“From me,” answered the Lady Peveril--“from me, whose youth your kindness sheltered--from the wife of Peveril, your gallant Lord’s companion in arms--you have a right to command everything; but, alas! that you should need such assistance as I can render--forgive me, but it seems like some ill-omened vision of the night--I listen to your words as if I hoped to be relieved from their painful import by awaking.” “It is indeed a dream--a vision,” said the Countess of Derby; “but it needs no seer to read it--the explanation hath been long since given--Put not your faith in princes. I can soon remove your surprise.--This gentleman, your friend, is doubtless _honest?_” The Lady Peveril well knew that the Cavaliers, like other factions, usurped to themselves the exclusive denomination of the _honest_ party, and she felt some difficulty in explaining that her visitor was not honest in that sense of the word. “Had we not better retire, madam?” she said to the Countess, rising, as if in order to attend her. But the Countess retained her seat. “It was but a question of habit,” she said; “the gentleman’s principles are nothing to me, for what I have to tell you is widely blazed, and I care not who hears my share of it. You remember--you must have heard, for I think Margaret Stanley would not be indifferent to my fate--that after my husband’s murder at Bolton, I took up the standard which he never dropped until his death, and displayed it with my own hand in our Sovereignty of Man.” “I did indeed hear so, madam,” said the Lady Peveril; “and that you had bidden a bold defiance to the rebel government, even after all other parts of Britain had submitted to them. My husband, Sir Geoffrey, designed at one time to have gone to your assistance with some few followers; but we learned that the island was rendered to the Parliament party, and that you, dearest lady, were thrown into prison.” “But you heard not,” said the Countess, “how that disaster befell me.--Margaret, I would have held out that island against the knaves as long as the sea continued to flow around it. Till the shoals which surround it had become safe anchorage--till its precipices had melted beneath the sunshine--till of all its strong abodes and castles not one stone remained upon another,--would I have defended against these villainous hypocritical rebels, my dear husband’s hereditary dominion. The little kingdom of Man should have been yielded only when not an arm was left to wield a sword, not a finger to draw a trigger in its defence. But treachery did what force could never have done. When we had foiled various attempts upon the island by open force--treason accomplished what Blake and Lawson, with their floating castles, had found too hazardous an enterprise--a base rebel, whom we had nursed in our own bosoms, betrayed us to the enemy. This wretch was named Christian----”