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Peveril of the Peak

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #5959 · 1,316,003 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Peveril of the Peak

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5959]
                Most recently updated: August 31, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5959

Credits: Produced by Emma Wong Shee, John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEVERIL OF THE PEAK ***




Produced by Emma Wong Shee, John Bickers, and Dagny







PEVERIL OF THE PEAK

By Sir Walter Scott, Bart.





PEVERIL OF THE PEAK




CHAPTER I

               When civil dudgeon first grew high,
               And men fell out, they knew not why;
               When foul words, jealousies, and fears,
               Set folk together by the ears--
                                             --BUTLER.

William, the Conqueror of England, was, or supposed himself to be, the
father of a certain William Peveril, who attended him to the battle of
Hastings, and there distinguished himself. The liberal-minded monarch,
who assumed in his charters the veritable title of Gulielmus Bastardus,
was not likely to let his son’s illegitimacy be any bar to the course of
his royal favour, when the laws of England were issued from the mouth
of the Norman victor, and the lands of the Saxons were at his unlimited
disposal. William Peveril obtained a liberal grant of property and
lordships in Derbyshire, and became the erecter of that Gothic fortress,
which, hanging over the mouth of the Devil’s Cavern, so well known to
tourists, gives the name of Castleton to the adjacent village.

From this feudal Baron, who chose his nest upon the principles on which
an eagle selects her eyry, and built it in such a fashion as if he had
intended it, as an Irishman said of the Martello towers, for the sole
purpose of puzzling posterity, there was, or conceived themselves to be,
descended (for their pedigree was rather hypothetical) an opulent
family of knightly rank, in the same county of Derby. The great fief
of Castleton, with its adjacent wastes and forests, and all the wonders
which they contain, had been forfeited in King John’s stormy days, by
one William Peveril, and had been granted anew to the Lord Ferrers of
that day. Yet this William’s descendants, though no longer possessed
of what they alleged to have been their original property, were long
distinguished by the proud title of Peverils of the Peak, which served
to mark their high descent and lofty pretensions.

In Charles the Second’s time, the representative of this ancient family
was Sir Geoffrey Peveril, a man who had many of the ordinary attributes
of an old-fashioned country gentleman, and very few individual traits
to distinguish him from the general portrait of that worthy class
of mankind. He was proud of small advantages, angry at small
disappointments, incapable of forming any resolution or opinion
abstracted from his own prejudices--he was proud of his birth, lavish
in his housekeeping, convivial with those kindred and acquaintances, who
would allow his superiority in rank--contentious and quarrelsome with
all that crossed his pretensions--kind to the poor, except when they
plundered his game--a Royalist in his political opinions, and one who
detested alike a Roundhead, a poacher, and a Presbyterian. In religion
Sir Geoffrey was a high-churchman, of so exalted a strain that many
thought he still nourished in private the Roman Catholic tenets, which
his family had only renounced in his father’s time, and that he had a
dispensation for conforming in outward observances to the Protestant
faith. There was at least such a scandal amongst the Puritans, and
the influence which Sir Geoffrey Peveril certainly appeared to possess
amongst the Catholic gentlemen of Derbyshire and Cheshire, seemed to
give countenance to the rumour.

Such was Sir Geoffrey, who might have passed to his grave without
further distinction than a brass-plate in the chancel, had he not lived
in times which forced the most inactive spirits into exertion, as a
tempest influences the sluggish waters of the deadest mere. When the
Civil Wars broke out, Peveril of the Peak, proud from pedigree, and
brave by constitution, raised a regiment for the King, and showed upon
several occasions more capacity for command than men had heretofore
given him credit for.

Even in the midst of the civil turmoil, he fell in love with, and
married, a beautiful and amiable young lady of the noble house of
Stanley; and from that time had the more merit in his loyalty, as it
divorced him from her society, unless at very brief intervals, when his
duty permitted an occasional visit to his home. Scorning to be allured
from his military duty by domestic inducements, Peveril of the Peak
fought on for several rough years of civil war, and performed his part
with sufficient gallantry, until his regiment was surprised and cut
to pieces by Poyntz, Cromwell’s enterprising and successful general of
cavalry. The defeated Cavalier escaped from the field of battle, and,
like a true descendant of William the Conqueror, disdaining submission,
threw himself into his own castellated mansion, which was attacked and
defended in a siege of that irregular kind which caused the destruction
of so many baronial residences during the course of those unhappy wars.
Martindale Castle, after having suffered severely from the cannon which
Cromwell himself brought against it, was at length surrendered when in
the last extremity. Sir Geoffrey himself became a prisoner, and while
his liberty was only restored upon a promise of remaining a peaceful
subject to the Commonwealth in future, his former delinquencies, as
they were termed by the ruling party, were severely punished by fine and
sequestration.

But neither his forced promise, nor the fear of farther unpleasant
consequences to his person or property, could prevent Peveril of the
Peak from joining the gallant Earl of Derby the night before the fatal
engagement in Wiggan Lane, where the Earl’s forces were dispersed. Sir
Geoffrey having had his share in that action, escaped with the relics
of the Royalists after the defeat, to join Charles II. He witnessed also
the final defeat of Worcester, where he was a second time made prisoner;
and as, in the opinion of Cromwell and the language of the times, he
was regarded as an obstinate malignant, he was in great danger of having
shared with the Earl of Derby his execution at Bolton-le-Moor, having
partaken with him the dangers of two actions. But Sir Geoffrey’s life
was preserved by the interest of a friend, who possessed influence in
the councils of Oliver.--This was a Mr. Bridgenorth, a gentleman of
middling quality, whose father had been successful in some commercial
adventure during the peaceful reign of James I.; and who had bequeathed
his son a considerable sum of money, in addition to the moderate
patrimony which he inherited from his father.

The substantial, though small-sized, brick building of Moultrassie
Hall, was but two miles distant from Martindale Castle, and the young
Bridgenorth attended the same school with the heir of the Peverils. A
sort of companionship, if not intimacy, took place betwixt them, which
continued during their youthful sports--the rather that Bridgenorth,
though he did not at heart admit Sir Geoffrey’s claims of superiority to
the extent which the other’s vanity would have exacted, paid deference
in a reasonable degree to the representative of a family so much more
ancient and important than his own, without conceiving that he in any
respect degraded himself by doing so.

Mr. Bridgenorth did not, however, carry his complaisance so far as to
embrace Sir Geoffrey’s side during the Civil War. On the contrary, as an
active Justice of the Peace, he rendered much assistance in arraying
the militia in the cause of the Parliament, and for some time held
a military commission in that service. This was partly owing to his
religious principles, for he was a zealous Presbyterian, partly to his
political ideas, which, without being absolutely democratical, favoured
the popular side of the great national question. Besides, he was a
moneyed man, and to a certain extent had a shrewd eye to his worldly
interest. He understood how to improve the opportunities which civil war
afforded, of advancing his fortune, by a dexterous use of his capital;
and he was not at a loss to perceive that these were likely to be
obtained in joining the Parliament; while the King’s cause, as it was
managed, held out nothing to the wealthy but a course of exaction
and compulsory loans. For these reasons, Bridgenorth became a decided
Roundhead, and all friendly communication betwixt his neighbour and him
was abruptly broken asunder. This was done with the less acrimony, that,
during the Civil War, Sir Geoffrey was almost constantly in the field,
following the vacillating and unhappy fortunes of his master; while
Major Bridgenorth, who soon renounced active military service, resided
chiefly in London, and only occasionally visited the Hall.

Upon these visits, it was with great pleasure he received the
intelligence, that Lady Peveril had shown much kindness to Mrs.
Bridgenorth, and had actually given her and her family shelter in
Martindale Castle, when Moultrassie Hall was threatened with pillage by
a body of Prince Rupert’s ill-disciplined Cavaliers. This acquaintance
had been matured by frequent walks together, which the vicinity of
their places of residence suffered the Lady Peveril to have with Mrs.
Bridgenorth, who deemed herself much honoured in being thus admitted
into the society of so distinguished a lady. Major Bridgenorth heard of
this growing intimacy with great pleasure, and he determined to repay
the obligation, as far as he could without much hurt to himself,
by interfering with all his influence, in behalf of her unfortunate
husband. It was chiefly owing to Major Bridgenorth’s mediation, that Sir
Geoffrey’s life was saved after the battle of Worcester. He obtained him
permission to compound for his estate on easier terms than many who had
been less obstinate in malignancy; and, finally, when, in order to
raise the money to the composition, the Knight was obliged to sell a
considerable portion of his patrimony, Major Bridgenorth became the
purchaser, and that at a larger price than had been paid to any
Cavalier under such circumstances, by a member of the Committee for
Sequestrations. It is true, the prudent committeeman did not, by any
means, lose sight of his own interest in the transaction, for the
price was, after all, very moderate, and the property lay adjacent
to Moultrassie Hall, the value of which was at least trebled by the
acquisition. But then it was also true, that the unfortunate owner must
have submitted to much worse conditions, had the committeeman used,
as others did, the full advantages which his situation gave him; and
Bridgenorth took credit to himself, and received it from others,
for having, on this occasion, fairly sacrificed his interest to his
liberality.

Sir Geoffrey Peveril was of the same opinion, and the rather that Mr.
Bridgenorth seemed to bear his exaltation with great moderation, and
was disposed to show him personally the same deference in his present
sunshine of prosperity, which he had exhibited formerly in their early
acquaintance. It is but justice to Major Bridgenorth to observe, that
in this conduct he paid respect as much to the misfortunes as to the
pretensions of his far-descended neighbour, and that, with the frank
generosity of a blunt Englishman, he conceded points of ceremony, about
which he himself was indifferent, merely because he saw that his doing
so gave pleasure to Sir Geoffrey.

Peveril of the Peak did justice to his neighbour’s delicacy, in
consideration of which he forgot many things. He forgot that Major
Bridgenorth was already in possession of a fair third of his estate, and
had various pecuniary claims affecting the remainder, to the extent of
one-third more. He endeavoured even to forget, what it was still more
difficult not to remember, the altered situation in which they and their
mansions now stood to each other.

Before the Civil War, the superb battlements and turrets of Martindale
Castle looked down on the red brick-built Hall, as it stole out from the
green plantations, just as an oak in Martindale Chase would have looked
beside one of the stunted and formal young beech-trees with which
Bridgenorth had graced his avenue; but after the siege which we have
commemorated, the enlarged and augmented Hall was as much predominant in
the landscape over the shattered and blackened ruins of the Castle, of
which only one wing was left habitable, as the youthful beech, in all
its vigour of shoot and bud, would appear to the same aged oak stripped
of its boughs, and rifted by lightning, one-half laid in shivers on the
ground, and the other remaining a blackened and ungraceful trunk, rent
and splintered, and without either life or leaves. Sir Geoffrey could
not but feel, that the situation and prospects were exchanged as
disadvantageously for himself as the appearance of their mansions; and
that though the authority of the man in office under the Parliament,
the sequestrator, and the committeeman, had been only exerted for the
protection of the Cavalier and the malignant, they would have been as
effectual if applied to procure his utter ruin; and that he was become a
client, while his neighbour was elevated into a patron.

There were two considerations, besides the necessity of the case and
the constant advice of his lady, which enabled Peveril of the Peak to
endure, with some patience, this state of degradation. The first
was, that the politics of Major Bridgenorth began, on many points, to
assimilate themselves to his own. As a Presbyterian, he was not an utter
enemy to monarchy, and had been considerably shocked at the unexpected
trial and execution of the King; as a civilian and a man of property, he
feared the domination of the military; and though he wished not to see
Charles restored by force of arms, yet he arrived at the conclusion,
that to bring back the heir of the royal family on such terms of
composition as might ensure the protection of those popular immunities
and privileges for which the Long Parliament had at first contended,
would be the surest and most desirable termination to the mutations in
state affairs which had agitated Britain. Indeed, the Major’s ideas
on this point approached so nearly those of his neighbour, that he had
well-nigh suffered Sir Geoffrey, who had a finger in almost all the
conspiracies of the Royalists, to involve him in the unfortunate rising
of Penruddock and Groves, in the west, in which many of the Presbyterian
interest, as well as the Cavalier party, were engaged. And though his
habitual prudence eventually kept him out of this and other dangers,
Major Bridgenorth was considered during the last years of Cromwell’s
domination, and the interregnum which succeeded, as a disaffected person
to the Commonwealth, and a favourer of Charles Stewart.

But besides this approximation to the same political opinions, another
bond of intimacy united the families of the Castle and the Hall.
Major Bridgenorth, fortunate, and eminently so, in all his worldly
transactions, was visited by severe and reiterated misfortunes in his
family, and became, in this particular, an object of compassion to his
poorer and more decayed neighbour. Betwixt the breaking out of the Civil
War and the Restoration, he lost successively a family of no less than
six children, apparently through a delicacy of constitution, which cut
off the little prattlers at the early age when they most wind themselves
round the heart of the parents.

In the beginning of the year 1658, Major Bridgenorth was childless; ere
it ended, he had a daughter, indeed, but her birth was purchased by the
death of an affectionate wife, whose constitution had been exhausted by
maternal grief, and by the anxious and harrowing reflection, that from
her the children they had lost derived that delicacy of health, which
proved unable to undergo the tear and wear of existence. The same voice
which told Bridgenorth that he was the father of a living child (it was
the friendly voice of Lady Peveril), communicated to him the melancholy
intelligence that he was no longer a husband. The feelings of Major
Bridgenorth were strong and deep, rather than hasty and vehement; and
his grief assumed the form of a sullen stupor, from which neither the
friendly remonstrances of Sir Geoffrey, who did not fail to be with his
neighbour at this distressing conjuncture, even though he knew he must
meet the Presbyterian pastor, nor the ghastly exhortations of this
latter person, were able to rouse the unfortunate widower.

At length Lady Peveril, with the ready invention of a female sharped
by the sight of distress and the feelings of sympathy, tried on the
sufferer one of those experiments by which grief is often awakened from
despondency into tears. She placed in Bridgenorth’s arms the infant
whose birth had cost him so dear, and conjured him to remember that his
Alice was not yet dead, since she survived in the helpless child she had
left to his paternal care.

“Take her away--take her away!” said the unhappy man, and they were the
first words he had spoken; “let me not look on her--it is but another
blossom that has bloomed to fade, and the tree that bore it will never
flourish more!”

He almost threw the child into Lady Peveril’s arms, placed his
hands before his face, and wept aloud. Lady Peveril did not say “be
comforted,” but she ventured to promise that the blossom should ripen to
fruit.

“Never, never!” said Bridgenorth; “take the unhappy child away, and let
me only know when I shall wear black for her--Wear black!” he exclaimed,
interrupting himself, “what other colour shall I wear during the
remainder of my life?”

“I will take the child for a season,” said Lady Peveril, “since the
sight of her is so painful to you; and the little Alice shall share the
nursery of our Julian, until it shall be pleasure and not pain for you
to look on her.”

“That hour will never come,” said the unhappy father; “her doom is
written--she will follow the rest--God’s will be done.--Lady, I thank
you--I trust her to your care; and I thank God that my eye shall not see
her dying agonies.”

Without detaining the reader’s attention longer on this painful theme,
it is enough to say that the Lady Peveril did undertake the duties of
a mother to the little orphan; and perhaps it was owing, in a great
measure, to her judicious treatment of the infant, that its feeble hold
of life was preserved, since the glimmering spark might probably have
been altogether smothered, had it, like the Major’s former children,
undergone the over-care and over-nursing of a mother rendered nervously
cautious and anxious by so many successive losses. The lady was the more
ready to undertake this charge, that she herself had lost two infant
children; and that she attributed the preservation of the third, now a
fine healthy child of three years old, to Julian’s being subjected to
rather a different course of diet and treatment than was then generally
practised. She resolved to follow the same regiment with the little
orphan, which she had observed in the case of her own boy; and it was
equally successful. By a more sparing use of medicine, by a bolder
admission of fresh air, by a firm, yet cautious attention to encourage
rather than to supersede the exertions of nature, the puny infant, under
the care of an excellent nurse, gradually improved in strength and in
liveliness.

Sir Geoffrey, like most men of his frank and good-natured disposition,
was naturally fond of children, and so much compassionated the sorrows
of his neighbour, that he entirely forgot his being a Presbyterian,
until it became necessary that the infant should be christened by a
teacher of that persuasion.

This was a trying case--the father seemed incapable of giving direction;
and that the threshold of Martindale Castle should be violated by the
heretical step of a dissenting clergyman, was matter of horror to its
orthodox owner. He had seen the famous Hugh Peters, with a Bible in one
hand and a pistol in the other, ride in triumph through the court-door
when Martindale was surrendered; and the bitterness of that hour had
entered like iron into his soul. Yet such was Lady Peveril’s influence
over the prejudices of her husband, that he was induced to connive
at the ceremony taking place in a remote garden house, which was not
properly within the precincts of the Castle-wall. The lady even dared
to be present while the ceremony was performed by the Reverend Master
Solsgrace, who had once preached a sermon of three hours’ length before
the House of Commons, upon a thanksgiving occasion after the relief of
Exeter. Sir Geoffrey Peveril took care to be absent the whole day from
the Castle, and it was only from the great interest which he took in
the washing, perfuming, and as it were purification of the summer-house,
that it could have been guessed he knew anything of what had taken place
in it.

But, whatever prejudices the good Knight might entertain against his
neighbour’s form of religion, they did not in any way influence his
feelings towards him as a sufferer under severe affliction. The mode in
which he showed his sympathy was rather singular, but exactly suited the
character of both, and the terms on which they stood with each other.

Morning after morning the good Baronet made Moultrassie Hall the
termination of his walk or ride, and said a single word of kindness as
he passed. Sometimes he entered the old parlour where the proprietor sat
in solitary wretchedness and despondency; but more frequently (for Sir
Geoffrey did not pretend to great talents of conversation), he paused on
the terrace, and stopping or halting his horse by the latticed window,
said aloud to the melancholy inmate, “How is it with you, Master
Bridgenorth?” (the Knight would never acknowledge his neighbour’s
military rank of Major); “I just looked in to bid you keep a good heart,
man, and to tell you that Julian is well, and little Alice is well, and
all are well at Martindale Castle.”

A deep sigh, sometimes coupled with “I thank you, Sir Geoffrey; my
grateful duty waits on Lady Peveril,” was generally Bridgenorth’s only
answer. But the news was received on the one part with the kindness
which was designed upon the other; it gradually became less painful
and more interesting; the lattice window was never closed, nor was the
leathern easy-chair which stood next to it ever empty, when the
usual hour of the Baronet’s momentary visit approached. At length the
expectation of that passing minute became the pivot upon which the
thoughts of poor Bridgenorth turned during all the rest of the day. Most
men have known the influence of such brief but ruling moments at some
period of their lives. The moment when a lover passes the window of his
mistress--the moment when the epicure hears the dinner-bell,--is that
into which is crowded the whole interest of the day; the hours which
precede it are spent in anticipation; the hours which follow, in
reflection on what has passed; and fancy dwelling on each brief
circumstance, gives to seconds the duration of minutes, to minutes that
of hours. Thus seated in his lonely chair, Bridgenorth could catch at
a distance the stately step of Sir Geoffrey, or the heavy tramp of his
war-horse, Black Hastings, which had borne him in many an action; he
could hear the hum of “The King shall enjoy his own again,” or the
habitual whistle of “Cuckolds and Roundheads,” die unto reverential
silence, as the Knight approached the mansion of affliction; and then
came the strong hale voice of the huntsman soldier with its usual
greeting.

By degrees the communication became something more protracted, as Major
Bridgenorth’s grief, like all human feelings, lost its overwhelming
violence, and permitted him to attend, in some degree, to what passed
around him, to discharge various duties which pressed upon him, and to
give a share of attention to the situation of the country, distracted as
it was by the contending factions, whose strife only terminated in the
Restoration. Still, however, though slowly recovering from the effects
of the shock which he had sustained, Major Bridgenorth felt himself
as yet unable to make up his mind to the effort necessary to see his
infant; and though separated by so short a distance from the being
in whose existence he was more interested than in anything the world
afforded, he only made himself acquainted with the windows of the
apartment where little Alice was lodged, and was often observed to
watch them from the terrace, as they brightened in the evening under the
influence of the setting sun. In truth, though a strong-minded man in
most respects, he was unable to lay aside the gloomy impression that
this remaining pledge of affection was soon to be conveyed to that grave
which had already devoured all besides that was dear to him; and he
awaited in miserable suspense the moment when he should hear that
symptoms of the fatal malady had begun to show themselves.

