This day at least is friendship’s--on the morrow
Let strife come an she will.
--OTWAY.
Deborah Debbitch, summoned by her master, now made her appearance, with
her handkerchief at her eyes, and an appearance of great mental trouble.
“It was not my fault, Major Bridgenorth,” she said; “how could I help
it? like will to like--the boy would come--the girl would see him.”
“Peace, foolish woman,” said Bridgenorth, “and hear what I have got to
say.”
“I know what your honour has to say well enough,” said Deborah.
“Service, I wot, is no inheritance nowadays--some are wiser than other
some--if I had not been wheedled away from Martindale, I might have had
a house of mine own by this time.”
“Peace, idiot!” said Bridgenorth; but so intent was Deborah on her
vindication, that he could but thrust the interjection, as it were
edgewise, between her exclamations, which followed as thick as is usual
in cases, where folks endeavour to avert deserved censure by a clamorous
justification ere the charge be brought.
“No wonder she was cheated,” she said, “out of sight of her own
interest, when it was to wait on pretty Miss Alice. All your honour’s
gold should never have tempted me, but that I knew she was but a dead
castaway, poor innocent, if she were taken away from my lady or me.--And
so this is the end on’t!--up early, and down late--and this is all my
thanks!--But your honour had better take care what you do--she has the
short cough yet sometimes--and should take physic, spring and fall.”
“Peace, chattering fool!” said her master, so soon as her failing breath
gave him an opportunity to strike in, “thinkest thou I knew not of
this young gentleman’s visits to the Black Fort, and that, if they had
displeased me, I would not have known how to stop them?”
“Did I know that your honour knew of his visits!” exclaimed Deborah, in
a triumphant tone,--for, like most of her condition, she never
sought farther for her defence than a lie, however inconsistent and
improbable--“_Did_ I know that your honour knew of it!--Why, how should
I have permitted his visits else? I wonder what your honour takes me
for! Had I not been sure it was the thing in this world that your honour
most desired would I have presumed to lend it a hand forward? I trust
I know my duty better. Hear if I ever asked another youngster into
the house, save himself--for I knew your honour was wise, and quarrels
cannot last for ever, and love begins where hatred ends; and, to be
sure, they love as if they were born one for the other--and then, the
estates of Moultrassie and Martindale suit each other like sheath and
knife.”
“Parrot of a woman, hold your tongue!” said Bridgenorth, his patience
almost completely exhausted; “or, if you will prate, let it be to
your playfellows in the kitchen, and bid them get ready some dinner
presently, for Master Peveril is far from home.”
“That I will, and with all my heart,” said Deborah; “and if there are
a pair of fatter fowls in Man than shall clap their wings on the table
presently, your honour shall call me goose as well as parrot.” She then
left the apartment.
“It is to such a woman as that,” said Bridgenorth, looking after her
significantly, “that you conceived me to have abandoned the charge of
my only child! But enough of this subject--we will walk abroad, if you
will, while she is engaged in a province fitter for her understanding.”
So saying, he left the house, accompanied by Julian Peveril, and they
were soon walking side by side, as if they had been old acquaintances.
It may have happened to many of our readers, as it has done to
ourselves, to be thrown by accident into society with some individual
whose claims to what is called a _serious_ character stand considerably
higher than our own, and with whom, therefore, we have conceived
ourselves likely to spend our time in a very stiff and constrained
manner; while, on the other hand, our destined companion may have
apprehended some disgust from the supposed levity and thoughtless gaiety
of a disposition that when we, with that urbanity and good-humour
which is our principal characteristic, have accommodated ourself to our
companion, by throwing as much seriousness into our conversation as our
habits will admit, he, on the other hand, moved by our liberal
example, hath divested his manners of part of their austerity; and our
conversation has, in consequence, been of that pleasant texture, betwixt
the useful and agreeable, which best resembles “the fairy-web of night
and day,” usually called in prose the twilight. It is probable
both parties may, on such occasions, have been the better for their
encounter, even if it went no farther than to establish for the time a
community of feeling between men, who, separated more perhaps by
temper than by principle, are too apt to charge each other with profane
frivolity on the one hand, or fanaticism on the other.
