the mob of men, women, and children, break open the doors, and discover the secret crypt, and tear the sacred image from its shrine, fastening a rope around it, and dragging it sacri- ́ legiously through the mire to Brambletye House, while Sir John Compton marched at their head, shouting profane songs, and the whole assembly filled the air with blasphemous cries of triumph. In the court-yard of Brambletye House, upon the very spot where yonder pile of fagots is prepared to avenge the deed, was the holy Rood of Ashurst hewn asunder, to be converted into kitchen billets. From a distance I beheld the deed, and had every blow of their hatchets been struck upon my heart, it could not have been smitten with a keener pang of agony. Scarcely knowing what I did, I prowled about the house till midnight, when I scaled the wall, entered the court-yard, collected the severed fragments of the sacred Rood, returned to the subterranean crypt, and employed the whole night in endeavouring to

4

make those fragments resume the form they had once worn, the likeness of the Mother of God.

"Maddened with grief, and thirsting for revenge, I again betook myself, on the next day, to Brambletye. The house was at that moment beleaguered by the Club-men, who were summoning every mansion to supply them with arms and money. I mixed with the multitude; and observing a richly-dressed infant seated on the grass, near the principal entrance, while its nurse had turned round to converse with a brother whom she had unexpectedly recognized among the Club-men, I snatched it up, rushed into the thickest of the crowd, and hurried towards my house, exulting in the thought that I had one of the accursed tribe of the Comptons in my possession. That infant was Julia."

66

"Julia, and a Compton!" cried Waltonsurely she is not a daughter of Sir John's; not a sister of Jocelyn Compton ?"

"Listen, and you shall hear all," continued his companion. "Such was my wrath, such the

irritation of my soul, that I hastened to the secret crypt with my victim, intending to sacrifice it at the foot of the desecrated figure of the Virgin, whose command I had received to avenge her, even as Abraham prepared to offer up Isaac at the injunction of God. Leaving the infant at the foot of the shrine, I went to procure a knife for the execution of my dreadful purpose; when, upon my return, the child smiled upon me, and stretched out its little arms towards me, and lo! my bowels yearned within me, and a sudden gush of tenderness melted my heart, and I became filled with ruth and compassion. I know not why this should have been. I was a lone woman in the world, and had ever been so. I had never known the feelings of a mother; but they rushed into my bosom now with an uncontrolable vehemence of affection. I threw away the knife, clasped the infant to my heart, kissed and wept over it, and the daughter of Pharaoh did not more rejoice over the child Moses, whom she had saved, than I did over my intended victim, now that I had spared it.”

"But I had neither the means nor the skill now to nourish it, and it became necessary to dispose of it immediately. I knew Valentine Walton and his wife; knew their kindly and noble natures, their ample fortune, their keen regret at the want of offspring; and, deeming that my charge could be no where better bestowed than with such a family, I hurried with it to East Grinstead. In the confusion of preparations for their contemplated departure from England, I gained admittance into the house, deposited my little burthen upon a bed, and retired unobserved. On the next day the family quitted this part of the country, and immediately afterwards embarked for the Barbadoes.

"I soon learnt that the infant I had taken was the only child of Sir William Compton, a kinsman of Sir John's, who was a visitor at Brambletye at the time of the occurrence; and that a deadly feud had sprung up between them on the subject of the loss; a feud which has ever since set the two branches of the family

in array against each other. So far I was gratified: I had quickly brought misery and disunion upon the sacrilegious race: I had done something towards the acquittance of my vow. From the moment that the profane act was committed, I had clad myself in deep mourning, and, coming out with the owl and the bat, I hovered at night-fall around the purlieus of the accursed house, banning its walls, and its inmates wherever I encountered them, until at length I was enabled to discover that arms, if not ammunition, were secretly conveyed into its walls for the support of the plot in which Sir John was engaged. Of this I gave information to the Protector, and thus 'twas I who procured the expulsion of its owner, and the pillage, spoliation, and dismantling of Brambletye by the troops: 'twas I who ferreted Sir John from his place of concealment, and made him fly the country; 'twas I who compelled Colonel Lilburne to carry the boy Jocelyn to London as a prisoner; 'twas I who counselled the pur