The Flight of Faith. A story

Front matter

VOL. & Siorg. BY MRS. S. C. HALL. " Why touch upon such themes ? " perhaps some friend May ask, incredulous : "|and to what good end ? Why drag again into the light of day The errors of an age long passed away ? " I answer; " For the lessons that they teach." Longfellow. IX TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, [93, PICCADILLY. 1869. $ Siorg. BY MRS. S. C. HALL. "Why touch upon such themes ? " perhaps some friend May ask, incredulous : "|and to what good end ? Why drag again into the light of day The errors of an age long passed away ? " I answer: " For the lessons that they teach." Longfellow. IX TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, i93t PICCADILLY. 1869. I.ONDOH : PRINTED BY VIRTUE AMD CO. CITY ROAD.

Chapter I. Ears

have passed since the occurrence that closed the first volume of this book, and we convey the reader to a new scene — the small town of Carrickfergus, in the " black North " of Ireland. It was but a poor and puny " settlement," though it had given shelter to some of the persecuted Protestants of France who, having fought the -'good VOL. II. B light," had as yet gathered few of the fruits of victory : oppression was still their lot in their adopted, as it had been in their native, country. It is by no means desired to bestow on this story a political character ; but it will be impossible to treat the subject without reverting to the position of Protestants in Ireland before the arrival of King William, and while it was under the domi nation of King James. All historians agree as to the appalling circumstances under which they were placed when the infamous Tyrconnel held sway over that always unhappy kingdom ; circumstances that were but slightly alleviated when the discarded sovereign of England took the throne from his despotic Viceroy, and pro fessed to administer justice in the name of the "Three Estates."

The king had, indeed, repelled — if not with horror, certainly "with a warmth that did him honour " — the atrocious counsel of Avaux, the ambassador of Louis, to sanction " a general massacre of the Pro testants of Leinster, Munster, and Con naught ; " but any persecution short of that he was not unwilling to direct ; and as in these three provinces no effectual resistance could have been made, a war of extermination might have been thus ren dered easy and sure in Ulster. The wickedness of the proposal may have horrified James, notwithstanding the warning of the callous diplomatist, " Your Majesty ought to consider that mercy to Protestants is cruelty to Catholics ; " but his evil counsellors prevailed in persuad ing the bigoted monarch that his true policy was any persecution short of whole sale butchery, and there was no opposition on his part to any course by which the Faith and its professors could be eradi cated.

"During their short ascendency they had done nothing but slay, and burn, and pillage, and demolish, and attaint, and confiscate." The decrees of the Eoman Catholics, while their brief triumph lasted, far surpassed in atrocity those legislative enactments and the public and private oppression that followed, in France, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and left no doubt on the minds of Protestants that oppression was to terminate only with ex termination. It was distinctly and without concealment avowed that the policy of the king was to reverse the relative position of the two populations " to put the Protest ant colonists under the feet of the Popish Celts ; " and while the colonists " turned to bay with the sturdy hardihood of their ■> race," the Papists, drunk with power, for a time shrank from no course, however irra tional, inhuman, and atrocious, that might help to expel the Protestants from Ireland.

With the public acts of the king and his merciless advisers this story has little to do ; but it is essential to consider the perilous case of those Protestants who were, in 1688 and 1689, few in number and generally separated by long dis tances, entirely at the " mercy " of their oppressors. The system of the king ma}r indeed be summed up in a sentence uttered when he appointed the brutal Tyrconnel to the viceroyalty : " There is work to be done in Ireland," said James, " that no Englishman will do ! " Every Protestant had been dismissed from the army ; none remained in any of the corporate bodies of the kingdom. " Towns in which almost every householder was a Protestant were placed under the government of Roman Catholics." The bench and the bar had been " purged " of professors of the reformed faith ; a Roman Catholic chancellor had declared from the bench that " there was not one heretic in forty thousand who was not a villain."

Thus, from the country towns and villages emigration was almost universal. Some made their way to England, often escaping in open boats, and in the depth of winter : the few who dared to remain at their homes in the South and West were in hourly apprehension of butchery. " Every large country house became a fortress." Others sought the protection and shelter of the North of Ireland, and fought the fight of faith under circumstances of endurance and heroism without parallel in history. Enniskillen and Londonderry obtained a renown that is imperishable. Everywhere — South, East, and West — tho peasantry were taught that the time was at hand when the country was to be rid of its Saxon oppressors ; " from a thousand altars they were told to provide weapons against the day of battle;" "the very women were exhorted by their spiritual directors to carry skeans."

