Tancred Part 7

CHAPTER IX.

_Tancred, the New Crusader_

'MISERABLE mother that I am!' exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, and she clasped her hands in anguish.

'My dearest Katherine!' said the duke, 'calm yourself.'

'You ought to have prevented this, George; you ought never to have let things come to this pa.s.s.'

'But, my dearest Katherine, the blow was as unlooked-for by me as by yourself. I had not, how could I have, a remote suspicion of what was pa.s.sing through his mind?'

'What, then, is the use of your boasted confidence with your child, which you tell me you have always cultivated? Had I been his father, I would have discovered his secret thoughts.'

'Very possibly, my dear Katherine; but you are at least his mother, tenderly loving him, and tenderly loved by him. The intercourse between you has ever been of an extreme intimacy, and especially on the subjects connected with this fancy of his, and yet, you see, even you are completely taken by surprise.' 'I once had a suspicion he was inclined to the Puseyite heresy, and I spoke to Mr. Bernard on the subject, and afterwards to him, but I was convinced that I was in error. I am sure,'

added the d.u.c.h.ess, in a mournful tone, 'I have lost no opportunity of instilling into him the principles of religious truth. It was only last year, on his birthday, that I sent him a complete set of the publications of the Parker Society, my own copy of Jewel, full of notes, and my grandfather, the primate's, ma.n.u.script commentary on Chillingworth; a copy made purposely by myself.'

'I well know,' said the duke, 'that you have done everything for his spiritual welfare which ability and affection combined could suggest.'

'And it ends in this!' exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess. 'The Holy Land! Why, if he even reach it, the climate is certain death. The curse of the Almighty, for more than eighteen centuries, has been on that land. Every year it has become more sterile, more savage, more unwholesome, and more unearthly. It is the abomination of desolation. And now my son is to go there! Oh! he is lost to us for ever!'

'But, my dear Katherine, let us consult a little.' 'Consult! Why should I consult? You have settled everything, you have agreed to everything.

You do not come here to consult me; I understand all that; you come here to break a foregone conclusion to a weak and miserable woman.'

'Do not say such things, Katherine!' 'What should I say? What can I say?' 'Anything but that. I hope that nothing will be ever done in this family without your full sanction.' I Rest a.s.sured, then, that I will never sanction the departure of Tancred on this crusade.'

'Then he will never go, at least, with my consent,' said the duke; 'but Katherine, a.s.sist me, my dear wife. All shall be, shall ever be, as you wish; but I shrink from being placed, from our being placed, in collision with our child. The mere exercise of parental authority is a last resource; I would appeal first, rather to his reason, to his heart; your arguments, his affection for us, may yet influence him.' 'You tell me you have argued with him,' said the d.u.c.h.ess in a melancholy tone.

'Yes, but you know so much more on these subjects than I do, indeed, upon all subjects; you are so clever, that I do not despair, my dear Katherine, of your producing an impression on him.'

'I would tell him at once,' said the d.u.c.h.ess, firmly, 'that the proposition cannot be listened to.'

The duke looked very distressed. After a momentary pause, he said, 'If, indeed, you think that the best; but let us consult before we take that step, because it would seem to terminate all discussion, and discussion may yet do good. Besides, I cannot conceal from myself that Tancred in this affair is acting under the influence of very powerful motives; his feelings are highly strung; you have no idea, you can have no idea from what we have seen of him hitherto, how excited he is. I had no idea of his being capable of such excitement. I always thought him so very calm, and of such a quiet turn. And so, in short, my dear Katherine, were we to be abrupt at this moment, peremptory, you understand, I--I should not be surprised, were Tancred to go without our permission.'

'Impossible!' exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, starting in her chair, but with as much consternation as confidence in her countenance. 'Throughout his life he has never disobeyed us.'

'And that is an additional reason,' said the duke, quietly, but in his sweetest tone, 'why we should not treat as a light ebullition this first instance of his preferring his own will to that of his father and mother.'

'He has been so much away from us these last three years,' said the d.u.c.h.ess in a tone of great depression, 'and they are such important years in the formation of character! But Mr. Bernard, he ought to have been aware of all this; he ought to have known what was pa.s.sing through his pupil's mind; he ought to have warned us. Let us speak to him; let us speak to him at once. Ring, my dear George, and request the attendance of Mr. Bernard.'

