Peveril

“ Since our first early acquaintance—when I saw your gallant behaviour as I issued forth to your childish eye, like an apparition, from my place of concealment in your father’s castle—it has pleased me to think you a true son of Stanley and Peveril. I trust your nurture in this family has been ever suited to the esteem in which I hold you.—Nay, I desire no thanks.—I have to require of you, in return, a piece of service, not perhaps entirely safe to yourself, but which, as times are circumstanced, no person is so well able to render to my house. ”

“ And so, Master Ganlesse, keep your own pace, and I will keep the contrary; for I beg leave to forbear your company.”
As Peveril spoke thus, he pulled up his horse, and made a full stop.
The stranger burst out a-laughing. “What!” he said, “you forbear my company for a trifle of danger? Saint Anthony! How the warm blood of the Cavaliers is chilled in the young men of the present day! This young gallant, now, has a father, I warrant, who has endured as many adventures for hunting priests, as a knight-errant for distressed damsels.”
“This raillery avails nothing, sir,” said Peveril. ”

“ When Ellesmere had withdrawn, Lady Peveril began to reflect, with much feeling of compassion, on the letter of Major Bridgenorth; a person in whom there were certainly many excellent qualities, but whom a series of domestic misfortunes, and the increasing gloom of a sincere, yet stern feeling of devotion, rendered lonely and unhappy; and she had more than one anxious thought for the happiness of the little Alice, brought up, as she was likely to be, under such a father. ”

“ Give me back that packet which you stole from me the other night; or, by all that is good, I will send a brace of balls through you, and search for it at leisure.”
“What night?—What packet?” answered Chiffinch, confused; yet willing to protract the time for the chance of assistance, or to put Peveril off his guard. “I know nothing of what you mean. If you are a man of honour, let me draw my sword, and I will do you right, as a gentleman should do to another.” ”

“ The young men parted accordingly; and while the Earl betook him to his pleasure voyage, Julian, as his friend had prophesied, assumed the dress of one who means to amuse himself with angling. The hat and feather were exchanged for a cap of grey cloth; the deeply-laced cloak and doublet for a simple jacket of the same colour, with hose conforming; and finally, with rod in hand, and pannier at his back, mounted upon a handsome Manx pony, young Peveril rode briskly over the country which divided him from one of those beautiful streams that descend to the sea from the Kirk-Merlagh mountains. ”

“ At this moment the King, passing near them, said, “This is a horrid deed—the villain Christian has stabbed young Peveril!”
The mute evidence of the pulse, which bounded as if a cannon had been discharged close by the poor girl’s ear, was accompanied by such a loud scream of agony, as distressed, while it startled, the good-natured monarch himself. “I did but jest,” he said; “Julian is well, my pretty maiden. I only used the wand of a certain blind deity, called Cupid, to bring a deaf and dumb vassal of his to the exercise of her faculties.” ”

“ Apparently, however, she had something else in her head; for as, after a brief affectation of reluctance, she permitted Peveril’s face to approach hers, she whispered in his ear, “Beware of trepans!”—an awful intimation, which, in those days of distrust, suspicion, and treachery, was as effectual in interdicting free and social intercourse, as the advertisement of “man-traps and spring-guns,” to protect an orchard. Pressing her hand, in intimation that he comprehended her hint, she shook his warmly in return, and bade God speed him. ”

“ Hark thee, friend; do thou and the young woman follow Empson where he will conduct thee.—Empson, carry them—hark in thy ear.”
“May it please your Majesty, I ought to say,” said Peveril, “that I am guiltless of any purpose of intrusion——”
“Now a plague on him who can take no hint,” said the King, cutting short his apology. “Oddsfish, man, there are times when civility is the greatest impertinence in the world. Do thou follow Empson, and amuse thyself for a half-hour’s space with the fairy’s company, till we shall send for you.” ”

