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rsT 7 i ivun rei cjixr ttitpwth) a row a raa utt™ MU Uii MIMFI Mli Miiiim H IfaM ifi Jl J TERMS, $2,00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. (Original |'ortrij. (•'orthe Southern Literary Gazette. LINES. jl lW dream-like art thou fled, bright eve, shone on jivLove! Gone, gone for aye! and yet, not 10.-t! ; ; lV - Minified joys, through memory’s ma^lc glass, dl Hr, .1 id glum in hues prismatic. V iJ it’ Love’s golden smile hath here the gift, ravishingly to charm the soul, \ ,(ol and to its deep, bewild’ring sweetness ; What tongue of seraph tone may sing of that v|.,-t pure, ineffable, sublimest phase lili-s, tiie soul shall prove, when Deity sthall stamp, upon Love’s immortality, Eternity's broad seal, resplendent V. i!i the smile of God—its bright reward, I ,y. ts heaven ! KOBE DU SUD. Chari’ *ten, JWr. 9, 1850. - tmflKT ’ * -II ■■■■■llllll IMBi felnttii Cal ts. From “ Fairer* for the People.” I IK LAST OF THE RUTIIVENS. tiIAPTEIt 11. Oita day, in mid-winter, when Tower jjiil so often reddened with blood, lay white under many inches of snow, a woman might have been seen taking ini’ wav over the portcullis into the Thuci 1 . irshe seemed to belong to the middle class, her hood and kirtle were of humble fashion, black and close. — Wr was a small, insignificant-looking v •man too, and seemed to be admitted . the awful slate-prison, or rather to in there,all ractingfrom the ward ed no more notice than a bird flying in at a captive's window’, or a little lil'dit-eycd mouse peering at him in t’ c dark. Her errand, she said, was o the go vernor's lady. Thither she was brought through gloomy passages that seemed to make her shudder, under narrowly barred silent w indows, at which she bMiked up with a terrified yet eager g anee. as if she expected to see appear there llie wan face of some wretched prisoner. She reached the Governor’s apartments. There air and light were not wanting, though it was in the grim old Tower. From it might be seen the shining Thames, with ships of all na tions gliding by. There were flowers, too, growing in the heavy embrasures of one window, and in the other was a group of human flowers—a young mo ther and her beautiful children. The stranger briefly stated her errand. (She had heard that the lady desired an attendant for her daughters, and she came to offer her services, bearing cre dentials from one whom the governor’s wife knew. “The name is Scottish: are you from ourcountry?” said thegraceful mo ther, her fair face brigtening w ith kind liness. u My father was, and so were all my nearest ties,’* answered the woman in a low voice as she pulled her hood closer over her face. “ You say was and were: are all gone then ‘?” “ Yes, madam : l am quite alone.” “ Poor young thing !” “Nay, 1 am not young; Jlin thirty four years old.'’ “And you have never been married?” “ No.” - Ah!” sighed the happy young wife of twenty-live, with a sort of dignified compassion. But she was of a kindly nature, and she discerned that the >vranger wore a look of great sweet ness, and had withal a gentle voice —that truest index ofa womanly spir it. She enrolled her in her household at once. ” And you are willing, my good What did you say was your Christian name ?” „ ” Lettice.” ” Are you willing to reside in the Tower? It is at best but a dreary place for us as well as for the poor prisoners? though, thanks to our mer il King James, we have had but few > (editions here lately. Lettice faintly shuddered —perhaps it was to hear such gentle lips speak so inditlerently of these horrors —but she answered, “ 1 am quite satisfied, ma dam : even this prison seems a home to one who has just lost the only home .-he over knew, and who has now none in the wide world.” ’die spoke with great simplicity, and in the calm manner of a woman who has been taught patience by long suf fering. Nevertheless, when the goveri* o. ’s lady bade her take oil her mantle and hood, and the three little maidens, summoned from the inner room, came gathering round her, and, won by her sweet looks, offered childish kisses, Let tice s self-control failed, and a few tears began to fall from her eyes. “Nay, take heart, my countrywo man,” said the young matron kindly : “we will make you very happy here ; and perhaps find you, too, a braveyeo man-warder with a good estate: king James takes care his Scottish subjects skill thrive in merry England. And, quite satisfied that in a wealthy marriage she had thus promised the chief good of life, the lady departed. That night Lettice saw the stars rise and shine— noton the limpid Cam, not on the quaint old garden where her childish feet had played, and where af terwards —all earlier memories blotted out by those of one terrible night — idle had walked patiently, bearing the burthen of her sorrow for sixteen years. Sixteen years! It was thus long since Patrick Ruthven had disappeared and yet no tidings had ever been heard of or from him. She had exerted all energies, exhausted all schemes —so far as she dared without endangering her father’s safety —but could gain no clue as to the after-fate of the doomed youth. Whether he still languished in j Non, or had been freed by escape or death, all was mystery : her only cer tainty was, that he had not perished on the scaffold. And so pray mg for him day and night, and loving him continually, this i MM iiii, mrnm m rnmmm tis Am aib mam. am m inim wmMmm. faithful woman had lived on. The days and years ofher youth had glided from her like the waves of a river, uncount ed, for no light of love rested upon them. Their onward course she neither watched nor feared. She saw the young men and maidens of her own age pass away into the whirl of life, woo. and marry, and gather round them a third generation, while she remained the same. Wooers she had, for when sorrow comes in early youth, and fails to crush, it sometimes) leaves behind a tender charm beyond all beauty, and this made Lettice not ! unsought. Some women—good wo men too —can love in their simple, j easy-hearted fashion, twice, thrice,many ; times. Others pour out their whole j soul in one love, and have no more left : to give ever after. Lattice Calderwood was one of theso. Her father lingered many years in i great bodily weakness, and in an al most fatuous old age. She tended him j unwearied!