I fear the devil worst when gown and cassock,
Or, in the lack of them, old Calvin’s cloak,
Conceals his cloven hoof.
ANONYMOUS.
Julian Peveril had scarce set sail for Whitehaven, when Alice Bridgenorth and her governante, at the hasty command of her father, were embarked with equal speed and secrecy on board of a bark bound for Liverpool. Christian accompanied them on their voyage, as the friend to whose guardianship Alice was to be consigned during any future separation from her father, and whose amusing conversation, joined to his pleasing though cold manners, as well as his near relationship, induced Alice, in her forlorn situation, to consider her fate as fortunate in having such a guardian.
At Liverpool, as the reader already knows, Christian took the first overt step in the villainy which he had contrived against the innocent girl, by exposing her at a meeting-house to the unhallowed gaze of Chiffinch, in order to convince him she was possessed of such uncommon beauty as might well deserve the infamous promotion to which they meditated to raise her.
Highly satisfied with her personal appearance, Chiffinch was no less so with the sense and delicacy of her conversation, when he met her in company with her uncle afterwards in London. The simplicity, and at the same time the spirit of her remarks, made him regard her as his scientific attendant the cook might have done a newly invented sauce, sufficiently piquante in its qualities to awaken the jaded appetite of a cloyed and gorged epicure. She was, he said and swore, the very corner-stone on which, with proper management, and with his instruction, a few honest fellows might build a Court fortune.
That the necessary introduction might take place, the confederates judged fit she should be put under the charge of an experienced lady, whom some called Mistress Chiffinch, and others Chiffinch’s mistress — one of those obliging creatures who are willing to discharge all the duties of a wife, without the inconvenient and indissoluble ceremony.
It was one, and not perhaps the least prejudicial consequence of the license of that ill-governed time, that the bounds betwixt virtue and vice were so far smoothed down and levelled, that the frail wife, or the tender friend who was no wife, did not necessarily lose their place in society; but, on the contrary, if they moved in the higher circles, were permitted and encouraged to mingle with women whose rank was certain, and whose reputation was untainted.
A regular liaison, like that of Chiffinch and his fair one, inferred little scandal; and such was his influence, as prime minister of his master’s pleasures, that, as Charles himself expressed it, the lady whom we introduced to our readers in the last chapter, had obtained a brevet commission to rank as a married woman. And to do the gentle dame justice, no wife could have been more attentive to forward his plans, or more liberal in disposing of his income.
She inhabited a set of apartments called Chiffinch’s — the scene of many an intrigue, both of love and politics; and where Charles often held his private parties for the evening, when, as frequently happened, the ill-humour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, his reigning Sultana, prevented his supping with her. The hold which such an arrangement gave a man like Chiffinch, used as he well knew how to use it, made him of too much consequence to be slighted even by the first persons in the state, unless they stood aloof from all manner of politics and Court intrigue.
In the charge of Mistress Chiffinch, and of him whose name she bore, Edward Christian placed the daughter of his sister, and of his confiding friend, calmly contemplating her ruin as an event certain to follow; and hoping to ground upon it his own chance of a more assured fortune, than a life spent in intrigue had hitherto been able to procure for him.
The innocent Alice, without being able to discover what was wrong either in the scenes of unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in the manners of her hostess, which, both from nature and policy, were kind and caressing — felt nevertheless an instinctive apprehension that all was not right — a feeling in the human mind, allied, perhaps, to that sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of the natural enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the desert. There was a heaviness at her heart which she could not dispel; and the few hours which she had already spent at Chiffinch’s were like those passed in prison by one unconscious of the cause or event of his captivity. It was the third morning after her arrival in London, that the scene took place which we now recur to.
The impertinence and vulgarity of Empson, which was permitted to him as an unrivalled performer upon his instrument, were exhausting themselves at the expense of all other musical professors, and Mrs. Chiffinch was listening with careless indifference, when some one was heard speaking loudly, and with animation, in the inner apartment.
