LITMIR.BIZ

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passed the spot on which the form had been so lately visible, and bethought herself that this wanderer of the night might, nay must, be in her vicinity, her resolution could not prevent her mending her pace, and that with so little precaution, that, stumbling over the limb of a tree, which, twisted off by a late tempest, still lay in the avenue, she fell, and, as she fell, screamed aloud. A strong hand in a moment afterwards added to her fears by assisting her to rise, and a voice, to whose accents she was not a stranger, though they had been long unheard, said, “Is it not you, Lady Peveril?”

      “It is I,” said she, commanding her astonishment and fear; “and if my ear deceive me not, I speak to Master Bridgenorth.”

      “I was that man,” said he, “while oppression left me a name.”

      He spoke nothing more, but continued to walk beside her for a minute or two in silence. She felt her situation embarrassing; and to divest it of that feeling, as well as out of real interest in the question, she asked him, “How her god-daughter Alice now was?”

      “Of god-daughter, madam,” answered Major Bridgenorth, “I know nothing; that being one of the names which have been introduced, to the corruption and pollution of God’s ordinances. The infant who owed to your ladyship (so called) her escape from disease and death, is a healthy and thriving girl, as I am given to understand by those in whose charge she is lodged, for I have not lately seen her. And it is even the recollection of these passages, which in a manner impelled me, alarmed also by your fall, to offer myself to you at this time and mode, which in other respects is no way consistent with my present safety.”

      “With your safety, Master Bridgenorth?” said the Lady Peveril; “surely, I could never have thought that it was in danger!”

      “You have some news, then, yet to learn, madam,” said Major Bridgenorth; “but you will hear in the course of tomorrow, reasons why I dare not appear openly in the neighbourhood of my own property, and wherefore there is small judgment in committing the knowledge of my present residence to any one connected with Martindale Castle.”

      “Master Bridgenorth,” said the lady, “you were in former times prudent and cautious – I hope you have been misled by no hasty impression – by no rash scheme – I hope – ”

      “Pardon my interrupting you, madam,” said Bridgenorth. “I have indeed been changed – ay, my very heart within me hath been changed. In the times to which your ladyship (so called) thinks proper to refer, I was a man of this world – bestowing on it all my thoughts – all my actions, save formal observances – little deeming what was the duty of a Christian man, and how far his self-denial ought to extend – even unto his giving all as if he gave nothing. Hence I thought chiefly on carnal things – on the adding of field to field, and wealth to wealth – of balancing between party and party – securing a friend here, without losing a friend there – But Heaven smote me for my apostasy, the rather that I abused the name of religion, as a self-seeker, and a most blinded and carnal will-worshipper – But I thank Him who hath at length brought me out of Egypt.”

      In our day – although we have many instances of enthusiasm among us – we might still suspect one who avowed it thus suddenly and broadly of hypocrisy, or of insanity; but according to the fashion of the times, such opinions as those which Bridgenorth expressed were openly pleaded, as the ruling motives of men’s actions. The sagacious Vane – the brave and skilful Harrison – were men who acted avowedly under the influence of such. Lady Peveril, therefore, was more grieved than surprised at the language she heard Major Bridgenorth use, and reasonably concluded that the society and circumstances in which he might lately have been engaged, had blown into a flame the spark of eccentricity which always smouldered in his bosom. This was the more probable, considering that he was melancholy by constitution and descent – that he had been unfortunate in several particulars – and that no passion is more easily nursed by indulgence, than the species of enthusiasm of which he now showed tokens. She therefore answered him by calmly hoping, “That the expression of his sentiments had not involved him in suspicion or in danger.”

      “In suspicion, madam?” answered the Major; – “for I cannot forbear giving to you, such is the strength of habit, one of those idle titles by which we poor potsherds are wont, in our pride, to denominate each other – I walk not only in suspicion, but in that degree of danger, that, were your husband to meet me at this instant – me, a native Englishman, treading on my own lands – I have no doubt he would do his best to offer me to the Moloch of Roman superstition, who now rages abroad for victims among God’s people.”

      “You surprise me by your language, Major Bridgenorth,” said the lady, who now felt rather anxious to be relieved from his company, and with that purpose walked on somewhat hastily. He mended his pace, however, and kept close by her side.

      “Know you not,” said he, “that Satan hath come down upon earth with great wrath, because his time is short? The next heir to the crown is an avowed Papist; and who dare assert, save sycophants and time-servers, that he who wears it is not equally ready to stoop to Rome, were he not kept in awe by a few noble spirits in the Commons’ House? You believe not this – yet in my solitary and midnight walks, when I thought on your kindness to the dead and to the living, it was my prayer that I might have the means granted to warn you – and lo! Heaven hath heard me.”

      “What I was while in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, it signifies not to recall,” answered he. “I was then like to Gallio, who cared for none of these things. I doted on creature comforts – I clung to worldly honour and repute – my thoughts were earthward – or those I turned to Heaven were cold, formal, pharisaical meditations – I brought nothing to the altar save straw and stubble. Heaven saw need to chastise me in love – I was stript of all I clung to on earth – my worldly honour was torn from me – I went forth an exile from the home of my fathers, a deprived and desolate man – a baffled, and beaten, and dishonoured man. But who shall find out the ways of Providence? Such were the means by which I was chosen forth as a champion for the truth – holding my life as nothing, if thereby that may be advanced. But this was not what I wished to speak of. Thou hast saved the earthly life of my child – let me save the eternal welfare of yours.”

      Lady Peveril was silent. They were now approaching the point where the avenue terminated in a communication with a public road, or rather pathway, running through an unenclosed common field; this the lady had to prosecute for a little way, until a turn of the path gave her admittance into the Park of Martindale. She now felt sincerely anxious to be in the open moonshine, and avoided reply to Bridgenorth that she might make the more haste. But as they reached the junction of the avenue and the public road, he laid his hand on her arm, and commanded rather than requested her to stop. She obeyed. He pointed to a huge oak, of the largest size, which grew on the summit of a knoll in the open ground which terminated the avenue, and was exactly so placed as to serve for a termination to the vista. The moonshine without the avenue was so strong, that, amidst the flood of light which it poured on the venerable tree, they could easily discover, from the shattered state of the boughs on one side, that it had suffered damage from lightning. “Remember you,” he said, “when we last looked together on that tree? I had ridden from London, and brought with me a protection from the committee for your husband; and as I passed the spot – here on this spot where we now stand, you stood with my lost Alice – two – the last two of my beloved infants gambolled before you. I leaped from my horse – to her I was a husband – to those a father – to you a welcome and revered protector – What am I now to any one?” He pressed his hand on his brow, and groaned in agony of spirit.

      It was not in the Lady Peveril’s nature to hear sorrow without an attempt at consolation. “Master Bridgenorth,” she said, “I blame no man’s creed, while I believe and follow my own; and I rejoice that in yours you have sought consolation for temporal afflictions. But does not every Christian creed teach us alike, that affliction should soften our heart?”

      “Ay, woman,” said Bridgenorth sternly, “as the lightning which shattered yonder oak hath softened its trunk. No; the seared wood is the fitter for the use of the workmen – the hardened and the dried-up heart is that which can best bear the task imposed by these dismal times. God and man will no longer endure the unbridled profligacy of the dissolute – the scoffing

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