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.