} until he died. Then, when she had no kindred tie left in the wide j world, no duty to perform, none to | love, none to obey, she formed a reso- ; lution, over which she had been lons brooding with an intensity of persever ing will such as few women have, but which none ever has except a woman. That resolution planned, maturely guided, carried through many hin drances, formidable indeed, but which fell like straws before the might ofher great love—Lettice found herself at last an inmate of the Tower. If there—as in all human probability he was, unless no longer of this world—she should certainly discover Patrick Ruthven.— Further plans she saw not clear, still doubtful as she was of Ids very exis tence. But as she sat by herself in the silent midnight, within a few yards, it might be, of the spot where, if living he still dragged on his mournful days ; or where, if dead, his spirit had parted from the body —there came upon her a conviction which often clings to those j whose portion is somewhat like to hers. “ He is not dead,” Lettice murmur ed. “else he would come to me; he knew 1 should not have feared. No. he is still living; and, if living, 1 will find and save him.” So, praying for her Patrick with the woman’s pale, faded lips —as the girl had prayed sixteen years before—Let tice fell asleep. It was a dangerous thing for the free inhabitants of the Tower to inquire too j closely about the prisoners. The days of Guy Fawkes and Sir Thomas Over bury were not so long past but that all who had any interest in the enemies of i King James were wisest to keep a si lent tongue and close-shut eyes. Let tice Calderwood had dwelt for weeks within the walls where perchance lay her never-forgotten lover, and yet she had never heard or breathed the name of Patrick Ruthven. Her whole time was spent with the governor’s children. They, happy lit tle creatures! played merrily outside the cells wherein was buried misery and despair. Sometimes they talked about “the prisoners” with a light uncon sciousness, as if speaking of cattle, or things inanimate. Poor little ones! how could they undersian 1 the mean ing of the word ? “ Do you ever see the—the prison ers ?” Lettice ventured to ask of them one day. “O, yes; a few are allowed to walk on the leads, and then we peep at them from below. VVeare very good friends with one or two —our father says we may.” “ Who are they, my child ?” If the little girl could have known the strong convulsion that passed over Lettice’s heart while she put this simple ques tion ! “ We don’t caJi them anything: they are only prisoners. They have been here a great many years, 1 believe. — One lives there, in the Beauchamp Tow er—he is always writing; and when we go in to see him—for he likes us to come —he does nothing but pull, pufl, puff!” And the laughing child put her lingers in her mouth, and began mim icking a smoker to perfection. “ Mabel,” said the elder sister, “you should not laugh at him, for our father says he is a good man, and the king is not very angry with him, any more than with the other man who is shut up in the Bell-Tower. You should see him, Mistress Lettice; he is my favour ite, because he is so gentle. They say he walks on the leads between his room and Beaucamp-Tower, night after night, watching the stars; and he plays with us children, end gets us to bring him quantities of flowers, out of which he makes such wonderful medicines. He cured Mabel of the chin cough, and fa ther of the ague, and” “ Hush, Grace ; Mistress Le f tiee is quite tired with your chatter. See now white she looks! ’ “No—goon, my darlings; talk as much as you will,” murmured Let tice ; and, rousing herself, she contrived to learn from them what this prisoner was like. A little, bent man —very old the children thought, because his hair was quite gray, except a few lock's behind that were just the colour of Grace’s.— Lettice, holding the child ou her knee, had often seeretly kissed the soft fair curls ; she did so now with passsionate tenderness. Yet could it indeed be Patrick —so changed ! The thing seem ed scarce possible. Next time the children went to see this prisoner hid herself, where, from below-, she could watch the leads on which he was accustomed to walk. There w-as the figure of a man, moving w ith the heavy, stooping, lounging gait of long captivity. Could it be that Patrick’s youth had been crushed into such a pitiable semblance as this ?” 