It fared thus in Peveril’s walk with Bridgenorth, and in the
conversation which he held with him.
Carefully avoiding the subject on which he had already spoken, Major
Bridgenorth turned his conversation chiefly on foreign travel, and on
the wonders he had seen in distant countries, and which he appeared to
have marked with a curious and observant eye. This discourse made the
time fly light away; for although the anecdotes and observations thus
communicated were all tinged with the serious and almost gloomy spirit
of the narrator, they yet contained traits of interest and of wonder,
such as are usually interesting to a youthful ear, and were particularly
so to Julian, who had, in his disposition, some cast of the romantic and
adventurous.
It appeared that Bridgenorth knew the south of France, and could tell
many stories of the French Huguenots, who already began to sustain those
vexations which a few years afterwards were summed up by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantz. He had even been in Hungary, for he spoke as from
personal knowledge of the character of several of the heads of the great
Protestant insurrection, which at this time had taken place under the
celebrated Tekeli; and laid down solid reasons why they were entitled to
make common cause with the Great Turk, rather than submit to the Pope
of Rome. He talked also of Savoy, where those of the reformed religion
still suffered a cruel persecution; and he mentioned with a swelling
spirit, the protection which Oliver had afforded to the oppressed
Protestant Churches; “therein showing himself,” he added, “more fit
to wield the supreme power, than those who, claiming it by right of
inheritance, use it only for their own vain and voluptuous pursuits.”
“I did not expect,” said Peveril modestly, “to have heard Oliver’s
panegyric from you, Master Bridgenorth.”
“I do not panegyrise him,” answered Bridgenorth; “I speak but truth of
that extraordinary man, now being dead, whom, when alive, I feared not
to withstand to his face. It is the fault of the present unhappy King,
if he make us look back with regret to the days when the nation was
respected abroad, and when devotion and sobriety were practised at
home.--But I mean not to vex your spirit by controversy. You have
lived amongst those who find it more easy and more pleasant to be the
pensioners of France than her controllers--to spend the money which
she doles out to themselves, than to check the tyranny with which she
oppresses our poor brethren of the religion. When the scales shall fall
from thine eyes, all this thou shalt see; and seeing, shalt learn to
detest and despise it.”
By this time they had completed their walk, and were returned to the
Black Fort, by a different path from that which had led them up the
valley. The exercise and the general tone of conversation had removed,
in some degree, the shyness and embarrassment which Peveril originally
felt in Bridgenorth’s presence and which the tenor of his first remarks
had rather increased than diminished. Deborah’s promised banquet was
soon on the board; and in simplicity as well as neatness and good order,
answered the character she had claimed for it. In one respect alone,
there seemed some inconsistency, perhaps a little affectation. Most
of the dishes were of silver, and the plates were of the same metal;
instead of the trenchers and pewter which Peveril had usually seen
employed on similar occasions at the Black Fort.
Presently, with the feeling of one who walks in a pleasant dream from
which he fears to awake, and whose delight is mingled with wonder and
with uncertainty, Julian Peveril found himself seated between Alice
Bridgenorth and her father--the being he most loved on earth, and
the person whom he had ever considered as the great obstacle to their
intercourse. The confusion of his mind was such, that he could scarcely
reply to the importunate civilities of Dame Deborah; who, seated with
them at table in her quality of governante, now dispensed the good
things which had been prepared under her own eye.
As for Alice she seemed to have found a resolution to play the mute; for
she answered not, excepting briefly, to the questions of Dame Debbitch;
nay, even when her father, which happened once or twice, attempted to
bring her forward in the conversation, she made no further reply than
respect for him rendered absolutely necessary.
