It would have been an inestimable consolation to Eustace had the worthy Barton officiated in that capacity; but he was now among the number of respectable characters who were thrown into prison for presuming to intercede in the King's behalf. The person who attended Eustace was an ignorant desperate fanatic, in reality a spy of Cromwell's, whom the arbitrary will of Lady Bellingham compelled her lord to retain about his person. Such an assistant could afford no comfort to a condemned man; in reality he only served to disturb the composure which a long series of sorrows and sufferings had enabled Eustace externally to assume--I say externally, for his soul secretly melted at the unusual misfortunes that had clouded his short existence. He recollected at this trying moment the precious delights and glorious visions of his boyhood. His mind dwelt on the delusive opinion of his own powers, which had endangered his high expectations of renown, the fatal intimacy, and the numerous errors that changed glory into disgrace; and now, when misfortune had taught him wisdom, by the cruel sentence of coward rebels he was doomed, in cold blood, not only to an early, but also to an ignominious grave. He should never more re-join his father! never behold his plighted Constantia! Death he would welcome almost with transport, could he but hear the former pronounce his forgiveness, or the latter vow that she would cherish his memory. To die unknown, distant from all he loved, be ignorant of their present state, and they of his miserable doom--such a combination of excruciating misfortunes required no common fortitude to support the trial, or to divest a soul (which clung to the future with greater eagerness in proportion to the fallacy of past expectations) of those strong attachments to this life which impeded his journey to another. The glow of heroism which animated his face, and warmed his bosom before the council, was succeeded by the chill of despair. The precious moments of preparation for eternity were consumed in a whirl of distracting thought. He stood caressing a favourite spaniel whom he had preserved alive during the severe privations of the siege, watching the swift movements of the clock which numbered the remaining pulses of his heart, wondering if it would thus throb at the moment when he plunged into an unknown existence, endeavouring to recollect a recommendatory prayer, but too amazed and petrified by the cruelty of man to meditate on the mercy of God.