The voice of Peveril continued to be that of a comforter until the month
of April 1660, when it suddenly assumed a new and different tone. “The
King shall enjoy his own again,” far from ceasing, as the hasty tread
of Black Hastings came up the avenue, bore burden to the clatter of
his hoofs on the paved courtyard, as Sir Geoffrey sprang from his great
war-saddle, now once more garnished with pistols of two feet in length,
and, armed with steel-cap, back and breast, and a truncheon in his hand,
he rushed into the apartment of the astonished Major, with his eyes
sparkling, and his cheek inflamed, while he called out, “Up! up,
neighbour! No time now to mope in the chimney-corner! Where is your
buff-coat and broadsword, man? Take the true side once in your life, and
mend past mistakes. The King is all lenity, man--all royal nature and
mercy. I will get your full pardon.”

“What means all this?” said Bridgenorth--“Is all well with you--all well
at Martindale Castle, Sir Geoffrey?”

“Well as you could wish them, Alice, and Julian, and all. But I have
news worth twenty of that--Monk has declared at London against those
stinking scoundrels the Rump. Fairfax is up in Yorkshire--for the
King--for the King, man! Churchmen, Presbyterians, and all, are in buff
and bandoleer for King Charles. I have a letter from Fairfax to secure
Derby and Chesterfield with all the men I can make. D--n him, fine that
I should take orders from him! But never mind that--all are friends now,
and you and I, good neighbour, will charge abreast, as good neighbours
should. See there! read--read--read--and then boot and saddle in an
instant.

 ‘Hey for cavaliers--ho for cavaliers,
  Pray for cavaliers,
    Dub-a-dub, dub-a-dub,
    Have at old Beelzebub,
  Oliver shakes in his bier!’”

After thundering forth this elegant effusion of loyal enthusiasm, the
sturdy Cavalier’s heart became too full. He threw himself on a seat, and
exclaiming, “Did ever I think to live to see this happy day!” he wept,
to his own surprise, as much as to that of Bridgenorth.

Upon considering the crisis in which the country was placed, it appeared
to Major Bridgenorth, as it had done to Fairfax, and other leaders of
the Presbyterian party, that their frank embracing of the royal interest
was the wisest and most patriotic measure which they could adopt in the
circumstances, when all ranks and classes of men were seeking refuge
from the uncertainty and varied oppression attending the repeated
contests between the factions of Westminster Hall and of Wallingford
House. Accordingly he joined with Sir Geoffrey, with less enthusiasm
indeed, but with equal sincerity, taking such measures as seemed proper
to secure their part of the country on the King’s behalf, which was
done as effectually and peaceably as in other parts of England. The
neighbours were both at Chesterfield, when news arrived that the King
had landed in England; and Sir Geoffrey instantly announced his purpose
of waiting upon his Majesty, even before his return to the Castle of
Martindale.

“Who knows, neighbour,” he said, “whether Sir Geoffrey Peveril will ever
return to Martindale? Titles must be going amongst them yonder, and
I have deserved something among the rest.--Lord Peveril would sound
well--or stay, Earl of Martindale--no, not of Martindale--Earl of the
Peak.--Meanwhile, trust your affairs to me--I will see you secured--I
would you had been no Presbyterian, neighbour--a knighthood,--I mean
a knight-bachelor, not a knight-baronet,--would have served your turn
well.”

“I leave these things to my betters, Sir Geoffrey,” said the Major, “and
desire nothing so earnestly as to find all well at Martindale when I
return.”

“You will--you will find them all well,” said the Baronet; “Julian,
Alice, Lady Peveril, and all of them--Bear my commendations to them, and
kiss them all, neighbour, Lady Peveril and all--you may kiss a Countess
when I come back; all will go well with you now you are turned honest
man.”

“I always meant to be so, Sir Geoffrey,” said Bridgenorth calmly.

“Well, well, well--no offence meant,” said the Knight, “all is well
now--so you to Moultrassie Hall, and I to Whitehall. Said I well, aha!
So ho, mine host, a stoup of Canary to the King’s health ere we get to
horse--I forgot, neighbour--you drink no healths.”

“I wish the King’s health as sincerely as if I drank a gallon to it,”
 replied the Major; “and I wish you, Sir Geoffrey, all success on your
journey, and a safe return.”




CHAPTER II

       Why, then, we will have bellowing of beeves,
       Broaching of barrels, brandishing of spigots;
       Blood shall flow freely, but it shall be gore
       Of herds and flocks, and venison and poultry,
       Join’d to the brave heart’s-blood of John-a-Barleycorn!
                                                --OLD PLAY.

Whatever rewards Charles might have condescended to bestow in
acknowledgement of the sufferings and loyalty of Peveril of the Peak,
he had none in his disposal equal to the pleasure which Providence had
reserved for Bridgenorth on his return to Derbyshire. The exertion to
which he had been summoned, had had the usual effect of restoring to a
certain extent the activity and energy of his character, and he felt it
would be unbecoming to relapse into the state of lethargic melancholy
from which it had roused him. Time also had its usual effect in
mitigating the subjects of his regret; and when he had passed one day at
the Hall in regretting that he could not expect the indirect news of his
daughter’s health, which Sir Geoffrey used to communicate in his almost
daily call, he reflected that it would be in every respect becoming that
he should pay a personal visit at Martindale Castle, carry thither the
remembrances of the Knight to his lady, assure her of his health, and
satisfy himself respecting that of his daughter. He armed himself for
the worst--he called to recollection the thin cheeks, faded eye, wasted
hand, pallid lip, which had marked the decaying health of all his former
infants.

“I shall see,” he said, “these signs of mortality once more--I shall
once more see a beloved being to whom I have given birth, gliding to
the grave which ought to enclose me long before her. No matter--it is
unmanly so long to shrink from that which must be--God’s will be done!”

He went accordingly, on the subsequent morning, to Martindale Castle,
and gave the lady the welcome assurances of her husband’s safety, and of
his hopes of preferment.

“For the first, may Almighty God be praised!” said the Lady Peveril;
“and be the other as our gracious and restored Sovereign may will it.
We are great enough for our means, and have means sufficient for
contentment, though not for splendour. And now I see, good Master
Bridgenorth, the folly of putting faith in idle presentiments of evil.
So often had Sir Geoffrey’s repeated attempts in favour of the Stewarts
led him into new misfortunes, that when, the other morning, I saw
him once more dressed in his fatal armour, and heard the sound of his
trumpet, which had been so long silent, it seemed to me as if I saw his
shroud, and heard his death-knell. I say this to you, good neighbour,
the rather because I fear your own mind has been harassed with
anticipations of impending calamity, which it may please God to avert
in your case as it has done in mine; and here comes a sight which bears
good assurance of it.”

The door of the apartment opened as she spoke, and two lovely children
entered. The eldest, Julian Peveril, a fine boy betwixt four and
five years old, led in his hand, with an air of dignified support and
attention, a little girl of eighteen months, who rolled and tottered
along, keeping herself with difficulty upright by the assistance of her
elder, stronger, and masculine companion.

Bridgenorth cast a hasty and fearful glance upon the countenance of his
daughter, and, even in that glimpse, perceived, with exquisite delight,
that his fears were unfounded. He caught her in his arms, pressed her
to his heart, and the child, though at first alarmed at the vehemence
of his caresses, presently, as if prompted by Nature, smiled in reply to
them. Again he held her at some distance from him, and examined her
more attentively; he satisfied himself that the complexion of the young
cherub he had in his arms was not the hectic tinge of disease, but the
clear hue of ruddy health; and that though her little frame was slight,
it was firm and springy.

“I did not think that it could have been thus,” he said, looking to
Lady Peveril, who had sat observing the scene with great pleasure; “but
praise be to God in the first instance, and next, thanks to you, madam,
who have been His instrument.”

“Julian must lose his playfellow now, I suppose?” said the lady; “but
the Hall is not distant, and I will see my little charge often. Dame
Martha, the housekeeper at Moultrassie, has sense, and is careful. I
will tell her the rules I have observed with little Alice, and----”

“God forbid my girl should ever come to Moultrassie,” said Major
Bridgenorth hastily; “it has been the grave of her race. The air of the
low grounds suited them not--or there is perhaps a fate connected with
the mansion. I will seek for her some other place of abode.”

“That you shall not, under your favour be it spoken, Major Bridgenorth,”
 answered the lady. “If you do so, we must suppose that you are
undervaluing my qualities as a nurse. If she goes not to her father’s
house, she shall not quit mine. I will keep the little lady as a pledge
of her safety and my own skill; and since you are afraid of the damp of
the low grounds, I hope you will come here frequently to visit her.”

This was a proposal which went to the heart of Major Bridgenorth. It was
precisely the point which he would have given worlds to arrive at, but
which he saw no chance of attaining.

It is too well known, that those whose families are long pursued by such
a fatal disease as existed in his, become, it may be said, superstitious
respecting its fatal effects, and ascribe to place, circumstance, and
individual care, much more perhaps than these can in any case contribute
to avert the fatality of constitutional distemper. Lady Peveril was
aware that this was peculiarly the impression of her neighbour; that the
depression of his spirits, the excess of his care, the feverishness of
his apprehensions, the restraint and gloom of the solitude in which he
dwelt, were really calculated to produce the evil which most of all he
dreaded. She pitied him, she felt for him, she was grateful for former
protection received at his hands--she had become interested in the child
itself. What female fails to feel such interest in the helpless creature
she has tended? And to sum the whole up, the dame had a share of human
vanity; and being a sort of Lady Bountiful in her way (for the character
was not then confined to the old and the foolish), she was proud of
the skill by which she had averted the probable attacks of hereditary
malady, so inveterate in the family of Bridgenorth. It needed not,
perhaps, in other cases, that so many reasons should be assigned for
an act of neighbourly humanity; but civil war had so lately torn the
country asunder, and broken all the usual ties of vicinage and good
neighbourhood, that it was unusual to see them preserved among persons
of different political opinions.

Major Bridgenorth himself felt this; and while the tear of joy in his
eye showed how gladly he would accept Lady Peveril’s proposal, he could
not help stating the obvious inconveniences attendant upon her scheme,
though it was in the tone of one who would gladly hear them overruled.
“Madam,” he said, “your kindness makes me the happiest and most thankful
of men; but can it be consistent with your own convenience? Sir Geoffrey
has his opinions on many points, which have differed, and probably do
still differ, from mine. He is high-born, and I of middling parentage
only. He uses the Church Service, and I the Catechism of the Assembly of
Divines at Westminster----”

“I hope you will find prescribed in neither of them,” said the Lady
Peveril, “that I may not be a mother to your motherless child. I trust,
Master Bridgenorth, the joyful Restoration of his Majesty, a work
wrought by the direct hand of Providence, may be the means of closing
and healing all civil and religious dissensions among us, and that,
instead of showing the superior purity of our faith, by persecuting
those who think otherwise from ourselves on doctrinal points, we shall
endeavour to show its real Christian tendency, by emulating each other
in actions of good-will towards man, as the best way of showing our love
to God.”

“Your ladyship speaks what your own kind heart dictates,” answered
Bridgenorth, who had his own share of the narrow-mindedness of the time;
“and sure am I, that if all who call themselves loyalists and Cavaliers,
thought like you--and like my friend Sir Geoffrey”--(this he added after
a moment’s pause, being perhaps rather complimentary than sincere)--“we,
who thought it our duty in time past to take arms for freedom of
conscience, and against arbitrary power, might now sit down in peace
and contentment. But I wot not how it may fall. You have sharp and hot
spirits amongst you; I will not say our power was always moderately
used, and revenge is sweet to the race of fallen Adam.”

“Come, Master Bridgenorth,” said the Lady Peveril gaily, “those evil
omenings do but point out conclusions, which, unless they were
so anticipated, are most unlikely to come to pass. You know what
Shakespeare says--

 ‘To fly the boar before the boar pursues,
  Were to incense the boar to follow us,
  And make pursuit when he did mean no chase.’

“But I crave your pardon--it is so long since we have met, that I forgot
you love no play-books.”

“With reverence to your ladyship,” said Bridgenorth, “I were much to
blame did I need the idle words of a Warwickshire stroller, to teach me
my grateful duty to your ladyship on this occasion, which appoints me to
be directed by you in all things which my conscience will permit.”

“Since you permit me such influence, then,” replied the Lady Peveril,
“I shall be moderate in exercising it, in order that I may, in my
domination at least, give you a favourable impression of the new order
of things. So, if you will be a subject of mine for one day, neighbour,
I am going, at my lord and husband’s command, to issue out my warrants
to invite the whole neighbourhood to a solemn feast at the Castle,
on Thursday next; and I not only pray you to be personally present
yourself, but to prevail on your worthy pastor, and such neighbours and
friends, high and low, as may think in your own way, to meet with the
rest of the neighbourhood, to rejoice on this joyful occasion of the
King’s Restoration, and thereby to show that we are to be henceforward a
united people.”

The parliamentarian Major was considerably embarrassed by this proposal.
He looked upward, and downward, and around, cast his eye first to the
oak-carved ceiling, and anon fixed it upon the floor; then threw
it around the room till it lighted on his child, the sight of whom
suggested another and a better train of reflections than ceiling and
floor had been able to supply.

“Madam,” he said, “I have long been a stranger to festivity, perhaps
from constitutional melancholy, perhaps from the depression which is
natural to a desolate and deprived man, in whose ear mirth is marred,
like a pleasant air when performed on a mistuned instrument. But though
neither my thoughts nor temperament are Jovial or Mercurial, it becomes
me to be grateful to Heaven for the good He has sent me by the means of
your ladyship. David, the man after God’s own heart, did wash and eat
bread when his beloved child was removed--mine is restored to me, and
shall I not show gratitude under a blessing, when he showed resignation
under an affliction? Madam, I will wait on your gracious invitation with
acceptance; and such of my friends with whom I may possess influence,
and whose presence your ladyship may desire, shall accompany me to the
festivity, that our Israel may be as one people.”

Having spoken these words with an aspect which belonged more to a martyr
than to a guest bidden to a festival, and having kissed, and solemnly
blessed his little girl, Major Bridgenorth took his departure for
Moultrassie Hall.




CHAPTER III

            Here’s neither want of appetite nor mouths;
            Pray Heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth!
                                                --OLD PLAY.

Even upon ordinary occasions, and where means were ample, a great
entertainment in those days was not such a sinecure as in modern times,
when the lady who presides has but to intimate to her menials the day
and hour when she wills it to take place. At that simple period, the
lady was expected to enter deeply into the arrangement and provision of
the whole affair; and from a little gallery, which communicated with
her own private apartment, and looked down upon the kitchen, her shrill
voice was to be heard, from time to time, like that of the warning
spirit in a tempest, rising above the clash of pots and stewpans--the
creaking spits--the clattering of marrowbones and cleavers--the
scolding of cooks--and all the other various kinds of din which form an
accompaniment to dressing a large dinner.

But all this toil and anxiety was more than doubled in the case of the
approaching feast at Martindale Castle, where the presiding Genius
of the festivity was scarce provided with adequate means to carry her
hospitable purpose into effect. The tyrannical conduct of husbands,
in such cases, is universal; and I scarce know one householder of my
acquaintance who has not, on some ill-omened and most inconvenient
season, announced suddenly to his innocent helpmate, that he had invited

 “Some odious Major Rock,
  To drop in at six o’clock.”

to the great discomposure of the lady, and the discredit, perhaps, of
her domestic arrangements.

Peveril of the Peak was still more thoughtless; for he had directed his
lady to invite the whole honest men of the neighbourhood to make good
cheer at Martindale Castle, in honour of the blessed Restoration of his
most sacred Majesty, without precisely explaining where the provisions
were to come from. The deer-park had lain waste ever since the siege;
the dovecot could do little to furnish forth such an entertainment;
the fishponds, it is true, were well provided (which the neighbouring
Presbyterians noted as a suspicious circumstance); and game was to be
had for the shooting, upon the extensive heaths and hills of
Derbyshire. But these were but the secondary parts of a banquet; and
the house-steward and bailiff, Lady Peveril’s only coadjutors and
counsellors, could not agree how the butcher-meat--the most substantial
part, or, as it were, the main body of the entertainment--was to be
supplied. The house-steward threatened the sacrifice of a fine yoke of
young bullocks, which the bailiff, who pleaded the necessity of their
agricultural services, tenaciously resisted; and Lady Peveril’s good
and dutiful nature did not prevent her from making some impatient
reflections on the want of consideration of her absent Knight, who had
thus thoughtlessly placed her in so embarrassing a situation.

These reflections were scarcely just, if a man is only responsible for
such resolutions as he adopts when he is fully master of himself. Sir
Geoffrey’s loyalty, like that of many persons in his situation, had,
by dint of hopes and fears, victories and defeats, struggles and
sufferings, all arising out of the same moving cause, and turning, as
it were, on the same pivot, acquired the character of an intense and
enthusiastic passion; and the singular and surprising change of fortune,
by which his highest wishes were not only gratified, but far exceeded,
occasioned for some time a kind of intoxication of loyal rapture which
seemed to pervade the whole kingdom. Sir Geoffrey had seen Charles
and his brothers, and had been received by the merry monarch with that
graceful, and at the same time frank urbanity, by which he conciliated
all who approached him; the Knight’s services and merits had been
fully acknowledged, and recompense had been hinted at, if not expressly
promised. Was it for Peveril of the Peak, in the jubilee of his spirits,
to consider how his wife was to find beef and mutton to feast his
neighbours?

Luckily, however, for the embarrassed lady, there existed some one who
had composure of mind sufficient to foresee this difficulty. Just as
she had made up her mind, very reluctantly, to become debtor to Major
Bridgenorth for the sum necessary to carry her husband’s commands into
effect, and whilst she was bitterly regretting this departure from the
strictness of her usual economy, the steward, who, by-the-bye, had not
been absolutely sober since the news of the King’s landing at Dover,
burst into the apartment, snapping his fingers, and showing more marks
of delight than was quite consistent with the dignity of my lady’s large
parlour.

“What means this, Whitaker?” said the lady, somewhat peevishly; for she
was interrupted in the commencement of a letter to her neighbour on the
unpleasant business of the proposed loan,--“Is it to be always thus with
you?--Are you dreaming?”

“A vision of good omen, I trust,” said the steward, with a triumphant
flourish of the hand; “far better than Pharaoh’s, though, like his, it
be of fat kine.”

“I prithee be plain, man,” said the lady, “or fetch some one who can
speak to purpose.”

“Why, odds-my-life, madam,” said the steward, “mine errand can speak for
itself. Do you not hear them low? Do you not hear them bleat? A yoke of
fat oxen, and half a score prime wethers. The Castle is victualled for
this bout, let them storm when they will; and Gatherill may have his
d--d mains ploughed to the boot.”

The lady, without farther questioning her elated domestic, rose and went
to the window, where she certainly beheld the oxen and sheep which had
given rise to Whitaker’s exultation. “Whence come they?” said she, in
some surprise.

“Let them construe that who can,” answered Whitaker; “the fellow who
drove them was a west-country man, and only said they came from a friend
to help to furnish out your ladyship’s entertainment; the man would
not stay to drink--I am sorry he would not stay to drink--I crave your
ladyship’s pardon for not keeping him by the ears to drink--it was not
my fault.”

“That I’ll be sworn it was not,” said the lady.

“Nay, madam, by G--, I assure you it was not,” said the zealous steward;
“for, rather than the Castle should lose credit, I drank his health
myself in double ale, though I had had my morning draught already. I
tell you the naked truth, my lady, by G--!”

“It was no great compulsion, I suppose,” said the lady; “but, Whitaker,
suppose you should show your joy on such occasions, by drinking and
swearing a little less, rather than a little more, would it not be as
well, think you?”

“I crave your ladyship’s pardon,” said Whitaker, with much reverence; “I
hope I know my place. I am your ladyship’s poor servant; and I know it
does not become me to drink and swear like your ladyship--that is, like
his honour, Sir Geoffrey, I would say. But I pray you, if I am not to
drink and swear after my degree, how are men to know Peveril of the
Peak’s steward,--and I may say butler too, since I have had the keys of
the cellar ever since old Spigots was shot dead on the northwest turret,
with a black jack in his hand,--I say, how is an old Cavalier like me
to be known from those cuckoldly Roundheads that do nothing but fast and
pray, if we are not to drink and swear according to our degree?”

The lady was silent, for she well knew speech availed nothing; and,
after a moment’s pause, proceeded to intimate to the steward that she
would have the persons, whose names were marked in a written paper,
which she delivered to him, invited to the approaching banquet.

Whitaker, instead of receiving the list with the mute acquiescence of
a modern Major Domo, carried it into the recess of one of the windows,
and, adjusting his spectacles, began to read it to himself. The
first names, being those of distinguished Cavalier families in the
neighbourhood, he muttered over in a tone of approbation--paused and
pshawed at that of Bridgenorth--yet acquiesced, with the observation,
“But he is a good neighbour, so it may pass for once.” But when he read
the name and surname of Nehemiah Solsgrace, the Presbyterian parson,
Whitaker’s patience altogether forsook him; and he declared he would as
soon throw himself into Eldon-hole,[*] as consent that the intrusive old
puritan howlet, who had usurped the pulpit of a sound orthodox divine,
should ever darken the gates of Martindale Castle by any message or
mediation of his.

