1

CHAPTER I.

"Why then, brother, persist in thy resolution to quit thy native country? Friends will interpose for your protection, and we who have suffered so much for the King's sake, may surely expect indulgence for our kindred. Besides, have you not the guarantee of the Royal engagement at Breda? Can you doubt that?"

"Listen, Richard, to my reasons for self-exile. Thou knowest the part which I have taken in the late contest between Charles Stuart and his unhappy country. Preferring the liberty of the citizen to the favour of the crown, I have suffered much in estranged friends and an impaired estate. My only consolation in this contest, was the conviction that it would not be in vain. My only reward

VOL. XXXIII.-1

[KING JOHN.

in success, would have been the freedom of my country. As the convictions of my mind had never changed the affections of my heart, I have done everything in my power to mitigate the evils of civil strife. You ask if I doubt the guarantee of your King. I answer, I do. His declaration is specious. His assurance of free opinion has imposed upon many. It can never deceive me. Those who surround him will have revenge. His easy nature will yield to their inexorable purpose, and the government will relapse into more than its original corruption. Devoted to pleasure, he makes promises with facility, and breaks them with indifference. Already your new laws deny the rights, as they outrage the feelings of those who would worship God according to the dictates of conscience. I have been notified that an ignominious

exile will be the consequence of attending other than established places of worship. Yet I have risked my life for this right, which the published promise of your King authorises me to enjoy! Therefore I go, that I may at least choose my own place of exile, for those who have suffered as I have done, would not give peace of conscience for length of days." 'But, my dear brother, why make such a sacrifice for a point of opinion? Why not yield as many have done-as all are doing to a necessity which cannot be resisted?

"If I could yield to such selfish motives, could you respect me? Could I respect myself? Would not the memory of those brave men, now in death, or exile-men with whom I have so often wrought in battle or in prayer-rebuke me? Yes, it is true men yield. It is this deadness of the public heart that determines me. The people, weary of change, assent to any form of government that promises to be stable. Truly, the love of many waxes faint.' But I have, with others, sworn never to live under the rule of a single person. The necessity of a Protector shadowed the restoration of monarchy. IE wrestled with that necessity. He sought it not. I knew it. But for that necessity He had never taken, or lived to hold that station. But men denounced him as a hypocrite. They knew not his piety, his justice, his patriotism. Posterity will know it. He governed not for his own gain, but to save the people from what they must now endure. Remember! nothing but necessity made him reign, or us submit. Think you the men who sustained him feared blood? Had not those men shed blood? Did they fear death or exile? You will see how they can meet both. His rule was but a respite from despotism. It is inevitable. But the sun is low. Again, adieu. You will keep our paternal estate; it will be ample for your wants. I shall need little in the New World. Solitude and peace are all I seek, and in those wilds will my unhappy country, which could not be freed, be forgotten." "But must your son go too?

Shall

an ancient name be left almost without a representative? Will you condemn him to the same obscurity to which you have doomed yourself? Let him remain with me. He shall be as if he were my own. Let him be instructed, that he may rejoin you in the future."

A smile of mournful import passed over the features of the exile, as he replied:

"Think you, my brother, that I would quit England for myself? It is for him I go. The evils which are impending here no human effort may avert. Usage, habit, prejudice, and power combine to render those evils invincible. It must be by other men and in other days, perchance in another land, that our race shall see freedom of action and opinion. Perhaps the freedom of the wilderness, the equality of common suffering, the total separation from the superstitions of rank and established religion, may ordain a condition more favourable to human happiness. Here it has no hope, Though I have had other dreams But God

bless you! Never forget that we are brothers in blood, though estranged by political discord. Preserve the mansion —and one spot—the tomb of our parents, and of my wife. But for that I could leave England almost with tranquility." He turned away.

The boy, with tears upon his cheeks, received the affectionate embrace of his uncle. Taking his father's hand, they went on board a boat, which had awaited the interview. In a few hours the good ship, the "Duke Byron," was standing across the ocean, for that refuge of the oppressed, the disappointed and the desperate, "The Colony and Plantations of Virginia."

CHAPTER II,

From the restoration of Charles the Second to the Revolution, one-half of the Scottish nation was hunted like wild beasts, by Bishops and their biped blood hounds. [Political Progress of Britain.

It was night upon the broad and restless ocean. A vessel pursued her course.

A lamp swung from a beam lighted a rough compartment in the forecastle. A man walked with an infant in his arms. A low murmur, as of pain, drew him to the side of a rude bunk.

"Maybel, dear," said he, "what can I do for ye?

"Nothing, John. I feel nae pain, but sorrowfu and a-weary. Were it His will, I could rest forever."

"Bear it my ain luve, and dinna sorrow, think of Him wha died for us. His sufferings were beyond compare wi

ours."

"Yes; I think of a; but when my puir auld father's face rises before me, wi his lyart haffets streakt wi blood-mi mither thrown across the lintel-the furious soldiers blaspheming their God-an -an-John, pray for forgiveness upon them. When I think of your trials and testimony for the truth, John, I am proud to be your wife, and when I think a' my own feebleness, that could do naething but suffer, I pray to Him that he will not think our offering in his cause too sma.But pray to Him, maybe that may bring

ease."

