and I know not why you have indulged in them," said Agatha, blushing with much confusion, and preparing to quit the room. "Because it would comfort me on the scaffold if I perish; it would cheer me in my exile if I escape; it would support my heart in every struggle, might I be assured that I have awakened an interest in your bosom." " I will not utter an untruth," said Agatha, after a momentary irresolution - " especially if the confession of attachment-if my regard, I mean, can afford you the solace you state; but you must be aware, Sir, that these are empty words-that it is utterly unavailing ११ "A thousand, thousand blessings on you for this kind admission! Oh, call them not empty words; for to me they are ineffably, inestimably precious, even for present support; and if, in the contingency that I have fondly ventured to anticipate, I might be allowed to hope " I would not deprive any one of hope, the great balm of life; but I repeat, Sir, that these imaginings are dreams and visions to which I must not any longer listen."-So saying, she withdrew the hand which Forester had respectfully pressed to his lips, and hurried out of the apartment with a more blushing agitation than any into which her customary self-possession had hitherto been surprised. "If I live to accomplish my vow, and break the chains of my countrymen," exclaimed Forester-" such only shall be my day-dreams. Till then, England! my poor enslaved, but still beloved country! be thou my mistress! be thou the companion of my bosom ! the chosen one of my soul! the arbiter of my fate!" CHAPTER IX. Yet I wonder much At the strange desperation of these men, That dare attempt such acts here in our state: He could not 'scape that did it Impossible. Were he known. It would be known, Melantius. If he gets then away, He must wear all our lives upon his sword. The Maid's Tragedy. WHILE affairs were thus situated at Hales Court, the humble cottage of the Chervils was the scene of a solemn investigation, occasioned mainly by their own idle babbling about the occurrence in Goathurst-wood, and the alarming or fantastical additions made to it by the gossips of the neighbourhood. At this juncture the whole country was in a ferment; rumours of invasion were openly circulated; the Protestants, owing to the insane measures of the government, were inflamed to the last degree against the Catholics; disturbances, although quickly suppressed, had broken out in various quarters, and the magistrates and public functionaries, anxious to show their loyalty until they could safely avow their disaffection, were upon the qui vive in all directions, arresting doubtful characters wherever they appeared, and proceeding against them with unusual rigour in order to remove suspicion from themselves. The Mayor of Bridgwater, sharing that profound horror of Popish plots with which the wiseacres of the West were insanified, had no sooner learnt that a disguised Catholic, for thus ran the rumour, had been conveyed under mysterious circumstances to Hales Court, where he was carefully concealed even from the domestics, than he thought it his bounden duty to institute an official enquiry into the affair. Dinner was just concluded at the farm, the labourers had returned to the field, Meg was busy clearing away, the humming and whirring of the wheel announced that the indefatigable grandmother had resumed her employment, her husband, old Jan, was sitting in the sun, with his hands and his chin supported upon his crutch-headed stick, gazing at nothing at all, and thinking upon the same subject; Madge was feeding the pigs, the children and dogs were dispersed about, and the farmer, leaning on his weeding-hoe at the door, was preparing to follow his men, when to his no small surprise he saw a carriage stop at the end of the narrow road that led to the farm. Still greater was his amazement at observing several persons alight from it with an apparent intention of coming up to the house, a phenomenon that occasioned him. to call loudly for Madge to assist him if possible in explaining the prodigy. "Why, shower as a gun," cried the dame, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand, "thic be his worship, tha Mayor o' Bedgwater! |