[*] A chasm in the earth supposed to be unfathomable, one of the
    wonders of the Peak.

“The false crop-eared hypocrites,” cried he, with a hearty oath, “have
had their turn of the good weather. The sun is on our side of the hedge
now, and we will pay off old scores, as sure as my name is Richard
Whitaker.”

“You presume on your long services, Whitaker, and on your master’s
absence, or you had not dared to use me thus,” said the lady.

The unwonted agitation of her voice attracted the attention of the
refractory steward, notwithstanding his present state of elevation; but
he no sooner saw that her eye glistened, and her cheek reddened, than
his obstinacy was at once subdued.

“A murrain on me,” he said, “but I have made my lady angry in good
earnest! and that is an unwonted sight for to see.--I crave your
pardon, my lady! It was not poor Dick Whitaker disputed your honourable
commands, but only that second draught of double ale. We have put a
double stroke of malt to it, as your ladyship well knows, ever since the
happy Restoration. To be sure I hate a fanatic as I do the cloven foot
of Satan; but then your honourable ladyship hath a right to invite Satan
himself, cloven foot and all, to Martindale Castle; and to send me
to hell’s gate with a billet of invitation--and so your will shall be
done.”

The invitations were sent round accordingly, in all due form; and one of
the bullocks was sent down to be roasted whole at the market-place of a
little village called Martindale-Moultrassie, which stood considerably
to the eastward both of the Castle and Hall, from which it took its
double name, at about an equal distance from both; so that, suppose a
line drawn from the one manor-house to the other, to be the base of a
triangle, the village would have occupied the salient angle. As the said
village, since the late transference of a part of Peveril’s property,
belonged to Sir Geoffrey and to Bridgenorth in nearly equal portions,
the lady judged it not proper to dispute the right of the latter to add
some hogsheads of beer to the popular festivity.

In the meanwhile, she could not but suspect the Major of being the
unknown friend who had relieved her from the dilemma arising from the
want of provisions; and she esteemed herself happy when a visit from
him, on the day preceding the proposed entertainment, gave her, as she
thought, an opportunity of expressing her gratitude.




CHAPTER IV

          No, sir--I will not pledge--I’m one of those
          Who think good wine needs neither bush nor preface
          To make it welcome. If you doubt my word,
          Fill the quart-cup, and see if I will choke on’t.
                                                   --OLD PLAY.

There was a serious gravity of expression in the disclamation with which
Major Bridgenorth replied to the thanks tendered to him by Lady
Peveril, for the supply of provisions which had reached her Castle so
opportunely. He seemed first not to be aware what she alluded to; and,
when she explained the circumstance, he protested so seriously that he
had no share in the benefit conferred, that Lady Peveril was compelled
to believe him, the rather that, being a man of plain downright
character, affecting no refined delicacy of sentiment, and practising
almost a quaker-like sincerity of expression, it would have been much
contrary to his general character to have made such a disavowal, unless
it were founded in truth.

“My present visit to you, madam,” said he, “had indeed some reference to
the festivity of to-morrow.” Lady Peveril listened, but as her visitor
seemed to find some difficulty in expressing himself, she was compelled
to ask an explanation. “Madam,” said the Major, “you are not perhaps
entirely ignorant that the more tender-conscienced among us have
scruples at certain practices, so general amongst your people at times
of rejoicing, that you may be said to insist upon them as articles of
faith, or at least greatly to resent their omission.”

“I trust, Master Bridgenorth,” said the Lady Peveril, not fully
comprehending the drift of his discourse, “that we shall, as your
entertainers, carefully avoid all allusions or reproaches founded on
past misunderstanding.”

“We would expect no less, madam, from your candour and courtesy,” said
Bridgenorth; “but I perceive you do not fully understand me. To be
plain, then, I allude to the fashion of drinking healths, and pledging
each other in draughts of strong liquor, which most among us consider as
a superfluous and sinful provoking of each other to debauchery, and
the excessive use of strong drink; and which, besides, if derived, as
learned divines have supposed, from the custom of the blinded Pagans,
who made libations and invoked idols when they drank, may be justly said
to have something in it heathenish, and allied to demon-worship.”

The lady had already hastily considered all the topics which were
likely to introduce discord into the proposed festivity; but this very
ridiculous, yet fatal discrepancy, betwixt the manners of the parties on
convivial occasions, had entirely escaped her. She endeavoured to soothe
the objecting party, whose brows were knit like one who had fixed an
opinion by which he was determined to abide.

“I grant,” she said, “my good neighbour, that this custom is at least
idle, and may be prejudicial if it leads to excess in the use of liquor,
which is apt enough to take place without such conversation. But I
think, when it hath not this consequence, it is a thing indifferent,
affords a unanimous mode of expressing our good wishes to our friends,
and our loyal duty to our sovereign; and, without meaning to put any
force upon the inclination of those who believe otherwise, I cannot see
how I can deny my guests and friends the privilege of drinking a health
to the King, or to my husband, after the old English fashion.”

“My lady,” said the Major, “if the age of fashion were to command it,
Popery is one of the oldest English fashions that I have heard of; but
it is our happiness that we are not benighted like our fathers, and
therefore we must act according to the light that is in us, and not
after their darkness. I had myself the honour to attend the Lord-Keeper
Whitelocke, when, at the table of the Chamberlain of the kingdom of
Sweden, he did positively refuse to pledge the health of his Queen,
Christina, thereby giving great offence, and putting in peril the whole
purpose of that voyage; which it is not to be thought so wise a man
would have done, but that he held such compliance a thing not merely
indifferent, but rather sinful and damnable.”

“With all respect to Whitelocke,” said the Lady Peveril, “I continue of
my own opinion, though, Heaven knows, I am no friend to riot or wassail.
I would fain accommodate myself to your scruples, and will discourage
all other pledges; but surely those of the King and of Peveril of the
Peak may be permitted?”

“I dare not,” answered Bridgenorth, “lay even the ninety-ninth part of a
grain of incense upon an altar erected to Satan.”

“How, sir!” said the lady; “do you bring Satan into comparison with our
master King Charles, and with my noble lord and husband?”

“Pardon me, madam,” answered Bridgenorth, “I have no such
thoughts--indeed they would ill become me. I do wish the King’s health
and Sir Geoffrey’s devoutly, and I will pray for both. But I see not
what good it should do their health if I should prejudice my own by
quaffing pledges out of quart flagons.”

“Since we cannot agree upon this matter,” said Lady Peveril, “we must
find some resource by which to offend those of neither party. Suppose
you winked at our friends drinking these pledges, and we should connive
at your sitting still?”

But neither would this composition satisfy Bridgenorth, who was of
opinion, as he expressed himself, that it would be holding a candle
to Beelzebub. In fact, his temper, naturally stubborn, was at present
rendered much more so by a previous conference with his preacher, who,
though a very good man in the main, was particularly and illiberally
tenacious of the petty distinctions which his sect adopted; and while he
thought with considerable apprehension on the accession of power which
Popery, Prelacy, and Peveril of the Peak, were like to acquire by the
late Revolution, became naturally anxious to put his flock on their
guard, and prevent their being kidnapped by the wolf. He disliked
extremely that Major Bridgenorth, indisputably the head of the
Presbyterian interest in that neighbourhood, should have given his only
daughter to be, as he termed it, nursed by a Canaanitish woman; and
he told him plainly that he liked not this going to feast in the
high places with the uncircumcised in heart, and looked on the whole
conviviality only as a making-merry in the house of Tirzah.

Upon receiving this rebuke from his pastor, Bridgenorth began to suspect
he might have been partly wrong in the readiness which, in his first
ardour of gratitude, he had shown to enter into intimate intercourse
with the Castle of Martindale; but he was too proud to avow this to the
preacher, and it was not till after a considerable debate betwixt them,
that it was mutually agreed their presence at the entertainment should
depend upon the condition, that no healths or pledges should be given
in their presence. Bridgenorth, therefore, as the delegate and
representative of his party, was bound to stand firm against all
entreaty, and the lady became greatly embarrassed. She now regretted
sincerely that her well-intended invitation had ever been given, for she
foresaw that its rejection was to awaken all former subjects of quarrel,
and perhaps to lead to new violences amongst people who had not many
years since been engaged in civil war. To yield up the disputed point to
the Presbyterians, would have been to offend the Cavalier party, and Sir
Geoffrey in particular, in the most mortal degree; for they made it
as firm a point of honour to give healths, and compel others to pledge
them, as the Puritans made it a deep article of religion to refuse
both. At length the lady changed the discourse, introduced that of Major
Bridgenorth’s child, caused it to be sent for, and put into his arms.
The mother’s stratagem took effect; for, though the parliamentary major
stood firm, the father, as in the case of the Governor of Tilbury, was
softened, and he agreed that his friends should accept a compromise.
This was, that the major himself, the reverend divine, and such of their
friends as held strict Puritan tenets, should form a separate party
in the Large Parlour, while the Hall should be occupied by the jovial
Cavaliers; and that each party should regulate their potations after
their own conscience, or after their own fashion.

Major Bridgenorth himself seemed greatly relieved after this important
matter had been settled. He had held it matter of conscience to be
stubborn in maintaining his own opinion, but was heartily glad when
he escaped from the apparently inevitable necessity of affronting Lady
Peveril by the refusal of her invitation. He remained longer than usual,
and spoke and smiled more than was his custom. His first care on
his return was to announce to the clergyman and his congregation the
compromise which he had made, and this not as a matter for deliberation,
but one upon which he had already resolved; and such was his authority
among them, that though the preacher longed to pronounce a separation of
the parties, and to exclaim--“To your tents, O Israel!” he did not see
the chance of being seconded by so many, as would make it worth while to
disturb the unanimous acquiescence in their delegate’s proposal.

Nevertheless, each party being put upon the alert by the consequences
of Major Bridgenorth’s embassy, so many points of doubt and delicate
discussion were started in succession, that the Lady Peveril, the
only person, perhaps, who was desirous of achieving an effectual
reconciliation between them, incurred, in reward for her good
intentions, the censure of both factions, and had much reason to
regret her well-meant project of bringing the Capulets and Montagues of
Derbyshire together on the same occasion of public festivity.

As it was now settled that the guests were to form two different
parties, it became not only a subject of dispute betwixt themselves,
which should be first admitted within the Castle of Martindale, but
matter of serious apprehension to Lady Peveril and Major Bridgenorth,
lest, if they were to approach by the same avenue and entrance, a
quarrel might take place betwixt them, and proceed to extremities, even
before they reached the place of entertainment. The lady believed she
had discovered an admirable expedient for preventing the possibility of
such interference, by directing that the Cavaliers should be admitted
by the principal entrance, while the Roundheads should enter the Castle
through a great breach which had been made in the course of the siege,
and across which there had been made a sort of by-path to drive the
cattle down to their pasture in the wood. By this contrivance the Lady
Peveril imagined she had altogether avoided the various risks which
might occur from two such parties encountering each other, and disputing
for precedence. Several other circumstances of less importance were
adjusted at the same time, and apparently so much to the satisfaction of
the Presbyterian teacher, that, in a long lecture on the subject of the
Marriage Garment, he was at the pains to explain to his hearers, that
outward apparel was not alone meant by that scriptural expression, but
also a suitable frame of mind for enjoyment of peaceful festivity; and
therefore he exhorted the brethren, that whatever might be the errors of
the poor blinded malignants, with whom they were in some sort to eat and
drink upon the morrow they ought not on this occasion to show any evil
will against them, lest they should therein become troublers of the
peace of Israel.

Honest Doctor Dummerar, the elected Episcopal Vicar of Martindale _cum_
Moultrassie, preached to the Cavaliers on the same subject. He had
served the cure before the breaking out of the rebellion, and was
in high favour with Sir Geoffrey, not merely on account of his sound
orthodoxy and deep learning, but his exquisite skill in playing at
bowls, and his facetious conversation over a pipe and tankard of
October. For these latter accomplishments, the Doctor had the honour to
be recorded by old Century White amongst the roll of lewd, incompetent,
profligate clergymen of the Church of England, whom he denounced to God
and man, on account chiefly of the heinous sin of playing at games of
skill and chance, and of occasionally joining in the social meetings of
their parishioners. When the King’s party began to lose ground, Doctor
Dummerar left his vicarage, and, betaking himself to the camp, showed
upon several occasions, when acting as chaplain to Sir Geoffrey
Peveril’s regiment, that his portly bodily presence included a stout
and masculine heart. When all was lost, and he himself, with most other
loyal divines, was deprived of his living, he made such shift as he
could; now lurking in the garrets of old friends in the University, who
shared with him, and such as him, the slender means of livelihood which
the evil times had left them; and now lying hid in the houses of the
oppressed and sequestered gentry, who respected at once his character
and sufferings. When the Restoration took place, Doctor Dummerar emerged
from some one of his hiding-places, and hied him to Martindale Castle,
to enjoy the triumph inseparable from this happy change.

His appearance at the Castle in his full clerical dress, and the warm
reception which he received from the neighbouring gentry, added not a
little to the alarm which was gradually extending itself through the
party which were so lately the uppermost. It is true, Doctor Dummerar
framed (honest worthy man) no extravagant views of elevation or
preferment; but the probability of his being replaced in the living,
from which he had been expelled under very flimsy pretences, inferred
a severe blow to the Presbyterian divine, who could not be considered
otherwise than as an intruder. The interest of the two preachers,
therefore, as well as the sentiments of their flocks, were at direct
variance; and here was another fatal objection in the way of Lady
Peveril’s scheme of a general and comprehensive healing ordinance.

Nevertheless, as we have already hinted, Doctor Dummerar behaved as
handsomely upon the occasion as the Presbyterian incumbent had done.
It is true, that in a sermon which he preached in the Castle hall to
several of the most distinguished Cavalier families, besides a world
of boys from the village, who went to see the novel circumstance of
a parson in a cassock and surplice, he went at great length into the
foulness of the various crimes committed by the rebellious party during
the late evil times, and greatly magnified the merciful and peaceful
nature of the honourable Lady of the Manor, who condescended to
look upon, or receive into her house in the way of friendship and
hospitality, men holding the principles which had led to the murder
of the King--the slaying and despoiling his loyal subjects--and the
plundering and breaking down of the Church of God. But then he wiped all
this handsomely up again, with the observation, that since it was the
will of their gracious and newly-restored Sovereign, and the pleasure of
the worshipful Lady Peveril, that this contumacious and rebellious race
should be, for a time, forborne by their faithful subjects, it would
be highly proper that all the loyal liegemen should, for the present,
eschew subjects of dissension or quarrel with these sons of Shimei;
which lesson of patience he enforced by the comfortable assurance, that
they could not long abstain from their old rebellious practices; in
which case, the Royalists would stand exculpated before God and man, in
extirpating them from the face of the earth.

The close observers of the remarkable passages of the times from which
we draw the events of our history, have left it upon record, that these
two several sermons, much contrary, doubtless, to the intention of the
worthy divines by whom they were delivered, had a greater effect in
exasperating, than in composing, the disputes betwixt the two factions.
Under such evil auspices, and with corresponding forebodings on the mind
of Lady Peveril, the day of festivity at length arrived.

By different routes, and forming each a sort of procession, as if the
adherents of each party were desirous of exhibiting its strength and
numbers, the two several factions approached Martindale Castle; and so
distinct did they appear in dress, aspect, and manners, that it seemed
as if the revellers of a bridal party, and the sad attendants upon a
funeral solemnity, were moving towards the same point from different
quarters.

The puritanical party was by far the fewer in numbers, for which two
excellent reasons might be given. In the first place, they had enjoyed
power for several years, and, of course, became unpopular among the
common people, never at any time attached to those, who, being in the
immediate possession of authority, are often obliged to employ it in
controlling their humours. Besides, the country people of England had,
and still have, an animated attachment to field sports, and a natural
unrestrained joviality of disposition, which rendered them impatient
under the severe discipline of the fanatical preachers; while they
were not less naturally discontented with the military despotism of
Cromwell’s Major-Generals. Secondly, the people were fickle as usual,
and the return of the King had novelty in it, and was therefore popular.
The side of the Puritans was also deserted at this period by a numerous
class of more thinking and prudential persons, who never forsook them
till they became unfortunate. These sagacious personages were called in
that age the Waiters upon Providence, and deemed it a high delinquency
towards Heaven if they afforded countenance to any cause longer than it
was favoured by fortune.

But, though thus forsaken by the fickle and the selfish, a solemn
enthusiasm, a stern and determined depth of principle, a confidence in
the sincerity of their own motives, and the manly English pride which
inclined them to cling to their former opinions, like the traveller in
the fable to his cloak, the more strongly that the tempest blew around
them, detained in the ranks of the Puritans many, who, if no longer
formidable from numbers, were still so from their character. They
consisted chiefly of the middling gentry, with others whom industry
or successful speculations in commerce or in mining had raised into
eminence--the persons who feel most umbrage from the overshadowing
aristocracy, and are usually the most vehement in defence of what they
hold to be their rights. Their dress was in general studiously simple
and unostentatious, or only remarkable by the contradictory affectation
of extreme simplicity or carelessness. The dark colour of their cloaks,
varying from absolute black to what was called sad-coloured--their
steeple-crowned hats, with their broad shadowy brims--their long swords,
suspended by a simple strap around the loins, without shoulder-belt,
sword-knot, plate, buckles, or any of the other decorations with which
the Cavaliers loved to adorn their trusty rapiers,--the shortness of
their hair, which made their ears appear of disproportioned size,--above
all, the stern and gloomy gravity of their looks, announced their
belonging to that class of enthusiasts, who, resolute and undismayed,
had cast down the former fabric of government, and who now regarded
with somewhat more than suspicion, that which had been so unexpectedly
substituted in its stead. There was gloom in their countenances; but
it was not that of dejection, far less of despair. They looked like
veterans after a defeat, which may have checked their career and wounded
their pride, but has left their courage undiminished.

The melancholy, now become habitual, which overcast Major Bridgenorth’s
countenance, well qualified him to act as the chief of the group who
now advanced from the village. When they reached the point by which they
were first to turn aside into the wood which surrounded the Castle, they
felt a momentary impression of degradation, as if they were yielding the
high road to their old and oft-defeated enemies the Cavaliers. When they
began to ascend the winding path, which had been the daily passage of
the cattle, the opening of the wooded glade gave them a view of the
Castle ditch, half choked with the rubbish of the breach, and of
the breach itself, which was made at the angle of a large square
flanking-tower, one-half of which had been battered into ruins,
while the other fragment remained in a state strangely shattered and
precarious, and seemed to be tottering above the huge aperture in the
wall. A stern still smile was exchanged among the Puritans, as the
sight reminded them of the victories of former days. Holdfast Clegg, a
millwright of Derby, who had been himself active at the siege, pointed
to the breach, and said, with a grim smile to Mr. Solsgrace, “I little
thought, that when my own hand helped to level the cannon which Oliver
pointed against yon tower, we should have been obliged to climb like
foxes up the very walls which we won by our bow and by our spear.
Methought these malignants had then enough of shutting their gates and
making high their horn against us.”

“Be patient, my brother,” said Solsgrace; “be patient, and let not thy
soul be disquieted. We enter not this high place dishonourably, seeing
we ascend by the gate which the Lord opened to the godly.”

The words of the pastor were like a spark to gunpowder. The countenances
of the mournful retinue suddenly expanded, and, accepting what had
fallen from him as an omen and a light from heaven how they were to
interpret their present situation, they uplifted, with one consent, one
of the triumphant songs in which the Israelites celebrated the victories
which had been vouchsafed to them over the heathen inhabitants of the
Promised Land:--

 “Let God arise, and then His foes
    Shall turn themselves to flight,
  His enemies for fear shall run,
    And scatter out of sight;

  And as wax melts before the fire,
    And wind blows smoke away,
  So in the presence of the Lord,
    The wicked shall decay.

  God’s army twenty thousand is,
    Of angels bright and strong,
  The Lord also in Sinai
    Is present them among.

  Thou didst, O Lord, ascend on high,
    And captive led’st them all,
  Who, in times past, Thy chosen flock
    In bondage did enthral.”

