that morning, Margaret, when the round-headed knaves, that kept us pent up so long, retreated without bag or baggage, at the first glance of the Prince's standards appearing on the hill—and how you took every high-crested captain you saw for Peveril of the Peak, that had been your partner three months before at the Queen's mask? Nay, never blush for the thought of it—it was an honest affection—and though it was the music of trumpets that accompanied you both to the old chapel, which was almost entirely ruined by the enemy's bullets; and though Prince Rupert, when he gave you away at the altar, was clad in buff and bandoleer, with pistols in his belt, yet I trust these warlike signs were no type of future discord?"
"Heaven has been kind to me," said the Lady Peveril, "in blessing me with an affectionate husband."
"And in preserving him to you," said the Countess, with a deep sigh; "while mine, alas! sealed with his blood his devotion to his king[*]—Oh, had he lived to see this day!"
[*] The Earl of Derby and King in Man was beheaded at Bolton-on-the-
Moors, after having been made prisoner in a previous skirmish in
Wiggan Lane.
"Alas! alas! that he was not permitted!" answered Lady Peveril; "how had that brave and noble Earl rejoiced in the unhoped-for redemption of our captivity!"
The Countess looked on Lady Peveril with an air of surprise.
"Thou hast not then heard, cousin, how it stands with our house?—How indeed had my noble lord wondered, had he been told that the very monarch for whom he had laid down his noble life on the scaffold at Bolton-le-Moor, should make it his first act of restored monarchy to complete the destruction of our property, already well-nigh ruined in the royal cause, and to persecute me his widow!"
"You astonish me, madam!" said the Lady Peveril. "It cannot be, that you—that you, the wife of the gallant, the faithful, the murdered Earl—you, Countess of Derby, and Queen in Man—you, who took on you even the character of a soldier, and seemed a man when so many men proved women—that you should sustain evil from the event which has fulfilled—exceeded—the hopes of every faithful subject—it cannot be!"
"Thou art as simple, I see, in this world's knowledge as ever, my fair cousin," answered the Countess. "This restoration, which has given others security, has placed me in danger—this change which relieved other Royalists, scarce less zealous, I presume to think, than I—has sent me here a fugitive, and in concealment, to beg shelter and assistance from you, fair cousin."
"From me," answered the Lady Peveril—"from me, whose youth your kindness sheltered—from the wife of Peveril, your gallant Lord's companion in arms—you have a right to command everything; but, alas! that you should need such assistance as I can render—forgive me, but it seems like some ill-omened vision of the night—I listen to your words as if I hoped to be relieved from their painful import by awaking."
"It is indeed a dream—a vision," said the Countess of Derby; "but it needs no seer to read it—the explanation hath been long since given—Put not your faith in princes. I can soon remove your surprise.—This gentleman, your friend, is doubtless honest?"
The Lady Peveril well knew that the Cavaliers, like other factions, usurped to themselves the exclusive denomination of the honest party, and she felt some difficulty in explaining that her visitor was not honest in that sense of the word.
"Had we not better retire, madam?" she said to the Countess, rising, as if in order to attend her. But the Countess retained her seat.
"It was but a question of habit," she said; "the gentleman's principles are nothing to me, for what I have to tell you is widely blazed, and I care not who hears my share of it. You remember—you must have heard, for I think Margaret Stanley would not be indifferent to my fate—that after my husband's murder at Bolton, I took up the standard which he never dropped until his death, and displayed it with my own hand in our Sovereignty of Man."
"I did indeed hear so, madam," said the Lady Peveril; "and that you had bidden a bold defiance to the rebel government, even after all other parts of Britain had submitted to them. My husband, Sir Geoffrey, designed at one time to have gone to your assistance with some few followers; but we learned that the island was rendered to the Parliament party, and that you, dearest lady, were thrown into prison."
"But you heard not," said the Countess, "how that disaster befell me.—Margaret, I would have held out that island against the knaves as long as the sea continued to flow around it. Till the shoals which surround it had become safe anchorage—till its precipices had melted beneath the sunshine—till of all its strong abodes and castles not one stone remained upon another,—would I have defended against these villainous hypocritical rebels, my dear husband's hereditary dominion. The little kingdom of Man should have been yielded only when not an arm was left to wield a sword, not a finger to draw a trigger in its defence. But treachery did what force could never have done. When we had foiled various attempts upon the island by open force—treason accomplished what Blake and Lawson, with their floating castles, had found too hazardous an enterprise—a base rebel, whom we had nursed in our own bosoms, betrayed us to the enemy. This wretch was named Christian——"
Major Bridgenorth started and turned towards the speaker, but instantly seemed to recollect himself, and again averted his face. The Countess proceeded, without noticing the interruption, which, however, rather surprised Lady Peveril, who was acquainted with her neighbour's general habits of indifference and apathy, and therefore the more surprised at his testifying such sudden symptoms of interest. She would once again have moved the Countess to retire to another apartment, but Lady Derby proceeded with too much vehemence to endure interruption.
"This Christian," she said, "had eaten of my lord his sovereign's bread, and drunk of his cup, even from childhood—for his fathers had been faithful servants to the House of Man and Derby. He himself had fought bravely by my husband's side, and enjoyed all his confidence; and when my princely Earl was martyred by the rebels, he recommended to me, amongst other instructions communicated in the last message I received from him, to continue my confidence in Christian's fidelity. I obeyed, although I never loved the man. He was cold and phlegmatic, and utterly devoid of that sacred fire which is the incentive to noble deeds, suspected, too, of leaning to the cold metaphysics of Calvinistic subtlety. But he was brave, wise, and experienced, and, as the event proved, possessed but too much interest with the islanders. When these rude people saw themselves without hope of relief, and pressed by a blockade, which brought want and disease into their island, they began to fall off from the faith which they had hitherto shown."
"What!" said the Lady Peveril, "could they forget what was due to the widow of their benefactor—she who had shared with the generous Derby the task of bettering their condition?"
"Do not blame them," said the Countess; "the rude herd acted but according to their kind—in present distress they forgot former benefits, and, nursed in their earthen hovels, with spirits suited to their dwellings, they were incapable of feeling the glory which is attached to constancy in suffering. But that Christian should have headed their revolt—that he, born a gentleman, and bred under my murdered Derby's own care in all that was chivalrous and noble—that he should have forgot a hundred benefits—why do I talk of benefits?—that he should have forgotten that kindly intercourse which binds man to man far more than the reciprocity of obligation—that he should have headed the ruffians who broke suddenly into my apartment—immured me with my infants in one of my own castles, and assumed or usurped the tyranny of the island—that this should have been done by William Christian, my vassal, my servant, my friend, was a deed of ungrateful treachery, which even this age of treason will scarcely parallel!"
"And you were then imprisoned," said the Lady Peveril, "and in your own sovereignty?"