11c came and leaned ou the breast-work or boundary of his narrow walk. In the distance the features were indis tinct; but something in the wavy fall ing of the hair reminded her of Patrick. She half uttered a cry of recognition, suppressed it, sank back and wept. — His name —if she could only learn the captive’s name! But there was great mystery kept about that. The ’chil dren said “he had none, he had been in the Tower so many years.” Grace added, that she had once asked him, and he answered “ that he had almost forgotten it.” Alas, poor soul! Due day Lettice, impelled by a wild hope, fastened in Grace’s dress a little childish ornament that she herself had used to wear : it had been broken, and the bov Patrick’s rude workmanship was on it still. If this man were in deed he, it might catch his eye, and bring back to his dulled memory the days of his youth. lie touched the ornament, Grace said ; observed that it was pretty ; that he thought he had once seen one like it, he could not tell where ; and then his dull mood came over him, and he would not talk any more. Lettice’s eager hope sank ; but on it she lived yet longer; and day by day she watched tearfully the poor captive, who, if not Patrick, had suffered Pa trick’s doom. The child Grace fell sick. Lettice grieved, for she -loved the little girl ; but this trouble seemed helping to work out her one great aim of life. Then, at least, she might hear more of the prisoner whose skill in medicine had won the deep gratitude of both the go vernor and his lady. But Grace im proved, and still of the invisible phy sician nothing w-as disclosed. At length one night when the anxious mo ther and Lettice were watching the child, together and alone, there arose an emergency. “ The potion will be needed at dawn; ’tis near midnight, and 1 have not sent to —to the.Bell-Tower,” said the mo ther. “ What must be done ? Who can 1 trust 1” She looked at Lettice, whom she and all the household had already learned to love —“ 1 will trust you.” She explained briefly that the child’s physician was a state prisoner, who had acquired his skill during sixteen years’ captivity ; that his durance was now greatly softened by the king’s or der ; but that still, except the govern or's family, he was allowed to see no one, nor to hold any communication with the outer world. “ And,” said the lady, “if I send you to him, you must keep silence on all concerning him, for he and his have been greatly hated by King James ; and no marvels He is Patrick, ‘the last of the Ruthvens!’” What dizzy, tumultuous joy rushed to the heart of the faithful women, who, after long silent years, again heard the music of that name ! But she stood still and mute, calm, and gave no sign. “ Lettice, will you go ?” “ 1 will.” and she went. There was not a foot heard, not a breath stirring, in the grim old Tower. As, bearing the ponderous keys, she unfastened door after door, the sound of the opening locks was startling and awful. At the foot of the Bell-Tower Lettice paused. Sixteen years seemed all swept away ; her heart throbbed, and her pale brow of middle age flush ed like a young girl’s. Would he know her ? Would she not appal him, stand ing suddenly like a spectre by his side? She pulled her hood over her lace, and resolved to feign her voice, lest the shock might overpower his strength.— Thinking of his emotion, she soon calmed her own, and came with firm step to the outer door. There gleamed a faint ray through some worm-eaten fissure; the governor’s wife had told her that he always studied until late in | the night. Lettice pictured him as at the old home at Cambridge, as in per petual youth he dwelt ever in her mem ory. She saw him, leaning over his books, with his pale, boyish features, his fair curls, his dreamy-lidded eyes. She opened the door, and saw —a gray headed man, withered and bent, quaint and careless in dress, sat writing by lamplight. lie momentarily raised his head ; the face had a strange, old-world look, mingled with an aspect half of vacancy, half of abstraction. Lettice shrank aghast. It seemed as if the olden Patrick were dead forever, and this were a phantom risen up to mock her. But when he spoke, it was his own true voice. “ Ah, you come for the child Grace’s potion ?” said he. “ ’Tis all prepared; wait a momont —listen !” lie rose, put the medicine into her hand, and proceeded to give various directions concerning it. Then he sat down again, and prepared to resume his reading. Lettice stood silent; .that he did not recognize her she plainly saw, yet this was what she had desired. Why should she feel pain ? She put back her hood, and ap proached him; “Master Patrick Ruth ven !” “ lie started, but it could only be to hear the long-unused Christian name ; for, looking up at her face, now turned fully on him, his expressed only blank unconsciousness. lie did not know her! “ Madam, pardon me; 1 have not seen you before, but I suppose you come from little Grace. If I have omitted anything, -or forgotten One forgets everything here.” Lettice groaned. The poor captive looked disturbed, bewildered ; restlessly he move his pa pers about, and she saw his hands, long, white, and woman-like, whose delicacy William used to mock, and Lettice to admire, the same hands she had clasp ed and kissed in her last frenzied agony of parting. She did so now. “ Patrick—Patrick ! have you for gotten me—even me ?” He looked at her again, and shook his head. “ I have seen you some where I think, perhaps in the old time before 1 came hither; but my memo ry is poor, very poor. What is your name?” “ Lettice!” A light came into his face for a mo ment, and faded. “It is a sweet name. I used to love it once I believe—some one I knew bore it; but, as 1 said, I for get so many things now. Lettice— Lettice !” lie repeated