ot he halts upon, and you shall see him go as sound as
ever."

Lady Peveril had, from her sincere affection and sound sense, as good
a right to claim the full confidence of her husband, as any woman in
Derbyshire; and, upon this occasion, to confess the truth, she had more
anxiety to know his purpose than her sense of their mutual and separate
duties permitted her in general to entertain. She could not imagine what
mode of reconciliation with his neighbour, Sir Geoffrey (no very acute
judge of mankind or their peculiarities) could have devised, which might
not be disclosed to her; and she felt some secret anxiety lest the means
resorted to might be so ill chosen as to render the breach rather wider.
But Sir Geoffrey would give no opening for farther inquiry. He had been
long enough colonel of a regiment abroad, to value himself on the right
of absolute command at home; and to all the hints which his lady's
ingenuity could devise and throw out, he only answered, "Patience, Dame
Margaret, patience. This is no case for thy handling. Thou shalt know
enough on't by-and-by, dame.--Go, look to Julian. Will the boy never
have done crying for lack of that little sprout of a Roundhead? But we
will have little Alice back with us in two or three days, and all will
be well again."

As the good Knight spoke these words, a post winded his horn in the
court, and a large packet was brought in, addressed to the worshipful
Sir Geoffrey Peveril, Justice of the Peace, and so forth; for he had
been placed in authority as soon as the King's Restoration was put upon
a settled basis. Upon opening the packet, which he did with no small
feeling of importance, he found that it contained the warrant which he
had solicited for replacing Doctor Dummerar in the parish, from which he
had been forcibly ejected during the usurpation.

Few incidents could have given more delight to Sir Geoffrey. He could
forgive a stout able-bodied sectary or nonconformist, who enforced his
doctrines in the field by downright blows on the casques and cuirasses
of himself and other Cavaliers. But he remembered with most vindictive
accuracy, the triumphant entrance of Hugh Peters through the breach
of his Castle; and for his sake, without nicely distinguishing betwixt
sects or their teachers, he held all who mounted a pulpit without
warrant from the Church of England--perhaps he might also in
private except that of Rome--to be disturbers of the public
tranquillity--seduc