himself,
and angry with the world, De Grammont had reached the
Crown Inn at Dover late in the evening, had refused all offers
of supper, had drunk deeply, contrary to his custom, and retired
to bed, with the intent to forget his cares in a good night's
rest.

But even in this reasonable hope the unfortunate Frenchman
was frustrated; for, before he had been in bed two hours, a
prodigious clatter of hoofs in the court-yard awakened him,
and the inn was in a bustle, as it seemed to him, until it was
almost morning.

At length he fell asleep; and scarce were his eyes closed
before his celebrated valet, Termes, the greatest thief, the most
impudent liar, but the best valet de chambre living, entered

his chamber with the announcement that two gentlemen were
below stairs, who had ridden post from London, in order to
have the honor of paying him their compliments before sailing;
and that they desired the pleasure of his company, so soon as
he had made his toilet.

No further information could be obtained from Termes,
although De Grammont could perceive by a single glance at
the queer grimaces into which that paragon of servants was
delighting himself by contorting his nut-cracking nose and
chin, that he was thoroughly aware what was in the wind; and
moreover, he shrewdly suspected that it boded himself no good.

No; Monsieur Termes knew nothing about it. He had not
seen the gentlemen; only the waiter of the hotel. He did not
give their names, in fact he did not know them; they had
ridden post, and brought no domestic with them. But apparemment
they were friends of Monsieur le Comte; otherwise why
should they have ridden so far to have the honor of paying
their compliments? What suit would it please the count to
wear—the maroon riding-dress with purple trimmings—or the
blue and silver? If it would please the chevalier to bestir himself,
for the gentlemen were waiting.

So the chevalier consigned Termes to perdition, and did
bestir himself. He put on his blue and silver suit, and his best
riding peruke, and his jack-boots and spurs; and so descending
to the breakfast-parlor, found there waiting him his dear
friend, Count Antony Hamilton, the witty author of his memoirs,
and his brother George, both, like himself, booted and
spurred, with their riding-swords at their sides; but, unlike
him, each with a pair of long-barrelled pistols at his belt.

“Good-morrow to you, chevalier,” they both exclaimed in a
breath, as he entered, making him profound congees; “Have
you not forgotten something in London?”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” replied the imperturbable Frenchman,
with a low bow. “I have forgotten—to marry your
sister. So lead on, and let us finish that affair. But I fancy
it must be finished in the Tower; for our old friend, Rowley,
is sure to send me thither, as soon as he learns that I have
returned to London, in the teeth of his gentle hint at honorable
exile.”

“By no means, count,” answered Antony, with a smile and
a bow; “in that case we could not have allowed you to return,
in spite of your anxiety to do us and our sister this
honor. We have a license with us from his majesty for your
return and reception at court.” And with the words he handed
to the count a parchment, which was thus inscribed:

Whereupon they breakfasted together, each with what appetite
he might; and then rode back to London, with much less
velocity and bustle than they had ridden down.

Of this, however, Rosamond Bellarmyne knew nothing; much
less did she suspect that the genuine, honest-hearted old London
merchant had been closeted nearly three hours tête-à-tête
with the king, much to the wonder of the courtiers, on matters
closely connected with herself, though this was the king's

secret; and that thereafter he had gone to Newgate, provided
with a document bearing the sign-manual, on the exhibition of
which Major Bellarmyne was immediately discharged, his
sword being duly restored to him; whereupon he took horse
within half an hour, having his pockets filled with a voluminous
epistle, as long as a modern title-deed to an estate, and a fat
purse, and was riding, when last seen, followed by a couple of
stout serving men, at the deliberate pace of an old traveller who
has a long journey before him, out of town by the great North
Road.

For the benefit of those whose imaginations are not lively
enough to forebode what ensued, it may be necessary to state,
that before Sir Reginald Bellarmyne's touching letter arrived
at the house of Nicholas in the Minories, the emperor's young
soldier, now the king's officer, Armytage Bellarmyne, had
alighted at the gates of the old abbey, well furnished with credentials,
not from his father only, but from the Majesty of
England, backing his suit for the fair hand of the maid-of-honor.

To these also it may be necessary to say, that the old chevalier
was too implicit a believer in the doctrine of passive obedience,
to dream of disputing the will of the king; that the good
Dowager of Throckmorton was already in London, when the
old baronet, cured of his gout by the best of all remedies, a
dose of unexpected happiness, dismounted at the palace-gates,
to claim the brief possession of his fair child, whom he was
soon to give away for ever—that the two kinsmen, so long and
unnecessarily estranged, were never estranged more; and that
on the festive and joyous day when two marriages were celebrated
in the chapel of Whitehall, if the first and most famous
was that of the notorious Count de Grammont with the beautiful
Miss Hamilton, the most interesting, and, as after days

proved, the happiest, was that of Major Armytage Bellarmyne
to Rosamond, the no less beautiful daughter of Reginald, first
Viscount of Bellarmyne.

To the world, who have heard only of the recklessness, the
heartlessness, the worldly coldness, ill redeemed by his facile
and frivolous good-nature, of the Second Charles of England, it
may appear surprising; but the tenants of the old house, so
happily reinstated, of Bellarmyne, as well as the restored avenue
and the redeemed acres, truthful although mute witnesses, still
tell this simple tale of “The King's Gratitude.”