the name, as CHARLESTON, SATURDAY, NOV. 30, 1850. if trying to call back images ofa long past life. Lettice’s first horror passed. She discerned all now —she saw what he had become ; how, shut up from youth to manhood in t hat fearful prison, his life had withered there ; how, as the slow vacant years crawled by, passion, affection, feeling of every kind, had grown dull. Wreck as he was —the wreck captivity had made him—her never-dying love encompassed him still, “ Patrick,” she said gently, though her tears were flowing fast, “ look at me and try to think of the past. — There was my father who taught you when you were a boy ; and I, Lettice Calderwood, who used to be your play fellow-. The old house at Cambridge —the river-bank where you liked to sit—the garden and the laurel trees.” His features began to quiver; “It is dim, very dim ; but I think 1 do re member ail this, ay, and you, Lettice! 1 am glad to see you once more.” lie trembled a good deal, and look ed at her many, times, as though in comparing his old recollection of her with her likeness now, the difference puzzled him. Lettice said, faintly smiling, “ You know 1 am old now-—one changes much in sixteen years. But the smile brought back her own old seif, and Patrick’s mind seemed to grow clearer. “ 1 think, he said with a mournful simplicity—“l think I must have loved you once. I rtever forgot you, even here, until”—and he shuddered—“un til they put me into that dark, damp cell, where l heard no sound and saw no living lace, for 1 know not how long; I forgot everything then.” Lettice’s heart was bursting; she pressed his hands to her breast, and sobbed aloud. At first he seemed troubled by her emotion, and then as it unable to resist, his own gray hair drooped on Lettice’s shoulder, and the poor prisoner also wept. By slow- de gress Patrick’s memory wakened to the things of the past and of the living world ; but they seemed to touch him little. He heard of David Calder wood’s death with a quiet sigh—all keen sense of human pain seemed to be obliterated from his mind. After a pause he asked, though still half-indif ferently, “ There was my brother too— tell me something of William.” “William acted nobly, und, so acting ceased to be unhappy!” said Lettice in a confused voice. “Unhappy!” repeated the captive vacantly. “Ah, yes; 1 had forgotten; we had much sorrow in our youth—he, and you, and 1” “ I lush, Patrick! we will not speak ol that. 1 wrote to \\ illiam, and told him all; he freed ine from my pro mises. Time brought him comfort; he remained abroad, married, and last year—grieve not, Patrick, for, Jiving, he had great happiness—last year he died.” “Poor William dead!—my last brother dead !” Patrick said thought fully ; and sat a long time wistfully gazing in the air, now and then utter ing broken words, which showed his mind was recalling incidents of their boyish days. At last he said, “ And you, Lettice—what of yourself?” “ I am as you left me—poor Lettice Calderwood; in nothing changed but years.” She murmured this with her eyes cast down, as if she had need to be ashamed that she had felt a wo man’s one, pure love ; that for it she had given up all sweetness of wifehood and motherhood, and stood there in her faded bloom, speaking no word, but letting her whole life’s story speak for her; “See how faithful 1 have been to thee /” Perhaps, as Patrick looked on her, some sense of the greatness of this love, so strong in its oneness, so pa tient in its endurance, dawned upon his bewildered and long paralyzed sense, lie stretched out his arms to her, crying, “I am unworthy—most un worthy ! But, Lettice, love me still; help me —take care of me ; do not leave me again !” He had forgotten, and she too, all worldly things. Waking, they found that she was only humble Lettice Cal derwood, and he a prisoner in the Tow er. No matter —one at least had ceased to fear. When a woman once feels that all depends upon th'e strength of her love —that the power to will and to act of necessity lies in her hands —she gains a courage which nothing can daunt or quell. And Lettice bade Patrick Ruthven farewell, whis pering hope and tenderness which his long-dulled cars would scarce recieve, she felt certain that sho should set her beloved free; ay, as certain as though she stood at the head of armies to hurl King James from his throne. Little Grace recovered ; and unto the mother’s heart, still trembling with its recent joy, another heart was led to open itself, with all its burthen of many years. One day, when both their spi rits were attuned to confidence, Lettice told the governor’s wife her whole sto ry. It was a story that would have melted many a one to sympathy ; the young Scottish gentlewoman listened even with tears. Ruthven was her countryman, and she had shown him kindness ever since her husband was made governor; he was her child's preserver, and she determined to try all efforts to obtain his liberty. She exerted secret influence at court, at first with hope of success ; but that year the bugbear treason was loudly dinned into the pusillanimous monarch’s ears, and Tower-Hill was again watered with its-red rain. One day the little Grace and Mabel loudly lamented that they were forbid den any longer to visit their friend in the Beauchamp-Tower. On the next, Lettice and Patrick walking on the, leads, (where she had liberty to visit him now,) saw the black procession winding past, and heard distantly the heavy sound of the axe’s fall. Patrick said, “ There dies a just man and a guiltless, and