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THE

Weird of the Wentworths;

A TALE OF GEORGE IV.'S TIME.

BY

JOHANNES SCOTUS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

LONDON:
SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO.,
66 BROOK STREET, HANOVER SQUARE
1862.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.

The objection may be raised that, as the major part of this Romance takes place during the Regency, such a title as:—"The Weird of the Wentworths; a Tale of George IV.'s Time,"—is inappropriate. When, however, it is considered that the Regent was king in all but name, and the manners, customs, and habits differed little after his accession, the inadvertency will be explained.

In case of exception being taken to the language and sentiments of some characters introduced into the tale, the Author thinks it sufficient to say he utterly repudiates them! Oaths and ribaldry are, unfortunately, the concomitants of a depraved mind; and, in delineating faithfully the darker side of human nature, the Author felt himself compelled to sketch much that has passed under his own observation, and much that he has gleaned from the treatment of such characters by many distinguished novelists, not omitting our northern luminary, Sir Walter Scott.

The moral of the Romance being the triumph of virtue over vice, and truth over falsehood, he trusts that those fair readers, who may indulge his work with a perusal, will avoid the dark, and embrace the bright traits of the other sex; and, marking the gradual development of rectitude in the character of his heroine, magnify their own by adhering fixedly to the path of duty and moral conduct, amid all temptations to swerve from it.

The Author trusts that those noble families, whose names he has chosen as his beaux idéals, will kindly dismiss all personal associations from their minds, and simply give to the synonyms (which his not unpardonable preference led him to select) that weight which will ever attach itself in the eyes of the world, to the great, when also good.

There is one more point which may give rise to discussion—the rapid and violent deaths occurring in one family. The WEIRD, which, though kept in the background, is the mainspring of the tale, might explain this; but that such catastrophes are not beyond the region of possibility, the Author begs to remind his readers that in more than one family of rank, whose names both his sympathy and delicacy forbid any allusion to, such misfortunes and fates have actually happened.

Some of the death-scenes, and very many of the traditions and incidents embodied in the work, are taken from real life, which often far surpasses fiction.

Portobello, near Edinburgh.

June 19th, 1862.

THE WEIRD OF THE WENTWORTHS;

A TALE OF GEORGE IV.'s TIME.

CHAPTER I.

The extent of parents' influence on their offspring has long been a matter of dispute; yet the fact remains incontestable that children do suffer for their parents' faults, that the sins of the father are visited not only to the third and fourth generation, but often to a distance that can scarcely be conceived. The leprosy of Naaman cleaved to Gehazi's seed for ever, and it is said many of these unhappy sufferers still trace their misery to their ancestor's mendacity. We read in Grecian history how Myrtilus, as he sank, cursed the faithless Pelops and his race for ever; and we see its dire effects in the misfortunes of Agamemnon and Iphigenia:—

We might cite the Alcmaeonidae as another instance, and it is rather a singular thing that in nearly every case faithlessness, or sacrilege, has first armed the curse with its power. English annals present not a few examples, and perhaps no "weird" ever crushed a noble race of high name and lineage so cruelly, as that which is to be found among the traditions of the Wentworths of Dun Edin Towers. Every scion of that house was born a slave and bondman to this curse; two hundred and seventy years have flown since it slew its earliest victim, and its power is still as deadly, its shaft has lost none of its venom, and in all that long series of generations no son or daughter of the Wentworths has ever attained maturity, far less old age. The crown of glory, if it be found in the right way, was denied them; and in the bloom of their beauty, and pride of their strength, one by one, they sank beneath the river of death, too often with all their sins full blown, and unrepented of. Youth, strength, valour, talent, beauty, were sacrificed at the shrine of the remorseless deity, and still unrelenting and unappeased she watched over the race for evil.

Let us trace it back to its source, and having made our readers acquainted with the origin of the "Weird of the Wentworths," we shall next narrate the short lives and untimely deaths of one generation—the brightest link in a long chain of misery; and if their lives were short, they were full of romance and vigour, like the torrent, abrupt and headlong in its course, and still reaching the same bourne that the slow and tardy river only takes a longer period to arrive at.

Retrace, then, with us the scroll of English history till we come to the sad page of the Commonwealth. It is not our intention to discuss whether the Protector was right or wrong, but merely to narrate facts, as they were.

Cromwell was about this time tolerably secure on his usurped throne—the heir to the British crown a wandering exile in his native land. Those were troublous times; days when a man's foes were often those of his household; when the nearest and dearest ties were severed; and perhaps under the same roof, dwelt the bigot republican, and the proud royalist burning to avenge his king's wrongs; each looked on his neighbour with uncertainty, each feared the other as a traitor in the camp. Cromwell himself, raised to the utmost pitch of his ambition, was on an unenviable height—his tiara was a crown of thorns—over his head hung the sword of Damocles; and, having himself been a rebel to his monarch, he now feared an assassin in every one who approached his presence, and it is said almost entirely shut himself out of society, wearing chain armour beneath his raiment. Still he had faithful supporters, staunch