“I have been enjoying my time just now at least,” said the Earl, rising from table, and picking his teeth carelessly. “These fresh mullets are delicious, and so is the Lachrymæ Christi. I pray you to sit down to breakfast, Julian, and partake the goods my royal foresight has provided. Never was King of Man nearer being left to the mercy of the execrable brandy of his dominions. Old Griffiths would never, in the midst of our speedy retreat of last night, have had sense enough to secure a few flasks, had I not given him a hint on that important subject. But presence of mind amid danger and tumult, is a jewel I have always possessed.”
“I wish, then, Philip, you would exert it to better purpose,” said the Countess, half smiling, half displeased; for she doated upon her son with all a mother’s fondness, even when she was most angry with him for being deficient in the peculiar and chivalrous disposition which had distinguished his father, and which was so analogous to her own romantic and high-minded character. “Lend me your signet,” she added with a sigh; “for it were, I fear, vain to ask you to read over these despatches from England, and execute the warrants which I have thought necessary to prepare in consequence.”
“My signet you shall command with all my heart, madam,” said Earl Philip; “but spare me the revision of what you are much more capable to decide upon. I am, you know, a most complete _Roi fainéant_, and never once interfered with my _Maire de palais_ in her proceedings.”
The Countess made signs to her little train-bearer, who immediately went to seek for wax and a light, with which she presently returned.
In the meanwhile the Countess continued, addressing Peveril. “Philip does himself less than justice. When you were absent, Julian (for if you had been here I would have given you the credit of prompting your friend), he had a spirited controversy with the Bishop, for an attempt to enforce spiritual censures against a poor wretch, by confining her in the vault under the chapel.” [*]
[*] Beneath the only one of the four churches in Castle Rushin, which is or was kept a little in repair, is a prison or dungeon, for ecclesiastical offenders. “This,” says Waldron, “is certainly one of the most dreadful places that imagination can form; the sea runs under it through the hollows of the rock with such a continual roar, that you would think it were every moment breaking in upon you, and over it are the vaults for burying the dead. The stairs descending to this place of terrors are not above thirty, but so steep and narrow, that they are very difficult to go down, a child of eight or nine years not being able to pass them but sideways.”--WALDRON’S _Description of the Isle of Man, in his Works_, p. 105, folio.