Such was Holm-Peel, as records inform us, till towards the end of the seventeenth century.
It was in one of the lofty but almost unfurnished apartments of this ancient Castle that Julian Peveril found his friend the Earl of Derby, who had that moment sat down to a breakfast composed of various sorts of fish. “Welcome, most imperial Julian,” he said; “welcome to our royal fortress; in which, as yet, we are not like to be starved with hunger, though well-nigh dead for cold.”
Julian answered by inquiring the meaning of this sudden movement.
“Upon my word,” replied the Earl, “you know nearly as much of it as I do. My mother has told me nothing about it; supposing I believe, that I shall at length be tempted to inquire; but she will find herself much mistaken. I shall give her credit for full wisdom in her proceedings, rather than put her to the trouble to render a reason, though no woman can render one better.”
“Come, come; this is affectation, my good friend,” said Julian. “You should inquire into these matters a little more curiously.”
“To what purpose?” said the Earl. “To hear old stories about the Tinwald laws, and the contending rights of the lords and the clergy, and all the rest of that Celtic barbarism, which, like Burgesse’s thorough-paced doctrine enters at one ear, paces through, and goes out at the other?”
“Come, my lord,” said Julian, “you are not so indifferent as you would represent yourself--you are dying of curiosity to know what this hurry is about; only you think it the courtly humour to appear careless about your own affairs.”
“Why, what should it be about,” said the young Earl “unless some factious dispute between our Majesty’s minister, Governor Nowel, and our vassals? or perhaps some dispute betwixt our Majesty and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions? for all which our Majesty cares as little as any king in Christendom.”
“I rather suppose there is intelligence from England,” said Julian. “I heard last night in Peel-town, that Greenhalgh is come over with unpleasant news.”
“He brought me nothing that was pleasant, I wot well,” said the Earl. “I expected something from St. Evremond or Hamilton--some new plays by Dryden or Lee, and some waggery or lampoons from the Rose Coffee-house; and the fellow has brought me nothing but a parcel of tracts about Protestants and Papists, and a folio play-book, one of the conceptions, as she calls them, of that old mad-woman the Duchess of Newcastle.”