one that David Calder wood would have mourned, God re ceive the soul of Walter Raleigh !” He spoke calmly, as if such sights had ceased to move him ; but Lettice crouched down, hiding her face in inex pressible horror. When they reenter ed his narrow prison, she clasped her arms wildly round her betrothed —for they had plighted their troth to one another, whether it were for life or death —she held him fast; she felt that to have him safe, with freedom to see him, to love and coinfort him, was blessedness even here. “ And, so for a whole year, through fear lest the king’s anger should be roused,nothing more was done towards effecting Ruthven’s release. When once a generous purpose roots itself in a leal Scottish heart, especially a woma i’s, it is not so eas_y to uproot it thence. The gvoernor’s wife came to Lettice one day, and told her that there was hope; since Queen Anne was dead, and the king would now fear no treason from the Ruthven line. She applied to the court, and answer came that Pa trick Ruthven should be set at liberty if some near friend would solicit his pardon. “ A form—a mere form—only de sired to soothe King James’ pride, said the plain-speaking Scottish lady ; she came from the bold race of Kirkaldy of Grange. But, form as it was, when Lettice told her lover the tidings he shook his head in his listless way,and said it could never be. “ 1 have no friend in the wide world to plead for me, or to crave my pardon; all my kith and kin have died away ; lam left the last of my race. No, Lettice ; it is best as it is ! perchance I would have liked to go once more to the meadows by the ( ‘am, where the rare flowers grow; and it would have been a sweet and thankful duty to ex ercise my skill in healing on the poor and needy. But let be —let be ! Do not talk of worldly liberty ; we will go and look at the free, free stars, tiiat roam, night after night, over this prison and never tire ! Gome, my faithful Let tice—come!” But Lettice groaned in spirit. He, long usued to captivity, scarce felt the chain ; she, for his sake, writhed un der it like a double weight. “ Patrick,” she said, leaning by him and with him watching the few dull lights which were scattered throughout the black city which lay below, while a yellow mist rising from the river ga thered over everything, palely and cold —“My Patrick, would it not be hap py to go far away from here into your own clear northern air ? Look !”—and she pointeed to the barren osier-flats through which the Thames winds sea ward—“if, instead of that dull line were the mountains you told me of when we were children, the blue hills rising, height after height, like a good man’s life, w ieh grows year by year nearer to heaven, until it melts cloud like, into heaven itself at last” The prisoner sighed, and looked on the blank landscape with glistening eyes that saw not it, but some dim view be yond. Lettice continued ; “Ay, and if we were free —both free—if we would hide ourselves in some sweet spot, and live our old childlike life ?” He answered restlessly—“Do not talk of this, or else 1 shall die of long ing; and 1 had grown so resigned, so content with books and my herbs. — Why did you bring me back to the hit ter world?” “To save thee, my beloved !” she answered soothingly. “To take thee out of prison, and bring back to thee the dew of thy youth. Shall it not be so ?” “ How can it, when there is no one who has a right to entreat for my par don ? 1 have no kindred, no tie in the wide world!” “ Save one.” “Ah, true !—forgive me, my faithful love ! But what can you do ?” Lettice hid her face on his shoulder. If she blushed, it was not with shame, for she knew her own pure heart, and Heaven knew it too. She rose, and spoke in a quiet, womanly tone, though somewhat trembling the while. “Patrick, we are neither of us young; all love we bear each other is stilled into the affection that lives between two who, having wasted half a life-time iu sorrow, hope to spend the poor re mainder together and in peace. You will not misjudge what I am going to say ?” “ No —no,” answered Ruthven in his absent manner. “ There is but one way to obtain your freedom. Dearest, long-lost, and found, let your wife go and plead for you before the king !” The young kinswoman of Kirkaldy of Grange had a rebellious yearning, though she was a governor’s lady.— She liked to thwart King James of his captives when it could pe done with safety. Secretly, in order to avoid all risk to her husband, she introduced a Scottish minister to the dismal cham bers of the Bell-Tower. There, in that dull prison-house, was celebrated a marriage. Brief it was, and grave ; without smiles, without tears ; it coflld not be said without love, for they did love one another, those two who as girl and boy. had clung together so wildly in the garden by the Cam. But their love was not like that of youth : it was deep, solemn, still. W hen the marriage was performed, Patrick in his dreamy way, said, “Is it all done ? Am 1 thy husband, Let tice ?” She answered, “Yes.” “A hard task to fulfill; a weary life to lead ? But art thou content ?” She answered, “I am content.” And taking his hand, held it fast in that which would now guide him through life. “ Nay, have no fear, friends,” cheer ingly said the brave Scottish lady who had aided them so much. “King James is feeble-hearted, and he has heard the people’s outcry against Raleigh’s twelve years’ imprisonment, sealed at last with blood. He dare not do the like again. Lettice, take comfort; you will