Upon Bridgenorth himself, then, devolved the task of entertaining the
company; and contrary to his ordinary habits, he did not seem to shrink
from it. His discourse was not only easy, but almost cheerful, though
ever and anon crossed by some expressions indicative of natural and
habitual melancholy, or prophetic of future misfortune and woe. Flashes
of enthusiasm, too, shot along his conversation, gleaming like the
sheet-lightening of an autumn eve, which throws a strong, though
momentary illumination, across the sober twilight, and all the
surrounding objects, which, touched by it, assume a wilder and more
striking character. In general, however, Bridgenorth’s remarks were
plain and sensible; and as he aimed at no graces of language, any
ornament which they received arose out of the interest with which they
were impressed on his hearers. For example, when Deborah, in the pride
and vulgarity of her heart, called Julian’s attention to the plate
from which they had been eating, Bridgenorth seemed to think an apology
necessary for such superfluous expense.
“It was a symptom,” he said, “of approaching danger, when such men, as
were not usually influenced by the vanities of life employed much money
in ornaments composed of the precious metals. It was a sign that the
merchant could not obtain a profit for the capital, which, for the sake
of security, he invested in this inert form. It was a proof that the
noblemen or gentlemen feared the rapacity of power, when they put
their wealth into forms the most portable and the most capable of being
hidden; and it showed the uncertainty of credit, when a man of judgment
preferred the actual possession of a mass of a silver to the convenience
of a goldsmith’s or a banker’s receipt. While a shadow of liberty
remained,” he said, “domestic rights were last invaded; and, therefore,
men disposed upon their cupboards and tables the wealth which in these
places would remain longest, though not perhaps finally, sacred from the
grasp of a tyrannical government. But let there be a demand for capital
to support a profitable commerce, and the mass is at once consigned
to the furnace, and, ceasing to be a vain and cumbrous ornament of the
banquet, becomes a potent and active agent for furthering the prosperity
of the country.”
“In war, too,” said Peveril, “plate has been found a ready resource.”
“But too much so,” answered Bridgenorth. “In the late times, the plate
of the nobles and gentry, with that of the colleges, and the sale of
the crown-jewels, enabled the King to make his unhappy stand, which
prevented matters returning to a state of peace and good order,
until the sword had attained an undue superiority both over King and
Parliament.”
He looked at Julian as he spoke, much as he who proves a horse offers
some object suddenly to his eyes, then watches to see if he starts or
blenches from it. But Julian’s thoughts were too much bent on other
topics to manifest any alarm. His answer referred to a previous part of
Bridgenorth’s discourse, and was not returned till after a brief pause.
“War, then,” he said, “war, the grand impoverisher, is also a creator of
wealth which it wastes and devours?”
“Yes,” replied Bridgenorth, “even as the sluice brings into action the
sleeping waters of the lake, which it finally drains. Necessity invents
arts and discovers means; and what necessity is sterner than that of
civil war? Therefore, even war is not in itself unmixed evil, being the
creator of impulses and energies which could not otherwise have existed
in society.”
“Men should go to war, then,” said Peveril, “that they may send their
silver plate to the mint, and eat from pewter dishes and wooden plates?”
“Not so, my son,” said Bridgenorth. Then checking himself as he observed
the deep crimson in Julian’s cheek and brow, he added, “I crave your
pardon for such familiarity; but I meant not to limit what I said even
now to such trifling consequences, although it may be something salutary
to tear men from their pomps and luxuries, and teach those to be Romans
who would otherwise be Sybarites. But I would say, that times of public
danger, as they call into circulation the miser’s hoard and the proud
man’s bullion, and so add to the circulating wealth of the country,
do also call into action many a brave and noble spirit, which would
otherwise lie torpid, give no example to the living, and bequeath no
name to future ages. Society knows not, and cannot know, the mental
treasures which slumber in her bosom, till necessity and opportunity
call forth the statesman and the soldier from the shades of lowly
life to the parts they are designed by Providence to perform, and the
stations which nature had qualified them to hold. So rose Oliver--so
rose Milton--so rose many another name which cannot be forgotten--even
as the tempest summons forth and displays the address of the mariner.”