These sounds of devotional triumph reached the joyous band of the
Cavaliers, who, decked in whatever pomp their repeated misfortunes and
impoverishment had left them, were moving towards the same point,
though by a different road, and were filling the principal avenue to
the Castle, with tiptoe mirth and revelry. The two parties were strongly
contrasted; for, during that period of civil dissension, the manners
of the different factions distinguished them as completely as separate
uniforms might have done. If the Puritan was affectedly plain in his
dress, and ridiculously precise in his manners, the Cavalier often
carried his love of ornament into tawdry finery, and his contempt of
hypocrisy into licentious profligacy. Gay gallant fellows, young and
old, thronged together towards the ancient Castle, with general and
joyous manifestation of those spirits, which, as they had been buoyant
enough to support their owners during the worst of times, as they termed
Oliver’s usurpation, were now so inflated as to transport them nearly
beyond the reach of sober reason. Feathers waved, lace glittered, spears
jingled, steeds caracoled; and here and there a petronel, or pistol, was
fired off by some one, who found his own natural talents for making a
noise inadequate to the dignity of the occasion. Boys--for, as we said
before, the rabble were with the uppermost party, as usual--halloo’d
and whooped, “Down with the Rump,” and “Fie upon Oliver!” Musical
instruments, of as many different fashions as were then in use, played
all at once, and without any regard to each other’s tune; and the glee
of the occasion, while it reconciled the pride of the high-born of the
party to fraternise with the general rout, derived an additional zest
from the conscious triumph, that their exultation was heard by their
neighbours, the crestfallen Roundheads.

When the loud and sonorous swell of the psalm-tune, multiplied by all
the echoes of the cliffs and ruinous halls, came full upon their ear,
as if to warn them how little they were to reckon upon the depression
of their adversaries, at first it was answered with a scornful laugh,
raised to as much height as the scoffers’ lungs would permit, in order
that it might carry to the psalmodists the contempt of their auditors;
but this was a forced exertion of party spleen. There is something in
melancholy feelings more natural to an imperfect and suffering state
than in those of gaiety, and when they are brought into collision, the
former seldom fail to triumph. If a funeral-train and wedding-procession
were to meet unexpectedly, it will readily be allowed that the mirth of
the last would be speedily merged in the gloom of the others. But the
Cavaliers, moreover, had sympathies of a different kind. The psalm-tune,
which now came rolling on their ear, had been heard too often, and upon
too many occasions had preceded victory gained over the malignants, to
permit them, even in their triumph, to hear it without emotion. There
was a sort of pause, of which the party themselves seemed rather
ashamed, until the silence was broken by the stout old knight, Sir
Jasper Cranbourne, whose gallantry was so universally acknowledged, that
he could afford, if we may use such an expression, to confess emotions,
which men whose courage was in any respect liable to suspicion, would
have thought it imprudent to acknowledge.

“Adad,” said the old Knight, “may I never taste claret again, if that is
not the very tune with which the prick-eared villains began their onset
at Wiggan Lane, where they trowled us down like so many ninepins! Faith,
neighbours, to say truth, and shame the devil, I did not like the sound
of it above half.”

“If I thought the round-headed rogues did it in scorn of us,” said
Dick Wildblood of the Dale, “I would cudgel their psalmody out of their
peasantly throats with this very truncheon;” a motion which, being
seconded by old Roger Raine, the drunken tapster of the Peveril Arms in
the village, might have brought on a general battle, but that Sir Jasper
forbade the feud.

“We’ll have no ranting, Dick,” said the old Knight to the young
Franklin; “adad, man, we’ll have none, for three reasons: first, because
it would be ungentle to Lady Peveril; then, because it is against
the King’s peace; and, lastly, Dick, because if we did set on the
psalm-singing knaves, thou mightest come by the worst, my boy, as has
chanced to thee before.”

“Who, I! Sir Jasper?” answered Dick--“I come by the worst!--I’ll be
d--d if it ever happened but in that accursed lane, where we had no
more flank, front, or rear, than if we had been so many herrings in a
barrel.”

“That was the reason, I fancy,” answered Sir Jasper, “that you, to mend
the matter, scrambled into the hedge, and stuck there, horse and man,
till I beat thee through it with my leading-staff; and then, instead of
charging to the front, you went right-about, and away as fast as your
feet would carry you.”

This reminiscence produced a laugh at Dick’s expense, who was known, or
at least suspected, to have more tongue in his head than mettle in
his bosom. And this sort of rallying on the part of the Knight having
fortunately abated the resentment which had begun to awaken in the
breasts of the royalist cavalcade, farther cause for offence was
removed, by the sudden ceasing of the sounds which they had been
disposed to interpret into those of premeditated insult.

This was owing to the arrival of the Puritans at the bottom of the large
and wide breach, which had been formerly made in the wall of the Castle
by their victorious cannon. The sight of its gaping heaps of rubbish,
and disjointed masses of building, up which slowly winded a narrow and
steep path, such as is made amongst ancient ruins by the rare passage of
those who occasionally visit them, was calculated, when contrasted with
the grey and solid massiveness of the towers and curtains which yet
stood uninjured, to remind them of their victory over the stronghold of
their enemies, and how they had bound nobles and princes with fetters of
iron.

But feelings more suitable to the purpose of their visit to Martindale
Castle, were awakened in the bosoms even of these stern sectaries,
when the Lady of the Castle, still in the very prime of beauty and of
womanhood, appeared at the top of the breach with her principal female
attendants, to receive her guests with the honour and courtesy becoming
her invitation. She had laid aside the black dress which had been her
sole attire for several years, and was arrayed with a splendour not
unbecoming her high descent and quality. Jewels, indeed, she had none;
but her long and dark hair was surmounted with a chaplet made of oak
leaves, interspersed with lilies; the former being the emblem of the
King’s preservation in the Royal Oak, and the latter of his happy
Restoration. What rendered her presence still more interesting to those
who looked on her, was the presence of the two children whom she held in
either hand; one of whom was well known to them all to be the child
of their leader, Major Bridgenorth, who had been restored to life and
health by the almost maternal care of the Lady Peveril.

If even the inferior persons of the party felt the healing influence of
her presence, thus accompanied, poor Bridgenorth was almost overwhelmed
with it. The strictness of his cast and manners permitted him not to
sink on his knee, and kiss the hand which held his little orphan; but
the deepness of his obeisance--the faltering tremor of his voice--and
the glistening of his eye, showed a grateful respect for the lady whom
he addressed, deeper and more reverential than could have been expressed
even by Persian prostration. A few courteous and mild words, expressive
of the pleasure she found in once more seeing her neighbours as her
friends--a few kind inquiries, addressed to the principal individuals
among her guests, concerning their families and connections, completed
her triumph over angry thoughts and dangerous recollections, and
disposed men’s bosoms to sympathise with the purposes of the meeting.

Even Solsgrace himself, although imagining himself bound by his office
and duty to watch over and counteract the wiles of the “Amalekitish
woman,” did not escape the sympathetic infection; being so much struck
with the marks of peace and good-will exhibited by Lady Peveril, that he
immediately raised the psalm--

 “O what a happy thing it is,
    And joyful, for to see
  Brethren to dwell together in
    Friendship and unity!”

Accepting this salutation as a mark of courtesy repaid, the Lady Peveril
marshalled in person this party of her guests to the apartment, where
ample good cheer was provided for them; and had even the patience to
remain while Master Nehemiah Solsgrace pronounced a benediction of
portentous length, as an introduction to the banquet. Her presence was
in some measure a restraint on the worthy divine, whose prolusion lasted
the longer, and was the more intricate and embarrassed, that he felt
himself debarred from rounding it off by his usual alliterative petition
for deliverance from Popery, Prelacy, and Peveril of the Peak, which had
become so habitual to him, that, after various attempts to conclude with
some other form of words, he found himself at last obliged to pronounce
the first words of his usual _formula_ aloud, and mutter the rest in
such a manner as not to be intelligible even by those who stood nearest
to him.

The minister’s silence was followed by all the various sounds which
announce the onset of a hungry company on a well-furnished table; and at
the same time gave the lady an opportunity to leave the apartment, and
look to the accommodation of her other company. She felt, indeed,
that it was high time to do so; and that the royalist guests might be
disposed to misapprehend, or even to resent, the prior attentions which
she had thought it prudent to offer to the Puritans.

These apprehensions were not altogether ill-founded. It was in vain that
the steward had displayed the royal standard, with its proud motto of
_Tandem Triumphans_, on one of the great towers which flanked the main
entrance of the Castle; while, from the other, floated the banner of
Peveril of the Peak, under which many of those who now approached had
fought during all the vicissitudes of civil war. It was in vain he
repeated his clamorous “Welcome, noble Cavaliers! welcome, generous
gentlemen!” There was a slight murmur amongst them, that their welcome
ought to have come from the mouth of the Colonel’s lady--not from that
of a menial. Sir Jasper Cranbourne, who had sense as well as spirit and
courage, and who was aware of his fair cousin’s motives, having been
indeed consulted by her upon all the arrangements which she had adopted,
saw matters were in such a state that no time ought to be lost in
conducting the guests to the banqueting apartment, where a fortunate
diversion from all these topics of rising discontent might be made, at
the expense of the good cheer of all sorts, which the lady’s care had so
liberally provided.

The stratagem of the old soldier succeeded in its utmost extent. He
assumed the great oaken-chair usually occupied by the steward at his
audits; and Dr. Dummerar having pronounced a brief Latin benediction
(which was not the less esteemed by the hearers that none of them
understood it), Sir Jasper exhorted the company to wet their appetites
to the dinner by a brimming cup to his Majesty’s health, filled as high
and as deep as their goblets would permit. In a moment all was bustle,
with the clank of wine-cups and of flagons. In another moment the guests
were on their feet like so many statues, all hushed as death, but with
eyes glancing with expectation, and hands outstretched, which displayed
their loyal brimmers. The voice of Sir Jasper, clear, sonorous, and
emphatic, as the sound of his war-trumpet, announced the health of the
restored Monarch, hastily echoed back by the assemblage, impatient to
render it due homage. Another brief pause was filled by the draining of
their cups, and the mustering breath to join in a shout so loud, that
not only the rafters of the old hall trembled while they echoed it
back, but the garlands of oaken boughs and flowers with which they
were decorated, waved wildly, and rustled as if agitated by a sudden
whirlwind. This rite observed, the company proceeded to assail the good
cheer with which the table groaned, animated as they were to the attack
both by mirth and melody, for they were attended by all the minstrels
of the district, who, like the Episcopal clergy, had been put to silence
during the reign of the self-entitled saints of the Commonwealth. The
social occupation of good eating and drinking, the exchange of pledges
betwixt old neighbours who had been fellow-soldiers in the moment of
resistance--fellow-sufferers in the time of depression and subjugation,
and were now partners in the same general subject of congratulation,
soon wiped from their memory the trifling cause of complaint, which in
the minds of some had darkened the festivity of the day; so that when
the Lady Peveril walked into the hall, accompanied as before with
the children and her female attendants, she was welcomed with the
acclamations due to the mistress of the banquet and of the Castle--the
dame of the noble Knight, who had led most of them to battle with an
undaunted and persevering valour, which was worthy of better success.

Her address to them was brief and matronly, yet spoken with so much
feeling as found its way to every bosom. She apologised for the lateness
of her personal welcome, by reminding them that there were then present
in Martindale Castle that day, persons whom recent happy events had
converted from enemies into friends, but on whom the latter character
was so recently imposed, that she dared not neglect with them any point
of ceremonial. But those whom she now addressed, were the best, the
dearest the most faithful friends of her husband’s house, to whom and to
their valour Peveril had not only owed those successes, which had given
them and him fame during the late unhappy times, but to whose courage
she in particular had owed the preservation of their leader’s life, even
when it could not avert defeat. A word or two of heartfelt authority,
completed all which she had boldness to add, and, bowing gracefully
round her, she lifted a cup to her lips as if to welcome her guests.

There still remained, and especially amongst the old Cavaliers of the
period, some glimmering of that spirit which inspired Froissart, when he
declares that a knight hath double courage at need, when animated by the
looks and words of a beautiful and virtuous woman. It was not until the
reign which was commencing at the moment we are treating of, that
the unbounded licence of the age, introducing a general course of
profligacy, degraded the female sex into mere servants of pleasure, and,
in so doing, deprived society of that noble tone of feeling towards
the sex, which, considered as a spur to “raise the clear spirit,”
 is superior to every other impulse, save those of religion and of
patriotism. The beams of the ancient hall of Martindale Castle instantly
rang with a shout louder and shriller than that at which they had so
lately trembled, and the names of the Knight of the Peak and his lady
were proclaimed amid waving of caps and hats, and universal wishes for
their health and happiness.

Under these auspices the Lady Peveril glided from the hall, and left
free space for the revelry of the evening.

That of the Cavaliers may be easily conceived, since it had the usual
accompaniments of singing, jesting, quaffing of healths, and playing of
tunes, which have in almost every age and quarter of the world been the
accompaniments of festive cheer. The enjoyments of the Puritans were of
a different and less noisy character. They neither sung, jested, heard
music, nor drank healths; and yet they seemed not the less, in their own
phrase, to enjoy the creature-comforts, which the frailty of humanity
rendered grateful to their outward man. Old Whitaker even protested,
that, though much the smaller party in point of numbers, they discussed
nearly as much sack and claret as his own more jovial associates. But
those who considered the steward’s prejudices, were inclined to think,
that, in order to produce such a result, he must have thrown in his
own by-drinkings--no inconsiderable item--to the sum total of the
Presbyterian potations.

Without adopting such a partial and scandalous report, we shall
only say, that on this occasion, as on most others, the rareness of
indulgence promoted the sense of enjoyment, and that those who made
abstinence, or at least moderation, a point of religious principle,
enjoyed their social meeting the better that such opportunities rarely
presented themselves. If they did not actually drink each other’s
healths, they at least showed, by looking and nodding to each other as
they raised their glasses, that they all were sharing the same festive
gratification of the appetite, and felt it enhanced, because it was at
the same time enjoyed by their friends and neighbours. Religion, as it
was the principal topic of their thoughts, became also the chief subject
of their conversation, and as they sat together in small separate knots,
they discussed doctrinal and metaphysical points of belief, balanced the
merits of various preachers, compared the creeds of contending sects,
and fortified by scriptural quotations those which they favoured.
Some contests arose in the course of these debates, which might have
proceeded farther than was seemly, but for the cautious interference
of Major Bridgenorth. He suppressed also, in the very bud, a dispute
betwixt Gaffer Hodgeson of Charnelycot and the Reverend Mr. Solsgrace,
upon the tender subject of lay-preaching and lay-ministering; nor did he
think it altogether prudent or decent to indulge the wishes of some of
the warmer enthusiasts of the party, who felt disposed to make the rest
partakers of their gifts in extemporaneous prayer and exposition. These
were absurdities that belonged to the time, which, however, the Major
had sense enough to perceive were unfitted, whether the offspring of
hypocrisy or enthusiasm, for the present time and place.

The Major was also instrumental in breaking up the party at an early and
decorous hour, so that they left the Castle long before their rivals,
the Cavaliers, had reached the springtide of their merriment; an
arrangement which afforded the greatest satisfaction to the lady, who
dreaded the consequences which might not improbably have taken place,
had both parties met at the same period and point of retreat.

It was near midnight ere the greater part of the Cavaliers, meaning such
as were able to effect their departure without assistance, withdrew to
the village of Martindale Moultrassie, with the benefit of the broad
moon to prevent the chance of accidents. Their shouts, and the burden of
their roaring chorus of--

 “The King shall enjoy his own again!”

were heard with no small pleasure by the lady, heartily glad that
the riot of the day was over without the occurrence of any unpleasing
accident. The rejoicing was not, however, entirely ended; for the
elevated Cavaliers, finding some of the villagers still on foot around a
bonfire on the street, struck merrily in with them--sent to Roger Raine
of the Peveril Arms, the loyal publican whom we have already mentioned,
for two tubs of merry stingo (as it was termed), and lent their own
powerful assistance at the _dusting_ it off to the health of the King
and the loyal General Monk. Their shouts for a long time disturbed, and
even alarmed, the little village; but no enthusiasm is able to
withstand for ever the natural consequences of late hours, and potations
pottle-deep. The tumult of the exulting Royalists at last sunk into
silence, and the moon and the owl were left in undisturbed sovereignty
over the old tower of the village church, which, rising white above a
circle of knotty oaks, was tenanted by the bird, and silvered by the
planet.




CHAPTER V

             ‘Twas when they raised, ‘mid sap and siege,
             The banners of their rightful liege,
               At their she-captain’s call,
             Who, miracle of womankind!
             Lent mettle to the meanest hind
               That mann’d her castle wall.
                                           --WILLIAM S. ROSE.

On the morning succeeding the feast, the Lady Peveril, fatigued with the
exertions and the apprehensions of the former day, kept her apartment
for two or three hours later than her own active habits, and the
matutinal custom of the time, rendered usual. Meanwhile, Mistress
Ellesmere, a person of great trust in the family, and who assumed much
authority in her mistress’s absence, laid her orders upon Deborah, the
governante, immediately to carry the children to their airing in the
park, and not to let any one enter the gilded chamber, which was
usually their sporting-place. Deborah, who often rebelled, and sometimes
successfully, against the deputed authority of Ellesmere, privately
resolved that it was about to rain, and that the gilded chamber was a
more suitable place for the children’s exercise than the wet grass of
the park on a raw morning.

But a woman’s brain is sometimes as inconstant as a popular assembly;
and presently after she had voted the morning was like to be rainy,
and that the gilded chamber was the fittest play-room for the children,
Mistress Deborah came to the somewhat inconsistent resolution, that the
park was the fittest place for her own morning walk. It is certain,
that during the unrestrained joviality of the preceding evening, she had
danced till midnight with Lance Outram the park-keeper; but how far the
seeing him just pass the window in his woodland trim, with a feather in
his hat, and a crossbow under his arm, influenced the discrepancy of the
opinions Mistress Deborah formed concerning the weather, we are far
from presuming to guess. It is enough for us, that, so soon as Mistress
Ellesmere’s back was turned, Mistress Deborah carried the children into
the gilded chamber, not without a strict charge (for we must do her
justice) to Master Julian to take care of his little wife, Mistress
Alice; and then, having taken so satisfactory a precaution, she herself
glided into the park by the glass-door of the still-room, which was
nearly opposite to the great breach.

The gilded chamber in which the children were, by this arrangement,
left to amuse themselves, without better guardianship than what Julian’s
manhood afforded, was a large apartment, hung with stamped Spanish
leather, curiously gilded, representing, in a manner now obsolete, but
far from unpleasing, a series of tilts and combats betwixt the Saracens
of Grenada, and the Spaniards under the command of King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella, during that memorable siege, which was terminated by the
overthrow of the last fragments of the Moorish empire in Spain.

The little Julian was careering about the room for the amusement of his
infant friend, as well as his own, mimicking with a reed the menacing
attitude of the Abencerrages and Zegris engaged in the Eastern sport of
hurling the JERID, or javelin; and at times sitting down beside her, and
caressing her into silence and good humour, when the petulant or timid
child chose to become tired of remaining an inactive spectator of his
boisterous sport; when, on a sudden, he observed one of the panelled
compartments of the leather hangings slide apart, so as to show a fair
hand, with its fingers resting upon its edge, prepared, it would seem,
to push it still farther back. Julian was much surprised, and somewhat
frightened, at what he witnessed, for the tales of the nursery had
strongly impressed on his mind the terrors of the invisible world. Yet,
naturally bold and high-spirited, the little champion placed himself
beside his defenceless sister, continuing to brandish his weapon in her
defence, as boldly as he had himself been an Abencerrage of Grenada.

The panel, on which his eye was fixed, gradually continued to slide
back, and display more and more the form to which the hand appertained,
until, in the dark aperture which was disclosed, the children saw the
figure of a lady in a mourning dress, past the meridian of life, but
whose countenance still retained traces of great beauty, although the
predominant character both of her features and person was an air of
almost royal dignity. After pausing a moment on the threshold of the
portal which she had thus unexpectedly disclosed, and looking with
some surprise at the children, whom she had not probably observed while
engaged with the management of the panel, the stranger stepped into the
apartment, and the panel, upon a touch of a spring, closed behind her so
suddenly, that Julian almost doubted it had ever been open, and began to
apprehend that the whole apparition had been a delusion.

The stately lady, however, advanced to him, and said, “Are not you the
little Peveril?”

“Yes,” said the boy, reddening, not altogether without a juvenile
feeling of that rule of chivalry which forbade any one to disown his
name, whatever danger might be annexed to the avowal of it.

“Then,” said the stately stranger, “go to your mother’s room, and tell
her to come instantly to speak with me.”

“I wo’not,” said the little Julian.

“How?” said the lady,--“so young and so disobedient?--but you do but
follow the fashion of the time. Why will you not go, my pretty boy, when
I ask it of you as a favour?”

“I would go, madam,” said the boy, “but”--and he stopped short, still
drawing back as the lady advanced on him, but still holding by the
hand Alice Bridgenorth, who, too young to understand the nature of the
dialogue, clung, trembling, to her companion.

The stranger saw his embarrassment, smiled, and remained standing fast,
while she asked the child once more, “What are you afraid of, my brave
boy--and why should you not go to your mother on my errand?”