soon have your husband free.” She heard the word —she who had never dreamed of any other life than one of aimless loneliness, over which hung the pale shadow of that early-lost love. Her heart melted under the sense of its great content, and she wept as softly and joyfully as though she had beeu a young bride. “ Will his majesty appear to-day, my Lord of Buckingham ?” said one of his Scottish attendants of the palace at Whitehall, meeting the twin stars of James’ court —“Steenie,” and “Baby Charles.” “Wherefore, good Ferguson ?” “ Because, my lord, there is a person here craving audience who has been re commended to me by a countrywoman of my own.” “ A woman is it ? My prince, let us see!” The woman rose mp and curtsied be neath the gaze of royalty and nobility; but she had nothing in her to retain either. She was pale, little, and of middle age. “Stcnie” gave her a mock salutation ; Prince Charles, ever chival rous to woman, acknowledged her low ly reverence with his dignified, half melancholy, Stuart smile, and the two youths passed out. “ The king is coming, Mistress Ruth © ©* veil; now is your time !” whispered young Allen Ferguson. . He entered—the poor feeble pedant, to whom had dwindled down the an cient line of Scotland’s kings. Sur rounding him were the great and no ble of the day : Gondomar, the gay Spanish ambassador ; the Lord Chan cellor Bacon ; all the choicest of the English nobility left after the death o %j sweeping reigns of Mary and Elizabeth; and those of the king’s own country whom his conciliatory rule had detach ed from various factions, to join in fideli ty to the one branch of the Stuart fam ily now remaining. “ Hech, sirs, wha’s here ?” James cried in hi - sharp, quivering voice, through which rang the good-humour produced by a satisfactory arrangement with Spdin completed that same hour. “ Petitioning, my bonnie woman! Aweel, then say your say !” Lettice told her story in words so broken that they would scarce have been understood save for the earnest ness of her eyes. It was a story touch ing and interesting even to James and his frivolous court. To them it sound ed new and curious to hear of a woman who had loved and suffered, waited and hoped, and gone through all trial for one man’s sake, for seventeen years. And it so chanced that their possible mockery of her long maiden life was prevented by Lettice always unconsci ously saying “my husband,” as the governor’s wife had charged her to say, instead of mentioning at once the hated name of Ruthven. James looked discomposed. “My lords, a king maun do as he wills; ye a’ ken the chapters in my ‘Basilicon Doron ’ respecting free monarchies, and the right or prerogative of rulers. But 1 wadna keep an innocent man—mind ye, an innocent man —in prison for saxteen —did she no say saxteen years? Woman, wha may ye be; and why dinna ye tell your husband’s name?” “It is a name, the bearing of which was the only wrong he ever did your majesty; I am the wife of Patrick Ruthven!” James turned pale, as he ever did at the sound of that dreaded name. He never forgot that it was a Ruthven who acted in that scene of blood which impressed cowardice on the nature of the yet unborn babe: he never forgot the actors in the Gowrie plot, who, for a brief space, caused him, a king by birth and right, to be tied and bound like a felon. He frowned, and looked round on his courtiers, who kept a discreet si lence. Then he said with a pedantic air, “ Woman, 1 will hear thee again on this matter,” and passed into the audi ence-chamber. Lettice’s heart grew cold. It was a horrible thing to reflect that life or death lay on the fiat of that poor, vain, fickle king. No! On the fiat of a King far higher, whose government was not kingdoms, but worlds. Kneeling where she had knelt to King James, she knelt to Him, and prayed. There came, crossing the empty chamber, one of the nobles who had formed one of the monarch’s train. He was an old man, tall and pale. Ilis demeanor savored more of the courtly grace of Elizabeth's reign than the fop pish gallantry of James. He announced his name at once. “ Mistress Ruthven, I am the Earl of Hertford.” She had heard it in the Tower. It had been long chronicled there as a portion of that mournful story of the Lady Catherine Grey, sister to Queen Jane, who, marrying Hertford without Elizabeth’s consent, had been impri soned until her young life’s close. He was an old man now, but some thing in Lettice’s storv had touched him with the days of his youth. lie came to say that he would plead her cause with the king, and that he thought she had good reason to hope. “And you have been parted ever since your marriage—seventeen years?” “We are but newly married, my lord; our bridal was in the Tower,” said Lettice, who never said aught but truth. “Ah! no need to tell the king that: yet it makes a sadder tale still. Where abides your husband in the Tower?” “In the Bell-Tower—a narrow,dreary spot.” “ 1 know —I know!” He turned away, perhaps remembering the poor young mother who nad there given birth to his two brave sons. He, too, had felt the bitterness of captivity; and as he departed from Lettice, having given her both counsel and cheer, she heard the old nobleman muttering to himself, “Seventeen years!—seventeen years!” Patrick Ruthven sat in his tower poring over his wealth of books. An THIRD VOLUME.