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Sybil, or the Two Nations

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Sybil, or the Two Nations




The clouds of smoke, the tongues of flame, that now began to
mingle with them, the multitude whom this new incident and
impending catastrophe summoned hack to the scene, forced Sybil
to leave the garden and enter the park. It was in vain she
endeavoured to gain some part less frequented than the rest,
and to make her way unobserved. Suddenly a band of drunken
ruffians, with shouts and oaths, surrounded her; she shrieked
in frantic terror; Harold sprung at the throat of the
foremost; another advanced, Harold left his present prey and
attacked the new assailant. The brave dog did wonders, but
the odds were fearful; and the men had bludgeons, were
enraged, and had already wounded him. One ruffian had grasped
the arm of Sybil, another had clenched her garments, when an
officer covered with dust and gore, sabre in hand, jumped from
the terrace, and hurried to the rescue. He cut down one man,
thrust away another, and placing his left arm round Sybil, he
defended her with his sword, while Harold now become furious,
flew from man to man, and protected her on the other side.
Her assailants were routed, they made a staggering flight; the
officer turned round and pressed Sybil to his heart.

"We will never part again," said Egremont.

"Never," murmured Sybil.




Book 6 Chapter 13



It was the Spring of last year, and Lady Bardolf was making a
morning visit to Lady St Julians.

"I heard they were to be at Lady Palmerston's last night,"
said Lady St Julians.

"No," said Lady Bardolf shaking his head, "they make their
first appearance at Deloraine House. We meet there on
Thursday I know."

"Well, I must say," said Lady St Julians, "that I am curious
to see her."

"Lord Valentine met them last year at Naples."

"And what does he say of her."

"Oh! he raves!"

"What a romantic history! And what a fortunate man is Lord
Marney. If one could only have foreseen events!" exclaimed
Lady St Julians. "He was always a favourite of mine though.
But still I thought his brother was the very last person who
ever would die. He was so very hard!"

"I fear Lord Marney is entirely lost to us," said Lady Bardolf
looking very solemn.

"Ah! he always had a twist," said Lady St Julians, "and used
to breakfast with that horrid Mr Trenchard, and do those sort
of things. But still with his immense fortune, I should think
he would become rational."

"You may well say immense," said Lady Bardolf. "Mr Ormsby,
and there is no better judge of another man's income, says
there are not three peers in the kingdom who have so much a
year clear."

"They say the Mowbray estate is forty thousand a year," said
Lady St Julians. "Poor Lady de Mowbray! I understand that Mr
Mountchesney has resolved not to appeal against the verdict."

"You know he has not a shadow of a chance," said Lady Bardolf.
"Ah! what changes we have seen in that family! They say the
writ of right killed poor Lord de Mowbray, but to my mind he
never recovered the burning of the Castle. We went over to
them directly, and I never saw a man so cut up. We wanted
them to come to us at Firebrace, but he said he should leave
the county immediately. I remember Lord Bardolf mentioning to
me, that he looked like a dying man."

"Well I must say," said Lady St Julians rallying as it were
from a fit of abstraction, "that I am most curious to see Lady
Marney."

The reader will infer from this conversation that Dandy Mick,
in spite of his stunning fall, and all dangers which awaited
him on his recovery, had contrived in spite of fire and flame,
sabre and carbine, trampling troopers and plundering mobs, to
reach the Convent of Mowbray with the box of papers. There he
enquired for Sybil, in whose hands, and whose hands alone he
was enjoined to deposit them. She was still absent, but
faithful to his instructions, Mick would deliver his charge to
none other, and exhausted by the fatigues of the terrible day,
he remained in the court-yard of the Convent, lying down with
the box for his pillow until Sybil under the protection of
Egremont herself returned. Then he fulfilled his mission.
Sybil was too agitated at the moment to perceive all its
import, but she delivered the box into the custody of
Egremont, who desiring Mick to follow him to his hotel bade
farewell to Sybil, who equally with himself, was then ignorant
of the fatal encounter on Mowbray Moor.

We must drop a veil over the anguish which its inevitable and
speedy revelation brought to the daughter of Gerard. Her love
for her father was one of those profound emotions which seemed
to form a constituent part of her existence. She remained for
a long period in helpless woe, soothed only by the sacred
cares of Ursula. There was another mourner in this season of
sorrow who must not be forgotten; and that was Lady Marney.
All that tenderness and the most considerate thought could
devise to soften sorrow and reconcile her to a change of life
which at the first has in it something depressing were
extended by Egremont to Arabella. He supplied in an instant
every arrangement which had been neglected by his brother, but
which could secure her convenience and tend to her happiness.
Between Marney Abbey where he insisted for the present that
Arabella should reside and Mowbray, Egremont passed his life
for many months, until by some management which we need not
trace or analyse, Lady Marney came over one day to the Convent
at Mowbray and carried back Sybil to Marney Abbey, never again
to quit it until on her bridal day, when the Earl and Countess
of Marney departed for Italy where they passed nearly a year,
and from which they had just returned at the commencement of
this chapter.