“Because,” answered Julian firmly, “if I go, little Alice must stay
alone with you.”

“You are a gallant fellow,” said the lady, “and will not disgrace your
blood, which never left the weak without protection.”

The boy understood her not, and still gazed with anxious apprehension,
first on her who addressed him, and then upon his little companion,
whose eyes, with the vacant glance of infancy, wandered from the figure
of the lady to that of her companion and protector, and at length,
infected by a portion of the fear which the latter’s magnanimous efforts
could not entirely conceal, she flew into Julian’s arms, and, clinging
to him, greatly augmented his alarm, and by screaming aloud, rendered it
very difficult for him to avoid the sympathetic fear which impelled him
to do the same.

There was something in the manner and bearing of this unexpected inmate
which might justify awe at least, if not fear, when joined to the
singular and mysterious mode in which she had made her appearance. Her
dress was not remarkable, being the hood and female riding attire of
the time, such as was worn by the inferior class of gentlewomen; but her
black hair was very long, and, several locks having escaped from under
her hood, hung down dishevelled on her neck and shoulders. Her eyes
were deep black, keen, and piercing, and her features had something of a
foreign expression. When she spoke, her language was marked by a slight
foreign accent, although, in construction, it was pure English. Her
slightest tone and gesture had the air of one accustomed to command and
to be obeyed; the recollection of which probably suggested to Julian
the apology he afterwards made for being frightened, that he took the
stranger for an “enchanted queen.”

While the stranger lady and the children thus confronted each other, two
persons entered almost at the same instant, but from different doors,
whose haste showed that they had been alarmed by the screams of the
latter.

The first was Major Bridgenorth, whose ears had been alarmed with the
cries of his child, as he entered the hall, which corresponded with what
was called the gilded chamber. His intention had been to remain in
the more public apartment, until the Lady Peveril should make her
appearance, with the good-natured purpose of assuring her that the
preceding day of tumult had passed in every respect agreeably to his
friends, and without any of those alarming consequences which might have
been apprehended from a collision betwixt the parties. But when it is
considered how severely he had been agitated by apprehensions for his
child’s safety and health, too well justified by the fate of those who
had preceded her, it will not be thought surprising that the infantine
screams of Alice induced him to break through the barriers of form, and
intrude farther into the interior of the house than a sense of strict
propriety might have warranted.

He burst into the gilded chamber, therefore, by a side-door and narrow
passage, which communicated betwixt that apartment and the hall, and,
snatching the child up in his arms, endeavoured, by a thousand caresses,
to stifle the screams which burst yet more violently from the little
girl, on beholding herself in the arms of one to whose voice and manner
she was, but for one brief interview, an entire stranger.

Of course, Alice’s shrieks were redoubled, and seconded by those of
Julian Peveril, who, on the appearance of this second intruder, was
frightened into resignation of every more manly idea of rescue than that
which consisted in invoking assistance at the very top of his lungs.

Alarmed by this noise, which in half a minute became very clamorous,
Lady Peveril, with whose apartment the gilded chamber was connected by a
private door of communication opening into her wardrobe, entered on the
scene. The instant she appeared, the little Alice, extricating herself
from the grasp of her father, ran towards _her_ protectress, and when
she had once taken hold of her skirts, not only became silent, but
turned her large blue eyes, in which the tears were still glistening,
with a look of wonder rather than alarm, towards the strange lady.
Julian manfully brandished his reed, a weapon which he had never parted
with during the whole alarm, and stood prepared to assist his mother if
there should be danger in the encounter betwixt her and the stranger.

In fact, it might have puzzled an older person to account for the sudden
and confused pause which the Lady Peveril made, as she gazed on her
unexpected guest, as if dubious whether she did, or did not recognise,
in her still beautiful though wasted and emaciated features, a
countenance which she had known well under far different circumstances.

The stranger seemed to understand the cause of hesitation, for she said
in that heart-thrilling voice which was peculiarly her own--

“Time and misfortune have changed me much, Margaret--that every
mirror tells me--yet methinks, Margaret Stanley might still have known
Charlotte de la Tremouille.”

The Lady Peveril was little in the custom of giving way to sudden
emotion, but in the present case she threw herself on her knees in
a rapture of mingled joy and grief, and, half embracing those of the
stranger, exclaimed, in broken language--

“My kind, my noble benefactress--the princely Countess of Derby--the
royal queen in Man--could I doubt your voice, your features, for a
moment--Oh, forgive, forgive me!”

The Countess raised the suppliant kinswoman of her husband’s house, with
all the grace of one accustomed from early birth to receive homage and
to grant protection. She kissed the Lady Peveril’s forehead, and passed
her hand in a caressing manner over her face as she said--

“You too are changed, my fair cousin, but it is a change becomes you,
from a pretty and timid maiden to a sage and comely matron. But my own
memory, which I once held a good one, has failed me strangely, if this
gentleman be Sir Geoffrey Peveril.”

“A kind and good neighbour only, madam,” said Lady Peveril; “Sir
Geoffrey is at Court.”

“I understood so much,” said the Countess of Derby, “when I arrived here
last night.”

“How, madam!” said Lady Peveril--“Did you arrive at Martindale
Castle--at the house of Margaret Stanley, where you have such right to
command, and did not announce your presence to her?”

“Oh, I know you are a dutiful subject, Margaret,” answered the Countess,
“though it be in these days a rare character--but it was our pleasure,”
 she added, with a smile, “to travel incognito--and finding you engaged
in general hospitality, we desired not to disturb you with our royal
presence.”

“But how and where were you lodged, madam?” said Lady Peveril; “or why
should you have kept secret a visit which would, if made, have augmented
tenfold the happiness of every true heart that rejoiced here yesterday?”

“My lodging was well cared for by Ellesmere--your Ellesmere now, as she
was formerly mine--she has acted as quartermaster ere now, you know, and
on a broader scale; you must excuse her--she had my positive order to
lodge me in the most secret part of your Castle”--(here she pointed to
the sliding panel)--“she obeyed orders in that, and I suppose also in
sending you now hither.”

“Indeed I have not yet seen her,” said the lady, “and therefore was
totally ignorant of a visit so joyful, so surprising.”

“And I,” said the Countess, “was equally surprised to find none but
these beautiful children in the apartment where I thought I heard you
moving. Our Ellesmere has become silly--your good-nature has spoiled
her--she has forgotten the discipline she learned under me.”

“I saw her run through the wood,” said the Lady Peveril, after a
moment’s recollection, “undoubtedly to seek the person who has charge of
the children, in order to remove them.”

“Your own darlings, I doubt not,” said the Countess, looking at the
children. “Margaret, Providence has blessed you.”

“That is my son,” said the Lady Peveril, pointing to Julian, who stood
devouring their discourse with greedy ear; “the little girl--I may call
mine too.” Major Bridgenorth, who had in the meantime again taken up his
infant, and was engaged in caressing it, set it down as the Countess of
Derby spoke, sighed deeply, and walked towards the oriel window. He was
well aware that the ordinary rules of courtesy would have rendered it
proper that he should withdraw entirely, or at least offer to do so;
but he was not a man of ceremonious politeness, and he had a particular
interest in the subjects on which the Countess’s discourse was likely
to turn, which induced him to dispense with ceremony. The ladies seemed
indeed scarce to notice his presence. The Countess had now assumed a
chair, and motioned to the Lady Peveril to sit upon a stool which was
placed by her side. “We will have old times once more, though there are
here no roaring of rebel guns to drive you to take refuge at my side,
and almost in my pocket.”

“I have a gun, madam,” said little Julian, “and the park-keeper is to
teach me how to fire it next year.”

“I will list you for my soldier, then,” said the Countess.

“Ladies have no soldiers,” said the boy, looking wistfully at her.

“He has the true masculine contempt of our frail sex, I see,” said the
Countess; “it is born with the insolent varlets of mankind, and shows
itself so soon as they are out of their long clothes.--Did Ellesmere
never tell you of Latham House and Charlotte of Derby, my little
master?”

“A thousand thousand times,” said the boy, colouring; “and how the Queen
of Man defended it six weeks against three thousand Roundheads, under
Rogue Harrison the butcher.”

“It was your mother defended Latham House,” said the Countess, “not
I, my little soldier--Hadst thou been there, thou hadst been the best
captain of the three.”

“Do not say so, madam,” said the boy, “for mamma would not touch a gun
for all the universe.”

“Not I, indeed, Julian,” said his mother; “there I was for certain, but
as useless a part of the garrison----”

“You forget,” said the Countess, “you nursed our hospital, and made lint
for the soldiers’ wounds.”

“But did not papa come to help you?” said Julian.

“Papa came at last,” said the Countess, “and so did Prince Rupert--but
not, I think, till they were both heartily wished for.--Do you remember
that morning, Margaret, when the round-headed knaves, that kept us pent
up so long, retreated without bag or baggage, at the first glance of
the Prince’s standards appearing on the hill--and how you took every
high-crested captain you saw for Peveril of the Peak, that had been your
partner three months before at the Queen’s mask? Nay, never blush for
the thought of it--it was an honest affection--and though it was the
music of trumpets that accompanied you both to the old chapel, which was
almost entirely ruined by the enemy’s bullets; and though Prince Rupert,
when he gave you away at the altar, was clad in buff and bandoleer, with
pistols in his belt, yet I trust these warlike signs were no type of
future discord?”

“Heaven has been kind to me,” said the Lady Peveril, “in blessing me
with an affectionate husband.”

“And in preserving him to you,” said the Countess, with a deep
sigh; “while mine, alas! sealed with his blood his devotion to his
king[*]--Oh, had he lived to see this day!”

[*] The Earl of Derby and King in Man was beheaded at Bolton-on-the-
    Moors, after having been made prisoner in a previous skirmish in
    Wiggan Lane.

“Alas! alas! that he was not permitted!” answered Lady Peveril; “how had
that brave and noble Earl rejoiced in the unhoped-for redemption of our
captivity!”

The Countess looked on Lady Peveril with an air of surprise.

“Thou hast not then heard, cousin, how it stands with our house?--How
indeed had my noble lord wondered, had he been told that the very
monarch for whom he had laid down his noble life on the scaffold at
Bolton-le-Moor, should make it his first act of restored monarchy to
complete the destruction of our property, already well-nigh ruined in
the royal cause, and to persecute me his widow!”

“You astonish me, madam!” said the Lady Peveril. “It cannot be, that
you--that you, the wife of the gallant, the faithful, the murdered
Earl--you, Countess of Derby, and Queen in Man--you, who took on you
even the character of a soldier, and seemed a man when so many men
proved women--that you should sustain evil from the event which has
fulfilled--exceeded--the hopes of every faithful subject--it cannot be!”

“Thou art as simple, I see, in this world’s knowledge as ever, my fair
cousin,” answered the Countess. “This restoration, which has given
others security, has placed me in danger--this change which relieved
other Royalists, scarce less zealous, I presume to think, than I--has
sent me here a fugitive, and in concealment, to beg shelter and
assistance from you, fair cousin.”

“From me,” answered the Lady Peveril--“from me, whose youth your
kindness sheltered--from the wife of Peveril, your gallant Lord’s
companion in arms--you have a right to command everything; but, alas!
that you should need such assistance as I can render--forgive me, but it
seems like some ill-omened vision of the night--I listen to your words
as if I hoped to be relieved from their painful import by awaking.”

“It is indeed a dream--a vision,” said the Countess of Derby; “but
it needs no seer to read it--the explanation hath been long since
given--Put not your faith in princes. I can soon remove your
surprise.--This gentleman, your friend, is doubtless _honest?_”

The Lady Peveril well knew that the Cavaliers, like other factions,
usurped to themselves the exclusive denomination of the _honest_ party,
and she felt some difficulty in explaining that her visitor was not
honest in that sense of the word.

“Had we not better retire, madam?” she said to the Countess, rising, as
if in order to attend her. But the Countess retained her seat.

“It was but a question of habit,” she said; “the gentleman’s principles
are nothing to me, for what I have to tell you is widely blazed, and I
care not who hears my share of it. You remember--you must have heard,
for I think Margaret Stanley would not be indifferent to my fate--that
after my husband’s murder at Bolton, I took up the standard which he
never dropped until his death, and displayed it with my own hand in our
Sovereignty of Man.”

“I did indeed hear so, madam,” said the Lady Peveril; “and that you had
bidden a bold defiance to the rebel government, even after all other
parts of Britain had submitted to them. My husband, Sir Geoffrey,
designed at one time to have gone to your assistance with some few
followers; but we learned that the island was rendered to the Parliament
party, and that you, dearest lady, were thrown into prison.”

“But you heard not,” said the Countess, “how that disaster befell
me.--Margaret, I would have held out that island against the knaves
as long as the sea continued to flow around it. Till the shoals which
surround it had become safe anchorage--till its precipices had melted
beneath the sunshine--till of all its strong abodes and castles not
one stone remained upon another,--would I have defended against these
villainous hypocritical rebels, my dear husband’s hereditary dominion.
The little kingdom of Man should have been yielded only when not an
arm was left to wield a sword, not a finger to draw a trigger in its
defence. But treachery did what force could never have done. When we
had foiled various attempts upon the island by open force--treason
accomplished what Blake and Lawson, with their floating castles, had
found too hazardous an enterprise--a base rebel, whom we had nursed
in our own bosoms, betrayed us to the enemy. This wretch was named
Christian----”

Major Bridgenorth started and turned towards the speaker, but instantly
seemed to recollect himself, and again averted his face. The Countess
proceeded, without noticing the interruption, which, however, rather
surprised Lady Peveril, who was acquainted with her neighbour’s general
habits of indifference and apathy, and therefore the more surprised at
his testifying such sudden symptoms of interest. She would once again
have moved the Countess to retire to another apartment, but Lady Derby
proceeded with too much vehemence to endure interruption.

“This Christian,” she said, “had eaten of my lord his sovereign’s bread,
and drunk of his cup, even from childhood--for his fathers had been
faithful servants to the House of Man and Derby. He himself had fought
bravely by my husband’s side, and enjoyed all his confidence; and when
my princely Earl was martyred by the rebels, he recommended to me,
amongst other instructions communicated in the last message I received
from him, to continue my confidence in Christian’s fidelity. I obeyed,
although I never loved the man. He was cold and phlegmatic, and utterly
devoid of that sacred fire which is the incentive to noble deeds,
suspected, too, of leaning to the cold metaphysics of Calvinistic
subtlety. But he was brave, wise, and experienced, and, as the event
proved, possessed but too much interest with the islanders. When these
rude people saw themselves without hope of relief, and pressed by a
blockade, which brought want and disease into their island, they began
to fall off from the faith which they had hitherto shown.”

“What!” said the Lady Peveril, “could they forget what was due to the
widow of their benefactor--she who had shared with the generous Derby
the task of bettering their condition?”

“Do not blame them,” said the Countess; “the rude herd acted but
according to their kind--in present distress they forgot former
benefits, and, nursed in their earthen hovels, with spirits suited
to their dwellings, they were incapable of feeling the glory which
is attached to constancy in suffering. But that Christian should have
headed their revolt--that he, born a gentleman, and bred under my
murdered Derby’s own care in all that was chivalrous and noble--that
_he_ should have forgot a hundred benefits--why do I talk of
benefits?--that he should have forgotten that kindly intercourse which
binds man to man far more than the reciprocity of obligation--that
he should have headed the ruffians who broke suddenly into my
apartment--immured me with my infants in one of my own castles, and
assumed or usurped the tyranny of the island--that this should have been
done by William Christian, my vassal, my servant, my friend, was a deed
of ungrateful treachery, which even this age of treason will scarcely
parallel!”

“And you were then imprisoned,” said the Lady Peveril, “and in your own
sovereignty?”

“For more than seven years I have endured strict captivity,” said the
Countess. “I was indeed offered my liberty, and even some means of
support, if I would have consented to leave the island, and pledge my
word that I would not endeavour to repossess my son in his father’s
rights. But they little knew the princely house from which I spring--and
as little the royal house of Stanley which I uphold, who hoped to humble
Charlotte of Tremouille into so base a composition. I would rather have
starved in the darkest and lowest vault of Rushin Castle, than have
consented to aught which might diminish in one hair’s-breadth the right
of my son over his father’s sovereignty!”

“And could not your firmness, in a case where hope seemed lost, induce
them to be generous and dismiss you without conditions?”

“They knew me better than thou dost, wench,” answered the Countess;
“once at liberty, I had not been long without the means of disturbing
their usurpation, and Christian would have as soon encaged a lioness to
combat with, as have given me the slightest power of returning to the
struggle with him. But time had liberty and revenge in store--I had
still friends and partisans in the island, though they were compelled to
give way to the storm. Even among the islanders at large, most had
been disappointed in the effects which they expected from the change
of power. They were loaded with exactions by their new masters, their
privileges were abridged, and their immunities abolished, under the
pretext of reducing them to the same condition with the other subjects
of the pretended republic. When the news arrived of the changes which
were current in Britain, these sentiments were privately communicated to
me. Calcott and others acted with great zeal and fidelity; and a
rising, effected as suddenly and effectually as that which had made me
a captive, placed me at liberty and in possession of the sovereignty of
Man, as Regent for my son, the youthful Earl of Derby. Do you think
I enjoyed that sovereignty long without doing justice on that traitor
Christian?”

“How, madam,” said Lady Peveril, who, though she knew the high and
ambitious spirit of the Countess, scarce anticipated the extremities to
which it was capable of hurrying her--“have you imprisoned Christian?”

“Ay, wench--in that sure prison which felon never breaks from,” answered
the Countess.

Bridgenorth, who had insensibly approached them, and was listening with
an agony of interest which he was unable any longer to suppress, broke
in with the stern exclamation--

“Lady, I trust you have not dared----”

The Countess interrupted him in her turn.

“I know not who you are who question--and you know not me when you speak
to me of that which I dare, or dare not do. But you seem interested
in the fate of this Christian, and you shall hear it.--I was no sooner
placed in possession of my rightful power, than I ordered the Dempster
of the island to hold upon the traitor a High Court of Justice, with all
the formalities of the isle, as prescribed in its oldest records. The
Court was held in the open air, before the Dempster and the Keys of the
island, assembled under the vaulted cope of heaven, and seated on the
terrace of the Zonwald Hill, where of old Druid and Scald held their
courts of judgment. The criminal was heard at length in his own defence,
which amounted to little more than those specious allegations of public
consideration, which are ever used to colour the ugly front of treason.
He was fully convicted of his crime, and he received the doom of a
traitor.”

“But which, I trust, is not yet executed?” said Lady Peveril, not
without an involuntary shudder.

“You are a fool, Margaret,” said the Countess sharply; “think you I
delayed such an act of justice, until some wretched intrigues of the
new English Court might have prompted their interference? No, wench--he
passed from the judgment-seat to the place of execution, with no farther
delay than might be necessary for his soul’s sake. He was shot to death
by a file of musketeers in the common place of execution called Hango
Hill.”

Bridgenorth clasped his hands together, wrung them, and groaned
bitterly.

“As you seem interested for this criminal,” added the Countess,
addressing Bridgenorth, “I do him but justice in repeating to you, that
his death was firm and manly, becoming the general tenor of his life,
which, but for that gross act of traitorous ingratitude, had been fair
and honourable. But what of that? The hypocrite is a saint, and
the false traitor a man of honour, till opportunity, that faithful
touchstone, proves their metal to be base.”

“It is false, woman--it is false!” said Bridgenorth, no longer
suppressing his indignation.

“What means this bearing, Master Bridgenorth?” said Lady Peveril, much
surprised. “What is this Christian to you, that you should insult the
Countess of Derby under my roof?”

“Speak not to me of countesses and of ceremonies,” said Bridgenorth;
“grief and anger leave me no leisure for idle observances to humour the
vanity of overgrown children.--O Christian--worthy, well worthy, of the
name thou didst bear! My friend--my brother--the brother of my blessed
Alice--the only friend of my desolate estate! art thou then cruelly
murdered by a female fury, who, but for thee, had deservedly paid with
her own blood that of God’s saints, which she, as well as her tyrant
husband, had spilled like water!--Yes, cruel murderess!” he continued,
addressing the Countess, “he whom thou hast butchered in thy insane
vengeance, sacrificed for many a year the dictates of his own conscience
to the interest of thy family, and did not desert it till thy frantic
zeal for royalty had well-nigh brought to utter perdition the little
community in which he was born. Even in confining thee, he acted but
as the friends of the madman, who bind him with iron for his own
preservation; and for thee, as I can bear witness, he was the only
barrier between thee and the wrath of the Commons of England; and but
for his earnest remonstrances, thou hadst suffered the penalty of thy
malignancy, even like the wicked wife of Ahab.”

