Peveril of the Peak | Page 5

care; and I thank God that my eye shall not see
her dying agonies."
Without detaining the reader's attention longer on this painful theme, it
is enough to say that the Lady Peveril did undertake the duties of a
mother to the little orphan; and perhaps it was owing, in a great
measure, to her judicious treatment of the infant, that its feeble hold of
life was preserved, since the glimmering spark might probably have
been altogether smothered, had it, like the Major's former children,
undergone the over-care and over-nursing of a mother rendered
nervously cautious and anxious by so many successive losses. The lady
was the more ready to undertake this charge, that she herself had lost
two infant children; and that she attributed the preservation of the third,
now a fine healthy child of three years old, to Julian's being subjected
to rather a different course of diet and treatment than was then
generally practised. She resolved to follow the same regiment with the
little orphan, which she had observed in the case of her own boy; and it
was equally successful. By a more sparing use of medicine, by a bolder
admission of fresh air, by a firm, yet cautious attention to encourage
rather than to supersede the exertions of nature, the puny infant, under
the care of an excellent nurse, gradually improved in strength and in
liveliness.
Sir Geoffrey, like most men of his frank and good-natured disposition,
was naturally fond of children, and so much compassionated the
sorrows of his neighbour, that he entirely forgot his being a
Presbyterian, until it became necessary that the infant should be

christened by a teacher of that persuasion.
This was a trying case--the father seemed incapable of giving direction;
and that the threshold of Martindale Castle should be violated by the
heretical step of a dissenting clergyman, was matter of horror to its
orthodox owner. He had seen the famous Hugh Peters, with a Bible in
one hand and a pistol in the other, ride in triumph through the
court-door when Martindale was surrendered; and the bitterness of that
hour had entered like iron into his soul. Yet such was Lady Peveril's
influence over the prejudices of her husband, that he was induced to
connive at the ceremony taking place in a remote garden house, which
was not properly within the precincts of the Castle-wall. The lady even
dared to be present while the ceremony was performed by the Reverend
Master Solsgrace, who had once preached a sermon of three hours'
length before the House of Commons, upon a thanksgiving occasion
after the relief of Exeter. Sir Geoffrey Peveril took care to be absent the
whole day from the Castle, and it was only from the great interest
which he took in the washing, perfuming, and as it were purification of
the summer-house, that it could have been guessed he knew anything of
what had taken place in it.
But, whatever prejudices the good Knight might entertain against his
neighbour's form of religion, they did not in any way influence his
feelings towards him as a sufferer under severe affliction. The mode in
which he showed his sympathy was rather singular, but exactly suited
the character of both, and the terms on which they stood with each
other.
Morning after morning the good Baronet made Moultrassie Hall the
termination of his walk or ride, and said a single word of kindness as he
passed. Sometimes he entered the old parlour where the proprietor sat
in solitary wretchedness and despondency; but more frequently (for Sir
Geoffrey did not pretend to great talents of conversation), he paused on
the terrace, and stopping or halting his horse by the latticed window,
said aloud to the melancholy inmate, "How is it with you, Master
Bridgenorth?" (the Knight would never acknowledge his neighbour's
military rank of Major); "I just looked in to bid you keep a good heart,

man, and to tell you that Julian is well, and little Alice is well, and all
are well at Martindale Castle."
A deep sigh, sometimes coupled with "I thank you, Sir Geoffrey; my
grateful duty waits on Lady Peveril," was generally Bridgenorth's only
answer. But the news was received on the one part with the kindness
which was designed upon the other; it gradually became less painful
and more interesting; the lattice window was never closed, nor was the
leathern easy-chair which stood next to it ever empty, when the usual
hour of the Baronet's momentary visit approached. At length the
expectation of that passing minute became the pivot upon which the
thoughts of poor Bridgenorth turned during all the rest of the day. Most
men have known the influence of such brief but ruling moments at
some period of their lives. The moment when a lover