We meet, as men see phantoms in a dream,
Which glide, and sigh, and sign, and move their lips,
But make no sound; or, if they utter voice,
‘Tis but a low and undistinguish’d moaning,
Which has nor word nor sense of utter’d sound.
--THE CHIEFTAIN.
We said, at the conclusion of the last chapter, that a female form
appeared at the door of Moultrassie Hall; and that the well-known
accents of Alice Bridgenorth were heard to hail the return of her
father, from what she naturally dreaded as a perilous visit to the
Castle of Martindale.
Julian, who followed his conductor with a throbbing heart into the
lighted hall, was therefore prepared to see her whom he best loved,
with her arms thrown around her father. The instant she had quitted his
paternal embrace, she was aware of the unexpected guest who had returned
in his company. A deep blush, rapidly succeeded by a deadly paleness,
and again by a slighter suffusion, showed plainly to her lover that
his sudden appearance was anything but indifferent to her. He bowed
profoundly--a courtesy which she returned with equal formality, but did
not venture to approach more nearly, feeling at once the delicacy of his
own situation and of hers.
Major Bridgenorth turned his cold, fixed, grey, melancholy glance,
first on the one of them and then on the other. “Some,” he said gravely,
“would, in my case, have avoided this meeting; but I have confidence in
you both, although you are young, and beset with the snares incidental
to your age. There are those within who should not know that ye have
been acquainted. Wherefore, be wise, and be as strangers to each other.”
Julian and Alice exchanged glances as her father turned from them, and
lifting a lamp which stood in the entrance-hall, led the way to the
interior apartment. There was little of consolation in this exchange of
looks; for the sadness of Alice’s glance was mingled with fear, and that
of Julian clouded by an anxious sense of doubt. The look also was but
momentary; for Alice, springing to her father, took the light out of his
hand, and stepping before him, acted as the usher of both into the large
oaken parlour, which has been already mentioned as the apartment in
which Bridgenorth had spent the hours of dejection which followed
the death of his consort and family. It was now lighted up as for the
reception of company; and five or six persons sat in it, in the plain,
black, stiff dress, which was affected by the formal Puritans of the
time, in evidence of their contempt of the manners of the luxurious
Court of Charles the Second; amongst whom, excess of extravagance in
apparel, like excess of every other kind, was highly fashionable.
Julian at first glanced his eyes but slightly along the range of grave
and severe faces which composed this society--men sincere, perhaps, in
their pretensions to a superior purity of conduct and morals, but in
whom that high praise was somewhat chastened by an affected austerity
in dress and manners, allied to those Pharisees of old, who made broad
their phylacteries, and would be seen of man to fast, and to discharge
with rigid punctuality the observances of the law. Their dress was
almost uniformly a black cloak and doublet, cut straight and close, and
undecorated with lace or embroidery of any kind, black Flemish breeches
and hose, square-toed shoes, with large roses made of serge ribbon. Two
or three had large loose boots of calf-leather, and almost every one was
begirt with a long rapier, which was suspended by leathern thongs, to a
plain belt of buff, or of black leather. One or two of the elder guests,
whose hair had been thinned by time, had their heads covered with a
skull-cap of black silk or velvet, which, being drawn down betwixt the
ears and the skull, and permitting no hair to escape, occasioned the
former to project in the ungraceful manner which may be remarked in old
pictures, and which procured for the Puritans the term of “prickeared
Roundheads,” so unceremoniously applied to them by their contemporaries.
These worthies were ranged against the wall, each in his ancient
high-backed, long-legged chair; neither looking towards, nor apparently
discoursing with each other; but plunged in their own reflections, or
awaiting, like an assembly of Quakers, the quickening power of divine
inspiration.
