CHAPTER XVII

This is a love-meeting? See the maiden mourns,
And the sad suitor bends his looks on earth.

There's more hath pass'd between them than belongs
To Love's sweet sorrows.

OLD PLAY.

As he approached the monument of Goddard Crovan, Julian cast many an anxious glance to see whether any object visible beside the huge grey stone should apprize him, whether he was anticipated, at the appointed place of rendezvous, by her who had named it. Nor was it long before the flutter of a mantle, which the breeze slightly waved, and the motion necessary to replace it upon the wearer's shoulders, made him aware that Alice had already reached their place of meeting. One instant set the palfrey at liberty, with slackened girths and loosened reins, to pick its own way through the dell at will; another placed Julian Peveril by the side of Alice Bridgenorth.

That Alice should extend her hand to her lover, as with the ardour of a young greyhound he bounded over the obstacles of the rugged path, was as natural as that Julian, seizing on the hand so kindly stretched out, should devour it with kisses, and, for a moment or two, without reprehension; while the other hand,

which should have aided in the liberation of its fellow, served to hide the blushes of the fair owner. But Alice, young as she was, and attached to Julian by such long habits of kindly intimacy, still knew well how to subdue the tendency of her own treacherous affections.

"This is not right,' she said, extricating her hand from Julian's grasp, 'this is not right, Julian. If I have been too rash in admitting such a meeting as the present, it is not you that should make me sensible of my folly.'

Julian Peveril's mind had been early illumined with that touch of romantic fire which deprives passion of selfishness, and confers on it the high and refined tone of generous and disinterested devotion. He let go. the hand of Alice with as much respect as he could have paid to that of a princess; and when she seated herself upon a rocky fragment, over which nature had stretched a cushion of moss and lichen, interspersed with wild flowers, backed with a bush of copsewood, he took his place beside her, indeed, but at such distance as to intimate the duty of an attendant, who was there only to hear and to obey. Alice Bridgenorth became more assured as she observed the power which she possessed over her lover; and the self-command which Peveril exhibited, which other damsels in her situation might have judged inconsistent with intensity of passion, she appreciated more justly, as a proof of his respectful and disinterested sincerity. She recovered, in addressing him, the tone of confidence which rather belonged to the scenes of their early

acquaintance, than to those which had passed betwixt them since Peveril had disclosed his affection, and thereby had brought restraint upon their intercourse.

'Julian,' she said, 'your visit of yesterday-your most ill-timed visit, has distressed me much. It has misled my father-it has endangered you. At all risks, I resolved that you should know this, and blame me not if I have taken a bold and imprudent step in desiring this solitary interview, since you are aware how little poor Deborah is to be trusted.'

'Can you fear misconstruction from me, Alice?' replied Peveril, warmly; 'from me, whom you have thus highly favoured-thus deeply obliged?'

'Cease your protestations, Julian,' answered the maiden, 'they do but make me the more sensible that I have acted over boldly. But I did for

whom I have

the best.—I could not see you known so long-you, who say you regard me with partiality

'Say that I regard you with partiality!' interrupted Peveril in his turn. 'Ah, Alice, what a cold and doubtful phrase you have used to express the most devoted, the most sincere affection!'

'Well, then,' said Alice, sadly, we will not quarrel about words; but do not again interrupt me.-I could not, I say, see you, who, I believe, regard me with sincere though vain and fruitless attachment, rush blindfold into a snare, deceived and seduced by those very feelings towards me.'

'I understand you not, Alice,' said Peveril ;

'nor can I see any danger to which I am at present exposed. The sentiments which your father has expressed towards me, are of a nature irreconcilable with hostile purposes. If he is not offended with the bold wishes I may have formed, and his whole behaviour shows the contrary, I know not a man on earth from whom I have less cause to apprehend any danger or ill-will.'

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'My father,' said Alice, means well by his country, and well by you; yet I sometimes fear he may rather injure than serve his good cause; and still more do I dread, that in attempting to engage you as an auxiliary, he may forget those ties which ought to bind you, and I am sure which will bind you, to a different line of conduct from his own.'

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You lead me into still deeper darkness, Alice,' answered Peveril. • That your father's especial line of politics differs widely from mine, I know well; but how many instances have occurred, even during the bloody scenes of civil warfare, of good and worthy men laying the prejudice of party affections aside, and regarding each other with respect, and even with friendly attachment, without being false to principle on either side?'

'It may be so,' said Alice; but such is not the league which my father desires to form with you, and that to which he hopes your misplaced partiality towards his daughter may afford a motive for your forming with him.'

'And what is it,' said Peveril, which I would refuse, with such a prospect before me?'

'Treachery and dishonour!' replied Alice; 'what

ever would render you unworthy of the poor boon at which you aim-ay, were it more worthless than I confess it to be.'

'Would your father,' said Peveril, as he unwillingly received the impression which Alice designed to convey, 'would he, whose views of duty are so strict and severe would he wish to involve me in aught, to which such harsh epithets as treachery and dishonour can be applied with the slightest shadow of truth?'

Do not mistake me, Julian,' replied the maiden; 'my father is incapable of requesting aught of you that is not to his thinking just and honourable; nay, he conceives that he only claims from you a debt, which is due as a creature to the Creator, and as a man to your fellow-men.'

'So guarded, where can be the danger of our intercourse?' replied Julian. 'If he be resolved to require, and I determined to accede to, nothing save what flows from conviction, what have I to fear, Alice? And how is my intercourse with your father dangerous? Believe not so; his speech has already made impression on me in some particulars, and he listened with candour and patience to the objections which I made occasionally. You do Master Bridgenorth less than justice in confounding him with the unreasonable bigots in policy and religion, who can listen to no argument but what favours their own prepossessions.'

'Julian,' replied Alice, it is you who misjudge my father's powers, and his purpose with respect to you, and who overrate your own powers of