“Oh, gemini and gilliflower water!” exclaimed the damsel, startled out of her fine airs into her natural vulgarity of exclamation, and running to the door of communication —“if he has not come back again after all! — and if old Rowley ——”
A tap at the farther and opposite door here arrested her attention — she quitted the handle of that which she was about to open as speedily as if it had burnt her fingers, and, moving back towards her couch, asked, “Who is there?”
“Old Rowley himself, madam,” said the King, entering the apartment with his usual air of easy composure.
“O crimini! — your Majesty! — I thought ——”
“That I was out of hearing, doubtless,” said the King; “and spoke of me as folk speak of absent friends. Make no apology. I think I have heard ladies say of their lace, that a rent is better than a darn. — Nay, be seated. — Where is Chiffinch?”
“He is down at York House, your Majesty,” said the dame, recovering, though with no small difficulty, the calm affectation of her usual demeanour. “Shall I send your Majesty’s commands?”
“I will wait his return,” said the King. —“Permit me to taste your chocolate.”
“There is some fresh frothed in the office,” said the lady; and using a little silver call, or whistle, a black boy, superbly dressed, like an Oriental page, with gold bracelets on his naked arms, and a gold collar around his equally bare neck, attended with the favourite beverage of the morning, in an apparatus of the richest china.
While he sipped his cup of chocolate, the King looked round the apartment, and observing Fenella, Peveril, and the musician, who remained standing beside a large Indian screen, he continued, addressing Mistress Chiffinch, though with polite indifference, “I sent you the fiddles this morning — or rather the flute — Empson, and a fairy elf whom I met in the Park, who dances divinely. She has brought us the very newest saraband from the Court of Queen Mab, and I sent her here, that you may see it at leisure.”
“Your Majesty does me by far too much honour,” said Chiffinch, her eyes properly cast down, and her accents minced into becoming humility.
“Nay, little Chiffinch,” answered the King, in a tone of as contemptuous familiarity as was consistent with his good-breeding, “it was not altogether for thine own private ear, though quite deserving of all sweet sounds; but I thought Nelly had been with thee this morning.”
“I can send Bajazet for her, your Majesty,” answered the lady.
“Nay, I will not trouble your little heathen sultan to go so far. Still it strikes me that Chiffinch said you had company — some country cousin, or such a matter — Is there not such a person?”
“There is a young person from the country,” said Mistress Chiffinch, striving to conceal a considerable portion of embarrassment; “but she is unprepared for such an honour as to be admitted into your Majesty’s presence, and ——”
“And therefore the fitter to receive it, Chiffinch. There is nothing in nature so beautiful as the first blush of a little rustic between joy and fear, and wonder and curiosity. It is the down on the peach — pity it decays so soon! — the fruit remains, but the first high colouring and exquisite flavour are gone. — Never put up thy lip for the matter, Chiffinch, for it is as I tell you; so pray let us have la belle cousine.”
Mistress Chiffinch, more embarrassed than ever, again advanced towards the door of communication, which she had been in the act of opening when his Majesty entered. But just as she coughed pretty loudly, perhaps as a signal to some one within, voices were again heard in a raised tone of altercation —— the door was flung open, and Alice rushed out of the inner apartment, followed to the door of it by the enterprising Duke of Buckingham, who stood fixed with astonishment on finding his pursuit of the flying fair one had hurried him into the presence of the King.
Alice Bridgenorth appeared too much transported with anger to permit her to pay attention to the rank or character of the company into which she had thus suddenly entered. “I remain no longer here, madam,” she said to Mrs. Chiffinch, in a tone of uncontrollable resolution; “I leave instantly a house where I am exposed to company which I detest, and to solicitations which I despise.”
The dismayed Mrs. Chiffinch could only implore her, in broken whispers, to be silent; adding, while she pointed to Charles, who stood with his eyes fixed rather on his audacious courtier than on the game which he pursued, “The King — the King!”
