only person aboard who could speak English, answered to the summons, and replied to Peveril's demand, what noise that was?-that a boat was going off with the young woman-that she whimpered a little as she left the vessel-and << dat vaas all. » This explanation satisfied Julian, who thought it probable that some degree of violence might have been absolutely necessary to remove Fenella; and although he rejoiced not to have witnessed it, he could not feel sorry that such had been employed. Her pertinacious desire to continue on board, and the difficulty of freeing himself when he should come ashore from so singular a companion, had given him a good deal of anxiety on the preceding night, which he now saw removed by this bold stroke of the captain. His dream was thus fully explained. Fancy had caught up the inarticulate and vehement cries with which Fenella was wont to express resistance or displeasure--had coined them into language, and given them the accents of Alice Bridgenorth. Our imagination plays wilder tricks with us almost every night. The captain now undid the door, and appeared with a lantern, without the aid of which Peveril could scarce have regained his couch, where he now slumbered secure and sound, until day was far advanced, and the invitation of the captain called him up to breakfast. CHAPTER VIII. Now, what is this that haunts me like my shadow, PEVERIL found the master of the vessel rather less rude than those in his station of life usually are, and received from him full satisfaction concerning the fate of Fenella, upon whom the captain bestowed a hearty curse, for obliging him to lay-to until he had sent his boat ashore, and had her back again. «I hope," said Peveril, «no violence was necessary to reconcile her to go ashore ? I trust she offered no foolish resistance ?>> « Resist! mein Gott," said the captain, « she did resist like a troop of horse-she did cry, you might hear her at Whitehaven-she did go up the rigging like a cat up a chimney; but dat vas ein trick of her old trade.> " : « What trade do you mean?» said Peveril, I vas know more about her than you, Meinheer. I vas know that she was a little, very little girl, and prentice to one seiltanzer, when my lady yonder had the good luck to buy her.» « A seiltanzer," said Peveril; «what do you mean by that?» << I mean a rope- danzer, a mountebank, a Hans pickel-harring. I vas know Adrian Brackel vell-he sell de powders dat empty men's stomach, and fill him's own purse. Not know Adrian Brackel, mein Gott! I have smoked many a pound of tabak with him.» Peveril now remembered that Fenella had been brought into the family when he and the young earl were in England, and while the countess was absent on an expedition to the continent. Where the countess found her, she never communicated to the young men; but only inti mated, that she had received her out of compassion, in order to relieve her from a situation of extreme distress. He hinted so much to the communicative seaman, who replied, « that for distress he knew nochts on't; only, that Adrian Brackel beat her when she would not dance on the rope, and starved her when she did, to prevent her growth. The bargain between the countess and the mountebank, he said, he had made himself; because the countess had hired his brig upon her expedition to the continent. None else knew where she came from. The countess had seen her on a public stage at Ostend-compassionated her helpless situation, and the severe treatment she received and had employed him to purchase the poor creature from her master, and charged him with silence towards all her reti nue. « And so I do keep silence,» continued the faithful confidant, « van I am in the havens of Man; but when I am on the broad seas, den my tongue is mine own, you know. Die foolish beoples in the island, they say she is a wechselbalg-what you call a fairy-elf changeling. My faith, they do not never have seen ein wechselbalg; for I saw one myself at Cologne, and it was twice as big as yonder girl, and did break the poor people, with eating them up, like de great big cuckoo in the sparrow's nest; but this Venella eat no more than other girls-it was no wechselbalg in the world.» By a different train of reasoning, Julian had arrived at the same conclusion; in which, therefore, he heartily acquiesced. During the seaman's prosing, he was reflecting within himself, how much of the singular flexibility of her limbs and movements the unfortunate girl must have derived from the discipline and instructions of Adrian Brackel; and also how far the germs of her wilful and capricious passions might have been sown during her wandering and adventurous childhood. Aristocratic, also, as his education had been, these anecdotes respecting Fenella's original situation and education, rather increased his pleasure at having shaken off her company; and yet he still felt desirous to know any further particulars which the seaman could communicate on the same subject. But he had already told all he knew. Of her parents he knew nothing, except that her father must have been a damned hundsfoot, and a schelm, for selling his own flesh and blood to Adrian Brackel; for by such a transaction had the mountebank become possessed of his pupil. This conversation tended to remove any passing doubts which might have crept on Peveril's mind concerning the fidelity of the master of the vessel, who appeared from thence to have been a former acquaintance of the countess, and to have enjoyed some share of her confidence. The threatening motion used by Fenella, he no longer considered as worthy of any notice, excepting as a new mark of the irritability of her temper. He amused himself with walking the deck, and musing on his past and future prospects, until his attention was forcibly arrested by the wind, which began to rise in gusts from the north-west, in a manner so unfavourable to the course they intended to hold, that the master, after many efforts to beat against it, declared his bark, which was by no means an excellent seaboat, was unequal to making Whitehaven; and that he was compelled to make a fair wind of it, and run for Liverpool. To this course, Peveril did not object. It saved him some land journey, in case he visited his father's castle; and the countess's commission would be discharged as effectually the one way as the other. The vessel was put, accordingly, before the wind, and ran with great steadiness and velocity. The captain, notwithstanding, pleading |