minutes, the latter
proceeded.--"These things," he said, "I recall not in bitterness, so far
as they are personal to me--I recall them not in spite of heart, though
they have been the means of banishing me from my place of residence,
where my fathers dwelt, and where my earthly comforts lie interred. But
the public cause sets further strife betwixt your father and me. Who so
active as he to execute the fatal edict of black St. Bartholomew's day,
when so many hundreds of gospel-preachers were expelled from house and
home--from hearth and altar--from church and parish, to make room for
belly-gods and thieves? Who, when a devoted few of the Lord's people
were united to lift the fallen standard, and once more advance the
good cause, was the readiest to break their purpose--to search for,
persecute, and apprehend them? Whose breath did I feel warm on my
neck--whose naked sword was thrust within a foot of my body, whilst
I lurked darkling, like a thief in concealment, in the house of my
fathers?--It was Geoffrey Peveril's--it was your father's!--What can
you answer to all this, or how can you reconcile it with your present
wishes?

"These things I point out to you, Julian, that I may show you how
impossible, in the eyes of a merely worldly man, would be the union
which you are desirous of. But Heaven hath at times opened a door, where
man beholds no means of issue. Julian, your mother, for one to whom the
truth is unknown, is, after the fashion of the world, one of the best,
and one of the wisest of women; and Providence, which gave her so fair a
form, and tenanted that form with a mind as pure as the original frailty
of our vile nature will permit, means not, I trust, that she shall
continue to the end to be a vessel of wrath and perdition. Of your
father I say nothing--he is what the times and example of others, and
the counsels of his lordly priest, have made him; and of him, once more,
I say nothing, save that I have power over him, which ere now he might
have felt, but that there is one within his chambers, who might have
suffered in his suffering. Nor do I wish to root up your ancient family.
If I prize not your boast of family honours and pedigree, I would not
willingly destroy them; more than I would pull down a moss-grown tower,
or hew to the ground an ancient oak, save for the straightening of
the common path, and advantage of the public. I have, therefore, no
resentment against the humbled House of Peveril--nay, I