“If I am in the King’s presence,” said Alice aloud, and in the same torrent of passionate feeling, while her eye sparkled through tears of resentment and insulted modesty, “it is the better — it is his Majesty’s duty to protect me; and on his protection I throw myself.”
These words, which were spoken aloud, and boldly, at once recalled Julian to himself, who had hitherto stood, as it were, bewildered. He approached Alice, and, whispering in her ear that she had beside her one who would defend her with his life, implored her to trust to his guardianship in this emergency.
Clinging to his arm in all the ecstasy of gratitude and joy, the spirit which had so lately invigorated Alice in her own defence, gave way in a flood of tears, when she saw herself supported by him whom perhaps she most wished to recognise as her protector. She permitted Peveril gently to draw her back towards the screen before which he had been standing; where, holding by his arm, but at the same time endeavouring to conceal herself behind him, they waited the conclusion of a scene so singular.
The King seemed at first so much surprised at the unexpected apparition of the Duke of Buckingham, as to pay little or no attention to Alice, who had been the means of thus unceremoniously introducing his Grace into the presence at a most unsuitable moment. In that intriguing Court, it had not been the first time that the Duke had ventured to enter the lists of gallantry in rivalry of his Sovereign, which made the present insult the more intolerable. His purpose of lying concealed in those private apartments was explained by the exclamations of Alice; and Charles, notwithstanding the placidity of his disposition, and his habitual guard over his passions, resented the attempt to seduce his destined mistress, as an Eastern Sultan would have done the insolence of a vizier, who anticipated his intended purchases of captive beauty in the slave-market. The swarthy features of Charles reddened, and the strong lines on his dark visage seemed to become inflated, as he said, in a voice which faltered with passion, “Buckingham, you dared not have thus insulted your equal! To your master you may securely offer any affront, since his rank glues his sword to the scabbard.”
The haughty Duke did not brook this taunt unanswered. “My sword,” he said, with emphasis, “was never in the scabbard, when your Majesty’s service required it should be unsheathed.”
“Your Grace means, when its service was required for its master’s interest,” said the King; “for you could only gain the coronet of a Duke by fighting for the royal crown. But it is over — I have treated you as a friend — a companion — almost an equal — you have repaid me with insolence and ingratitude.”
“Sire,” answered the Duke firmly, but respectfully, “I am unhappy in your displeasure; yet thus far fortunate, that while your words can confer honour, they cannot impair or take it away. — It is hard,” he added, lowering his voice, so as only to be heard by the King — “It is hard that the squall of a peevish wench should cancel the services of so many years!”
“It is harder,” said the King, in the same subdued tone, which both preserved through the rest of the conversation, “that a wench’s bright eyes can make a nobleman forget the decencies due to his Sovereign’s privacy.”
“May I presume to ask your Majesty what decencies are those?” said the Duke.
Charles bit his lip to keep himself from smiling. “Buckingham,” he said, “this is a foolish business; and we must not forget (as we have nearly done), that we have an audience to witness this scene, and should walk the stage with dignity. I will show you your fault in private.”
“It is enough that your Majesty has been displeased, and that I have unhappily been the occasion,” said the Duke, kneeling; “although quite ignorant of any purpose beyond a few words of gallantry; and I sue thus low for your Majesty’s pardon.”
So saying, he kneeled gracefully down. “Thou hast it, George,” said the placable Prince. “I believe thou wilt be sooner tired of offending than I of forgiving.”
“Long may your Majesty live to give the offence, with which it is your royal pleasure at present to charge my innocence,” said the Duke.
“What mean you by that, my lord?” said Charles, the angry shade returning to his brow for a moment.
“My Liege,” replied the Duke, “you are too honourable to deny your custom of shooting with Cupid’s bird-bolts in other men’s warrens. You have ta’en the royal right of free-forestry over every man’s park. It is hard that you should be so much displeased at hearing a chance arrow whizz near your own pales.”
“No more on’t,” said the King; “but let us see where the dove has harboured.”
