Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📕

obstinate, and coquettish as ever, otherwise no ill-disposed person. Her present appearance was that of a woman of the better rank. From the sobriety of the fashion of her dress, and the uniformity of its colours, it was plain she belonged to some sect which condemned superfluous gaiety in attire; but no rules, not those of a nunnery or of a quaker’s society, can prevent a little coquetry in that particular, where a woman is desirous of being supposed to retain some claim to personal attention. All Mistress Deborah’s garments were so arranged as might best set off a good-looking woman, whose countenance indicated ease and good cheer—who called herself five-and-thirty, and was well entitled, if she had a mind, to call herself twelve or fifteen years older.

Julian was under the necessity of enduring all her tiresome and fantastic airs, and awaiting with patience till she had “prinked herself and pinned herself”—flung her hoods back, and drawn them forward—snuffed at a little bottle of essences—closed her eyes like a dying fowl—turned them up like duck in a thunderstorm; when at length, having exhausted her round of minauderies, she condescended to open the conversation.

“These walks will be the death of me,” she said, “and all on your account, Master Julian Peveril; for if Dame Christian should learn that you have chosen to make your visits to her niece, I promise you Mistress Alice would be soon obliged to find other quarters, and so should I.”

“Come now, Mistress Deborah, be good-humoured,” said Julian; “consider, was not all this intimacy of ours of your own making? Did you not make yourself known to me the very first time I strolled up this glen with my fishing-rod, and tell me that you were my former keeper, and that Alice had been my little playfellow? And what could there be more natural, than that I should come back and see two such agreeable persons as often as I could?”

“Yes,” said Dame Deborah; “but I did not bid you fall in love with us, though, or propose such a matter as marriage either to Alice or myself.”

“To do you justice, you never did, Deborah,” answered the youth; “but what of that? Such things will come out before one is aware. I am sure you must have heard such proposals fifty times when you least expected them.”

“Fie, fie, fie, Master Julian Peveril,” said the governante; “I would have you to know that I have always so behaved myself, that the best of the land would have thought twice of it, and have very well considered both what he was going to say, and how he was going to say it, before he came out with such proposals to me.”

“True, true, Mistress Deborah,” continued Julian; “but all the world hath not your discretion. Then Alice Bridgenorth is a child—a mere child; and one always asks a baby to be one’s little wife, you know. Come, I know you will forgive me. Thou wert ever the best-natured, kindest woman in the world; and you know you have said twenty times we were made for each other.”

“Oh no, Master Julian Peveril; no, no, no!” ejaculated Deborah. “I may indeed have said your estates were born to be united; and to be sure it is natural for me, that come of the old stock of the yeomanry of Peveril of the Peak’s estate, to wish that it was all within the ring fence again; which sure enough it might be, were you to marry Alice Bridgenorth. But then there is the knight your father, and my lady your mother; and there is her father, that is half crazy with his religion; and her aunt that wears eternal black grogram for that unlucky Colonel Christian; and there is the Countess of Derby, that would serve us all with the same sauce if we were thinking of anything that would displease her. And besides all that, you have broke your word with Mistress Alice, and everything is over between you; and I am of opinion it is quite right it should be all over. And perhaps it may be, Master Julian, that I should have thought so a long time ago, before a child like Alice put it into my head; but I am so good-natured.”

No flatterer like a lover, who wishes to carry his point.

“You are the best-natured, kindest creature in the world, Deborah.—But you have never seen the ring I bought for you at Paris. Nay, I will put it on your finger myself;—what! your foster-son, whom you loved so well, and took such care of?”

He easily succeeded in putting a pretty ring of gold, with a humorous affectation of gallantry, on the fat finger of Mistress Deborah Debbitch. Hers was a soul of a kind often to be met with, both among the lower and higher vulgar, who, without being, on a broad scale, accessible to bribes or corruption, are nevertheless much attached to perquisites, and considerably biassed in their line of duty, though perhaps insensibly, by the love of petty observances, petty presents, and trivial compliments. Mistress Debbitch turned the ring round, and round, and round, and at length said, in a whisper, “Well, Master Julian Peveril, it signifies nothing denying anything to such a young gentleman as you, for young gentlemen are always so obstinate! and so I may as well tell you, that Mistress Alice walked back from the Kirk-Truagh along with me, just now, and entered the house at the same time with myself.”

“Why did you not tell me so before?” said Julian, starting up; “where—where is she?”

“You had better ask why I tell you so now, Master Julian,” said Dame Deborah; “for, I promise you, it is against her express commands; and I would not have told you, had you not looked so pitiful;—but as for seeing you, that she will not—and she is in her own bedroom, with a good oak door shut and bolted upon her—that is one comfort.—And so, as for any breach of trust on my part—I promise you the little saucy minx gives it no less name—it is quite impossible.”

“Do not say so, Deborah—only go—only try—tell her to hear me—tell her I have a hundred excuses for disobeying her commands—tell her I have no doubt to get over all obstacles at Martindale Castle.”

“Nay, I tell you it is all in vain,” replied the Dame. “When I saw your cap and rod lying in the hall, I did but say, ‘There he is again,’ and she ran up the stairs like a young deer; and I heard key turned, and bolt shot, ere I could say a single word to stop her—I marvel you heard her not.”

“It was because I am, as I ever was, an owl—a dreaming fool, who let all those golden minutes pass, which my luckless life holds out to me so rarely.—Well—tell her I go—go for ever—go where she will hear no more of me—where no one shall hear more of me!”

“Oh, the Father!” said the dame, “hear how he talks!—What will become of Sir Geoffrey, and your mother, and of me, and of the Countess, if you were to go so far as you talk of? And what would become of poor Alice too? for I will be sworn she likes you better than she says, and I know she used to sit and look the way that you used to come up the stream, and now and then ask me if the morning were good for fishing. And all the while you were on the continent, as they call it, she scarcely smiled once, unless it was when she got two beautiful long letters about foreign parts.”

“Friendship, Dame