“Master Bridgenorth,” said the Lady Peveril, “I will allow for your
impatience upon hearing these unpleasing tidings; but there is neither
use nor propriety in farther urging this question. If in your grief you
forget other restraints, I pray you to remember that the Countess is my
guest and kinswoman, and is under such protection as I can afford her. I
beseech you, in simple courtesy, to withdraw, as what must needs be the
best and most becoming course in these trying circumstances.”

“Nay, let him remain,” said the Countess, regarding him with composure,
not unmingled with triumph; “I would not have it otherwise; I would not
that my revenge should be summed up in the stinted gratification which
Christian’s death hath afforded. This man’s rude and clamorous grief
only proves that the retribution I have dealt has been more widely felt
than by the wretched sufferer himself. I would I knew that it had but
made sore as many rebel hearts, as there were loyal breasts afflicted by
the death of my princely Derby!”

“So please you, madam,” said Lady Peveril, “since Master Bridgenorth
hath not the manners to leave us upon my request, we will, if your
ladyship lists, leave him, and retire to my apartment.--Farewell, Master
Bridgenorth; we will meet hereafter on better terms.”

“Pardon me, madam,” said the Major, who had been striding hastily
through the room, but now stood fast, and drew himself up, as one who
has taken a resolution;--“to yourself I have nothing to say but what
is respectful; but to this woman I must speak as a magistrate. She
has confessed a murder in my presence--the murder too of my
brother-in-law--as a man, and as a magistrate, I cannot permit her to
pass from hence, excepting under such custody as may prevent her farther
flight. She has already confessed that she is a fugitive, and in search
of a place of concealment, until she should be able to escape into
foreign parts.--Charlotte, Countess of Derby, I attach thee of the crime
of which thou hast but now made thy boast.”

“I shall not obey your arrest,” said the Countess composedly; “I was
born to give, but not to receive such orders. What have your English
laws to do with my acts of justice and of government, within my son’s
hereditary kingdom? Am I not Queen in Man, as well as Countess of Derby?
A feudatory Sovereign indeed; but yet independent so long as my dues of
homage are duly discharged. What right can you assert over me?”

“That given by the precepts of Scripture,” answered Bridgenorth--“‘Whoso
spilleth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be spilled.’ Think not the
barbarous privileges of ancient feudal customs will avail to screen
you from the punishment due for an Englishman murdered upon pretexts
inconsistent with the act of indemnity.”

“Master Bridgenorth,” said the Lady Peveril, “if by fair terms you
desist not from your present purpose, I tell you that I neither dare,
nor will, permit any violence against this honourable lady within the
walls of my husband’s castle.”

“You will find yourself unable to prevent me from executing my duty,
madam,” said Bridgenorth, whose native obstinacy now came in aid of his
grief and desire of revenge; “I am a magistrate, and act by authority.”

“I know not that,” said Lady Peveril. “That you _were_ a magistrate,
Master Bridgenorth, under the late usurping powers, I know well; but
till I hear of your having a commission in the name of the King, I now
hesitate to obey you as such.”

“I shall stand on small ceremony,” said Bridgenorth. “Were I no
magistrate, every man has title to arrest for murder against the terms
of the indemnities held out by the King’s proclamations, and I will make
my point good.”

“What indemnities? What proclamations?” said the Countess of Derby
indignantly. “Charles Stuart may, if he pleases (and it doth seem to
please him), consort with those whose hands have been red with the
blood, and blackened with the plunder, of his father and of his loyal
subjects. He may forgive them if he will, and count their deeds good
service. What has that to do with this Christian’s offence against me
and mine? Born a Mankesman--bred and nursed in the island--he broke the
laws under which he lived, and died for the breach of them, after the
fair trial which they allowed.--Methinks, Margaret, we have enough of
this peevish and foolish magistrate--I attend you to your apartment.”

Major Bridgenorth placed himself betwixt them and the door, in a manner
which showed him determined to interrupt their passage; when the Lady
Peveril, who thought she already showed more deference to him in this
matter than her husband was likely to approve of, raised her voice, and
called loudly on her steward, Whitaker. That alert person, who had heard
high talking, and a female voice with which he was unacquainted, had
remained for several minutes stationed in the anteroom, much afflicted
with the anxiety of his own curiosity. Of course he entered in an
instant.

“Let three of the men instantly take arms,” said the lady; “bring them
into the anteroom, and wait my farther orders.”




CHAPTER VI

            You shall have no worse prison than my chamber,
            Nor jailer than myself.
                                               --THE CAPTAIN.

The command which Lady Peveril laid on her domestics to arm themselves,
was so unlike the usual gentle acquiescence of her manners, that Major
Bridgenorth was astonished. “How mean you, madam?” said he; “I thought
myself under a friendly roof.”

“And you are so, Master Bridgenorth,” said the Lady Peveril, without
departing from the natural calmness of her voice and manner; “but it is
a roof which must not be violated by the outrage of one friend against
another.”

“It is well, madam,” said Bridgenorth, turning to the door of the
apartment. “The worthy Master Solsgrace has already foretold, that the
time was returned when high houses and proud names should be once more
an excuse for the crimes of those who inhabit the one and bear the
other. I believed him not, but now see he is wiser than I. Yet think not
I will endure this tamely. The blood of my brother--of the friend of my
bosom--shall not long call from the altar, ‘How long, O Lord, how long!’
If there is one spark of justice left in this unhappy England, that
proud woman and I shall meet where she can have no partial friend to
protect her.”

So saying, he was about to leave the apartment, when Lady Peveril said,
“You depart not from this place, Master Bridgenorth, unless you give me
your word to renounce all purpose against the noble Countess’s liberty
upon the present occasion.”

“I would sooner,” answered he, “subscribe to my own dishonour, madam,
written down in express words, than to any such composition. If any
man offers to interrupt me, his blood be on his own head!” As Major
Bridgenorth spoke, Whitaker threw open the door, and showed that, with
the alertness of an old soldier, who was not displeased to see things
tend once more towards a state of warfare, he had got with him four
stout fellows in the Knight of the Peak’s livery, well armed with swords
and carabines, buff-coats, and pistols at their girdles.

“I will see,” said Major Bridgenorth, “if any of these men be so
desperate as to stop me, a freeborn Englishman, and a magistrate in the
discharge of my duty.”

So saying, he advanced upon Whitaker and his armed assistants, with his
hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Do not be so desperate, Master Bridgenorth,” exclaimed Lady Peveril;
and added, in the same moment, “Lay hold upon, and disarm him, Whitaker;
but do him no injury.”

Her commands were obeyed. Bridgenorth, though a man of moral resolution,
was not one of those who undertook to cope in person with odds of a
description so formidable. He half drew his sword, and offered such show
of resistance as made it necessary to secure him by actual force; but
then yielded up his weapon, and declared that, submitting to force
which one man was unable to resist, he made those who commanded, and
who employed it, responsible for assailing his liberty without a legal
warrant.

“Never mind a warrant on a pinch, Master Bridgenorth,” said old
Whitaker; “sure enough you have often acted upon a worse yourself. My
lady’s word is as good as a warrant, sure, as Old Noll’s commission; and
you bore that many a day, Master Bridgenorth, and, moreover, you laid
me in the stocks for drinking the King’s health, Master Bridgenorth, and
never cared a farthing about the laws of England.”

“Hold your saucy tongue, Whitaker,” said the Lady Peveril; “and do you,
Master Bridgenorth, not take it to heart that you are detained prisoner
for a few hours, until the Countess of Derby can have nothing to fear
from your pursuit. I could easily send an escort with her that might
bid defiance to any force you could muster; but I wish, Heaven knows, to
bury the remembrance of old civil dissensions, not to awaken new. Once
more, will you think better of it--assume your sword again, and forget
whom you have now seen at Martindale Castle?”

“Never,” said Bridgenorth. “The crime of this cruel woman will be the
last of human injuries which I can forget. The last thought of earthly
kind which will leave me, will be the desire that justice shall be done
on her.”

“If such be your sentiments,” said Lady Peveril, “though they are
more allied to revenge than to justice, I must provide for my friend’s
safety, by putting restraint upon your person. In this room you will
be supplied with every necessary of life, and every convenience; and a
message shall relieve your domestics of the anxiety which your absence
from the Hall is not unlikely to occasion. When a few hours, at most two
days, are over, I will myself relieve you from confinement, and demand
your pardon for now acting as your obstinacy compels me to do.”

The Major made no answer, but that he was in her hands, and must submit
to her pleasure; and then turned sullenly to the window, as if desirous
to be rid of their presence.

The Countess and the Lady Peveril left the apartment arm in arm; and
the lady issued forth her directions to Whitaker concerning the mode in
which she was desirous that Bridgenorth should be guarded and treated
during his temporary confinement; at the same time explaining to him,
that the safety of the Countess of Derby required that he should be
closely watched.

In all proposals for the prisoner’s security, such as the regular relief
of guards, and the like, Whitaker joyfully acquiesced, and undertook,
body for body, that he should be detained in captivity for the necessary
period. But the old steward was not half so docile when it came to be
considered how the captive’s bedding and table should be supplied; and
he thought Lady Peveril displayed a very undue degree of attention
to her prisoner’s comforts. “I warrant,” he said, “that the cuckoldly
Roundhead ate enough of our fat beef yesterday to serve him for a month;
and a little fasting will do his health good. Marry, for drink, he shall
have plenty of cold water to cool his hot liver, which I will be bound
is still hissing with the strong liquors of yesterday. And as for
bedding, there are the fine dry board--more wholesome than the wet straw
I lay upon when I was in the stocks, I trow.”

“Whitaker,” said the lady peremptorily, “I desire you to provide Master
Bridgenorth’s bedding and food in the way I have signified to you; and
to behave yourself towards him in all civility.”

“Lack-a-day! yes, my lady,” said Whitaker; “you shall have all your
directions punctually obeyed; but as an old servant, I cannot but speak
my mind.”

The ladies retired after this conference with the steward in the
antechamber, and were soon seated in another apartment, which was
peculiarly dedicated to the use of the mistress of the mansion--having,
on the one side, access to the family bedroom; and, on the other, to the
still-room which communicated with the garden. There was also a
small door which, ascending a few steps, led to that balcony, already
mentioned, that overhung the kitchen; and the same passage, by a
separate door, admitted to the principal gallery in the chapel; so that
the spiritual and temporal affairs of the Castle were placed almost at
once within the reach of the same regulating and directing eye.[*]

[*] This peculiar collocation of apartments may be seen at Haddon
    Hall, Derbyshire, once a seat of the Vernons, where, in the lady’s
    pew in the chapel, there is a sort of scuttle, which opens into
    the kitchen, so that the good lady could ever and anon, without
    much interruption of her religious duties, give an eye that the
    roast-meat was not permitted to burn, and that the turn-broche did
    his duty.

In the tapestried room, from which issued these various sally-ports, the
Countess and Lady Peveril were speedily seated; and the former, smiling
upon the latter, said, as she took her hand, “Two things have happened
to-day, which might have surprised me, if anything ought to surprise me
in such times:--the first is, that yonder roundheaded fellow should have
dared to use such insolence in the house of Peveril of the Peak. If your
husband is yet the same honest and downright Cavalier whom I once knew,
and had chanced to be at home, he would have thrown the knave out of
window. But what I wonder at still more, Margaret, is your generalship.
I hardly thought you had courage sufficient to have taken such decided
measures, after keeping on terms with the man so long. When he spoke of
justices and warrants, you looked so overawed that I thought I felt the
clutch of the parish-beadles on my shoulder, to drag me to prison as a
vagrant.”

“We owe Master Bridgenorth some deference, my dearest lady,” answered
the Lady Peveril; “he has served us often and kindly, in these late
times; but neither he, nor any one else, shall insult the Countess of
Derby in the house of Margaret Stanley.”

“Thou art become a perfect heroine, Margaret,” replied the Countess.

“Two sieges, and alarms innumerable,” said Lady Peveril, “may have
taught me presence of mind. My courage is, I believe, as slender as
ever.”

“Presence of mind _is_ courage,” answered the Countess. “Real valour
consists not in being insensible to danger, but in being prompt to
confront and disarm it;--and we may have present occasion for all
that we possess,” she added, with some slight emotion, “for I hear the
trampling of horses’ steps on the pavement of the court.”

In one moment, the boy Julian, breathless with joy, came flying into the
room, to say that papa was returned, with Lamington and Sam Brewer; and
that he was himself to ride Black Hastings to the stable. In the second
the tramp of the honest Knight’s heavy jack-boots was heard, as, in his
haste to see his lady, he ascended the staircase by two steps at a
time. He burst into the room; his manly countenance and disordered dress
showing marks that he had been riding fast; and without looking to any
one else, caught his good lady in his arms, and kissed her a dozen of
times.--Blushing, and with some difficulty, Lady Peveril extricated
herself from Sir Geoffrey’s arms; and in a voice of bashful and gentle
rebuke, bid him, for shame, observe who was in the room.

“One,” said the Countess, advancing to him, “who is right glad to see
that Sir Geoffrey Peveril, though turned courtier and favourite, still
values the treasure which she had some share in bestowing upon him. You
cannot have forgot the raising of the leaguer of Latham House!”

“The noble Countess of Derby!” said Sir Geoffrey, doffing his plumed hat
with an air of deep deference, and kissing with much reverence the hand
which she held out to him; “I am as glad to see your ladyship in my poor
house, as I would be to hear that they had found a vein of lead in the
Brown Tor. I rode hard, in the hope of being your escort through the
country. I feared you might have fallen into bad hands, hearing there
was a knave sent out with a warrant from the Council.”

“When heard you so? and from whom?”

“It was from Cholmondley of Vale Royal,” said Sir Geoffrey; “he is come
down to make provision for your safety through Cheshire; and I promised
to bring you there in safety. Prince Rupert, Ormond, and other friends,
do not doubt the matter will be driven to a fine; but they say
the Chancellor, and Harry Bennet, and some others of the over-sea
counsellors, are furious at what they call a breach of the King’s
proclamation. Hang them, say I!--They left us to bear all the beating;
and now they are incensed that we should wish to clear scores with those
who rode us like nightmares!”

“What did they talk of for my chastisement?” said the Countess.

“I wot not,” said Sir Geoffrey; “some friends, as I said, from our kind
Cheshire, and others, tried to bring it to a fine; but some, again,
spoke of nothing but the Tower, and a long imprisonment.”

“I have suffered imprisonment long enough for King Charles’s sake,” said
the Countess; “and have no mind to undergo it at his hand. Besides, if
I am removed from the personal superintendence of my son’s dominions in
Man, I know not what new usurpation may be attempted there. I must be
obliged to you, cousin, to contrive that I may get in security to Vale
Royal, and from thence I know I shall be guarded safely to Liverpool.”

“You may rely on my guidance and protection, noble lady,” answered her
host, “though you had come here at midnight, and with the rogue’s head
in your apron, like Judith in the Holy Apocrypha, which I joy to hear
once more read in churches.”

“Do the gentry resort much to the Court?” said the lady.

“Ay, madam,” replied Sir Geoffrey; “and according to our saying, when
miners do begin to bore in these parts, it is _for the grace of God, and
what they there may find_.”

“Meet the old Cavaliers with much countenance?” continued the Countess.

“Faith, madam, to speak truth,” replied the Knight, “the King hath so
gracious a manner, that it makes every man’s hopes blossom, though we
have seen but few that have ripened into fruit.”

“You have not, yourself, my cousin,” answered the Countess, “had room
to complain of ingratitude, I trust? Few have less deserved it at the
King’s hand.”

Sir Geoffrey was unwilling, like most prudent persons, to own the
existence of expectations which had proved fallacious, yet had too
little art in his character to conceal his disappointment entirely.
“Who, I, madam?” he said; “Alas! what should a poor country knight
expect from the King, besides the pleasure of seeing him in Whitehall
once more, and enjoying his own again? And his Majesty was very gracious
when I was presented, and spoke to me of Worcester, and of my horse,
Black Hastings--he had forgot his name, though--faith, and mine, too, I
believe, had not Prince Rupert whispered it to him. And I saw some old
friends, such as his Grace of Ormond, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, Sir Philip
Musgrave, and so forth; and had a jolly rouse or two, to the tune of old
times.”

“I should have thought so many wounds received--so many dangers
risked--such considerable losses--merited something more than a few
smooth words,” said the Countess.

“Nay, my lady, there were other friends of mine who had the same
thought,” answered Peveril. “Some were of opinion that the loss of
so many hundred acres of fair land was worth some reward of honour
at least; and there were who thought my descent from William the
Conqueror--craving your ladyship’s pardon for boasting it in your
presence--would not have become a higher rank or title worse than the
pedigree of some who have been promoted. But what said the witty Duke
of Buckingham, forsooth? (whose grandsire was a Lei’stershire
Knight--rather poorer, and scarcely so well-born as myself)--Why, he
said, that if all of my degree who deserved well of the King in the late
times were to be made peers, the House of Lords must meet upon Salisbury
Plain!”

“And that bad jest passed for a good argument!” said the Countess; “and
well it might, where good arguments pass for bad jests. But here comes
one I must be acquainted with.”

This was little Julian, who now re-entered the hall, leading his little
sister, as if he had brought her to bear witness to the boastful tale
which he told his father, of his having manfully ridden Black Hastings
to the stable-yard, alone in the saddle; and that Saunders though he
walked by the horse’s head, did not once put his hand upon the rein,
and Brewer, though he stood beside him, scarce held him by the knee. The
father kissed the boy heartily; and the Countess, calling him to her
so soon as Sir Geoffrey had set him down, kissed his forehead also, and
then surveyed all his features with a keen and penetrating eye.

“He is a true Peveril,” said she, “mixed as he should be with some touch
of the Stanley. Cousin, you must grant me my boon, and when I am safely
established, and have my present affair arranged, you must let me have
this little Julian of yours some time hence, to be nurtured in my house,
held as my page, and the playfellow of the little Derby. I trust in
Heaven, they will be such friends as their fathers have been, and may
God send them more fortunate times!”

“Marry, and I thank you for the proposal with all my heart, madam,” said
the Knight. “There are so many noble houses decayed, and so many more
in which the exercise and discipline for the training of noble youths is
given up and neglected, that I have often feared I must have kept Gil
to be young master at home; and I have had too little nurture myself to
teach him much, and so he would have been a mere hunting hawking knight
of Derbyshire. But in your ladyship’s household, and with the noble
young Earl, he will have all, and more than all, the education which I
could desire.”

“There shall be no distinction betwixt them, cousin,” said the Countess;
“Margaret Stanley’s son shall be as much the object of care to me as
my own, since you are kindly disposed to entrust him to my charge.--You
look pale, Margaret,” she continued, “and the tear stands in your eye?
Do not be so foolish, my love--what I ask is better than you can desire
for your boy; for the house of my father, the Duke de la Tremouille,
was the most famous school of chivalry in France; nor have I degenerated
from him, or suffered any relaxation in that noble discipline which
trained young gentlemen to do honour to their race. You can promise your
Julian no such advantages, if you train him up a mere home-bred youth.”

“I acknowledge the importance of the favour, madam,” said Lady Peveril,
“and must acquiesce in what your ladyship honours us by proposing, and
Sir Geoffrey approves of; but Julian is an only child, and----”

“An only son,” said the Countess, “but surely not an only child. You pay
too high deference to our masters, the male sex, if you allow Julian to
engross all your affection, and spare none for this beautiful girl.”

So saying, she set down Julian, and, taking Alice Bridgenorth on her
lap, began to caress her; and there was, notwithstanding her masculine
character, something so sweet in the tone of her voice and in the cast
of her features, that the child immediately smiled, and replied to her
marks of fondness. This mistake embarrassed Lady Peveril exceedingly.
Knowing the blunt impetuosity of her husband’s character, his devotion
to the memory of the deceased Earl of Derby, and his corresponding
veneration for his widow, she was alarmed for the consequences of his
hearing the conduct of Bridgenorth that morning, and was particularly
desirous that he should not learn it save from herself in private,
and after due preparation. But the Countess’s error led to a more
precipitate disclosure.

“That pretty girl, madam,” answered Sir Geoffrey, “is none of ours--I
wish she were. She belongs to a neighbour hard by--a good man, and,
to say truth, a good neighbour--though he was carried off from his
allegiance in the late times by a d--d Presbyterian scoundrel, who
calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch
presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long
enough.--There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can
tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of
Bridgenorth--neighbour Bridgenorth, of Moultrassie Hall.”

“Bridgenorth?” said the Countess; “I thought I had known all the
honourable names in Derbyshire--I remember nothing of Bridgenorth.--But
stay--was there not a sequestrator and committeeman of that name? Sure,
it cannot be he?”

Peveril took some shame to himself, as he replied, “It is the very man
whom your ladyship means, and you may conceive the reluctance with which
I submitted to receive good offices from one of his kidney; but had I
not done so, I should have scarce known how to find a roof to cover Dame
Margaret’s head.”

