Peveril of the Peak Read online

  CHAPTER III

  Here's neither want of appetite nor mouths; Pray Heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth! --OLD PLAY.

  Even upon ordinary occasions, and where means were ample, a greatentertainment in those days was not such a sinecure as in modern times,when the lady who presides has but to intimate to her menials the dayand hour when she wills it to take place. At that simple period, thelady was expected to enter deeply into the arrangement and provision ofthe whole affair; and from a little gallery, which communicated withher own private apartment, and looked down upon the kitchen, her shrillvoice was to be heard, from time to time, like that of the warningspirit in a tempest, rising above the clash of pots and stewpans--thecreaking spits--the clattering of marrowbones and cleavers--thescolding of cooks--and all the other various kinds of din which form anaccompaniment to dressing a large dinner.

  But all this toil and anxiety was more than doubled in the case of theapproaching feast at Martindale Castle, where the presiding Geniusof the festivity was scarce provided with adequate means to carry herhospitable purpose into effect. The tyrannical conduct of husbands,in such cases, is universal; and I scarce know one householder of myacquaintance who has not, on some ill-omened and most inconvenientseason, announced suddenly to his innocent helpmate, that he had invited

  "Some odious Major Rock, To drop in at six o'clock."

  to the great discomposure of the lady, and the discredit, perhaps, ofher domestic arrangements.

  Peveril of the Peak was still more thoughtless; for he had directed hislady to invite the whole honest men of the neighbourhood to make goodcheer at Martindale Castle, in honour of the blessed Restoration of hismost sacred Majesty, without precisely explaining where the provisionswere to come from. The deer-park had lain waste ever since the siege;the dovecot could do little to furnish forth such an entertainment;the fishponds, it is true, were well provided (which the neighbouringPresbyterians noted as a suspicious circumstance); and game was to behad for the shooting, upon the extensive heaths and hills ofDerbyshire. But these were but the secondary parts of a banquet; andthe house-steward and bailiff, Lady Peveril's only coadjutors andcounsellors, could not agree how the butcher-meat--the most substantialpart, or, as it were, the main body of the entertainment--was to besupplied. The house-steward threatened the sacrifice of a fine yoke ofyoung bullocks, which the bailiff, who pleaded the necessity of theiragricultural services, tenaciously resisted; and Lady Peveril's goodand dutiful nature did not prevent her from making some impatientreflections on the want of consideration of her absent Knight, who hadthus thoughtlessly placed her in so embarrassing a situation.

  These reflections were scarcely just, if a man is only responsible forsuch resolutions as he adopts when he is fully master of himself. SirGeoffrey's loyalty, like that of many persons in his situation, had,by dint of hopes and fears, victories and defeats, struggles andsufferings, all arising out of the same moving cause, and turning, asit were, on the same pivot, acquired the character of an intense andenthusiastic passion; and the singular and surprising change of fortune,by which his highest wishes were not only gratified, but far exceeded,occasioned for some time a kind of intoxication of loyal rapture whichseemed to pervade the whole kingdom. Sir Geoffrey had seen Charlesand his brothers, and had been received by the merry monarch with thatgraceful, and at the same time frank urbanity, by which he conciliatedall who approached him; the Knight's services and merits had beenfully acknowledged, and recompense had been hinted at, if not expresslypromised. Was it for Peveril of the Peak, in the jubilee of his spirits,to consider how his wife was to find beef and mutton to feast hisneighbours?

  Luckily, however, for the embarrassed lady, there existed some one whohad composure of mind sufficient to foresee this difficulty. Just asshe had made up her mind, very reluctantly, to become debtor to MajorBridgenorth for the sum necessary to carry her husband's commands intoeffect, and whilst she was bitterly regretting this departure from thestrictness of her usual economy, the steward, who, by-the-bye, had notbeen absolutely sober since the news of the King's landing at Dover,burst into the apartment, snapping his fingers, and showing more marksof delight than was quite consistent with the dignity of my lady's largeparlour.

  "What means this, Whitaker?" said the lady, somewhat peevishly; for shewas interrupted in the commencement of a letter to her neighbour on theunpleasant business of the proposed loan,--"Is it to be always thus withyou?--Are you dreaming?"

  "A vision of good omen, I trust," said the steward, with a triumphantflourish of the hand; "far better than Pharaoh's, though, like his, itbe of fat kine."

  "I prithee be plain, man," said the lady, "or fetch some one who canspeak to purpose."

  "Why, odds-my-life, madam," said the steward, "mine errand can speak foritself. Do you not hear them low? Do you not hear them bleat? A yoke offat oxen, and half a score prime wethers. The Castle is victualled forthis bout, let them storm when they will; and Gatherill may have hisd--d mains ploughed to the boot."