“You speak,” said Peveril, “as if national calamity might be, in some
sort, an advantage.”
“And if it were not so,” replied Bridgenorth, “it had not existed in
this state of trial, where all temporal evil is alleviated by something
good in its progress or result, and where all that is good is close
coupled with that which is in itself evil.”
“It must be a noble sight,” said Julian, “to behold the slumbering
energies of a great mind awakened into energy, and to see it assume the
authority which is its due over spirits more meanly endowed.”
“I once witnessed,” said Bridgenorth, “something to the same effect;
and as the tale is brief, I will tell it you, if you will:--Amongst
my wanderings, the Transatlantic settlements have not escaped me; more
especially the country of New England, into which our native land has
shaken from her lap, as a drunkard flings from him his treasures, so
much that is precious in the eyes of God and of His children. There
thousands of our best and most godly men--such whose righteousness might
come of cities--are content to be the inhabitants of the desert, rather
encountering the unenlightened savages, than stooping to extinguish,
under the oppression practised in Britain, the light that is within
their own minds. There I remained for a time, during the wars which the
colony maintained with Philip, a great Indian Chief, or Sachem, as they
were called, who seemed a messenger sent from Satan to buffet them.
His cruelty was great--his dissimulation profound; and the skill
and promptitude with which he maintained a destructive and desultory
warfare, inflicted many dreadful calamities on the settlement. I was,
by chance, at a small village in the woods, more than thirty miles from
Boston, and in its situation exceedingly lonely, and surrounded with
thickets. Nevertheless, there was no idea of any danger from the Indians
at that time, for men trusted to the protection of a considerable body
of troops who had taken the field for protection of the frontiers, and
who lay, or were supposed to lie, betwixt the hamlet and the enemy’s
country. But they had to do with a foe, whom the devil himself had
inspired at once with cunning and cruelty. It was on a Sabbath morning,
when we had assembled to take sweet counsel together in the Lord’s
house. Our temple was but constructed of wooden logs; but when shall the
chant of trained hirelings, or the sounding of tin and brass tubes amid
the aisles of a minster, arise so sweetly to Heaven, as did the psalm in
which we united at once our voices and our hearts! An excellent worthy,
who now sleeps in the Lord, Nehemia Solsgrace, long the companion of
my pilgrimage, had just begun to wrestle in prayer, when a woman,
with disordered looks and dishevelled hair, entered our chapel in
a distracted manner, screaming incessantly, ‘The Indians! The
Indians!’--In that land no man dares separate himself from his means of
defence; and whether in the city or in the field, in the ploughed land
or the forest, men keep beside them their weapons, as did the Jews at
the rebuilding of the Temple. So we sallied forth with our guns and
pikes, and heard the whoop of these incarnate devils, already in
possession of a part of the town, and exercising their cruelty on
the few whom weighty causes or indisposition had withheld from public
worship; and it was remarked as a judgment, that, upon that bloody
Sabbath, Adrian Hanson, a Dutchman, a man well enough disposed towards
man, but whose mind was altogether given to worldly gain, was shot and
scalped as he was summing his weekly gains in his warehouse. In fine,
there was much damage done; and although our arrival and entrance into
combat did in some sort put them back, yet being surprised and confused,
and having no appointed leader of our band, the devilish enemy shot
hard at us and had some advantage. It was pitiful to hear the screams of
women and children amid the report of guns and the whistling of bullets,
mixed with the ferocious yells of these savages, which they term their
war-whoop. Several houses in the upper part of the village were soon on
fire; and the roaring of the flames, and crackling of the great beams as
they blazed, added to the horrible confusion; while the smoke which the
wind drove against us gave farther advantage to the enemy, who fought
as it were, invisible, and under cover, whilst we fell fast by their
unerring fire. In this state of confusion, and while we were about to
adopt the desperate project of evacuating the village, and, placing the
women and children in the centre, of attempting a retreat to the nearest
settlement, it pleased Heaven to send us unexpected assistance. A tall