That gentleman, who was in the library, kept them waiting but a few minutes. As he entered the room, he perceived, by the countenances of his n.o.ble patrons, that something remarkable, and probably not agreeable, had occurred. The duke opened the case to Mr. Bernard with calmness; he gave an outline of the great catastrophe; the d.u.c.h.ess filled up the parts, and invested the whole with a rich and even terrible colouring.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the late private tutor of Lord Montacute. He was fairly overcome; the communication itself was startling, the accessories overwhelmed him. The unspoken reproaches that beamed from the duke's mild eye; the withering glance of maternal desolation that met him from the d.u.c.h.ess; the rapidity of her anxious and agitated questions; all were too much for the simple, though correct, mind of one unused to those pa.s.sionate developments which are commonly called scenes. All that Mr. Bernard for some time could do was to sit with his eyes staring and mouth open, and repeat, with a bewildered air, 'The Holy Land, the Holy Sepulchre!' No, most certainly not; most a.s.suredly; never in any way, by any word or deed, had Lord Montacute ever given him reason to suppose or imagine that his lordship intended to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, or that he was influenced by any of those views and opinions which he had so strangely and so uncompromisingly expressed to his father.

'But, Mr. Bernard, you have been his companion, his instructor, for many years,' continued the d.u.c.h.ess, 'for the last three years especially, years so important in the formation of character. You have seen much more of Montacute than we have. Surely you must have had some idea of what was pa.s.sing in his mind; you could not help knowing it; you ought to have known it; you ought to have warned, to have prepared us.'

'Madam,' at length said Mr. Bernard, more collected, and feeling the necessity and excitement of self-vindication, 'Madam, your n.o.ble son, under my poor tuition, has taken the highest honours of his university; his moral behaviour during that period has been immaculate; and as for his religious sentiments, even this strange scheme proves that they are, at any rate, of no light and equivocal character.'

'To lose such a son!' exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, in a tone of anguish, and with streaming eyes.

The duke took her hand, and would have soothed her; and then, turning to Mr. Bernard, he said, in a lowered tone, 'We are very sensible how much we owe you; the d.u.c.h.ess equally with myself. All we regret is, that some of us had not obtained a more intimate acquaintance with the character of my son than it appears we have acquired.'

'My lord duke,' said Mr. Bernard, 'had yourself or her Grace ever spoken to me on this subject, I would have taken the liberty of expressing what I say now. I have ever found Lord Montacute inscrutable. He has formed himself in solitude, and has ever repelled any advance to intimacy, either from those who were his inferiors or his equals in station. He has never had a companion. As for myself, during the ten years that I have had the honour of being connected with him, I cannot recall a word or a deed on his part which towards me has not been courteous and considerate; but as a child he was shy and silent, and as a man, for I have looked upon him as a man in mind for these four or even five years, he has employed me as his machine to obtain knowledge. It is not very flattering to oneself to make these confessions, but at Oxford he had the opportunity of communicating with some of the most eminent men of our time, and I have always learnt from them the same result. Lord Montacute never disburthened. His pa.s.sion for study has been ardent; his power of application is very great; his attention unwearied as long as there is anything to acquire; but he never seeks your opinions, and never offers his own. The interview of yesterday with your Grace is the only exception with which I am acquainted, and at length throws some light on the mysteries of his mind.'

The duke looked sad; his wife seemed plunged in profound thought; there was a silence of many moments. At length the d.u.c.h.ess looked up, and said, in a calmer tone, and with an air of great seriousness, 'It seems that we have mistaken the character of our son. Thank you very much for coming to us so quickly in our trouble, Mr. Bernard. It was very kind, as you always are.' Mr. Bernard took the hint, rose, bowed, and retired.