  The lady, without farther questioning her elated domestic, rose and wentto the window, where she certainly beheld the oxen and sheep which hadgiven rise to Whitaker's exultation. "Whence come they?" said she, insome surprise.

  "Let them construe that who can," answered Whitaker; "the fellow whodrove them was a west-country man, and only said they came from a friendto help to furnish out your ladyship's entertainment; the man wouldnot stay to drink--I am sorry he would not stay to drink--I crave yourladyship's pardon for not keeping him by the ears to drink--it was notmy fault."

  "That I'll be sworn it was not," said the lady.

  "Nay, madam, by G--, I assure you it was not," said the zealous steward;"for, rather than the Castle should lose credit, I drank his healthmyself in double ale, though I had had my morning draught already. Itell you the naked truth, my lady, by G--!"

  "It was no great compulsion, I suppose," said the lady; "but, Whitaker,suppose you should show your joy on such occasions, by drinking andswearing a little less, rather than a little more, would it not be aswell, think you?"

  "I crave your ladyship's pardon," said Whitaker, with much reverence; "Ihope I know my place. I am your ladyship's poor servant; and I know itdoes not become me to drink and swear like your ladyship--that is, likehis honour, Sir Geoffrey, I would say. But I pray you, if I am not todrink and swear after my degree, how are men to know Peveril of thePeak's steward,--and I may say butler too, since I have had the keys ofthe cellar ever since old Spigots was shot dead on the northwest turret,with a black jack in his hand,--I say, how is an old Cavalier like meto be known from those cuckoldly Roundheads that do nothing but fast andpray, if we are not to drink and swear according to our degree?"

  The lady was silent, for she well knew speech availed nothing; and,after a moment's pause, proceeded to intimate to the steward that shewould have the persons, whose names were marked in a written paper,which she delivered to him, invited to the approaching banquet.

  Whitaker, instead of receiving the list with the mute acquiescence ofa modern Major Domo, carried it into the recess of one of the windows,and, adjusting his spectacles, began to read it to himself. Thefirst names, being those of distinguished Cavalier families in theneighbourhood, he muttered over in a tone of approbation--paused andpshawed at that of Bridgenorth--yet acquiesced, with the observation,"But he is a good neighbour, so it may pass for once." But when he readthe name and surname of Nehemiah Solsgrace, the Presbyterian parson,Whitaker's patience altogether forsook him; and he declared he would assoon throw himself into Eldon-hole,[*] as consent that the intrusive oldpuritan howlet, who had usurped the pulpit of a sound orthodox divine,should ever darken the gates of Martindale Castle by any message ormediation of his.

  [*] A chasm in the earth supposed to be unfathomable, one of the wonders of the Peak.

  "The false crop-eared hypocrites," cried he, with a hearty oath, "havehad their turn of the good weather. The sun is
on our side of the hedgenow, and we will pay off old scores, as sure as my name is RichardWhitaker."

  "You presume on your long services, Whitaker, and on your master'sabsence, or you had not dared to use me thus," said the lady.

  The unwonted agitation of her voice attracted the attention of therefractory steward, notwithstanding his present state of elevation; buthe no sooner saw that her eye glistened, and her cheek reddened, thanhis obstinacy was at once subdued.

  "A murrain on me," he said, "but I have made my lady angry in goodearnest! and that is an unwonted sight for to see.--I crave yourpardon, my lady! It was not poor Dick Whitaker disputed your honourablecommands, but only that second draught of double ale. We have put adouble stroke of malt to it, as your ladyship well knows, ever since thehappy Restoration. To be sure I hate a fanatic as I do the cloven footof Satan; but then your honourable ladyship hath a right to invite Satanhimself, cloven foot and all, to Martindale Castle; and to send meto hell's gate with a billet of invitation--and so your will shall bedone."

  The invitations were sent round accordingly, in all due form; and one ofthe bullocks was sent down to be roasted whole at the market-place of alittle village called Martindale-Moultrassie, which stood considerablyto the eastward both of the Castle and Hall, from which it took itsdouble name, at about an equal distance from both; so that, suppose aline drawn from the one manor-house to the other, to be the base of atriangle, the village would have occupied the salient angle. As the saidvillage, since the late transference of a part of Peveril's property,belonged to Sir Geoffrey and to Bridgenorth in nearly equal portions,the lady judged it not proper to dispute the right of the latter to addsome hogsheads of beer to the popular festivity.

  In the meanwhile, she could not but suspect the Major of being theunknown friend who had relieved her from the dilemma arising from thewant of provisions; and she esteemed herself happy when a visit fromhim, on the day preceding the proposed entertainment, gave her, as shethought, an opportunity of expressing her gratitude.