" The Protestants not only were not protected ; they were not suffered to protect themselves." It was determined that they should be left unarmed in the midst of an armed and hostile population ; and it was ordered that " after a fixed day every Pro testant house in which a weapon should be found should be given up to be sacked by the soldiers." The one Protestant judge who remained on the bench — soon to be displaced — had declared that " whole coun ties were devastated by a rabble resembling the vultures and ravens that follow the march of an army ;" their plunder was sold in open markets, and the chief justice had publicly proclaimed that "robbery must at that juncture be tolerated as a necessary evil." " Whole towns, the seats of the Protestant population, were left in ruins, without one inhabitant."

Everywhere the flocks and herds had disappeared ; the earth crops had been trampled and destroyed ; the highways were in many parts lined with famished women and children. While the common people sought their share of the plunder by any road that was open to them, the fixed purpose of their leaders was " to exterminate the Saxon colon}7, to sweep away the Protestant Church, and to restore the soil to its ancient proprietors." It was not sufficient that it be severed from the English crown ; " it must be reunited to the Church of Rome, and made, in all but name, a French province." Such was the state of things when the Third William was called to the rescue. The mere dread of his approach made matters worse. When his "landing" was known in Dublin, " a proclamation appeared, en joining all Protestants to remain in their houses from nightfall to dawn, and prohibiting them, on pain of death, from assembling in any place, or for any purpose, to the number of more than five."

All the gaols were full. " The college and several parish churches were used as prisons, and into these buildings men accused of no crime but their religion were crowded in such numbers that they could hardly breathe." This sad and gloomy picture is taken from that which the most brilliant historian of our period has painted ; and Macaulay will not be accused of exaggerating the terrible state in which the Irish Protest ants were placed during the temporary ascendency of Popery in Ireland. But a change was at hand. Though still utterly prostrated, and but little relieved by the avant-coureur of King William, the brave and venerable Schomberg, whose small and raw army had kept their foes at bay until, decimated by disease, a " re tirement " from the field had become a dismal necessity — the Protestants still defied their enemies.

The fight had been well fought at Enniskillen, and the city of Londonderry had written its memorable story on the page of history. The knowledge that Schomberg— the idolised of the Huguenots — had arrived in Ireland, intrusted by William with the glorious and perilous task of rescuing Protestants from the foul grasp of Papists, sustained the energies and fos tered the hopes of the Protestants ; they honoured and loved the grand old man ; and their prayers were with him in the valleys, on the hill-tops, in desolate villages, and in beleaguered towns. His fame had gone before him ; he was known to have resigned honours and power, influence, wealth, and rank, as a marshal of France, rather than relinquish the faith for which he now fought. He was fourscore years old, yet still vigorous of body and of mind, carrying youth into age without diminishing dignity, and age into youth without lessening enjoyment.

His character belongs to history ; it is preserved without a blot. When the emigrants from France and Flanders knew that this true hero was to be their protector, — to obtain and secure for them the liberty of conscience of which they had been deprived, — they handed over their shuttles and their spades to the women and children, and departing from their unprotected homes, sometimes singly and sometimes in small bands, sought the hero of their aspirations and their hearts ; aud among the bravest and best of those whom the policy of James had driven forth to strengthen the power of his foes were those who had become in dustrious settlers in the northern districts of the kingdom. They joined Schomberg between Antrim and Carrickfergus, and became the vanguard of his army. Into the smaller towns of Ulster they had introduced many of the arts of peace, and had brought commercial prosperity to large districts of an unproductive country; but it was in Dublin princi pally their settlements were blessings.

They had been located in a quarter of the city then and since known as " The Liberties." There they lived and toiled, and loved and wedded — an oasis in a desert of violence and rapine. There one Sabbath morning they were sought; but they had gone : they were away to the North, armed and ready — all who had not previously departed to share the perils and the glories of the Protestant army ; and the fierce populace had but to wreak their vengeance on the dwellings where the " strangers " had wrought at the useful callings that to this day supply almost the only staple manufacture of that part of the British kingdom. We resume our story. In Dublin Castle, soon after it was publicly known that Schomberg was in Ireland, there was an assembly of officers, Irish and French ; amongst whom, evidently in authority, was Raoul de Chavernay.