The moment that he had quitted the room, the eyes of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Bellamont met. Who was to speak first? The duke had nothing to say, and therefore he had the advantage: the d.u.c.h.ess wished her husband to break the silence, but, having something to say herself, she could not refrain from interrupting it. So she said, with a tearful eye, 'Well, George, what do you think we ought to do?' The duke had a great mind to propose his plan of sending Tancred to Jerusalem, with Colonel Brace, Mr. Bernard, and Mr. Roby, to take care of him, but he hardly thought the occasion was ripe enough for that; and so he suggested that the d.u.c.h.ess should speak to Tancred herself.

'No,' said her Grace, shaking her head, 'I think it better for me to be silent; at least at present. It is necessary, however, that the most energetic means should be adopted to save him, nor is there a moment to be lost. We must shrink from nothing for such an object. I have a plan.

We will put the whole matter in the hands of our friend, the bishop.

We will get him to speak to Tancred. I entertain not a doubt that the bishop will put his mind all right; clear all his doubts; remove all his scruples. The bishop is the only person, because, you see, it is a case political as well as theological, and the bishop is a great statesman as well as the first theologian of the age. Depend upon it, my dear George, that this is the wisest course, and, with the blessing of Providence, will effect our purpose. It is, perhaps, asking a good deal of the bishop, considering his important and multifarious duties, to undertake this office, but we must not be delicate when everything is at stake; and, considering he christened and confirmed Tancred, and our long friendship, it is quite out of the question that he can refuse. However, there is no time to be lost. We must get to town as soon as possible; tomorrow, if we can. I shall advance affairs by writing to the bishop on the subject, and giving him an outline of the case, so that he may be prepared to see Tancred at once on our arrival. What think you, George, of my plan?'

'I think it quite admirable,' replied his Grace, only too happy that there was at least the prospect of a lull of a few days in this great embarra.s.sment.

CHAPTER X.

_A Visionary_

ABOUT the time of the marriage of the d.u.c.h.ess of Bellamont, her n.o.ble family, and a few of their friends, some of whom also believed in the millennium, were persuaded that the conversion of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland to the true faith, which was their own, was at hand. They had subscribed very liberally for the purpose, and formed an amazing number of sub-committees. As long as their funds lasted, their missionaries found proselytes. It was the last desperate effort of a Church that had from the first betrayed its trust. Twenty years ago, statistics not being so much in vogue, and the people of England being in the full efflorescence of that public ignorance which permitted them to believe themselves the most enlightened nation in the world, the Irish 'difficulty' was not quite so well understood as at the present day. It was then an established doctrine, and all that was necessary for Ireland was more Protestantism, and it was supposed to be not more difficult to supply the Irish with Protestantism than it had proved, in the instance of a recent famine, 1822, to furnish them with potatoes.

What was princ.i.p.ally wanted in both cases were subscriptions.

When the English public, therefore, were a.s.sured by their co-religionists on the other side of St. George's Channel, that at last the good work was doing; that the flame spread, even rapidly; that not only parishes but provinces were all agog, and that both town and country were quite in a heat of proselytism, they began to believe that at last the scarlet lady was about to be dethroned; they loosened their purse-strings; fathers of families contributed their zealous five pounds, followed by every other member of the household, to the babe in arms, who subscribed its fanatical five shillings. The affair looked well. The journals teemed with lists of proselytes and cases of conversion; and even orderly, orthodox people, who were firm in their own faith, but wished others to be permitted to pursue their errors in peace, began to congratulate each other on the prospect of our at last becoming a united Protestant people.

In the blaze and thick of the affair, Irish Protestants jubilant, Irish Papists denouncing the whole movement as fraud and trumpery, John Bull perplexed, but excited, and still subscribing, a young bishop rose in his place in the House of Lords, and, with a vehemence there unusual, declared that he saw 'the finger of G.o.d in this second Reformation,'

and, pursuing the prophetic vein and manner, denounced 'woe to those who should presume to lift up their hands and voices in vain and impotent attempts to stem the flood of light that was bursting over Ireland.'

In him, who thus plainly discerned 'the finger of G.o.d' in transactions in which her family and feelings were so deeply interested, the young and enthusiastic d.u.c.h.ess of Bellamont instantly recognised the 'man of G.o.d;' and from that moment the right reverend prelate became, in all spiritual affairs, her infallible instructor, although the impending second Reformation did chance to take the untoward form of the emanc.i.p.ation of the Roman Catholics, followed in due season by the destruction of Protestant bishoprics, the sequestration of Protestant t.i.thes, and the endowment of Maynooth.