The Countess, as he spoke, raised the child gently from her lap, and
placed it upon the carpet, though little Alice showed a disinclination
to the change of place, which the lady of Derby and Man would certainly
have indulged in a child of patrician descent and loyal parentage.

“I blame you not,” she said; “no one knows what temptation will bring us
down to. Yet I _did_ think Peveril of the Peak would have resided in its
deepest cavern, sooner than owed an obligation to a regicide.”

“Nay, madam,” answered the Knight, “my neighbour is bad enough, but
not so bad as you would make him; he is but a Presbyterian--that I must
confess--but not an Independent.”

“A variety of the same monster,” said the Countess, “who hallooed while
the others hunted, and bound the victim whom the Independents massacred.
Betwixt such sects I prefer the Independents. They are at least bold,
bare-faced, merciless villains, have more of the tiger in them, and less
of the crocodile. I have no doubt it was that worthy gentleman who took
it upon him this morning----”

She stopped short, for she saw Lady Peveril was vexed and embarrassed.

“I am,” she said, “the most luckless of beings. I have said something,
I know not what, to distress you, Margaret--Mystery is a bad thing, and
betwixt us there should be none.”

“There is none, madam,” said Lady Peveril, something impatiently; “I
waited but an opportunity to tell my husband what had happened--Sir
Geoffrey, Master Bridgenorth was unfortunately here when the Lady Derby
and I met; and he thought it part of his duty to speak of----”

“To speak of what?” said the Knight, bending his brows. “You were
ever something too fond, dame, of giving way to the usurpation of such
people.”

“I only mean,” said Lady Peveril, “that as the person--he to whom
Lord Derby’s story related--was the brother of his late lady, he
threatened--but I cannot think that he was serious.”

“Threaten?--threaten the Lady of Derby and Man in my house!--the widow
of my friend--the noble Charlotte of Latham House!--by Heaven, the
prick-eared slave shall answer it! How comes it that my knaves threw him
not out of the window?”

“Alas! Sir Geoffrey, you forget how much we owe him,” said the lady.

“Owe him!” said the Knight, still more indignant; for in his singleness
of apprehension he conceived that his wife alluded to pecuniary
obligations,--“if I do owe him some money, hath he not security for it?
and must he have the right, over and above, to domineer and play the
magistrate in Martindale Castle?--Where is he?--what have you made of
him? I will--I must speak with him.”

“Be patient, Sir Geoffrey,” said the Countess, who now discerned the
cause of her kinswoman’s apprehension; “and be assured I did not need
your chivalry to defend me against this discourteous faitour, as _Morte
d’Arthur_ would have called him. I promise you my kinswoman hath fully
righted my wrong; and I am so pleased to owe my deliverance entirely to
her gallantry, that I charge and command you, as a true knight, not to
mingle in the adventure of another.”

Lady Peveril, who knew her husband’s blunt and impatient temper, and
perceived that he was becoming angry, now took up the story, and plainly
and simply pointed out the cause of Master Bridgenorth’s interference.

“I am sorry for it,” said the Knight; “I thought he had more sense;
and that this happy change might have done some good upon him. But you
should have told me this instantly--It consists not with my honour that
he should be kept prisoner in this house, as if I feared anything he
could do to annoy the noble Countess, while she is under my roof, or
within twenty miles of this Castle.”

So saying, and bowing to the Countess, he went straight to the gilded
chamber, leaving Lady Peveril in great anxiety for the event of an angry
meeting between a temper hasty as that of her husband, and stubborn like
that of Bridgenorth. Her apprehensions were, however, unnecessary; for
the meeting was not fated to take place.

When Sir Geoffrey Peveril, having dismissed Whitaker and his sentinels,
entered the gilded chamber, in which he expected to find his captive,
the prisoner had escaped, and it was easy to see in what manner. The
sliding panel had, in the hurry of the moment, escaped the memory of
Lady Peveril, and of Whitaker, the only persons who knew anything of it.
It was probable that a chink had remained open, sufficient to indicate
its existence to Bridgenorth; who withdrawing it altogether, had found
his way into the secret apartment with which it communicated, and from
thence to the postern of the Castle by another secret passage, which had
been formed in the thickness of the wall, as is not uncommon in ancient
mansions; the lords of which were liable to so many mutations of
fortune, that they usually contrived to secure some lurking place and
secret mode of retreat from their fortresses. That Bridgenorth had
discovered and availed himself of this secret mode of retreat was
evident; because the private doors communicating with the postern and
the sliding panel in the gilded chamber were both left open.

Sir Geoffrey returned to the ladies with looks of perplexity. While he
deemed Bridgenorth within his reach, he was apprehensive of nothing he
could do; for he felt himself his superior in personal strength, and in
that species of courage which induces a man to rush, without hesitation,
upon personal danger. But when at a distance, he had been for many years
accustomed to consider Bridgenorth’s power and influence as something
formidable; and notwithstanding the late change of affairs, his ideas
so naturally reverted to his neighbour as a powerful friend or dangerous
enemy, that he felt more apprehension on the Countess’s score, than he
was willing to acknowledge even to himself. The Countess observed his
downcast and anxious brow, and requested to know if her stay there was
likely to involve him in any trouble, or in any danger.

“The trouble should be welcome,” said Sir Geoffrey, “and more welcome
the danger, which should come on such an account. My plan was, that your
ladyship should have honoured Martindale with a few days’ residence,
which might have been kept private until the search after you was
ended. Had I seen this fellow Bridgenorth, I have no doubt I could have
compelled him to act discreetly; but he is now at liberty, and will keep
out of my reach; and, what is worse, he has the secret of the priest’s
chamber.”

Here the Knight paused, and seemed much embarrassed.

“You can, then, neither conceal nor protect me?” said the Countess.

“Pardon, my honoured lady,” answered the Knight, “and let me say out
my say. The plain truth is, that this man hath many friends among the
Presbyterians here, who are more numerous than I would wish them; and
if he falls in with the pursuivant fellow who carries the warrant of the
Privy Council, it is likely he will back him with force sufficient
to try to execute it. And I doubt whether any of our friends can be
summoned together in haste, sufficient to resist such a power as they
are like to bring together.”

“Nor would I wish any friends to take arms, in my name, against the
King’s warrant, Sir Geoffrey,” said the Countess.

“Nay, for that matter,” replied the Knight, “an his Majesty will grant
warrants against his best friends, he must look to have them resisted.
But the best I can think of in this emergence is--though the proposal
be something inhospitable--that your ladyship should take presently to
horse, if your fatigue will permit. I will mount also, with some brisk
fellows, who will lodge you safe at Vale Royal, though the Sheriff
stopped the way with a whole _posse comitatus_.”

The Countess of Derby willingly acquiesced in this proposal. She
had enjoyed a night’s sound repose in the private chamber, to which
Ellesmere had guided her on the preceding evening, and was quite ready
to resume her route, or flight--“she scarce knew,” she said, “which of
the two she should term it.”

Lady Peveril wept at the necessity which seemed to hurry her earliest
friend and protectress from under her roof, at the instant when
the clouds of adversity were gathering around her; but she saw no
alternative equally safe. Nay, however strong her attachment to Lady
Derby, she could not but be more readily reconciled to her hasty
departure, when she considered the inconvenience, and even danger,
in which her presence, at such a time, and in such circumstances, was
likely to involve a man so bold and hot-tempered as her husband Sir
Geoffrey.

While Lady Peveril, therefore, made every arrangement which time
permitted and circumstances required, for the Countess prosecuting her
journey, her husband, whose spirits always rose with the prospect
of action, issued his orders to Whitaker to get together a few stout
fellows, with back and breast pieces, and steel-caps. “There are the two
lackeys, and Outram and Saunders, besides the other groom fellow, and
Roger Raine, and his son; but bid Roger not come drunk again;--thyself,
young Dick of the Dale and his servant, and a file or two of the
tenants,--we shall be enough for any force they can make. All these are
fellows that will strike hard, and ask no question why--their hands
are ever readier than their tongues, and their mouths are more made for
drinking than speaking.”

Whitaker, apprised of the necessity of the case, asked if he should not
warn Sir Jasper Cranbourne.

“Not a word to him, as you live,” said the Knight; “this may be an
outlawry, as they call it, for what I know; and therefore I will bring
no lands or tenements into peril, saving mine own. Sir Jasper hath had
a troublesome time of it for many a year. By my will, he shall sit quiet
for the rest of’s days.”




CHAPTER VII

         _Fang._--A rescue! a rescue!
         _Mrs. Quickly._--Good people, bring a rescue or two.
                                            --Henry IV. _Part I._

The followers of Peveril were so well accustomed to the sound of “Boot
and Saddle,” that they were soon mounted and in order; and in all the
form, and with some of the dignity of danger, proceeded to escort the
Countess of Derby through the hilly and desert tract of country which
connects the frontier of the shire with the neighbouring county of
Cheshire. The cavalcade moved with considerable precaution, which
they had been taught by the discipline of the Civil Wars. One wary and
well-mounted trooper rode about two hundred yards in advance; followed,
at about half that distance, by two more, with their carabines advanced,
as if ready for action. About one hundred yards behind the advance, came
the main body; where the Countess of Derby, mounted on Lady Peveril’s
ambling palfrey (for her own had been exhausted by the journey from
London to Martindale Castle), accompanied by one groom, of approved
fidelity, and one waiting-maid, was attended and guarded by the Knight
of the Peak, and three files of good and practised horsemen. In the rear
came Whitaker, with Lance Outram, as men of especial trust, to whom the
covering the retreat was confided. They rode, as the Spanish proverb
expresses it, “with the beard on the shoulder,” looking around, that
is, from time to time, and using every precaution to have the speediest
knowledge of any pursuit which might take place.

But, however wise in discipline, Peveril and his followers were somewhat
remiss in civil policy. The Knight had communicated to Whitaker, though
without any apparent necessity, the precise nature of their present
expedition; and Whitaker was equally communicative to his comrade Lance,
the keeper. “It is strange enough, Master Whitaker,” said the latter,
when he had heard the case, “and I wish you, being a wise man, would
expound it;--why, when we have been wishing for the King--and praying
for the King--and fighting for the King--and dying for the King, for
these twenty years, the first thing we find to do on his return, is to
get into harness to resist his warrant?”

“Pooh! you silly fellow,” said Whitaker, “that is all you know of the
true bottom of our quarrel! Why, man, we fought for the King’s person
against his warrant, all along from the very beginning; for I remember
the rogues’ proclamations, and so forth, always ran in the name of the
King and Parliament.”

“Ay! was it even so?” replied Lance. “Nay, then, if they begin the old
game so soon again, and send out warrants in the King’s name against his
loyal subjects, well fare our stout Knight, say I, who is ready to take
them down in their stocking-soles. And if Bridgenorth takes the chase
after us, I shall not be sorry to have a knock at him for one.”

“Why, the man, bating he is a pestilent Roundhead and Puritan,” said
Whitaker, “is no bad neighbour. What has he done to thee, man?”

“He has poached on the manor,” answered the keeper.

“The devil he has!” replied Whitaker. “Thou must be jesting, Lance.
Bridgenorth is neither hunter nor hawker; he hath not so much of honesty
in him.”

“Ay, but he runs after game you little think of, with his sour,
melancholy face, that would scare babes and curdle milk,” answered
Lance.

“Thou canst not mean the wenches?” said Whitaker; “why, he hath been
melancholy mad with moping for the death of his wife. Thou knowest our
lady took the child, for fear he should strangle it for putting him in
mind of its mother, in some of his tantrums. Under her favour, and among
friends, there are many poor Cavaliers’ children, that care would be
better bestowed upon--But to thy tale.”

“Why, thus it runs,” said Lance. “I think you may have noticed, Master
Whitaker, that a certain Mistress Deborah hath manifested a certain
favour for a certain person in a certain household.”

“For thyself, to wit,” answered Whitaker; “Lance Outram, thou art the
vainest coxcomb----”

“Coxcomb?” said Lance; “why, ‘twas but last night the whole family saw
her, as one would say, fling herself at my head.”

“I would she had been a brickbat then, to have broken it, for thy
impertinence and conceit,” said the steward.

“Well, but do but hearken. The next morning--that is, this very blessed
morning--I thought of going to lodge a buck in the park, judging a bit
of venison might be wanted in the larder, after yesterday’s wassail;
and, as I passed under the nursery window, I did but just look up to see
what madam governante was about; and so I saw her, through the
casement, whip on her hood and scarf as soon as she had a glimpse of me.
Immediately after I saw the still-room door open, and made sure she was
coming through the garden, and so over the breach and down to the park;
and so, thought I, ‘Aha, Mistress Deb, if you are so ready to dance
after my pipe and tabor, I will give you a couranto before you shall
come up with me.’ And so I went down Ivy-tod Dingle, where the copse is
tangled, and the ground swampy, and round by Haxley-bottom, thinking all
the while she was following, and laughing in my sleeve at the round I
was giving her.”

“You deserved to be ducked for it,” said Whitaker, “for a weather-headed
puppy; but what is all this Jack-a-lantern story to Bridgenorth?”

“Why, it was all along of he, man,” continued Lance, “that is, of
Bridgenorth, that she did not follow me--Gad, I first walked slow, and
then stopped, and then turned back a little, and then began to wonder
what she had made of herself, and to think I had borne myself something
like a jackass in the matter.”

“That I deny,” said Whitaker, “never jackass but would have borne him
better--but go on.”

“Why, turning my face towards the Castle, I went back as if I had my
nose bleeding, when just by the Copely thorn, which stands, you know, a
flight-short from the postern-gate, I saw Madam Deb in close conference
with the enemy.”

“What enemy?” said the steward.

“What enemy! why, who but Bridgenorth? They kept out of sight, and among
the copse; but, thought I, it is hard if I cannot stalk you, that have
stalked so many bucks. If so, I had better give my shafts to be pudding
pins. So I cast round the thicket, to watch their waters; and may I
never bend crossbow again, if I did not see him give her gold, and
squeeze her by the hand!”

“And was that all you saw pass between them?” said the steward.

“Faith, and it was enough to dismount me from my hobby,” said Lance.
“What! when I thought I had the prettiest girl in the Castle dancing
after my whistle, to find that she gave me the bag to hold, and was
smuggling in a corner with a rich old Puritan!”

“Credit me, Lance, it is not as thou thinkest,” said Whitaker.
“Bridgenorth cares not for these amorous toys, and thou thinkest of
nothing else. But it is fitting our Knight should know that he has met
with Deborah in secret, and given her gold; for never Puritan gave gold
yet, but it was earnest for some devil’s work done, or to be done.”

“Nay, but,” said Lance, “I would not be such a dog-bolt as to go and
betray the girl to our master. She hath a right to follow her fancy, as
the dame said who kissed her cow--only I do not much approve her choice,
that is all. He cannot be six years short of fifty; and a verjuice
countenance, under the penthouse of a slouched beaver, and bag of
meagre dried bones, swaddled up in a black cloak, is no such temptation,
methinks.”

“I tell you once more,” said Whitaker, “you are mistaken; and that there
neither is, nor can be, any matter of love between them, but only some
intrigue, concerning, perhaps, this same noble Countess of Derby. I tell
thee, it behoves my master to know it, and I will presently tell it to
him.”

So saying, and in spite of all the remonstrances which Lance continued
to make on behalf of Mistress Deborah, the steward rode up to the
main body of their little party, and mentioned to the Knight, and the
Countess of Derby, what he had just heard from the keeper, adding at
the same time his own suspicions, that Master Bridgenorth of Moultrassie
Hall was desirous to keep up some system of espial in the Castle of
Martindale, either in order to secure his menaced vengeance on the
Countess of Derby, as authoress of his brother-in-law’s death, or for
some unknown, but probably sinister purpose.

The Knight of the Peak was filled with high resentment at Whitaker’s
communication. According to his prejudices, those of the opposite
faction were supposed to make up by wit and intrigue what they wanted
in open force; and he now hastily conceived that his neighbour,
whose prudence he always respected, and sometimes even dreaded, was
maintaining for his private purposes, a clandestine correspondence with
a member of his family. If this was for the betrayal of his noble guest,
it argued at once treachery and presumption; or, viewing the whole as
Lance had done, a criminal intrigue with a woman so near the person
of Lady Peveril, was in itself, he deemed, a piece of sovereign
impertinence and disrespect on the part of such a person as Bridgenorth,
against whom Sir Geoffrey’s anger was kindled accordingly.

Whitaker had scarce regained his post in the rear, when he again quitted
it, and galloped to the main body with more speed than before, with the
unpleasing tidings that they were pursued by half a score of horseman,
and better.

“Ride on briskly to Hartley-nick,” said the Knight, “and there, with
God to help, we will bide the knaves.--Countess of Derby--one word and
a short one--Farewell!--you must ride forward with Whitaker and another
careful fellow, and let me alone to see that no one treads on your
skirts.”

“I will abide with you and stand them,” said the Countess; “you know of
old, I fear not to look on man’s work.”

“You _must_ ride on, madam,” said the Knight, “for the sake of the young
Earl, and the rest of my noble friends’ family. There is no manly work
which can be worth your looking upon; it is but child’s play that these
fellows bring with them.”

As she yielded a reluctant consent to continue her flight, they reached
the bottom of Hartley-nick, a pass very steep and craggy, and where the
road, or rather path, which had hitherto passed over more open ground,
became pent up and confined betwixt copsewood on the one side, and, on
the other, the precipitous bank of a mountain stream.

The Countess of Derby, after an affectionate adieu to Sir Geoffrey,
and having requested him to convey her kind commendations to her little
page-elect and his mother, proceeded up the pass at a round pace, and
with her attendants and escort, was soon out of sight. Immediately after
she had disappeared, the pursuers came up with Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who
had divided and drawn up his party so as completely to occupy the road
at three different points.

The opposite party was led, as Sir Geoffrey had expected, by Major
Bridgenorth. At his side was a person in black, with a silver greyhound
on his arm; and he was followed by about eight or ten inhabitants of the
village of Martindale Moultrassie, two or three of whom were officers of
the peace, and others were personally known to Sir Geoffrey as favourers
of the subverted government.

As the party rode briskly up, Sir Geoffrey called to them to halt; and
as they continued advancing, he ordered his own people to present their
pistols and carabines; and after assuming that menacing attitude, he
repeated, with a voice of thunder, “Halt, or we fire!”

The other party halted accordingly, and Major Bridgenorth advanced, as
if to parley.

“Why, how now, neighbour,” said Sir Geoffrey, as if he had at that
moment recognised him for the first time,--“what makes you ride so
sharp this morning? Are you not afraid to harm your horse, or spoil your
spurs?”

“Sir Geoffrey,” said the Major, “I have not time for jesting--I’m on the
King’s affairs.”

“Are you sure it is not upon Old Noll’s, neighbour? You used to hold his
the better errand,” said the Knight, with a smile which gave occasion to
a horse-laugh among his followers.

“Show him your warrant,” said Bridgenorth to the man in black formerly
mentioned, who was a pursuivant. Then taking the warrant from the
officer, he gave it to Sir Geoffrey--“To this, at least, you will pay
regard.”

“The same regard which you would have paid to it a month back or so,”
 said the Knight, tearing the warrant to shreds.--“What a plague do you
stare at? Do you think you have a monopoly of rebellion, and that we
have not a right to show a trick of disobedience in our turn?”

“Make way, Sir Geoffrey Peveril,” said Bridgenorth, “or you will compel
me to do that I may be sorry for. I am in this matter the avenger of
the blood of one of the Lord’s saints, and I will follow the chase while
Heaven grants me an arm to make my way.”

“You shall make no way here but at your peril,” said Sir Geoffrey; “this
is my ground--I have been harassed enough for these twenty years by
saints, as you call yourselves. I tell you, master, you shall neither
violate the security of my house, nor pursue my friends over the
grounds, nor tamper, as you have done, amongst my servants, with
impunity. I have had you in respect for certain kind doings, which I
will not either forget or deny, and you will find it difficult to make
me draw a sword or bend a pistol against you; but offer any hostile
movement, or presume to advance a foot, and I will make sure of you
presently. And for those rascals, who come hither to annoy a noble lady
on my bounds, unless you draw them off, I will presently send some of
them to the devil before their time.”

“Make room at your proper peril,” said Major Bridgenorth; and he put
his right hand on his holster-pistol. Sir Geoffrey closed with him
instantly, seized him by the collar, and spurred Black Hastings,
checking him at the same time, so that the horse made a courbette, and
brought the full weight of his chest against the counter of the other. A
ready soldier might, in Bridgenorth’s situation, have rid himself of his
adversary with a bullet. But Bridgenorth’s courage, notwithstanding his
having served some time with the Parliament army, was rather of a civil
than a military character; and he was inferior to his adversary, not
only in strength and horsemanship, but also and especially in the daring
and decisive resolution which made Sir Geoffrey thrust himself readily
into personal contest. While, therefore, they tugged and grappled
together upon terms which bore such little accordance with their long
acquaintance and close neighbourhood, it was no wonder that Bridgenorth
should be unhorsed with much violence. While Sir Geoffrey sprung from
the saddle, the party of Bridgenorth advanced to rescue their leader,
and that of the Knight to oppose them. Swords were unsheathed, and
pistols presented; but Sir Geoffrey, with the voice of a herald,
commanded both parties to stand back, and to keep the peace.

