Hope Leslie: Early Times in the Massachusetts (Complete)

There were interested persons who were not slow in conveying to Sir William unfavourable reports of his nephew, and the young man received a summons from his uncle, who hoped, by removing him from the infected region, to rescue him from danger.
Sir William’s pride was gratified by the elegant appearance and graceful deportment of his nephew, whom he had expected to see with the “slovenly and lawyer-like carriage” that marked the scholars of the times. The pliant courtier was struck with the lofty independence of the youth, who from the first showed that neither frowns nor favour would induce him to bow the knee to the idols Sir William had served. There was something in this independence that awed the inferior mind of the uncle. To him it was an unknown, mysterious power, which he knew not how to approach, and almost despaired of subduing. However, he was experienced in life, and had observed enough of human infirmity to convince him that there was no human virtue that had not some weak, some assailable point. Time and circumstances were not long in developing the vulnerability of the nephew. Alice Fletcher had been the companion of his childhood. They now met without any of the reserve that often prevents an intimate intercourse between young persons, and proceeds from the consciousness of a susceptibility which it would seem to deny.
The intercourse of the cousins was renewed with all the frankness and artlessness of the sunny season of childish love and confidence. Alice had been educated in retirement by her mother, whom she had recently attended through a long and fatal illness. She had been almost the exclusive object of her love, for there was little congeniality between the father and daughter. The ties of nature may command all dutiful observances, but they cannot control the affections. Alice was deeply afflicted by her bereavement. Her cousin’s serious temper harmonized with her sorrow, and nature and opportunity soon indissolubly linked their hearts together.
Sir William perceived their growing attachment, and exulted in it; for, as he fancied, it reduced his nephew to dependance on his will and whims. He had never himself experienced the full strength of any generous sentiment, but he had learned from observation that love was a controlling passion, and he now most anxiously watched and promoted the kindling of the flame, in the expectation that the fire would subdue the principles of civil and religious liberty with which he had but too well ascertained the mind of his nephew to be imbued.
He silently favoured the constant and exclusive intercourse of the young people: he secretly contrived various modes of increasing their mutual dependance; and, when he was certain their happiness was staked, he cast the die. He told his nephew that he perceived and rejoiced in the mutual affection that had so naturally sprung up between him and his daughter, and he confessed their union had been the favourite object of his life; and said that he now heartily accorded his consent to it, prescribing one condition only—but that condition was unalterable. “You must abjure, William, in the presence of witnesses,” he said, “the fanatical notions of liberty and religion with which you have been infected; you must pledge yourself, by a solemn oath, to unqualified obedience to the king, and adherence to the Established Church: you shall have time enough for the effervescence of your young blood. God send this fermentation may work off all impurities. Nay, answer me not now. Take a day—a week—a month for consideration; for on your decision depends fortune and love, or the alternative, beggary and exile.”
If a pit had yawned beneath his feet and swallowed Alice from his view, William Fletcher could not have been more shocked. He was soul-stricken, as one who listens to a sentence of death. To his eye the earth was shrouded in darkness; not an object of hope or pursuit remained.
He had believed his uncle was aware of what he must deem his political and religious delinquency; but he had never spoken to him on the subject: he had treated him with marked favour, and he had so evidently encouraged his attachment to his cousin that he had already plighted his love to her, and received her vows without fearing that he had passed even the limit of strict prudence.
There was no accommodating flexibility in his principles; his fidelity to what he deemed his duty could not have been subdued by the fires of martyrdom, and he did not hesitate to sacrifice what was dearer than life to it. He took the resolution at once to fly from the temptation that, present, he dared not trust himself to resist.