man, of a reverend appearance, whom no one of us had ever seen before,
suddenly was in the midst of us, as we hastily agitated the resolution
of retreating. His garments were of the skin of the elk, and he wore
sword and carried gun; I never saw anything more august than his
features, overshadowed by locks of grey hair, which mingled with a long
beard of the same colour. ‘Men and brethren,’ he said, in a voice like
that which turns back the flight, ‘why sink your hearts? and why are
you thus disquieted? Fear ye that the God we serve will give you up to
yonder heathen dogs? Follow me, and you shall see this day that there is
a captain in Israel!’ He uttered a few brief but distinct orders, in a
tone of one who was accustomed to command; and such was the influence of
his appearance, his mien, his language, and his presence of mind,
that he was implicitly obeyed by men who had never seen him until that
moment. We were hastily divided, by his orders, into two bodies; one of
which maintained the defence of the village with more courage than ever,
convinced that the Unknown was sent by God to our rescue. At his command
they assumed the best and most sheltered positions for exchanging their
deadly fire with the Indians; while, under cover of the smoke, the
stranger sallied from the town, at the head of the other division of the
New England men, and, fetching a circuit, attacked the Red Warriors
in the rear. The surprise, as is usual amongst savages, had complete
effect; for they doubted not that they were assailed in their turn, and
placed betwixt two hostile parties by the return of a detachment from
the provincial army. The heathens fled in confusion, abandoning the
half-won village, and leaving behind them such a number of their
warriors, that the tribe hath never recovered its loss. Never shall I
forget the figure of our venerable leader, when our men, and not they
only, but the women and children of the village, rescued from the
tomahawk and scalping-knife, stood crowded around him, yet scarce
venturing to approach his person, and more minded, perhaps, to worship
him as a descended angel, than to thank him as a fellow-mortal. ‘Not
unto me be the glory,’ he said; ‘I am but an implement, frail as
yourselves, in the hand of Him who is strong to deliver. Bring me a cup
of water, that I may allay my parched throat, ere I essay the task of
offering thanks where they are most due.’ I was nearest to him as he
spoke, and I gave into his hand the water he requested. At that moment
we exchanged glances, and it seemed to me that I recognised a noble
friend whom I had long since deemed in glory; but he gave me no time to
speak, had speech been prudent. Sinking on his knees, and signing us to
obey him, he poured forth a strong and energetic thanksgiving for the
turning back of the battle, which, pronounced with a voice loud and
clear as a war-trumpet, thrilled through the joints and marrow of the
hearers. I have heard many an act of devotion in my life, had Heaven
vouchsafed me grace to profit by them; but such a prayer as this,
uttered amid the dead and the dying, with a rich tone of mingled triumph
and adoration, was beyond them all--it was like the song of the inspired
prophetess who dwelt beneath the palm-tree between Ramah and Bethel. He
was silent; and for a brief space we remained with our faces bent to the
earth--no man daring to lift his head. At length we looked up, but our
deliverer was no longer amongst us; nor was he ever again seen in the
land which he had rescued.”
Here Bridgenorth, who had told this singular story with an eloquence
and vivacity of detail very contrary to the usual dryness of his
conversation, paused for an instant, and then resumed--“Thou seest,
young man, that men of valour and of discretion are called forth
to command in circumstances of national exigence, though their very
existence is unknown in the land which they are predestined to deliver.”
“But what thought the people of the mysterious stranger?” said Julian,
who had listened with eagerness, for the story was of a kind interesting
to the youthful and the brave.
“Many things,” answered Bridgenorth, “and, as usual, little to
the purpose. The prevailing opinion was, notwithstanding his own
disclamation, that the stranger was really a supernatural being; others
believed him an inspired champion, transported in the body from some
distant climate, to show us the way to safety; others, again, concluded
that he was a recluse, who, either from motives of piety, or other
cogent reasons, had become a dweller in the wilderness, and shunned the
face of man.”