Major Bridgenorth glided along this formal society with noiseless step,
and a composed severity of manner, resembling their own. He paused
before each in succession, and apparently communicated, as he passed,
the transactions of the evening, and the circumstances under which the
heir of Martindale Castle was now a guest at Moultrassie Hall. Each
seemed to stir at his brief detail, like a range of statues in an
enchanted hall, starting into something like life, as a talisman is
applied to them successively. Most of them, as they heard the narrative
of their host, cast upon Julian a look of curiosity, blended with
haughty scorn and the consciousness of spiritual superiority; though,
in one or two instances, the milder influences of compassion were
sufficiently visible.--Peveril would have undergone this gantlet of
eyes with more impatience, had not his own been for the time engaged in
following the motions of Alice, who glided through the apartment;
and only speaking very briefly, and in whispers, to one or two of the
company who addressed her, took her place beside a treble-hooded old
lady, the only female of the party, and addressed herself to her in such
earnest conversation, as might dispense with her raising her head, or
looking at any others in the company.
Her father put a question, to which she was obliged to return an
answer--“Where was Mistress Debbitch?”
“She has gone out,” Alice replied, “early after sunset, to visit some
old acquaintances in the neighbourhood, and she was not yet returned.”
Major Bridgenorth made a gesture indicative of displeasure; and, not
content with that, expressed his determined resolution that Dame Deborah
should no longer remain a member of his family. “I will have those,” he
said aloud, and without regarding the presence of his guests, “and those
only, around me, who know to keep within the sober and modest bounds of
a Christian family. Who pretends to more freedom, must go out from among
us, as not being of us.”
A deep and emphatic humming noise, which was at that time the mode in
which the Puritans signified their applause, as well of the doctrines
expressed by a favourite divine in the pulpit, as of those delivered in
private society, ratified the approbation of the assessors, and seemed
to secure the dismission of the unfortunate governante, who stood thus
detected of having strayed out of bounds. Even Peveril, although he had
reaped considerable advantages, in his early acquaintance with Alice,
from the mercenary and gossiping disposition of her governess, could
not hear of her dismissal without approbation, so much was he desirous,
that, in the hour of difficulty which might soon approach, Alice might
have the benefit of countenance and advice from one of her own sex of
better manners, and less suspicious probity, than Mistress Debbitch.
Almost immediately after this communication had taken place, a servant
in mourning showed his thin, pinched, and wrinkled visage in the
apartment, announcing, with a voice more like a passing bell than the
herald of a banquet, that refreshments were provided in an adjoining
apartment. Gravely leading the way, with his daughter on one side,
and the puritanical female whom we have distinguished on the other,
Bridgenorth himself ushered his company, who followed, with little
attention to order or ceremony, into the eating-room, where a
substantial supper was provided.
In this manner, Peveril, although entitled according to ordinary
ceremonial, to some degree of precedence--a matter at that time
considered of much importance, although now little regarded--was left
among the last of those who quitted the parlour; and might indeed have
brought up the rear of all, had not one of the company, who was himself
late in the retreat, bowed and resigned to Julian the rank in the
company which had been usurped by others.
This act of politeness naturally induced Julian to examine the features
of the person who had offered him this civility; and he started to
observe, under the pinched velvet cap, and above the short band-strings,
the countenance of Ganlesse, as he called himself--his companion on the
preceding evening. He looked again and again, especially when all were
placed at the supper board, and when, consequently, he had frequent
opportunities of observing this person fixedly without any breach of
good manners. At first he wavered in his belief, and was much inclined
to doubt the reality of his recollection; for the difference of dress
was such as to effect a considerable change of appearance; and the
countenance itself, far from exhibiting anything marked or memorable,
was one of those ordinary visages which we see almost without remarking
them, and which leave our memory so soon as the object is withdrawn
from our eyes. But the impression upon his mind returned, and became
stronger, until it induced him to watch with peculiar attention the
manners of the individual who had thus attracted his notice.
During the time of a very prolonged grace before meat, which was
delivered by one of the company--who, from his Geneva band and
serge doublet, presided, as Julian supposed, over some dissenting
congregation--he noticed that this man kept the same demure and severe
cast of countenance usually affected by the Puritans, and which rather
caricatured the reverence unquestionably due upon such occasions. His
eyes were turned upward, and his huge penthouse hat, with a high crown
and broad brim, held in both hands before him, rose and fell with the
cadences of the speaker’s voice; thus marking time, as it were, to the
periods of the benediction. Yet when the slight bustle took place which
attends the adjusting of chairs, &c., as men sit down to table, Julian’s
eye encountered that of the stranger; and as their looks met, there
glanced from those of the latter an expression of satirical humour and
scorn, which seemed to intimate internal ridicule of the gravity of his
present demeanour.
