But of all her historical anecdotes, Mrs. Ann valued most what she had to relate of her own family. On the virtue and valour of her brother Sir Roger, she dwelt with an unction whose balm imparted itself to her hearers; and even Elinor, in spite of the Puritanism of her early principles, wept as she listened. But when Mrs. Ann told of the King taking shelter for one night in the Castle, under the protection only of her mother and herself, to whom he entrusted his rank and his misfortunes (arriving under a disguise)—Sir Roger being absent fighting his battles in Yorkshire—when she added that her aged mother, Lady Mortimer, then seventy-four, after spreading her richest velvet mantle, lined with fur, as a quilt for the bed of her persecuted sovereign, tottered into the armoury, and, presenting the few servants that followed her with what arms could be found, adjured them by brand and blade, by lady’s love, and their hopes of heaven, to defend her royal guest. When she related that a band of fanatics, after robbing a church of all its silver-plate, and burning the adjacent vicarage, drunk with their success, had invested the Castle, and cried aloud for “the man” to be brought unto them, that he might be hewed to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal—and Lady Mortimer had called on a young French officer in Prince Rupert’s corps, who, with his men, had been billetted on the Castle for some days—and that this youth, but seventeen years of age, had met two desperate attacks of the assailants, and twice retired covered with his own blood and that of the assailants, whom he had in vain attempted to repel—and that Lady Mortimer, finding all was lost, had counselled the royal fugitive to make his escape—and furnished him with the best horse left in Sir Roger’s stables to effect his flight, while she returned to the great hall, whose windows were now shattered by the balls that hissed and flew round her head, and whose doors were fast yielding to the crows and other instruments which a Puritan smith, who was both chaplain and colonel of the band, had lent them, and instructed them in the use of—and how Lady Mortimer fell on her knees before the young Frenchman, and adjured him to make good the defence till King Charles was safe, and free, and far—and how the young Frenchman had done all that man could do;—and finally, when the Castle, after an hour’s obstinate resistance, yielded to the assault of the fanatics, he had staggered, covered with blood, to the foot of the great chair which that ancient lady had immoveably occupied (paralyzed by terror and exhaustion), and dropping his sword, then for the first time, exclaimed, “J’ai fait mon devoir!” and expired at her feet—and how her mother sat in the same rigour of attitude, while the fanatics ravaged through the Castle—drank half the wines in the cellar—thrust their bayonets through the family-pictures, which they called the idols of the high-places—fired bullets through the wainscot, and converted half the female servants after their own way—and on finding their search after the King fruitless, in mere wantonness of mischief, were about to discharge a piece of ordnance in the hall that must have shattered it in pieces, while Lady Mortimer sat torpidly looking on—till, perceiving that the piece was accidentally pointed towards the very door through which King Charles had passed from the hall, her recollection seemed suddenly to return, and starting up and rushing before the mouth of the piece, exclaimed, “Not there!—you shall not there!”—and as she spoke, dropped dead in the hall. When Mrs. Ann told these and other thrilling tales of the magnanimity, the loyalty, and the sufferings of her high ancestry, in a voice that alternately swelled with energy, and trembled with emotion, and as she told them, pointed to the spot where each had happened—her young hearers felt a deep stirring of the heart—a proud yet mellowed elation that never yet was felt by the reader of a written history, though its pages were as legitimate as any sanctioned by the royal licenser at Madrid.
Nor was Mrs. Ann Mortimer less qualified to take an interesting share in their lighter studies. When Waller’s poetry was its subject, she could tell of the charms of his Sacharissa, whom she knew well—the Lady Dorothea Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester—and compare, with those of his Amoret, the Lady Sophia Murray. And in balancing the claims of these poetical heroines, she gave so accurate an account of their opposite styles of beauty—entered so minutely into the details of their dress and deportment—and so affectingly hinted, with a mysterious sigh, that there was one then at court whom Lucius, Lord Falkland, the gallant, the learned, and the polished, had whispered was far superior to both—that her auditors more than suspected she had herself been one of the most brilliant stars in that galaxy whose faded glories were still reflected in her memory—and that Mrs. Ann, amid her piety and patriotism, still blended a fond