“And, if I may presume to ask,” said Julian, “to which of these opinions
were you disposed to adhere?”
“The last suited best with the transient though close view with which I
had perused the stranger’s features,” replied Bridgenorth; “for although
I dispute not that it may please Heaven, on high occasions, even to
raise one from the dead in defence of his country, yet I doubted not
then, as I doubt not now, that I looked on the living form of one, who
had indeed powerful reasons to conceal him in the cleft of the rock.”
“Are these reasons a secret?” said Julian Peveril.
“Not properly a secret,” replied Bridgenorth; “for I fear not thy
betraying what I might tell thee in private discourse; and besides, wert
thou so base, the prey lies too distant for any hunters to whom thou
couldst point out its traces. But the name of this worthy will sound
harsh in thy ear, on account of one action of his life--being his
accession to a great measure, which made the extreme isles of the earth
to tremble. Have you never heard of Richard Whalley?”
“Of the regicide?” exclaimed Peveril, starting.
“Call his act what thou wilt,” said Bridgenorth; “he was not less the
rescuer of that devoted village, that, with other leading spirits of the
age, he sat in the judgment-seat when Charles Stewart was arraigned at
the bar, and subscribed the sentence that went forth upon him.”
“I have ever heard,” said Julian, in an altered voice, and colouring
deeply, “that you, Master Bridgenorth, with other Presbyterians, were
totally averse to that detestable crime, and were ready to have made
joint-cause with the Cavaliers in preventing so horrible a parricide.”
“If it were so,” said Bridgenorth, “we have been richly rewarded by his
successor.”
“Rewarded!” exclaimed Julian; “does the distinction of good and evil,
and our obligation to do the one and forbear the other, depend on the
reward which may attach to our actions?”
“God forbid,” answered Bridgenorth; “yet those who view the havoc which
this house of Stewart have made in the Church and State--the tyranny
which they exercise over men’s persons and consciences--may well doubt
whether it be lawful to use weapons in their defence. Yet you hear
me not praise, or even vindicate the death of the King, though so far
deserved, as he was false to his oath as a Prince and Magistrate. I only
tell you what you desired to know, that Richard Whalley, one of the
late King’s judges, was he of whom I have just been speaking. I knew
his lofty brow, though time had made it balder and higher; his grey eye
retained all its lustre; and though the grizzled beard covered the lower
part of his face, it prevented me not from recognising him. The scent
was hot after him for his blood; but by the assistance of those friends
whom Heaven had raised up for his preservation, he was concealed
carefully, and emerged only to do the will of Providence in the matter
of that battle. Perhaps his voice may be heard in the field once more,
should England need one of her noblest hearts.”
“Now, God forbid!” said Julian.
“Amen,” returned Bridgenorth. “May God avert civil war, and pardon those
whose madness would bring it on us!”
There was a long pause, during which Julian, who had scarce lifted his
eyes towards Alice, stole a glance in that direction, and was struck by
the deep cast of melancholy which had stolen over features, to which a
cheerful, if not gay expression, was most natural. So soon as she caught
his eye, she remarked, and, as Julian thought, with significance, that
the shadows were lengthening, and evening coming on.
He heard; and although satisfied that she hinted at his departure, he
could not, upon the instant, find resolution to break the spell which
detained him. The language which Bridgenorth held was not only new and
alarming, but so contrary to the maxims in which he was brought up,
that, as a son of Sir Geoffrey Peveril of the Peak, he would, in another
case, have thought himself called upon to dispute its conclusions, even
at the sword’s point. But Bridgenorth’s opinions were delivered with
so much calmness--seemed so much the result of conviction--that they
excited in Julian rather a spirit of wonder, than of angry controversy.
