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. "O," said the seaman," 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 sto mach, 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 intimated, 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 retinue. "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 wechsel-balg-what you call a fairyelf changeling. My faith, they do not never have seen ein wechsel-balg; 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 wechsel-balg 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 geims 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 ;" 12 |