—NO, 31 WHOLE NO 131. August sunbeam, quivering in, rested on a bunch of dried flowers, which the herbalist was examining with great earnestness. He scarce lifted up his head when the light footstep warned him of his wife’s entrance. “Lettice,” he cried, “eureka!” —(‘l have tound it!’) This plant must be the veritable hemlock of the ancients— the potion which gave Socrates death. Compare the description—see.” He looked at her; she was trembling all over with joy. “My husband,” she said breathless ly, “leave these books; come and gaze out in the clear morning air; how fresh it is!—how free—free—free ?” She repeated the word, that her tid ings might dawn upon him slowly, not too bewilderingly. She drew him out upon the prison leads, and bade him look northwards, where is the distance the ripening wheat-fields shone wave upon wave like yellow seas. “Think, Patrick, to go thither; to sit down under the sheaves like little children, as we used to do ; to hear the trees rustling, and see the swallows fly : and then to go home—to a quiet, safe cottage home. O, Patrick, my hus band, you are free!” “I am free !” He, the prisoner for sevt en years, neither fell down in sworn of transport, nor wept, nor grew wild with ecstasy. He only ut tered the words in a momentous, in credulous tone —“lam free!” His wife embraced him with passionate joy ; he kissed her, stroked her still fair cheek — fairer still since she had once more known peace—and then went slowly back into his dark room. There he sat motionless, while Let tice busied herself in putting together the books and scientific matters which had gradually accumulated round the captive. Then she brought him attire suitable for a man of middle rank at that period. “ You must not wear this out in the world, my Patrick,” said the wife, touching his threadbare robe ofa fash ion many years back. “Must i not?” and he contemplated the dress, which seemed to him gaudy and strange. “Lettice,” he murmured, “I am afraid —is the world so changed? Must 1 give up my old ways?” But she soothed him with quiet words, and made ready for his depar ture. Ere they quitted the Bell-Tower, he wen| into the little closet which had been his bed-chamber, and, kneeling down, thanked God, and prayed for all captives a deliverance like his own. As he rose, there peeped at him a bright eyed mouse. “ Poor fellow-prisoner, whom 1 have fed so many years, who will feed thee now ?” And breaking oft’ some food, he called the little creature to his hand and gave it its last meal. Then, leaning on his wife’s arm, for he trembled, and seemed feeble as a child, Patrick Ruthven left the Tower. He had entered it a youth of nineteen: he quitted it a worn-out, prematurely old man of thirty-six. The prime and glory of manhood had been wasted in that gloomy prison. Thank God, there is no such doom for innocence now ! Far past what then was London’s utmost verge, Lettice Ruthven led her husband. He walked through the streets like one in a dream: all sounds stunned him ; all sights bwildered him. It a chance eye noticed his somewhat strange aspect, he clung to Lettice with terror, lest he should again be taken. She told him there was no fear, that the king had granted him a free par don ; that PrincS Charles, the merci ful and warm-hearted, had settled on him a pension for life. All this he heard as if he heard it not. Nothing soothed him but Lettice’s calm smile. They came to the place which she had chosen as their first abode. It was a farm-house planted on one of the hills to the north of London. Above was a great wide heath ; below, numberless little undulating valleys, with trees and meadows, harvest-fields and streams. There, after sunset, they took their evening walk. He, long used to the close air of the prison, shivered even at the warm summer wind ; and his feeble limbs, accustomed to pace their narrow round, could scarce endure fa tigue. But Lettice wrapped him warm, and took him to a soft-wooded bank with a stream running below. There he lay, hisjiead on her lap, listening to the ripple of the water. He had never heard that sound since he was a boy sitting beside the Cam, on the night his brother sailed from Harwich. Though his memory was dull yet, and. he rarely spoke of the past, perhaps he thought of it now, for the tears crept through bis? shut eyes, and he whispered—“Lettice, you are sure, quite sure, that afterwards Wil liam was happy ?” She told him again and again that it was indeed so. She did not tell him how—though William grew renowned abroad —he never sent for tidings of his imprisoned brother. She would not pain the fraternal love which had kept its faith through life so close and true. “ And, Patrick, are you happy ?” He answered “Yes!” softly, like a drowsy child. His wife leaned over him, and her hand fell on his hair, once so beautiful, now quite gray. Some thing of protection was there in her love for him : the mingling of rever ence and tender care, due alike to his great mental power and his almost in fantile simplicity in worldly things.