“ Shall I have this young fellow away with his parents—what think you?—or will you keep him for re-examination?”
“Master Bridgenorth,” said Lady Peveril, in spite of her husband’s efforts to interrupt her, “for God’s sake, if ever you knew what it was to love one of the many children you have lost, or her who is now left to you, do not pursue your vengeance to the blood of my poor boy! I will forgive you all the rest—all the distress you have wrought—all the yet greater misery with which you threaten us; but do not be extreme with one who never can have offended you! ”

“ If we should meet hereafter, on other, and on worse terms, impute it to yourself and not to me.”
“I understand not your threat,” answered Peveril, “If a threat be indeed implied. I have done no evil—I feel no apprehension—and I cannot, in common sense, conceive why I should suffer for refusing my confidence to a stranger, who seems to require that I should submit me blindfold to his guidance.”
“Farewell, then, Sir Julian of the Peak,—that may soon be,” said the stranger, removing the hand which he had as yet left carelessly on the horse’s bridle. ”

“ Ralph Bridgenorth, I will speak to thee in friendly sincerity. Thou must not think to serve both the good cause and Baal. Obey, if thou wilt, thine own carnal affections, summon this Julian Peveril to thy house, and let him wed thy daughter—But mark the reception she will meet with from the proud old knight, whose spirit is now, even now, as little broken with his chains, as after the sword of the Saints had prevailed at Worcester. Thou wilt see thy daughter spurned from his feet like an outcast. ”

“ But the little man—who, to do him justice, cared no more (in his own phrase) for imminent danger or death, than he did for the puncture of a flea’s proboscis—did not so easily renounce the secret object of his ambition, which was to acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who, being at least three inches taller than his son, was in so far possessed of that superior excellence, which the poor dwarf, in his secret soul, valued before all other distinctions, although in his conversation, he was constantly depreciating it. ”

“ An Italian fuoruscito, when he desires a parley with you, takes aim from behind a wall, with his long gun, and prefaces his conference with Posso tirare. So does your man-of-war fire a gun across the bows of a Hansmogan Indiaman, just to bring her to; and so do I show Master Julian Peveril, that, if I were one of the honourable society of witnesses and informers, with whom his imagination has associated me for these two hours past, he is as much within my danger now, as what he is ever likely to be. ”

“ And yet, so little do I value the goods of this world, that it might not be utterly beyond thy power to reconcile me to the match which you have proposed."
"Show me but the means, Major Bridgenorth," said Peveril, "and you shall see how eagerly I will obey your directions, or submit to your conditions."
"This is a critical period," cried the major; "it becomes the duty of all men to step forward. You, Julian Peveril, yourself know the secret but rapid strides which Rome has made to erect her Dagon of idolatry within our Protestant land." ”

“ What we might have been to each other, placed in more favourable circumstances, it avails not to think of now; and, circumstanced as we are, with open war about to break out betwixt our parents and friends, we can be but well-wishers—cold and distant well-wishers, who must part on this spot, and at this hour, never meet again.”
“No, by Heaven!” said Peveril, animated at the same time by his own feelings, and by the sight of the emotions which his companion in vain endeavoured to suppress,—“No, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, “we part not—Alice, we part not. ”

“ Peveril waited the prosecution of her speech as a criminal while he waits his doom; for he was sufficiently sensible that an answer, delivered not certainly without emotion, but with firmness and resolution, was not to be interrupted. “We have done wrong,” she repeated, “very wrong; and if we now separate for ever, the pain we may feel will be but a just penalty for our error. We should never have met: meeting, we should part as soon as possible. Our farther intercourse can but double our pain at parting. Farewell, Julian; and forget we ever have seen each other!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ You are, not to compliment you, a marked figure, Master Peveril—though something of the tallest, as was your father’s case; I think, I could scarce have seen you anywhere without remembering you.”
Peveril thought he might, with great justice, have returned the compliment, but contented himself with saying, “he had scarce seen the British Court.”
“Tis pity,” said Hudson; “a gallant can hardly be formed without frequenting it. But you have been perhaps in a rougher school; you have served, doubtless?”
“My Maker, I hope,” said Julian. ”

