But the old steward was not half so docile when it came to be considered how the captive's bedding and table should be supplied; and he thought Lady Peveril displayed a very undue degree of attention to her prisoner's comforts.

"I warrant," he said, "that the cuckoldly Roundhead ate enough of our fat beef yesterday to serve him for a month; and a little fasting will do his health good.

Marry, for drink, he shall have plenty of cold water to cool his hot liver, which I will be bound is still hissing with the strong liquors of yesterday.

And as for bedding, there are the fine dry board--more wholesome than the wet straw I lay upon when I was in the stocks, I trow." "Whitaker," said the lady peremptorily, "I desire you to provide Master Bridgenorth's bedding and food in the way I have signified to you; and to behave yourself towards him in all civility." "Lack-a-day! yes, my lady," said Whitaker; "you shall have all your directions punctually obeyed; but as an old servant, I cannot but speak my mind." The ladies retired after this conference with the steward in the antechamber, and were soon seated in another apartment, which was peculiarly dedicated to the use of the mistress of the mansion--having, on the one side, access to the family bedroom; and, on the other, to the still-room which communicated with the garden.

There was also a small door which, ascending a few steps, led to that balcony, already mentioned, that overhung the kitchen; and the same passage, by a separate door, admitted to the principal gallery in the chapel; so that the spiritual and temporal affairs of the Castle were placed almost at once within the reach of the same regulating and directing eye.[*] [*] This peculiar collocation of apartments may be seen at Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, once a seat of the Vernons, where, in the lady's pew in the chapel, there is a sort of scuttle, which opens into the kitchen, so that the good lady could ever and anon, without much interruption of her religious duties, give an eye that the roast-meat was not permitted to burn, and that the turn-broche did his duty.
In the tapestried room, from which issued these various sally-ports, the Countess and Lady Peveril were speedily seated; and the former, smiling upon the latter, said, as she took her hand, "Two things have happened to-day, which might have surprised me, if anything ought to surprise me in such times:--the first is, that yonder roundheaded fellow should have dared to use such insolence in the house of Peveril of the Peak.