Julian again sought to fix his eye, in order to ascertain that he had
not mistaken the tendency of this transient expression, but the stranger
did not allow him another opportunity. He might have been discovered by
the tone of his voice; but the individual in question spoke little, and
in whispers, which was indeed the fashion of the whole company, whose
demeanour at table resembled that of mourners at a funeral feast.
The entertainment itself was coarse, though plentiful; and must,
according to Julian’s opinion, be distasteful to one so exquisitely
skilled in good cheer, and so capable of enjoying, critically and
scientifically, the genial preparations of his companion Smith, as
Ganlesse had shown himself on the preceding evening. Accordingly, upon
close observation, he remarked that the food which he took upon his
plate remained there unconsumed; and that his actual supper consisted
only of a crust of bread, with a glass of wine.
The repast was hurried over with the haste of those who think it shame,
if not sin, to make mere animal enjoyments the means of consuming
time, or of receiving pleasure; and when men wiped their mouths and
moustaches, Julian remarked that the object of his curiosity used a
handkerchief of the finest cambric--an article rather inconsistent with
the exterior plainness, not to say coarseness, of his appearance. He
used also several of the more minute refinements, then only observed at
tables of the higher rank; and Julian thought he could discern, at every
turn, something of courtly manners and gestures, under the precise and
rustic simplicity of the character which he had assumed.[*]
[*] A Scottish gentleman _in hiding_, as it was emphatically termed,
for some concern in a Jacobite insurrection or plot, was
discovered among a number of ordinary persons, by the use of his
toothpick.
But if this were indeed that same Ganlesse with whom Julian had met on
the preceding evening, and who had boasted the facility with which he
could assume any character which he pleased to represent for the time,
what could be the purpose of this present disguise? He was, if his own
words could be credited, a person of some importance, who dared to defy
the danger of those officers and informers, before whom all ranks at
that time trembled; nor was he likely, as Julian conceived, without some
strong purpose, to subject himself to such a masquerade as the present,
which could not be otherwise than irksome to one whose conversation
proclaimed him of light life and free opinions. Was his appearance here
for good or for evil? Did it respect his father’s house, or his own
person, or the family of Bridgenorth? Was the real character of Ganlesse
known to the master of the house, inflexible as he was in all which
concerned morals as well as religion? If not, might not the machinations
of a brain so subtile affect the peace and happiness of Alice
Bridgenorth?
These were questions which no reflection could enable Peveril to
answer. His eyes glanced from Alice to the stranger; and new fears, and
undefined suspicions, in which the safety of that beloved and lovely
girl was implicated, mingled with the deep anxiety which already
occupied his mind, on account of his father and his father’s house.
He was in this tumult of mind, when after a thanksgiving as long as the
grace, the company arose from table, and were instantly summoned to
the exercise of family worship. A train of domestics, grave, sad,
and melancholy as their superiors, glided in to assist at this act of
devotion, and ranged themselves at the lower end of the apartment.
Most of these men were armed with long tucks, as the straight stabbing
swords, much used by Cromwell’s soldiery, were then called. Several had
large pistols also; and the corselets or cuirasses of some were heard to
clank, as they seated themselves to partake in this act of devotion. The
ministry of him whom Julian had supposed a preacher was not used on
this occasion. Major Bridgenorth himself read and expounded a chapter of
Scripture, with much strength and manliness of expression, although so
as not to escape the charge of fanaticism. The nineteenth chapter of
Jeremiah was the portion of Scripture which he selected; in which,
under the type of breaking a potter’s vessel, the prophet presages the
desolation of the Jews. The lecturer was not naturally eloquent; but
a strong, deep, and sincere conviction of the truth of what he said
supplied him with language of energy and fire, as he drew parallel
between the abominations of the worship of Baal, and the corruptions
of the Church of Rome--so favourite a topic with the Puritans of that
period; and denounced against the Catholics, and those who favoured
them, that hissing and desolation which the prophet directed against the
city of Jerusalem. His hearers made a yet closer application than the
lecturer himself suggested; and many a dark proud eye intimated, by a
glance on Julian, that on his father’s house were already, in some part,
realised those dreadful maledictions.