“ You are my only friend. I am the only one whom Heaven has assigned to you. Why should we separate for the fault of others, which befell when we were but children?”
“You speak in vain, Julian,” said Alice; “I pity you—perhaps I pity myself—indeed, I should pity myself, perhaps, the most of the two; for you will go forth to new scenes and new faces, and will soon forget me; but, I, remaining in this solitude, how shall I forget?—that, however, is not now the question—I can bear my lot, and it commands us to part.”
“Hear me yet a moment,” said Peveril; “this evil is not, cannot be remediless. ”

“ Peveril tried the experiment of riding slow; but his companion, determined not to drop him, slackened his pace, so as to keep close by him. Julian then spurred his horse to a full trot; and was soon satisfied, that the stranger, notwithstanding the meanness of his appearance, was so much better mounted than himself, as to render vain any thought of outriding him. He pulled up his horse to a more reasonable pace, therefore, in a sort of despair. ”

“ Let there be no strife between us, however—the moor lies before us—choose your path on it—I take the other.”
“I wish you good night, sir,” said Peveril to the stranger. “I ask your forgiveness, if I have misconstrued you in anything; but the times are perilous, and a man’s life may depend on the society in which he travels.”
“True,” said the stranger; “but in your case, the danger is already undergone, and you should seek to counteract it. You have travelled in my company long enough to devise a handsome branch of the Popish Plot. ”

“ Mistress Debbitch turned the ring round, and round, and round, and at length said, in a whisper, “Well, Master Julian Peveril, it signifies nothing denying anything to such a young gentleman as you, for young gentlemen are always so obstinate! and so I may as well tell you, that Mistress Alice walked back from the Kirk-Truagh along with me, just now, and entered the house at the same time with myself.” ”

“ Her counsellor was no sooner gone, than the good-nature and habitual veneration of the dame for the house of Peveril, and perhaps some fear for her counsellor’s bones, induced her to open the casement, and cry, but in a low and timid tone, “Hist! hist! Master Julian—be you gone?”
“Not yet, dame,” said Julian; “though it seems my stay is unwelcome.”
“Nay, but good young master, it is because men counsel so differently; for here was my poor old Roger Raine would have thought the chimney corner too cold for you; and here is Matt Chamberlain thinks the cold courtyard is warm enough.” ”

“ Here is the valiant old Sir Geoffrey Peveril of the Peak, who fought through the whole war, wherever blows were going, and was the last man, I believe, in England, who laid down his arms—Here is his son, of whom I have the highest accounts, as a gallant of spirit, accomplishments, and courage—Here is the unfortunate House of Derby—for pity’s sake, interfere in behalf of these victims, whom the folds of this hydra-plot have entangled, in order to crush them to death—rebuke the fiends that are seeking to devour their lives, and disappoint the harpies that are gaping for their property. ”

“ For myself, my race is near a close, and that because I fall martyr to the over-tenderness of my own heart. There is a circumstance, good Master Julian Peveril, which should have been yours, had Providence permitted our farther intimacy, but it fits not the present hour. Go, then, my friend, and bear witness in life and death, that Geoffrey Hudson scorns the insults and persecutions of fortune, as he would despise, and has often despised, the mischievous pranks of an overgrown schoolboy. ”

“ I have not yet had that honour,” said Julian.
“What! neither courtier nor soldier, Master Peveril?” said the important little man: “your father is to blame. By cock and pie he is, Master Peveril! How shall a man be known, or distinguished, unless by his bearing in peace and war? I tell you, sir, that at Newberry, where I charged with my troop abreast with Prince Rupert, and when, as you may have heard, we were both beaten off by those cuckoldly hinds the Trained Bands of London,—we did what men could ”