The pursuivant took the hint, and easily found a reason for not
prosecuting a dangerous duty. “The warrant,” he said, “was destroyed.
They that did it must be answerable to the Council; for his part, he
could proceed no farther without his commission.”

“Well said, and like a peaceable fellow!” said Sir Geoffrey.--“Let
him have refreshment at the Castle--his nag is sorely out of
condition.--Come, neighbour Bridgenorth, get up, man--I trust you have
had no hurt in this mad affray? I was loath to lay hand on you, man,
till you plucked out your petronel.”

As he spoke thus, he aided the Major to rise. The pursuivant, meanwhile,
drew aside; and with him the constable and head-borough, who were not
without some tacit suspicion, that though Peveril was interrupting
the direct course of law in this matter, yet he was likely to have his
offence considered by favourable judges; and therefore it might be as
much for their interest and safety to give way as to oppose him. But the
rest of the party, friends of Bridgenorth, and of his principles, kept
their ground notwithstanding this defection, and seemed, from their
looks, sternly determined to rule their conduct by that of their leader,
whatever it might be.

But it was evident that Bridgenorth did not intend to renew the
struggle. He shook himself rather roughly free from the hands of Sir
Geoffrey Peveril; but it was not to draw his sword. On the contrary, he
mounted his horse with a sullen and dejected air; and, making a sign to
his followers, turned back the same road which he had come. Sir Geoffrey
looked after him for some minutes. “Now, there goes a man,” said
he, “who would have been a right honest fellow had he not been a
Presbyterian. But there is no heartiness about them--they can never
forgive a fair fall upon the sod--they bear malice, and that I hate as I
do a black cloak, or a Geneva skull-cap, and a pair of long ears rising
on each side on’t, like two chimneys at the gable ends of a thatched
cottage. They are as sly as the devil to boot; and, therefore, Lance
Outram, take two with you, and keep after them, that they may not turn
our flank, and get on the track of the Countess again after all.”

“I had as soon they should course my lady’s white tame doe,” answered
Lance, in the spirit of his calling. He proceeded to execute his
master’s orders by dogging Major Bridgenorth at a distance, and
observing his course from such heights as commanded the country. But it
was soon evident that no manoeuvre was intended, and that the Major was
taking the direct road homeward. When this was ascertained, Sir Geoffrey
dismissed most of his followers; and retaining only his own domestics,
rode hastily forward to overtake the Countess.

It is only necessary to say farther, that he completed his purpose
of escorting the Countess of Derby to Vale Royal, without meeting any
further hindrance by the way. The lord of the mansion readily undertook
to conduct the high-minded lady to Liverpool, and the task of seeing her
safely embarked for her son’s hereditary dominions, where there was no
doubt of her remaining in personal safety until the accusation against
her for breach of the Royal Indemnity, by the execution of Christian,
could be brought to some compromise.

For a length of time this was no easy matter. Clarendon, then at the
head of Charles’s administration, considered her rash action, though
dictated by motives which the human breast must, in some respects,
sympathise with, as calculated to shake the restored tranquillity of
England, by exciting the doubts and jealousies of those who had to
apprehend the consequences of what is called, in our own time, a
_reaction_. At the same time, the high services of this distinguished
family--the merits of the Countess herself--the memory of her gallant
husband--and the very peculiar circumstances of jurisdiction which took
the case out of all common rules, pleaded strongly in her favour; and
the death of Christian was at length only punished by the imposition of
a heavy fine, amounting, we believe, to many thousand pounds; which was
levied, with great difficulty, out of the shattered estates of the young
Earl of Derby.




CHAPTER VIII

                     My native land, good night!
                                           --BYRON.

Lady Peveril remained in no small anxiety for several hours after her
husband and the Countess had departed from Martindale Castle; more
especially when she learned that Major Bridgenorth, concerning whose
motions she made private inquiry, had taken horse with a party, and was
gone to the westward in the same direction with Sir Geoffrey.

At length her immediate uneasiness in regard to the safety of her
husband and the Countess was removed, by the arrival of Whitaker, with
her husband’s commendations, and an account of the scuffle betwixt
himself and Major Bridgenorth.

Lady Peveril shuddered to see how nearly they had approached to renewal
of the scenes of civil discord; and while she was thankful to Heaven for
her husband’s immediate preservation, she could not help feeling both
regret and apprehension for the consequences of his quarrel with Major
Bridgenorth. They had now lost an old friend, who had showed himself
such under those circumstances of adversity by which friendship is
most severely tried; and she could not disguise from herself that
Bridgenorth, thus irritated, might be a troublesome, if not a dangerous
enemy. His rights as a creditor, he had hitherto used with gentleness;
but if he should employ rigour, Lady Peveril, whose attention to
domestic economy had made her much better acquainted with her husband’s
affairs than he was himself, foresaw considerable inconvenience from the
measures which the law put in his power. She comforted herself with the
recollection, however, that she had still a strong hold on Bridgenorth,
through his paternal affection, and from the fixed opinion which he
had hitherto manifested, that his daughter’s health could only flourish
while under her charge. But any expectations of reconciliation which
Lady Peveril might probably have founded on this circumstance, were
frustrated by an incident which took place in the course of the
following morning.

The governante, Mistress Deborah, who has been already mentioned, went
forth, as usual, with the children, to take their morning exercise in
the Park, attended by Rachael, a girl who acted occasionally as her
assistant in attending upon them. But not as usual did she return. It
was near the hour of breakfast, when Ellesmere, with an unwonted degree
of primness in her mouth and manner, came to acquaint her lady that
Mistress Deborah had not thought proper to come back from the Park,
though the breakfast hour approached so near.

“She will come, then, presently,” said Lady Peveril with indifference.

Ellesmere gave a short and doubtful cough, and then proceeded to say,
that Rachael had been sent home with little Master Julian, and that
Mistress Deborah had been pleased to say, she would walk on with Miss
Bridgenorth as far as Moultrassie Holt; which was a point at which
the property of the Major, as matters now stood, bounded that of Sir
Geoffrey Peveril.

“Is the wench turned silly,” exclaimed the lady, something angrily,
“that she does not obey my orders, and return at regular hours?”

“She may be turning silly,” said Ellesmere mysteriously; “or she may
be turning too sly; and I think it were as well your ladyship looked to
it.”

“Looked to what, Ellesmere?” said the lady impatiently. “You are
strangely oracular this morning. If you know anything to the prejudice
of this young woman, I pray you speak it out.”

“I prejudice!” said Ellesmere; “I scorn to prejudice man, woman, or
child, in the way of a fellow-servant; only I wish your ladyship to look
about you, and use your own eyes--that is all.”

“You bid me use my own eyes, Ellesmere; but I suspect,” answered the
lady, “you would be better pleased were I contented to see through your
spectacles. I charge you--and you know I will be obeyed--I charge you to
tell me what you know or suspect about this girl, Deborah Debbitch.”

“I see through spectacles!” exclaimed the indignant Abigail; “your
ladyship will pardon me in that, for I never use them, unless a pair
that belonged to my poor mother, which I put on when your ladyship
wants your pinners curiously wrought. No woman above sixteen ever did
white-seam without barnacles. And then as to suspecting, I suspect
nothing; for as your ladyship hath taken Mistress Deborah Debbitch from
under my hand, to be sure it is neither bread nor butter of mine. Only”
 (here she began to speak with her lips shut, so as scarce to permit a
sound to issue, and mincing her words as if she pinched off the ends
of them before she suffered them to escape),--“only, madam, if Mistress
Deborah goes so often of a morning to Moultrassie Holt, why, I should
not be surprised if she should never find the way back again.”

“Once more, what do you mean, Ellesmere? You were wont to have some
sense--let me know distinctly what the matter is.”

“Only, madam,” pursued the Abigail, “that since Bridgenorth came back
from Chesterfield, and saw you at the Castle Hall, Mistress Deborah has
been pleased to carry the children every morning to that place; and
it has so happened that she has often met the Major, as they call him,
there in his walks; for he can walk about now like other folks; and
I warrant you she hath not been the worse of the meeting--one way at
least, for she hath bought a new hood might serve yourself, madam; but
whether she hath had anything in hand besides a piece of money, no doubt
your ladyship is best judge.”

Lady Peveril, who readily adopted the more good-natured construction of
the governante’s motives, could not help laughing at the idea of a man
of Bridgenorth’s precise appearance, strict principles, and reserved
habits, being suspected of a design of gallantry; and readily concluded,
that Mistress Deborah had found her advantage in gratifying his parental
affection by a frequent sight of his daughter during the few days which
intervened betwixt his first seeing little Alice at the Castle, and the
events which had followed. But she was somewhat surprised, when, an
hour after the usual breakfast hour, during which neither the child nor
Mistress Deborah appeared, Major Bridgenorth’s only man-servant arrived
at the Castle on horseback, dressed as for a journey; and having
delivered a letter addressed to herself, and another to Mistress
Ellesmere, rode away without waiting any answer.

There would have been nothing remarkable in this, had any other person
been concerned; but Major Bridgenorth was so very quiet and orderly in
all his proceedings--so little liable to act hastily or by impulse, that
the least appearance of bustle where he was concerned, excited surprise
and curiosity.

Lady Peveril broke her letter hastily open, and found that it contained
the following lines:--


 “_For the Hands of the Honourable and Honoured Lady Peveril--
  These:_

 “Madam--Please it your Ladyship,--I write more to excuse myself to
  your ladyship, than to accuse either you or others, in respect
  that I am sensible it becomes our frail nature better to confess
  our own imperfections, than to complain of those of others.
  Neither do I mean to speak of past times, particularly in respect
  of your worthy ladyship, being sensible that if I have served you
  in that period when our Israel might be called triumphant, you
  have more than requited me, in giving to my arms a child,
  redeemed, as it were, from the vale of the shadow of death. And
  therefore, as I heartily forgive to your ladyship the unkind and
  violent measure which you dealt to me at our last meeting (seeing
  that the woman who was the cause of strife is accounted one of
  your kindred people), I do entreat you, in like manner, to pardon
  my enticing away from your service the young woman called Deborah
  Debbitch, whose direction, is, it may be, indispensable to the
  health of my dearest child. I had purposed, madam, with your
  gracious permission, that Alice should have remained at Martindale
  Castle, under your kind charge, until she could so far discern
  betwixt good and evil, that it should be matter of conscience to
  teach her the way in which she should go. For it is not unknown to
  your ladyship, and in no way do I speak it reproachfully, but
  rather sorrowfully, that a person so excellently gifted as
  yourself--I mean touching natural qualities--has not yet received
  that true light, which is a lamp to the paths, but are contented
  to stumble in darkness, and among the graves of dead men. It has
  been my prayer in the watches of the night, that your ladyship
  should cease from the doctrine which causeth to err; but I grieve
  to say, that our candlestick being about to be removed, the land
  will most likely be involved in deeper darkness than ever; and the
  return of the King, to which I and many looked forward as a
  manifestation of divine favour, seems to prove little else than a
  permitted triumph of the Prince of the Air, who setteth about to
  restore his Vanity-fair of bishops, deans, and such like,
  extruding the peaceful ministers of the word, whose labours have
  proved faithful to many hungry souls. So, hearing from a sure
  hand, that commission has gone forth to restore these dumb dogs,
  the followers of Laud and of Williams, who were cast forth by the
  late Parliament, and that an Act of Conformity, or rather of
  deformity, of worship, was to be expected, it is my purpose to
  flee from the wrath to come, and to seek some corner where I may
  dwell in peace, and enjoy liberty of conscience. For who would
  abide in the Sanctuary, after the carved work thereof is broken
  down, and when it hath been made a place for owls, and satyrs of
  the wilderness?--And herein I blame myself, madam, that I went in
  the singleness of my heart too readily into that carousing in the
  house of feasting, wherein my love of union, and my desire to show
  respect to your ladyship, were made a snare to me. But I trust it
  will be an atonement, that I am now about to absent myself from
  the place of my birth, and the house of my fathers, as well as
  from the place which holdeth the dust of those pledges of my
  affection. I have also to remember, that in this land my honour
  (after the worldly estimation) hath been abated, and my utility
  circumscribed, by your husband, Sir Geoffrey Peveril; and that
  without any chance of my obtaining reparation at his hand, whereby
  I may say the hand of a kinsman was lifted up against my credit
  and my life. These things are bitter to the taste of the old Adam;
  wherefore to prevent farther bickerings, and, it may be,
  bloodshed, it is better that I leave this land for a time. The
  affairs which remain to be settled between Sir Geoffrey and
  myself, I shall place in the hand of the righteous Master Joachim
  Win-the-Fight, an attorney in Chester, who will arrange them with
  such attention to Sir Geoffrey’s convenience, as justice, and the
  due exercise of the law, will permit; for, as I trust I shall
  have grace to resist the temptation to make the weapons of carnal
  warfare the instruments of my revenge, so I scorn to effect it
  through the means of Mammon. Wishing, madam, that the Lord may
  grant you every blessing, and, in especial, that which is over all
  others, namely, the true knowledge of His way, I remain, your
  devoted servant to command,     RALPH BRIDGENORTH.

 “_Written at Moultrassie Hall, this tenth
        day of July, 1660._”


So soon as Lady Peveril had perused this long and singular homily,
in which it seemed to her that her neighbour showed more spirit of
religious fanaticism than she could have supposed him possessed of,
she looked up and beheld Ellesmere,--with a countenance in which
mortification, and an affected air of contempt, seemed to struggle
together,--who, tired with watching the expression of her mistress’s
countenance, applied for confirmation of her suspicions in plain terms.

“I suppose, madam,” said the waiting-woman, “the fanatic fool intends to
marry the wench? They say he goes to shift the country. Truly it’s time,
indeed; for, besides that the whole neighbourhood would laugh him to
scorn, I should not be surprised if Lance Outram, the keeper, gave him a
buck’s head to bear; for that is all in the way of his office.”

“There is no great occasion for your spite at present, Ellesmere,”
 replied her lady. “My letter says nothing of marriage; but it would
appear that Master Bridgenorth, being to leave this country, has engaged
Deborah to take care of his child; and I am sure I am heartily glad of
it, for the infant’s sake.”

“And I am glad of it for my own,” said Ellesmere; “and, indeed, for the
sake of the whole house.--And your ladyship thinks she is not like to be
married to him? Troth, I could never see how he should be such an idiot;
but perhaps she is going to do worse; for she speaks here of coming to
high preferment, and that scarce comes by honest servitude nowadays;
then she writes me about sending her things, as if I were mistress of
the wardrobe to her ladyship--ay, and recommends Master Julian to the
care of my age and experience, forsooth, as if she needed to recommend
the dear little jewel to me; and then, to speak of my age--But I will
bundle away her rags to the Hall, with a witness!”

“Do it with all civility,” said the lady, “and let Whitaker send her the
wages for which she has served, and a broad-piece over and above; for
though a light-headed young woman, she was kind to the children.”

“I know who is kind to their servants, madam, and would spoil the best
ever pinned a gown.”

“I spoiled a good one, Ellesmere, when I spoiled thee,” said the lady;
“but tell Mistress Deborah to kiss the little Alice for me, and to
offer my good wishes to Major Bridgenorth, for his temporal and future
happiness.”

She permitted no observation or reply, but dismissed her attendant,
without entering into farther particulars.

When Ellesmere had withdrawn, Lady Peveril began to reflect, with much
feeling of compassion, on the letter of Major Bridgenorth; a person in
whom there were certainly many excellent qualities, but whom a series of
domestic misfortunes, and the increasing gloom of a sincere, yet stern
feeling of devotion, rendered lonely and unhappy; and she had more than
one anxious thought for the happiness of the little Alice, brought
up, as she was likely to be, under such a father. Still the removal of
Bridgenorth was, on the whole, a desirable event; for while he remained
at the Hall, it was but too likely that some accidental collision with
Sir Geoffrey might give rise to a rencontre betwixt them, more fatal
than the last had been.

In the meanwhile, she could not help expressing to Doctor Dummerar
her surprise and sorrow, that all which she had done and attempted, to
establish peace and unanimity betwixt the contending factions, had been
perversely fated to turn out the very reverse of what she had aimed at.

“But for my unhappy invitation,” she said, “Bridgenorth would not have
been at the Castle on the morning which succeeded the feast, would not
have seen the Countess, and would not have incurred the resentment and
opposition of my husband. And but for the King’s return, an event which
was so anxiously expected as the termination of all our calamities,
neither the noble lady nor ourselves had been engaged in this new path
of difficulty and danger.”

“Honoured madam,” said Doctor Dummerar, “were the affairs of this world
to be guided implicitly by human wisdom, or were they uniformly to fall
out according to the conjectures of human foresight, events would no
longer be under the domination of that time and chance, which happen
unto all men, since we should, in the one case, work out our own
purposes to a certainty, by our own skill, and in the other, regulate
our conduct according to the views of unerring prescience. But man is,
while in this vale of tears, like an uninstructed bowler, so to speak,
who thinks to attain the jack, by delivering his bowl straight forward
upon it, being ignorant that there is a concealed bias within the
spheroid, which will make it, in all probability, swerve away, and lose
the cast.”

Having spoken this with a sententious air, the Doctor took his
shovel-shaped hat, and went down to the Castle green, to conclude a
match of bowls with Whitaker, which had probably suggested this notable
illustration of the uncertain course of human events.

Two days afterwards, Sir Geoffrey arrived. He had waited at Vale Royal
till he heard of the Countess’s being safely embarked for Man, and then
had posted homeward to his Castle and Dame Margaret. On his way, he
learned from some of his attendants, the mode in which his lady had
conducted the entertainment which she had given to the neighbourhood at
his order; and notwithstanding the great deference he usually showed
in cases where Lady Peveril was concerned, he heard of her liberality
towards the Presbyterian party with great indignation.

“I could have admitted Bridgenorth,” he said, “for he always bore him
in neighbourly and kindly fashion till this last career--I could have
endured him, so he would have drunk the King’s health, like a true
man--but to bring that snuffling scoundrel Solsgrace, with all his
beggarly, long-eared congregation, to hold a conventicle in my father’s
house--to let them domineer it as they listed--why, I would not have
permitted them such liberty, when they held their head the highest! They
never, in the worst of times, found any way into Martindale Castle but
what Noll’s cannon made for them; and that they should come and cant
there, when good King Charles is returned--By my hand, Dame Margaret
shall hear of it!”

But, notwithstanding these ireful resolutions, resentment altogether
subsided in the honest Knight’s breast, when he saw the fair features of
his lady lightened with affectionate joy at his return in safety. As he
took her in his arms and kissed her, he forgave her ere he mentioned her
offence.

“Thou hast played the knave with me, Meg,” he said, shaking his head,
and smiling at the same time, “and thou knowest in what manner; but I
think thou art true church-woman, and didst only act from silly womanish
fancy of keeping fair with these roguish Roundheads. But let me have no
more of this. I had rather Martindale Castle were again rent by their
bullets, than receive any of the knaves in the way of friendship--I
always except Ralph Bridgenorth of the Hall, if he should come to his
senses again.”

Lady Peveril was here under the necessity of explaining what she had
heard of Master Bridgenorth--the disappearance of the governante with
his daughter, and placed Bridgenorth’s letter in his hand. Sir Geoffrey
shook his head at first, and then laughed extremely at the idea that
there was some little love-intrigue between Bridgenorth and Mistress
Deborah.

“It is the true end of a dissenter,” he said, “to marry his own
maid-servant, or some other person’s. Deborah is a good likely wench,
and on the merrier side of thirty, as I should think.”

“Nay, nay,” said the Lady Peveril, “you are as uncharitable as
Ellesmere--I believe it but to be affection to his child.”

“Pshaw! pshaw!” answered the Knight, “women are eternally thinking of
children; but among men, dame, many one carresses the infant that he
may kiss the child’s maid; and where’s the wonder or the harm either, if
Bridgenorth should marry the wench? Her father is a substantial yeoman;
his family has had the same farm since Bosworthfield--as good a pedigree
as that of the great-grandson of a Chesterfield brewer, I trow. But let
us hear what he says for himself--I shall spell it out if there is any
roguery in the letter about love and liking, though it might escape your
innocence, Dame Margaret.”

The Knight of the Peak began to peruse the letter accordingly, but was
much embarrassed by the peculiar language in which it was couched. “What
he means by moving of candlesticks, and breaking down of carved work
in the church, I cannot guess; unless he means to bring back the large
silver candlesticks which my g

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