The lecture finished, Bridgenorth summoned them to unite with him in
prayer; and on a slight change of arrangements amongst the company,
which took place as they were about to kneel down, Julian found his
place next to the single-minded and beautiful object of his affection,
as she knelt, in her loveliness, to adore her Creator. A short time
was permitted for mental devotion; during which Peveril could hear her
half-breathed petition for the promised blessings of peace on earth, and
good-will towards the children of men.
The prayer which ensued was in a different tone. It was poured forth by
the same person who had officiated as chaplain at the table; and was in
the tone of a Boanerges, or Son of Thunder--a denouncer of crimes--an
invoker of judgments--almost a prophet of evil and of destruction. The
testimonies and the sins of the day were not forgotten--the mysterious
murder of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey was insisted upon--and thanks and
praise were offered, that the very night on which they were assembled,
had not seen another offering of a Protestant magistrate, to the
bloodthirsty fury of revengeful Catholics.
Never had Julian found it more difficult, during an act of devotion, to
maintain his mind in a frame befitting the posture and the occasion; and
when he heard the speaker return thanks for the downfall and devastation
of his family, he was strongly tempted to have started upon his feet,
and charged him with offering a tribute, stained with falsehood and
calumny, at the throne of truth itself. He resisted, however, an impulse
which it would have been insanity to have yielded to, and his patience
was not without its reward; for when his fair neighbour arose from her
knees, the lengthened and prolonged prayer being at last concluded, he
observed that her eyes were streaming with tears; and one glance with
which she looked at him in that moment, showed more of affectionate
interest for him in his fallen fortunes and precarious condition, than
he had been able to obtain from her when his worldly estate seemed so
much the more exalted of the two.
Cheered and fortified with the conviction that one bosom in the
company, and that in which he most eagerly longed to secure an interest,
sympathised with his distress, he felt strong to endure whatever was
to follow, and shrunk not from the stern still smile with which, one by
one, the meeting regarded him, as, gliding to their several places of
repose, they indulged themselves at parting with a look of triumph on
one whom they considered as their captive enemy.
Alice also passed by her lover, her eyes fixed on the ground, and
answered his low obeisance without raising them. The room was now empty,
but for Bridgenorth and his guest, or prisoner; for it is difficult to
say in which capacity Peveril ought to regard himself. He took an old
brazen lamp from the table, and, leading the way, said at the same time,
“I must be the uncourtly chamberlain, who am to usher you to a place of
repose, more rude, perhaps, than you have been accustomed to occupy.”
Julian followed him, in silence, up an old-fashioned winding staircase,
within a turret. At the landing-place on the top was a small apartment,
where an ordinary pallet bed, two chairs, and a small stone table, were
the only furniture. “Your bed,” continued Bridgenorth, as if desirous to
prolong their interview, “is not of the softest; but innocence sleeps as
sound upon straw as on down.”
“Sorrow, Major Bridgenorth, finds little rest on either,” replied
Julian. “Tell me, for you seem to await some question from me, what is
to be the fate of my parents, and why you separate me from them?”
Bridgenorth, for answer, indicated with his finger the mark which his
countenance still showed from the explosion of Julian’s pistol.
“That,” replied Julian, “is not the real cause of your proceedings
against me. It cannot be, that you, who have been a soldier, and are a
man, can be surprised or displeased by my interference in the defence
of my father. Above all, you cannot, and I must needs say you do not,
believe that I would have raised my hand against you personally, had
there been a moment’s time for recognition.”
“I may grant all this,” said Bridgenorth; “but what the better are you
for my good opinion, or for the ease with which I can forgive you the
injury which you aimed at me? You are in my custody as a magistrate,
accused of abetting the foul, bloody, and heathenish plot, for the
establishment of Popery, the murder of the King, and the general
massacre of all true Protestants.”
