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.”