rocess of time he became a gallant and accomplished youth, and
travelled for some time upon the continent with the young Earl. This was
the more especially necessary for the enlarging of their acquaintance
with the world; because the Countess had never appeared in London, or at
the Court of King Charles, since her flight to the Isle of Man in 1660;
but had resided in solitary and aristocratic state, alternately on her
estates in England and in that island.

This had given to the education of both the young men, otherwise as
excellent as the best teachers could render it, something of a narrow
and restricted character; but though the disposition of the young Earl
was lighter and more volatile than that of Julian, both the one and
the other had profited, in a considerable degree, by the opportunities
afforded them. It was Lady Derby's strict injunction to her son, now
returning from the continent, that he should not appear at the Court
of Charles. But having been for some time of age, he did not think it
absolutely necessary to obey her in this particular; and had remained
for some time in London, partaking the pleasures of the gay Court there,
with all the ardour of a young man bred up in comparative seclusion.

In order to reconcile the Countess to this transgression of her
authority (for he continued to entertain for her the profound respect
in which he had been educated), Lord Derby agreed to make a long sojourn
with her in her favourite island, which he abandoned almost entirely to
her management.

Julian Peveril had spent at Martindale Castle a good deal of the time
which his friend had bestowed in London; and at the period to which,
passing over many years, our story has arrived, as it were, _per
saltum_, they were both living as the Countess's guests, in the Castle
of Rushin, in the venerable kingdom of Man.

CHAPTER XI

Mona--long hid from those who roam the main.
--COLLINS.

The Isle of Man, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was very
different, as a place of residence, from what it is now. Men had not
then discovered its merit as a place of occasional refuge from the
storms of life, and the society to be there met with was of a very
uniform tenor. There were no smart fellows, whom fortune had tumbled
from the seat of their barouches--no plucked pigeons or winged rooks--no
disappointed speculators--no ruined miners--in short, no o