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

were to suppose me capable of deserting my benefactress, and breaking the hearts of my parents.”

“Even so I judged of you,” answered Alice; “and therefore I asked this interview, to conjure that you will break off all intercourse with our family—return to your parents—or, what will be much safer, visit the continent once more, and abide till God send better days to England, for these are black with many a storm.”

“And can you bid me go, Alice?” said the young man, taking her unresisting hand; “can you bid me go, and yet own an interest in my fate?—Can you bid me, for fear of dangers, which, as a man, as a gentleman, and a loyal one, I am bound to show my face to, meanly abandon my parents, my friends, my country—suffer the existence of evils which I might aid to prevent—forego the prospect of doing such little good as might be in my power—fall from an active and honourable station, into the condition of a fugitive and time-server—Can you bid me do all this, Alice? Can you bid me do all this, and, in the same breath, bid farewell for ever to you and happiness?—It is impossible—I cannot surrender at once my love and my honour.”

“There is no remedy,” said Alice, but she could not suppress a sigh while she said so—“there is no remedy—none whatever. What we might have been to each other, placed in more favourable circumstances, it avails not to think of now; and, circumstanced as we are, with open war about to break out betwixt our parents and friends, we can be but well-wishers—cold and distant well-wishers, who must part on this spot, and at this hour, never meet again.”

“No, by Heaven!” said Peveril, animated at the same time by his own feelings, and by the sight of the emotions which his companion in vain endeavoured to suppress,—“No, by Heaven!” he exclaimed, “we part not—Alice, we part not. If I am to leave my native land, you shall be my companion in my exile. What have you to lose?—Whom have you to abandon?—Your father?—The good old cause, as it is termed, is dearer to him than a thousand daughters; and setting him aside, what tie is there between you and this barren isle—between my Alice and any spot of the British dominions, where her Julian does not sit by her?”

“O Julian,” answered the maiden, “why make my duty more painful by visionary projects, which you ought not to name, or I to listen to? Your parents—my father—it cannot be!”

“Fear not for my parents, Alice,” replied Julian, and pressing close to his companion’s side, he ventured to throw his arm around her; “they love me, and they will soon learn to love, in Alice, the only being on earth who could have rendered their son happy. And for your own father, when State and Church intrigues allow him to bestow a thought upon you, will he not think that your happiness, your security, is better cared for when you are my wife, than were you to continue under the mercenary charge of yonder foolish woman? What could his pride desire better for you, than the establishment which will one day be mine? Come then, Alice, and since you condemn me to banishment—since you deny me a share in those stirring achievements which are about to agitate England—come! do you—for you only can—do you reconcile me to exile and inaction, and give happiness to one, who, for your sake, is willing to resign honour.”

“It cannot—it cannot be,” said Alice, faltering as she uttered her negative. “And yet,” she said, “how many in my place—left alone and unprotected, as I am—But I must not—I must not—for your sake, Julian, I must not.”

“Say not for my sake you must not, Alice,” said Peveril eagerly; “this is adding insult to cruelty. If you will do aught for my sake, you will say yes; or you will suffer this dear head to drop on my shoulder—the slightest sign—the moving of an eyelid, shall signify consent. All shall be prepared within an hour; within another the priest shall unite us; and within a third, we leave the isle behind us, and seek our fortunes on the continent.” But while he spoke, in joyful anticipation of the consent which he implored, Alice found means to collect together her resolution, which, staggered by the eagerness of her lover, the impulse of her own affections, and the singularity of her situation,—seeming, in her case, to justify what would have been most blamable in another,—had more than half abandoned her.

The result of a moment’s deliberation was fatal to Julian’s proposal. She extricated herself from the arm which had pressed her to his side—arose, and repelling his attempts to approach or detain her, said, with a simplicity not unmingled with dignity, “Julian, I always knew I risked much in inviting you to this meeting; but I did not guess that I could have been so cruel to both to you and to myself, as to suffer you to discover what you have to-day seen too plainly—that I love you better than you love me. But since you do know it, I will show you that Alice’s love is disinterested—She will not bring an ignoble name into your ancient house. If hereafter, in your line, there should arise some who may think the claims of the hierarchy too exorbitant, the powers of the crown too extensive, men shall not say these ideas were derived from Alice Bridgenorth, their whig granddame.”

“Can you speak thus, Alice?” said her lover. “Can you use such expressions? and are you not sensible that they show plainly it is your own pride, not regard for me, that makes you resist the happiness of both?”

“Not so, Julian; not so,” answered Alice, with tears in her eyes; “it is the command of duty to us both—of duty, which we cannot transgress, without risking our happiness here and hereafter. Think what I, the cause of all, should feel, when your father frowns, your mother weeps, your noble friends stand aloof, and you, even you yourself, shall have made the painful discovery, that you have incurred the contempt and resentment of all to satisfy a boyish passion; and that the poor beauty, once sufficient to mislead you, is gradually declining under the influence of grief and vexation. This I will not risk. I see distinctly it is best we should here break off and part; and I thank God, who gives me light enough to perceive, and strength enough to withstand, your folly as well as my own. Farewell, then, Julian; but first take the solemn advice which I called you hither to impart to you:—Shun my father—you cannot walk in his paths, and be true to gratitude and to honour. What he doth from pure and honourable motives, you cannot aid him in, except upon the suggestion of a silly and interested passion, at variance with all the engagements you have formed at coming into life.”

“Once more, Alice,” answered Julian, “I understand you not. If a course of action is good, it needs no vindication from the actor’s motives—if bad, it can derive none.”

“You cannot blind me with your sophistry, Julian,” replied Alice Bridgenorth, “any more than you can overpower me with your passion. Had the patriarch destined his son to death upon any less ground than faith and humble obedience to a divine commandment, he had meditated a murder and not a sacrifice. In our late bloody and lamentable wars, how many drew swords on either side, from the purest and most honourable motives? How many from the culpable suggestions of ambition, self-seeking, and love of plunder? Yet while they marched in the same ranks, and spurred their horses at the same trumpet-sound, the memory of the former is dear to us