— All he had, she honoured with her whole soul; all he had not, she, possessing, made his own. She was a lit wife for him. And so, in this content and peace, the sun set upon Patrick Ruthven’s last day of captivity. CHAPTER 111. A house, simple, yet not mean, fac ing the river side at Chelsea ; its upper stories fanned by that line of majestic trees, which you, reader, may still stroll under : and, if you are of dreamy mood I know no sweeter spot than Cheyne Walk iu the moonlight; the river ly ing silvery and calm; the tall trees rustling among their branches ; telling tales of the quaint old mansions they overshadow. But the house ol which we were speaking was far humbler than these. Its occupants had chosen it more for the sake of the trees and the river than for any interior show. They lived retired; and when, as now, the master reentered his own door, he was not met by a troop of domestics, but by one little, old, gentle-looking wo man—his wife. Twenty more years had passed over the head of Lettice Ruthven, yet some thing of its ancient airiness was in her footsteps still ; and in her eyes shone the same loving light, for it was kindled at an altar where the fire was never suffered to decay. * { You are late to-night, Patrick ?” said she. “ Ah, I have been all through the meadows at Chiswick in search of herbs for a poor lad down there who is strick en with ague. 1 stayed late gathering them, and there came by a couple of Roundheads, who hooted at me tor a wizard hunting for charmed plants in the moonlight. Ah, me! do I look such a weird creature, Lettice ?” asked the old man in a piteous, humble tone. He certainly had an out-of-the-world aspect in his long white beard and hair and his black serge gown, which he wore to indicate his character as phy sician. And there was a passive gen tleness in his voice, which showed how little able he was to assert his own dig nity, or to fight his own battles with the hard world. Well for him that neither had been needed; that for twen ty years his life had ilowed in a quiet stream, he growing continually'more absorbed in his favourite studies, and leaving all mundane matters to his faithful helpmate. She did not usually trouble him with any of these latter, but on this day she seemed longing to talk of something else beside the addi tions he was making to the ‘’Middlesex Flora,” or the wonderful cures he had wrought with simples until then un known ; or, what he carefully kept to his wife’s ears alone, his discoveries in those abstruse and occult sciences, the love of which seemed inherent in the Ruthven blood. “ I have found it out,” he said ; “the parchment charm worn by m\ brother, the Earl John. All these years 1 have kept it, and never deciphered it until now. It will bring to us and all our children great prosperity.” “ All our children!” repeated Let tice mournfully. She looked at a cor ner of the room where hung, each in its never changed place, a boy's plumed hat, and beside it a heap of well-worn childish books, mementos of two sons who had come and been taken away, leaving the hearth desolate. “ Ah, I forget !” said the father with a light sigh. “ Bravely did Aleck read his Greek Galen ; and as for poor wee W illie, he knew every plant in Bat tersea Fields. Well might the gossips mock at me, saying, ‘ Physician save thyself; or rather thy two better selves. But I could not. lam aye good for little, very little.” Ilis wife took his hand aflectionate ly, and said, smiling through her tears, “ Nay, there is many a one hereabouts who lifts his hat when Dr. Ruthven passes by. If the vulgar mock, the learned honour my husband. And, Patrick,” she murmured with her sweet voice of calm, which hid all sorrow from him, “though our two boys are wi th God, he has left us our Marie: I saw her to-dav.” “ Did she come hither 1” “ No, she cannot easily leave the queen’s household, you know. But she bade me meet her at some friend’s,” and a faint expression of pain crossed the mother s face. “ Perhaps she was right; lam scarce fit to mingle with court ladies, as Marie does; and Marie is grow ing as beautiful and as stately as any of them all.” “ Is she T’ said Dr. Ruthven absent ly. He never felt the same affection for his daughter as he had done for his two lost sons. Marie had in early youth been separated from her family, and taken under the care of the wife of the former lieutenant of the Tower— now become a countess, and in high fa vour in the queen’s household. Through her means the little girl was afterwards adopted by Henrietta Maria, to be ed ucated at court, and raised to*the posi tion due to the last daughter of the di rect Ruthven line. “ She had tidings for me, Patrick— tidings that may well make a mother’s heart both tremble and rejoice. The queen tvishes to dispose of our daugh ter iu marriage.” Ruthven lifted his eyes, dropped them, and then became intent upon a handful of flow-ers which he had drawn from the great coarse bag he always carried in his rambles. It was evident he took little interest in the news which had so agitated the mother. “ Do you not w ish to know- who it is that will wed our Marie —ay, and at once —for all is fixed ?” I hope it may be some good man. Young women usually do marry—l am glad she should do so ; but you know, Lettice, I am a quiet, dreamy old phi losopher ; I have forgotten all such things.” So spoke, after nearly forty years, the boyish lover who had sat mourn fully by the side of the Cam. But this life is an eternal progression. Young, passionate love must of necessity change its forms. Yet what matters ‘ that, if its essence remains the same ? Lettice, the wife of many years, keep ing in her heart still something of its fresh, womanly romance, neither mur mured nor felt pain with her husband the day of love had gradually passed into evening-tide. And as with her, so should it be with all. Never should a maiden give her troth, never should a bride stand at the altar, unless she can look calmly forward to the time when all romance melts into realitv ; when youth and passion cease, and even long assured affection from its very certain ty, at times grows tame. Never ought a woman to take the marriage-vow un-