“And on what grounds, either of fact or suspicion, dare any one accuse
me of such a crime?” said Julian. “I have hardly heard of the plot, save
by the mouth of common rumour, which, while it speaks of nothing else,
takes care to say nothing distinctly even on that subject.”
“It may be enough for me to tell you,” replied Bridgenorth, “and perhaps
it is a word too much--that you are a discovered intriguer--a spied
spy--who carries tokens and messages betwixt the Popish Countess of
Derby and the Catholic party in London. You have not conducted your
matters with such discretion, but that this is well known, and can be
sufficiently proved. To this charge, which you are well aware you cannot
deny, these men, Everett and Dangerfield, are not unwilling to add, from
the recollection of your face, other passages, which will certainly cost
you your life when you come before a Protestant jury.”
“They lie like villains,” said Peveril, “who hold me accessory to any
plot either against the King, the nation, or the state of religion; and
for the Countess, her loyalty has been too long, and too highly proved,
to permit her being implicated in such injurious suspicions.”
“What she has already done,” said Bridgenorth, his face darkening as
he spoke, “against the faithful champions of pure religion, hath
sufficiently shown of what she is capable. She hath betaken herself to
her rock, and sits, as she thinks, in security, like the eagle reposing
after his bloody banquet. But the arrow of the fowler may yet reach
her--the shaft is whetted--the bow is bended--and it will be soon
seen whether Amalek or Israel shall prevail. But for thee, Julian
Peveril--why should I conceal it from thee?--my heart yearns for thee as
a woman’s for her first-born. To thee I will give, at the expense of my
own reputation--perhaps at the risk of personal suspicion--for who, in
these days of doubt, shall be exempted from it--to thee, I say, I will
give means of escape, which else were impossible to thee. The
staircase of this turret descends to the gardens--the postern-gate is
unlatched--on the right hand lie the stables, where you will find your
own horse--take it, and make for Liverpool--I will give you credit
with a friend under the name of Simon Simonson, one persecuted by the
prelates; and he will expedite your passage from the kingdom.”
“Major Bridgenorth,” said Julian, “I will not deceive you. Were I to
accept your offer of freedom, it would be to attend to a higher call
than that of mere self-preservation. My father is in danger--my mother
in sorrow--the voices of religion and nature call me to their side. I
am their only child--their only hope--I will aid them, or perish with
them!”
“Thou art mad,” said Bridgenorth--“aid them thou canst not--perish with
them thou mayst, and even accelerate their ruin; for, in addition to the
charges with which thy unhappy father is loaded, it would be no slight
aggravation, that while he meditated arming and calling together the
Catholics and High Churchmen of Cheshire and Derbyshire, his son should
prove to be the confidential agent of the Countess of Derby, who aided
her in making good her stronghold against the Protestant commissioners,
and was despatched by her to open secret communication with the Popish
interest in London.”
“You have twice stated me as such an agent,” said Peveril, resolved that
his silence should not be construed into an admission of the charge,
though he felt it was in some degree well founded--“What reason have you
for such an allegation?”
“Will it suffice for a proof of my intimate acquaintance with your
mystery,” replied Bridgenorth, “if I should repeat to you the last
words which the Countess used to you when you left the Castle of that
Amalekitish woman? Thus she spoke: ‘I am now a forlorn widow,’ she said,
‘whom sorrow has made selfish.’”
Peveril started, for these were the very words the Countess had used;
but he instantly recovered himself, and replied, “Be your information of
what nature it will, I deny, and I defy it, so far as it attaches aught
like guilt to me. There lives not a man more innocent of a disloyal
thought, or of a traitorous purpose. What I say for myself, I will,
to the best of my knowledge, say and maintain on account of the noble
Countess, to whom I am indebted for nurture.”
“Perish, then, in thy obstinacy!” said Bridgenorth; and turning hastily
from him, he left the room, and Julian heard him hasten down the narrow
staircase, as if distrusting his own resolution.
With a heavy heart, yet with that confidence in an overruling Providence
which never forsakes a good and brave man, Peveril betook himself to his
lowly place of repose.