Long ago he had attained the highest professional rank in the army of Louis, by whom he had been sent to assist with his counsel the Envoy Avaux, and to augment the force lent by France with niggard hand to aid in the restoration of James. Raoul de Chavernay retained in full strength his hatred of his ancieDt creed, and had planned and carried out many schemes for the suppression, at any cost, of the ab horred faith of the Huguenots. His still handsome features and brilliant ap pearance rendered him a favourite at the Irish court. His son was believed to have abandoned all thought of entering the Jesuit ranks, though his mind had been so completely moulded by their train ing, that he was a Jesuit in heart, though not by oath. Spare and delicate in form, he had developed into a slender, graceful man, of grave, thoughtful manners.

So much so, that the habitues of Versailles called him the " elder De Chavernay," to distinguish him from his debonnaire and buoyant father. His features were well formed ; but the mouth was close and narrow — a tight mouth, well reined in, the muscles trained to obedience ; but when it smiled, and the full lustrous beauty of his great eyes smiled with it, few women could resist its fascination. Then his voice was so full, yet at times whispering like a melody ; and he had a wonderful gift of music, which, though his father called it " paltry," he greatly enjoyed. It in some degree compensated him for the absence of the larger beauty that distinguished his race ; but, though the young man's mind was small enough for vanity, it had space enough for pride, and was pliant to every species of dissimulation.

More than once the father had exclaimed, "My son, in diplomacy you are my master." The compliment was acknowledged by a graceful bend of the young man's head, while he cast his eyes modestly down, and murmured, " Ah, mon pere ! " and his delicate nostrils expanded, as if to inhale a new perfume. Except that time and years had de veloped and improved his personal appear ance, and that he was taller and more formed than when we left him playing the spy in the household of Mistress Hampden — chiefly with the determination of drawing his cousin within the net of his Church — Auguste de Chavernay was in nothing changed ; but strengthened by experience and practice, he was confirmed in every evil propensity and passion that gave promise in his early youth of — what his after-life became. Raoul de Chavernay had the one merit of being in earnest : he thoroughly believed in his Church, and its power of salvation.

His son believed in himself, and whatever stood in "self's" way he would over throw and destroy without pity or remorse. When General de Chavernay was sent to the assistance of James by the command of Louis, he did not anticipate meeting his son in the crowd that was now warmly discussing the report of Schomberg's being on the seas ; that he might at any time land on the northern coast ; and that if he did there could be no doubt the " black North " would rise to a man, and Protestants all over the country be come "troublesome" — an "evil" that might have been arrested if, as Avaux afterwards said, his counsel had been adopted, and no Protestants had been left to give trouble in Ireland. General de Chavernay was smiling away those fears when the pale, frigid face of Auguste presented itself.

They saluted each other with more cere- VOL. II. c mony than cordiality. The general never permitted it to appear that he was not cognizant of his son's movements, and, consequently, rarely questioned him in public. He placed his hand with courtly familiarity on the young man's shoulder, and, after a few more salutations in the ante-room, both passed into the presence of James, the king, where we must leave them, and enter Carrickfergus.

Chapter II

gpggJjARRICKFERGUS had been gar- \ P>ix risone(i by two of James's in- @>^@l fantry regiments ; and, when Schomberg and his fresh troops stormed it, the Irish fought like bull-dogs, faithfully and furiously ; but the principal inhabitants were true to the Protestant cause, and hated James with a bitter hatred, born of long-endured insults, injustice, and cruelty. Yet, though Schomberg battered the walls, the half-starved soldiers of James held out a week, and then capitulated, Schomberg promising that the garrison should depart unharmed ; but the noble-minded general found great difficulty in keeping his word. A time of triumph had come to the oppressed, who now turned on the oppressors. The Protestants who, from all parts of the kingdom, had crowded into the town, were but little disposed to show mercy.

They declared that the capitulation was nothing to them, that vengeance was their due, and vengeance they would have ; and the brave old general was compelled to resort to force, when efforts at persuasion failed, to protect those for whose safe withdrawal he had pledged his word. Some of the garrison stole forth in the night-time, protected by the English soldiery; others escaped in boats that plied between Carrickfergus and the fleet, the boats landing them at some distance from the town. But a keen watch was kept for those who had made themselves particularly hateful to the inhabitants before and during the siege. It was believed that some of them were secreted in passages or hiding-holes of the old castle ; and, in defiance of Schomberg's amnesty, there was a fierce determina tion that they should not escape.

