The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK. 519
a woman in the very house has so many deuced opportunities. And then
there would be two upon one; for Naunt, though high enough when any of
yiou.r folks are concerned, hath some look to the main chance; and it seems
Mistress Deb is as rich as a Jew."
" And you, Lance," said Julian, " have no mind to marry for cake and
pudding?"
"No, truly, master," answered Lance, "unless I knew of what dough
they were baked. How the devil do I know how the jade came by so much?
And then if she speaks of tokens and love-passages, let her be the same
tight lass I broke the sixpence with, and I will be the same true lad to her.
But I never heard of true love lasting ten years; and hers, if it lives at all,
must be nearer twenty."
"Well, then,. Lance," said Julian, "since you are resolved on the thing,
we will go to London together; where, if I cannot retain you in my service,
and if my father recovers not these misfortunes, I will endeavour to promote
you elsewhere."
" Nay, nay," said Lance, " I trust to be back to bonny Martindale before
it is long, and to keep the greenwood, as I have been wont to do; for, as to
Dame Debbitch, when they have not me for their common butt, Naunt and
she will soon bend bows on each other. So here comes old Dame Ellesmere
with your breakfast. I will but give some directions about the deer to
Rough Ralph, my helper, and saddle my forest pony, and your honour's
horse, which is no prime one, and we will be ready to trot."
Julian was not sorry for this addition to his establishment; for Lance had
shown himself, on the preceding evening, a shrewd and bold fellow, and
attached to his master. He therefore set himself to reconcile his aunt to
parting with her nephew for some time. Her unlimited devotion for "the
family," readily induced the old lady to acquiesce in his proposal, though
not without a gentle sigh over the ruins of a castle in the air, which was
founded on the well-saved purse of Mistress Deborah Debbitch. "At any
rate," she thought, "it was as well that Lance should be out of the way of
that bold, long-legged, beggarly trollop, Cis Sellok." But to poor Del)b herself, the expatriation of Lance, whom she had looked to as a sailor to a port
under his lee, for which he can run, if weather becomes foul, was a second
severe blow, following close on her dismissal from the profitable service of
M3ajor Bridgenorth.
Julian visited the disconsolate damsel, in hopes of gaining some light
upon Bridgenorth's projects regarding his daughter -the character of this
Ganlesse-and other matters, with which her residence in the family might
have made her acquainted; but he found her by far too much troubled in
mind to afford him the least information. The name of Ganlesse she did
not seem to recollect-that of Alice rendered her hysterical-that of Bridgenorth, furious. She numbered up the various services she had rendered in
the family-and denounced the plague of swartness to the linen-of leanness to the poultry - of dearth and dishonour to the housekeeping - and
of lingering sickness and early death to Alice;-all which evils, she averred,
had only been kept off by her continued, watchful, and incessant cares.Then again turning to the subject of the fugitive Lance, she expressed such
a total contempt of that mean-spirited fellow, in a tone between laughing
and crying, as satisfied Julian it was not a topic likely to act as a sedative;
and that, therefore, unless he made a longer stay than the urgent state of
his affairs permitted, he was not likely to find Mistress Deborah in such a
state of composure as might enable him to obtain from her any rational or
useful information.
Lance, who good-naturedly took upon himself the whole burden of Dame
Debbitch's mental alienation, or "taking on," as such fits of passio hy/sterica
are usually termed in the country, had too much feeling to present himself
before the victim of her own sensibility, and of his obduracy. He there