The man laid the sleeping infant across its mother's couch, and knelt in prayer "for those who had despitefully used them"-for those who for the sin of a just life and a true faith had been condemned to seal with their blood the testimony of their lives. "And for thy servant, oh Lord! who has been sent out from his people into a wilderness-for his suffering helpmate and his helpless. babe, grant that their temporal trials may be accepted as a proof of their resignation to thy will. Grant that the heavyheavy punishment"-amoan from the woman brought him to her side. She clasped his neck in silence-her eyelashes were wet with tears. Upon her pallid cheek was a broad red brand, the ignominious mark which an orthodox jailer had impressed upon a timid woman for the crime of a different faith. For this crime alone had the scourge, the brand, and exile been ordered!

A hoarse voice broke the silence. A soldier presented himself at the aperture, and called out, "Peace! ye howling hyp

ocrites. You disturb those who wish to sleep."

The woman's sobs sank almost to quiet. There was no noise save the creaking cordage, the working of the timbers, or the dash of the waves, as the vessel encountered them. Maybel Graeme had sunk into an uneasy slumber. She was wearing rapidly away. Driven almost to insanity by the murder of her parents, under the orders of a pitiless hierarchy and a cruel king, exposure and anxiety had so far prostrated her, that when herself and husband were sentenced to branding and transportation, she was carried on board the vessel a dying woman.

It was past midnight. The woman's delirious words had been of her native streams. The voice of her parents had stirred the smile upon her lips. Then the accents of filial love would wander into the deep assurances of conjugal affection. Anon she would wake and beg for her infant in the most plaintive tones, or breathe into some ballad or sacred song which drifted across her troub-. led memory, or murmur some simple. prayer of her childhood. Then she slept again, but restlessly. Towards day she awaked and lay for a few moments quiet. Then she beckoned to her husband, pointed to her child. It was laid upon her bosom. "John, my ain husband, I shall never rise mair."

The unhappy man pressed his lips to her's in speechless agony.

"I go to join those, John, who have gone before us. I forgive them-a-a may God." Her voice failed, and whilst a prelate was listening with delight to the express who had awakened him with the report of heretical punishment, one of the victims of his bigotry passed from the injustice of man to the mercy of God.

The miserable husband sought, with the scant means within his reach, to re vive the lifeless body which lay bef re him. It was in vain. No solace remained but tears. Trained by the stern theology of the school to which he belonged, to bear any personal torture with composure, he could not endure the wrongs of the meek innocent who lay dead before him without a vehement burst of sorrow.

Then he grew calm, and bowed himself in prayer. He besought God that "his spirit might be subdued to His own will and purposes," and then, in the uncompromising spirit of his sect, he added:— "Oh God! thou knowest the errors of doctrine that prevail. Grant that one day, in thine own good time, they may cease. That all prelatical superstition may be overthrown, and that in some land thy people may find a safe refuge where they may worship Thee in freedom according to the dictates of Thy truth and of their own conscience."

The sun rose broadly and slowly out of the waters; the body of poor Maybel Graeme the maiden beloved by her village the stay of her parents-the delight of her husband, who died in the simple sublimity of her faith, the victim of despotic bigotry-and in the coarse cerements of a convict, sank into the ocean, whilst her husband, a brave, true, and pious man, loyal to his country, faithful to his God, passed on-a convict and and a rebel.

CHAPTER III.

Behold! they come, those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on her rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand
That drove them from their native land.
[SPRAGUE.

The sun streamed its dying radiance upon the shores of Normandy. It illumined the windows of the village chapel. 1t gilded the hull of a large vessel in the offing. It fell like a paternal blessing upon a little group who were weeping and embracing each other, perhaps, for the last time.

The Count D'Ivernois had been driven from France by the treacherous revocation of the edict of Nantes. He had now ventured from Holland, with his wife, that he might recover his children, who had been by the terms of that edict torn from their parents, and consigned to a Popish

guardian. His uncle-a priest-the most intolerant of bigots-had procured an order, under which he had detained the children of these unhappy parents. He had encouraged this painful interview, that he might, by this appeal to parental affection, extort from his nephew a recantation of his heretical opinions.

Already had the mother manifested the overflowings of tenderness for the offspring from whom she had been so cruelly separated. Already had the children taken from the arms of the nurse a little stranger whom they had never yet seen.

With a child nestling in her bosom in infantile delight, with the daughter of fourteen years pressing to the side of the father, with affectionate admiration, and their manly son beholding with tears this transient reunion, the miserable family felt too poignantly the lot of proscription.

Remember," said Monsieur, the uncle, "that it is contrary to the ordinance to hold spiritual converse with your chil dren; it will much retard their conversion from your abominable heresies."

"Sir," replied D'Ivernois, "I came to implore you as the arbiter of my fate, as the minister of mercy, as the messenger, according to your doctrine, of Hin who made the miserable beings before you, to give me those whom the ordinances of God have given me. Let me go from this unhappy country to a land where the differences which separate us are unknown. Do not deny the only blessing that may be granted to a friendless exile."

"How often, Etienne," replied the curé, "have I reproved your obstinacy? How often compared the condition of a subject obedient to the spiritual Head of the Church-loyal to his King, with that of a wretched outcast, unworthy the protection of either. Yet it is not too lateone little word-one bit of consecrated wafer-and you will be restored to all that you have lost."

"And lose my immortal soul! make myself unworthy of those for whom I shall have made the sacrifice! No, no, no," said the unhappy exile, as he gazed into the sad faces which surrounded him,