The gallant general rode through the streets accompanied bjr his officers, enforcing by word and deed the fullilment of his pro mise to the vanquished — his progress frequently impeded by the overflowing enthusiasm and gratitude of a people he had rescued. In one of these pauses an aide-de-camp rode up to Schomberg, and said, " I have found him." The general wheeled his horse round, and reined in before a house that might have been said to rest against one of the buttresses of the castle. At the moment, a door was opened as if by magic, for whoever had undone the fastening remained behind it, so as to be concealed from the parties without. The duke was still the perfection of manly beauty, as erect and firm in the saddle as he had been forty years before he took service with William of Nassau.

His hair did not need powder, it crowned his head with its abundant snows ; his eyes sparkled like stars on a frosty night ; and descending from his horse without the least assistance, he passed alone through the mysterious portal. As it closed, a soft, clear voice said, " A droit, mon general." The old man turned quickly round at the sound of his native tongue, and re moved his hat with the courtesy of a gentleman, bowing to the girl, — small, almost to childishness, — who hastened to undo the fastening of a door at the end of a long passage to the right. Small, as I have said she was, almost to childishness, her form was fully developed ; her hair, fine as silk, and black as the raven's wing, fell in clinging ringlets to her waist ; her skin was the delicate olive of the South, — not pale, for as she spoke to Schomberg, her cheek flushed to the crimson of a ripe peach, and increased the bright dark beauty of her wonderful eyes, over which delicate brows were closely but perfectly arched.

There was deter mination in her step, and her head had a haughty bearing, though she was stirred by violent emotion, which, as Schomberg was passing into the room, she could no longer command, but flinging herself on her knees beside him, she covered his hand with kisses. The old soldier lifted her to his bosom, and pressed his lips on her brow, murmuring, " Pauvre petite ! " The chamber was dark, but the duke recognised an old friend, for whose safety he had been most anxious, well knowing the peril he was in before and during the siege, not only from his politics, but from the " outspokenness " which neither time nor prudence could control. The old men embraced each other silently, their heaving bosoms and the knotted veins on their flushed foreheads only revealing their emotion. It seemed as if they could not part, for, when seated, the hand-clasp was as firm as ever.

Schomberg gazed wistfully into the face of his friend, whose rugged features were turned towards him. The duke was the first to speak. "You have suffered fearfully since we last met, but the future will make up for the past. We all know that you are as brave as man can be, and as true as you are brave." " Ay, ay, my general ! but what's the good, what's the good ? What can a battered old hulk like Kit Hampden do with his port-holes closed ? Not but what I can see, — it's wonderful, — and the little maid can tell you the same. If I would take the bearings of a landscape, I am as blind as a bat ; but give me a telescope, and let me look over the water, and a cockboat could not come in sight without my knowledge. But what boots it — what boots it what becomes of me? It's the cause, sir ! I doubt if William would believe I could command now, even if my eyes had not been blighted.

It was the cursed confinement in the Tower that did it. Tell me, my general, you remember when I had hawk's eyes; you remember the cargoes of Huguenots I shipped and saved ! None of your Nonconformists, or Quakers, or double-dealers, but true Pro testants — ' Brave and ready, True and steady.' March to the block or the stake sooner than bow to the host, or acknowledge any supremacy but His, who died to save us." " What ill wind cast you on this quick sand ? I could hardly believe you were a prisoner in Carrickfergus. I thought you in Holland," said Schomberg. " My fault, my fault ! " exclaimed the girl impetuously. " I heard that among the Huguenots who had established some linen-works in the north of Ireland was one — a Chavernay ! — the name is not common. I thought it possible my father still lived, and had escaped from the galleys, to which he had been condemned, and " Captain Hampden stopped her by an impatient gesture.

" Peace, baby ! The girl has always longed to find her French parents. It's nature, I suppose. And I thought, if her father was still in life, as Kit Hampden now could hardly save a drowning kitten, it would be well to find some one who could see to her when it was twelve o'clock with me ! So, as she would not leave me, nor I her, we were forced to come here together." The girl wound her arm round his bony hand, and kissed it, while he continued : "So I shipped with her, on the chance of discovering her father ; but somehow, through the ignorance or the treachery of the skipper, we got on a wrong tack, were taken, and brought to this country — curse it ! — under James's flag. Yes, under James's flag! Think of that flag flaunting over Kit Hampden's head, and he living to tell it! But, general, as we came in sight of the castle, and those Roman non-conforming quaker scoundrels, half Scotch, half Irish, and whole villains, were carousing and drinking healths that I prayed might choke them, click went a shot, and by Jove, sir, their accursed flag came tumbling down to my very feet !

