d
not his own cottage when he supplied the larder at the Castle. A modest
sip of the excellent Derbyshire ale, and a taste of the highly-seasoned
hash, soon placed Deborah entirely at home with her old acquaintance.

Having put all necessary questions, and received all suitable answers,
respecting the state of the neighbourhood, and such of her own friends
as continued to reside there, the conversation began rather to flag,
until Deborah found the art of again re-newing its interest, by
communicating to her friends the dismal intelligence that they must soon
look for deadly bad news from the Castle; for that her present master,
Major Bridgenorth, had been summoned, by some great people from London,
to assist in taking her old master, Sir Geoffrey; and that all Master
Bridgenorth's servants, and several other persons whom she named,
friends and adherents of the same interest, had assembled a force to
surprise the Castle; and that as Sir Geoffrey was now so old, and gouty
withal, it could not be expected he should make the defence he was wont;
and then he was known to be so stout-hearted, that it was not to be
supposed that he would yield up without stroke of sword; and then if he
was killed, as he was like to be, amongst them that liked never a bone
of his body, and now had him at their mercy, why, in that case, she,
Dame Deborah, would look upon Lady Peveril as little better than a dead
woman; and undoubtedly there would be a general mourning through all
that country, where they had such great kin; and silks were likely to
rise on it, as Master Lutestring, the mercer of Chesterfield, was like
to feel in his purse bottom. But for her part, let matters wag how they
would, an if Master Julian Peveril was to come to his own, she could
give as near a guess as e'er another who was likely to be Lady at
Martindale.

The text of this lecture, or, in other words, the fact that Bridgenorth
was gone with a party to attack Sir Geoffrey Peveril in his own Castle
of Martindale, sounded so stunningly strange in the ears of those old
retainers of his family, that they had no power either to attend to
Mistress Deborah's inferences, or to interrupt the velocity of speech
with which she poured them forth. And when at length she made a
breathless pause, all that poor Dame Ellesmere could reply, was the
emphatic question, "Bridgenorth brave Peveril of the Peak!--Is the woman
mad?"

"Come, come, dame," said Deborah, "woman me no more than