There was a character of sober decision, and sedate melancholy, in
all that he said, which, even had he not been the father of Alice (and
perhaps Julian was not himself aware how much he was influenced by
that circumstance), would have rendered it difficult to take personal
offence. His language and sentiments were of that quiet, yet decided
kind, upon which it is difficult either to fix controversy, or quarrel,
although it be impossible to acquiesce in the conclusions to which they
lead.
While Julian remained, as if spell-bound to his chair, scarce more
surprised at the company in which he found himself, than at the opinions
to which he was listening, another circumstance reminded him that the
proper time of his stay at Black Fort had been expended. Little Fairy,
the Manx pony, which, well accustomed to the vicinity of Black Fort,
used to feed near the house while her master made his visits there,
began to find his present stay rather too long. She had been the gift
of the Countess to Julian, whilst a youth, and came of a high-spirited
mountain breed, remarkable alike for hardiness, for longevity, and for
a degree of sagacity approaching to that of the dog. Fairy showed the
latter quality, by the way in which she chose to express her impatience
to be moving homewards. At least such seemed the purpose of the shrill
neigh with which she startled the female inmates of the parlour, who,
the moment afterwards, could not forbear smiling to see the nose of the
pony advanced through the opened casement.
“Fairy reminds me,” said Julian, looking to Alice, and rising, “that the
term of my stay here is exhausted.”
“Speak with me yet one moment,” said Bridgenorth, withdrawing him into
a Gothic recess of the old-fashioned apartment, and speaking so low
that he could not be overheard by Alice and her governante, who, in the
meantime, caressed, and fed with fragments of bread the intruder Fairy.
“You have not, after all,” said Bridgenorth, “told me the cause of your
coming hither.” He stopped, as if to enjoy his embarrassment, and then
added, “And indeed it were most unnecessary that you should do so. I
have not so far forgotten the days of my youth, or those affections
which bind poor frail humanity but too much to the things of this world.
Will you find no words to ask of me the great boon which you seek, and
which, peradventure, you would not have hesitated to have made your
own, without my knowledge, and against my consent?--Nay, never vindicate
thyself, but mark me farther. The patriarch bought his beloved by
fourteen years’ hard service to her father Laban, and they seemed to
him but as a few days. But he that would wed my daughter must serve,
in comparison, but a few days; though in matters of such mighty import,
that they shall seem as the service of many years. Reply not to me now,
but go, and peace be with you.”
He retired so quickly, after speaking, that Peveril had literally not an
instant to reply. He cast his eyes around the apartment, but Deborah
and her charge had also disappeared. His gaze rested for a moment on
the portrait of Christian, and his imagination suggested that his dark
features were illuminated by a smile of haughty triumph. He stared,
and looked more attentively--it was but the effect of the evening beam,
which touched the picture at the instant. The effect was gone, and there
remained but the fixed, grave, inflexible features of the republican
soldier.
Julian left the apartment as one who walks in a dream; he mounted Fairy,
and, agitated by a variety of thoughts, which he was unable to reduce to
order, he returned to Castle Rushin before the night sat down.
Here he found all in movement. The Countess, with her son, had, upon
some news received, or resolution formed, during his absence, removed,
with a principal part of their family, to the yet stronger Castle of
Holm-Peel, about eight miles’ distance across the island; and which had
been suffered to fall into a much more dilapidated condition than that
of Castletown, so far as it could be considered as a place of residence.
But as a fortress, Holm-Peel was stronger than Castletown; nay, unless
assailed regularly, was almost impregnable; and was always held by
a garrison belonging to the Lords of Man. Here Peveril arrived at
nightfall. He was told in the fishing-village, that the night-bell of
the Castle had been rung earlier than usual, and the watch set with
circumstances of unusual and jealous repetition.
Resolving, therefore, not to disturb the garrison by entering at that
late hour, he obtained an indifferent lodging in the town for the night,
and determined to go to the Castle early on the succeeding morning. He
was not sorry thus to gain a few hours of solitude, to think over the
agitating events of the preceding day.