During the previous period however many important events had
occurred. Lord Marney had placed himself in communication
with Mr Hatton, who had soon become acquainted with all that
had occurred in the muniment room of Mowbray Castle. The
result was not what he had once anticipated; but for him it
was not without some compensatory circumstances. True
another, and an unexpected rival, had stepped on the stage
with whom it was vain to cope, but the idea that he had
deprived Sybil of her inheritance, had ever, since he had
became acquainted with her, been the plague-spot of Hatton's
life, and there was nothing that he desired more ardently than
to see her restored to her rights, and to be instrumental in
that restoration. How successful he was in pursuing her
claim, the reader has already learnt.

Dandy Mick was rewarded for all the dangers he had encountered
in the service of Sybil, and what he conceived was the
vindication of popular rights. Lord Marney established him in
business, and Mick took Devilsdust for a partner. Devilsdust
having thus obtained a position in society and become a
capitalist, thought it but a due homage to the social
decencies to assume a decorous appellation, and he called
himself by the name of the town where he was born. The firm
of Radley, Mowbray, and Co., is a rising one; and will
probably furnish in time a crop of members of Parliament and
Peers of the realm. Devilsdust married Caroline, and Mrs
Mowbray became a great favorite. She was always perhaps a
little too fond of junketting but she had a sweet temper and a
gay spirit, and sustained her husband in the agonies of a
great speculation, or the despair of glutted markets. Julia
became Mrs Radley, and was much esteemed: no one could behave
better. She was more orderly than Caroline, and exactly
suited Mick, who wanted a person near him of decision and
method. As for Harriet, she is not yet married. Though
pretty and clever, she is selfish and a screw. She has saved
a good deal and has a considerable sum in the Savings' Bank,
but like many heiresses she cannot bring her mind to share her
money with another. The great measures of Sir Robert Peel,
which produced three good harvests, have entirely revived
trade at Mowbray. The Temple is again open. newly-painted,
and re-burnished, and Chaffing Jack has of course "rallied"
while good Mrs Carey still gossips with her neighbours round
her well-stored stall, and tells wonderful stories of the
great stick-out and riots of '42.

And thus I conclude the last page of a work, which though its
form be light and unpretending, would yet aspire to suggest to
its readers some considerations of a very opposite character.
A year ago. I presumed to offer to the public some volumes
that aimed to call their attention to the state of our
political parties; their origin, their history, their present
position. In an age of political infidelity, of mean passions
and petty thoughts, I would have impressed upon the rising
race not to despair, but to seek in a right understanding of
the history of their country and in the energies of heroic
youth--the elements of national welfare. The present work
advances another step in the same emprise. From the state of
Parties it now would draw public thought to the state of the
People whom those parties for two centuries have governed.
The comprehension and the cure of this greater theme depend
upon the same agencies as the first: it is the past alone that
can explain the present, and it is youth that alone can mould
the remedial future. The written history of our country for
the last ten reigns has been a mere phantasma; giving to the
origin and consequence of public transactions a character and
colour in every respect dissimilar with their natural form and
hue. In this mighty mystery all thoughts and things have
assumed an aspect and title contrary to their real quality and
style: Oligarchy has been called Liberty; an exclusive
Priesthood has been christened a National Church; Sovereignty
has been the title of something that has had no dominion,
while absolute power has been wielded by those who profess
themselves the servants of the People. In the selfish strife
of factions two great existences have been blotted out of the
history of England--the Monarch and the Multitude; as the
power of the Crown has diminished, the privileges of the
People have disappeared; till at length the sceptre has become
a pageant, and its subject has degenerated again into a serf.

It is nearly fourteen years ago, in the popular frenzy of a
mean and selfish revolution which neither emancipated the
Crown nor the People, that I first took the occasion to
intimate and then to develope to the first assembly of my
countrymen that I ever had the honour to address, these
convictions. They have been misunderstood as is ever for a
season the fate of Truth, and they have obtained for their
promulgator much misrepresentation as must ever be the lot of
those who will not follow the beaten track of a fallacious
custom. But Time that brings all things has brought also to
the mind of England some suspicion that the idols they have so
long worshipped and the oracles that have so long deluded them
are not the true ones. There is a whisper rising in this
country that Loyalty is not a phrase. Faith not a delusion,
and Popular Liberty something more diffusive and substantial
than the profane exercise of the sacred rights of sovereignty
by political classes.

That we may live to see England once more possess a free
Monarchy and a privileged and prosperous People, is my prayer;
that these great consequences can only be brought about by the
enemy and devotion of our Youth is my persuasion. We live in
an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer
synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims
of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the
Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

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