er loved the man. He was cold and phlegmatic, and utterly
devoid of that sacred fire which is the incentive to noble deeds,
suspected, too, of leaning to the cold metaphysics of Calvinistic
subtlety. But he was brave, wise, and experienced, and, as the event
proved, possessed but too much interest with the islanders. When these
rude people saw themselves without hope of relief, and pressed by a
blockade, which brought want and disease into their island, they began
to fall off from the faith which they had hitherto shown."

"What!" said the Lady Peveril, "could they forget what was due to the
widow of their benefactor--she who had shared with the generous Derby
the task of bettering their condition?"

"Do not blame them," said the Countess; "the rude herd acted but
according to their kind--in present distress they forgot former
benefits, and, nursed in their earthen hovels, with spirits suited
to their dwellings, they were incapable of feeling the glory which
is attached to constancy in suffering. But that Christian should have
headed their revolt--that he, born a gentleman, and bred under my
murdered Derby's own care in all that was chivalrous and noble--that
_he_ should have forgot a hundred benefits--why do I talk of
benefits?--that he should have forgotten that kindly intercourse which
binds man to man far more than the reciprocity of obligation--that
he should have headed the ruffians who broke suddenly into my
apartment--immured me with my infants in one of my own castles, and
assumed or usurped the tyranny of the island--that this should have been
done by William Christian, my vassal, my servant, my friend, was a deed
of ungrateful treachery, which even this age of treason will scarcely
parallel!"

"And you were then imprisoned," said the Lady Peveril, "and in your own
sovereignty?"

"For more than seven years I have endured strict captivity," said the
Countess. "I was indeed offered my liberty, and even some means of
support, if I would have consented to leave the island, and pledge my
word that I would not endeavour to repossess my son in his father's
rights. But they little knew the princely house from which I spring--and
as little the royal house of Stanley which I uphold, who hoped to humble
Charlotte of Tremouille into so base a composition. I would rather have
starved in the darkest and lowest vault of Rushin Castle, than have
consented to aught which might diminish in one hair's-breadth the right
of m