The fellows seized me, — my blindness was no protection, — they swore I had fired at, and brought down, their ensign. They searched me, — turned me inside out ; no one had seen the shot fired, but the deed was done." " And who did it ? " inquired Schom berg eagerly. "She did it," answered the captain, lay ing his hand on the girl's head. " She did it! God bless her!" "What, this child!" exclaimed Schom berg ; " this very child ! " "I am of woman's age, though not of woman's stature," she said; and her eyes met those of Schomberg with an expression that confirmed her words. The general read and understood those eyes. The next moment their fire was quenched, and her dark lashes swept her delicate cheeks. After a pause, Schom berg rested his hands on her shoulders, and said — "Who taught you to shoot ?

" The slender figure seemed to grow be neath his hands. " Sir," she replied, " a Huguenot woman must know how, if needs be, to preserve her honour." She threw open an over jacket, and in the belt beneath, which circled her waist, were the hilts of both pistol and dagger. " I could not endure," she continued, " to see the Popish flag flaunting so insultingly above his head ; and they never thought the child who was curled up like a faithful dog at the blind man's feet could have laid it low. Sir, I could not choose but fire, and I would do it again." "I do not doubt but you would," answered Schomberg, while a smile quivered on his lips. "These cruel wars force our women to do what, under other circumstances, would unsex them, but now elevates them into heroines. Are you the little maid who was rescued from the dragonnades at Havre, and was saved from the waves by my friend here, and then by another miracle escaped from a Popish net in the Isle of Wight ?

Sweet Mistress Hampden wrote the detail to the good old bishop. I thought thou wert dead, my child, and heard that Mistress Hampden mourned for thee as mothers mourn for their children." " And so did I," interrupted the im patient sailor. "We heard so — for my sweet wife was imprisoned for a time : oh no, not with me ! Through the mercy of our gaoler we had stolen interviews ; and she thought our little sea-bird was dead, and wore black breast and top-knots ; and because I had nothing black, and no money to buy it, she divided her breast-knot with me, and sewed a strip of the black on my arm. My angel, my angel ! " repeated the blind man. " My angel ! how she loved the child, the little maid that I drew from the waters ! " and his rugged face became convulsed by mingled memories of past miseries and vanished happiness.

" She was taken in mercy from a cruel world," murmured Schomberg. " Mercy to her, yet not to me," replied the old man. " But I was too rough for her ! — to look at me now ! — to look at us men when we grow old and lumbering — crabbed of temper, and seamed of face, with the wear and tear of this rugged, over toiling earth-life — hairless, and toothless, and haggard ! Who would believe that we have been loved and fondled by the young and fair ? The doves, sir, of human-kind, whom we fancy we shelter from the world ; whereas it is they, sir, they, who shelter us ; spreading their downy wings around us, and, alive or dead, stay by us. Let no one talk to me, Kit Hampden ! Don't I know she hovers about and waits for me, and that on her wings I shall win heaven?" The girl looked piteously at Schomberg, who had not thought it possible the brave old Hampden could have been so thoroughly shipwrecked in mind and body.

He knew ouly in a degree what bitter indignities the gallant sailor had endured. Many who, like Schomberg, rise higher and higher the greater the trials with which they do battle, hardly understand what it is to be overthrown. The general was too powerfully affected to speak until Hampden had found relief in words. " Ay, ay," he resumed, " even you, little one, take me in tow now, and want to bring me to anchor, whenever you like." " She does right," interrupted Schom berg; " but you must come to my quarters; and, now that I have found you, I will not lose sight of you. We must get your weak eyes attended to, and our good King William will then place you on the sea again." By a few dexterous words Pauline — for you have already recognised Pauline de Chavernay — cleared the clouds from her old friend's brow, and Schomberg seconded her efforts so ably that in a few minutes Hampden had regained the elasticity of VOL. II. i) spirit that had borne him over many billows.

The two old men would have made a superb picture ; both having sacrificed their all in the cause for which they lived and suffered — yet so different to look upon. The high polish of the French court linger ing about Schomberg, a man of power and sanctity, having subdued himself, and knowing how to subdue others ; his face expressive of a dignity far above pride, yet his manner so marvellously courteous that he had conquered as many without as with his sword. Kit Hampden was the model of the sea-king of his period — courageous, but unintellectual, despising all grace and suavity of manner, which he considered hypocrisy ; and whatever sweetness his wife had poured into his nature had been crushed out by his changed fortunes, and the indignities he had endured. He stood opposite the polished hero as if hewn out of granite — a pillar of stone left to be battered by storms and tempest, ready to stand against the world, or any portion of it that warred with his determinations or impulses.