“So in Mortimer Castle were, in their infancy, assembled the three
grandchildren, born under such various auspices and destinies. Margaret
Mortimer the heiress, a beautiful, intelligent, spirited girl, heiress
of all the pride, aristocratical principle, and possible wealth of the
family; Elinor Mortimer, the daughter of the Apostate, received rather
than admitted into the house, and educated in all the strictness of her
Independent family; and John Sandal, the son of the rejected daughter,
whom Sir Roger admitted into the Castle only on the condition of his
being engaged in the service of the royal family, banished and
persecuted as they were; and he renewed his correspondence with some
emigrant loyalists in Holland, for the establishment of his protegé,
whom he described, in language borrowed from the Puritan preachers, as
“a brand snatched from the burning.”
“While matters were thus at the Castle, intelligence arrived of Monk’s
unexpected exertions in favour of the banished family. The result was as
rapid as it was auspicious. The Restoration took place within a few days
after, and the Mortimer family were then esteemed of so much
consequence, that an express, girthed from his waist to his shoulders,
was dispatched from London to announce the intelligence. He arrived when
Sir Roger, whose chaplain he had been compelled by the ruling party to
dismiss as a malignant, was reading prayers himself to his family. The
return and restoration of Charles the Second was announced. The old
loyalist rose from his knees, waved his cap, (which he had reverently
taken from his white head), and, suddenly changing his tone of
supplication for one of triumph, exclaimed, “Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation!” As he spoke, the old man sunk on the cushion which Mrs
Ann had placed beneath his knees. His grandchildren rose from their
knees to assist him,--it was too late,--his spirit had parted in that
last exclamation.
CHAPTER XXX.
------She sat, and thought
Of what a sailor suffers.
COWPER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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