Peveril of the Peak | Page 4

Peak to
endure, with some patience, this state of degradation. The first was, that
the politics of Major Bridgenorth began, on many points, to assimilate
themselves to his own. As a Presbyterian, he was not an utter enemy to
monarchy, and had been considerably shocked at the unexpected trial
and execution of the King; as a civilian and a man of property, he
feared the domination of the military; and though he wished not to see
Charles restored by force of arms, yet he arrived at the conclusion, that
to bring back the heir of the royal family on such terms of composition
as might ensure the protection of those popular immunities and
privileges for which the Long Parliament had at first contended, would
be the surest and most desirable termination to the mutations in state
affairs which had agitated Britain. Indeed, the Major's ideas on this
point approached so nearly those of his neighbour, that he had
well-nigh suffered Sir Geoffrey, who had a finger in almost all the
conspiracies of the Royalists, to involve him in the unfortunate rising of
Penruddock and Groves, in the west, in which many of the Presbyterian
interest, as well as the Cavalier party, were engaged. And though his
habitual prudence eventually kept him out of this and other dangers,
Major Bridgenorth was considered during the last years of Cromwell's
domination, and the interregnum which succeeded, as a disaffected
person to the Commonwealth, and a favourer of Charles Stewart.
But besides this approximation to the same political opinions, another
bond of intimacy united the families of the Castle and the Hall. Major
Bridgenorth, fortunate, and eminently so, in all his worldly transactions,
was visited by severe and reiterated misfortunes in his family, and
became, in this particular, an object of compassion to his poorer and
more decayed neighbour. Betwixt the breaking out of the Civil War and
the Restoration, he lost successively a family of no less than six
children, apparently through a delicacy of constitution, which cut off
the little prattlers at the early age when they most wind themselves

round the heart of the parents.
In the beginning of the year 1658, Major Bridgenorth was childless; ere
it ended, he had a daughter, indeed, but her birth was purchased by the
death of an affectionate wife, whose constitution had been exhausted by
maternal grief, and by the anxious and harrowing reflection, that from
her the children they had lost derived that delicacy of health, which
proved unable to undergo the tear and wear of existence. The same
voice which told Bridgenorth that he was the father of a living child (it
was the friendly voice of Lady Peveril), communicated to him the
melancholy intelligence that he was no longer a husband. The feelings
of Major Bridgenorth were strong and deep, rather than hasty and
vehement; and his grief assumed the form of a sullen stupor, from
which neither the friendly remonstrances of Sir Geoffrey, who did not
fail to be with his neighbour at this distressing conjuncture, even
though he knew he must meet the Presbyterian pastor, nor the ghastly
exhortations of this latter person, were able to rouse the unfortunate
widower.
At length Lady Peveril, with the ready invention of a female sharped by
the sight of distress and the feelings of sympathy, tried on the sufferer
one of those experiments by which grief is often awakened from
despondency into tears. She placed in Bridgenorth's arms the infant
whose birth had cost him so dear, and conjured him to remember that
his Alice was not yet dead, since she survived in the helpless child she
had left to his paternal care.
"Take her away--take her away!" said the unhappy man, and they were
the first words he had spoken; "let me not look on her--it is but another
blossom that has bloomed to fade, and the tree that bore it will never
flourish more!"
He almost threw the child into Lady Peveril's arms, placed his hands
before his face, and wept aloud. Lady Peveril did not say "be
comforted," but she ventured to promise that the blossom should ripen
to fruit.
"Never, never!" said Bridgenorth; "take the unhappy child away, and

let me only know when I shall wear black for her--Wear black!" he
exclaimed, interrupting himself, "what other colour shall I wear during
the remainder of my life?"
"I will take the child for a season," said Lady Peveril, "since the sight
of her is so painful to you; and the little Alice shall share the nursery of
our Julian, until it shall be pleasure and not pain for you to look on
her."
"That hour will never come," said the unhappy father; "her doom is
written--she will follow the rest--God's will be done.--Lady, I thank
you--I trust her to your