In speculating on the fate of public inst.i.tutions and the course of public affairs, it is important that we should not permit our attention to be engrossed by the principles on which they are founded and the circ.u.mstances which they present, but that we should also remember how much depends upon the character of the individuals who are in the position to superintend or to direct them.

The Church of England, mainly from its deficiency of oriental knowledge, and from a misconception of the priestly character which has been the consequence of that want, has fallen of late years into great straits; nor has there ever been a season when it has more needed for its guides men possessing the higher qualities both of intellect and disposition.

About five-and-twenty years ago, it began to be discerned that the time had gone by, at least in England, for bishoprics to serve as appanages for the younger sons of great families. The Arch-Mediocrity who then governed this country, and the mean tenor of whose prolonged administration we have delineated in another work, was impressed with the necessity of reconstructing the episcopal bench on principles of personal distinction and ability. But his notion of clerical capacity did not soar higher than a private tutor who had suckled a young n.o.ble into university honours; and his test of priestly celebrity was the decent editorship of a Greek play. He sought for the successors of the apostles, for the stewards of the mysteries of Sinai and of Calvary, among third-rate hunters after syllables.

These men, notwithstanding their elevation, with one exception, subsided into their native insignificance; and during our agitated age, when the principles of all inst.i.tutions, sacred and secular, have been called in question; when, alike in the senate and the market-place, both the doctrine and the discipline of the Church have been impugned, its power a.s.sailed, its authority denied, the amount of its revenues investigated, their disposition criticised, and both attacked; not a voice has been raised by these mitred nullities, either to warn or to vindicate; not a phrase has escaped their lips or their pens, that ever influenced public opinion, touched the heart of nations, or guided the conscience of a perplexed people. If they were ever heard of it was that they had been pelted in a riot.

The exception which we have mentioned to their sorry careers was that of the too adventurous prophet of the second Reformation; the _ductor dubitantium_ appealed to by the d.u.c.h.ess of Bellamont, to convince her son that the principles of religious truth, as well as of political justice, required no further investigation; at least by young marquesses.

The ready audacity with which this right reverend prelate had stood sponsor for the second Reformation is a key to his character. He combined a great talent for action with very limited powers of thought.

Bustling, energetic, versatile, gifted with an indomitable perseverance, and stimulated by an ambition that knew no repose, with a capacity for mastering details and an inordinate pa.s.sion for affairs, he could permit nothing to be done without his interference, and consequently was perpetually involved in transactions which were either failures or blunders. He was one of those leaders who are not guides. Having little real knowledge, and not endowed with those high qualities of intellect which permit their possessor to generalise the details afforded by study and experience, and so deduce rules of conduct, his lordship, when he received those frequent appeals which were the necessary consequence of his officious life, became obscure, confused, contradictory, inconsistent, illogical. The oracle was always dark.

Placed in a high post in an age of political a.n.a.lysis, the bustling intermeddler was unable to supply society with a single solution.

Enunciating secondhand, with characteristic precipitation, some big principle in vogue, as if he were a discoverer, he invariably shrank from its subsequent application the moment that he found it might be unpopular and inconvenient. All his quandaries terminated in the same catastrophe; a compromise. Abstract principles with him ever ended in concrete expediency. The aggregate of circ.u.mstances outweighed the isolated cause. The primordial tenet, which had been advocated with uncompromising arrogance, gently subsided into some second-rate measure recommended with all the artifice of an impenetrable ambiguity.

Beginning with the second Reformation, which was a little rash but dashing, the bishop, always ready, had in the course of his episcopal career placed himself at the head of every movement in the Church which others had originated, and had as regularly withdrawn at the right moment, when the heat was over, or had become, on the contrary, excessive. Furiously evangelical, soberly high and dry, and fervently Puseyite, each phasis of his faith concludes with what the Spaniards term a 'transaction.' The saints are to have their new churches, but they are also to have their rubrics and their canons; the universities may supply successors to the apostles, but they are also presented with a church commission; even the Puseyites may have candles on their altars, but they must not be lighted.