“The Helen has found a Paris while we were quarrelling,” replied the Duke.
“Rather an Orpheus,” said the King; “and what is worse, one that is already provided with a Eurydice — She is clinging to the fiddler.”
“It is mere fright,” said Buckingham, “like Rochester’s, when he crept into the bass-viol to hide himself from Sir Dermot O’Cleaver.”
“We must make the people show their talents,” said the King, “and stop their mouths with money and civility, or we shall have this foolish encounter over half the town.”
The King then approached Julian, and desired him to take his instrument, and cause his female companion to perform a saraband.
“I had already the honour to inform your Majesty,” said Julian, “that I cannot contribute to your pleasure in the way you command me; and that this young person is ——”
“A retainer of the Lady Powis,” said the King, upon whose mind things not connected with his pleasures made a very slight impression. “Poor lady, she is in trouble about the lords in the Tower.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said Julian, “she is a dependant of the Countess of Derby.”
“True, true,” answered Charles; “it is indeed of Lady Derby, who hath also her own distresses in these times. Do you know who taught the young person to dance? Some of her steps mightily resemble Le Jeune’s of Paris.”
“I presume she was taught abroad, sir,” said Julian; “for myself, I am charged with some weighty business by the Countess, which I would willingly communicate to your Majesty.”
“We will send you to our Secretary of State,” said the King. “But this dancing envoy will oblige us once more, will she not? — Empson, now that I remember, it was to your pipe that she danced — Strike up, man, and put mettle into her feet.”
Empson began to play a well-known measure; and, as he had threatened, made more than one false note, until the King, whose ear was very accurate, rebuked him with, “Sirrah, art thou drunk at this early hour, or must thou too be playing thy slippery tricks with me? Thou thinkest thou art born to beat time, but I will have time beat into thee.”
The hint was sufficient, and Empson took good care so to perform his air as to merit his high and deserved reputation. But on Fenella it made not the slightest impression. She rather leant than stood against the wall of the apartment; her countenance as pale as death, her arms and hands hanging down as if stiffened, and her existence only testified by the sobs which agitated her bosom, and the tears which flowed from her half-closed eyes.
“A plague on it,” said the King, “some evil spirit is abroad this morning; and the wenches are all bewitched, I think. Cheer up, my girl. What, in the devil’s name, has changed thee at once from a Nymph to a Niobe? If thou standest there longer thou wilt grow to the very marble wall — Or — oddsfish, George, have you been bird-bolting in this quarter also?”
Ere Buckingham could answer to this charge, Julian again kneeled down to the King, and prayed to be heard, were it only for five minutes. “The young woman,” he said, “had been long in attendance of the Countess of Derby. She was bereaved of the faculties of speech and hearing.”
“Oddsfish, man, and dances so well?” said the King. “Nay, all Gresham College shall never make me believe that.”
“I would have thought it equally impossible, but for what I today witnessed,” said Julian; “but only permit me, sir, to deliver the petition of my lady the Countess.”
“And who art thou thyself, man?” said the Sovereign; “for though everything which wears bodice and breast-knot has a right to speak to a King, and be answered, I know not that they have a title to audience through an envoy extraordinary.”
“I am Julian Peveril of Derbyshire,” answered the supplicant, “the son of Sir Geoffrey Peveril of Martindale Castle, who ——”
“Body of me — the old Worcester man?” said the King. “Oddsfish, I remember him well — some harm has happened to him, I think — Is he not dead, or very sick at least?”
“Ill at ease, and it please your Majesty, but not ill in health. He has been imprisoned on account of an alleged accession to this Plot.”
“Look you there,” said the King; “I knew he was in trouble; and yet how to help the stout old Knight, I can hardly tell. I can scarce escape suspicion of the Plot myself, though the principal object of it is to take away my own life. Were I to stir to save a plotter, I should certainly be brought in as an accessory. — Buckingham, thou hast some interest with those who built this fine state engine, or at least who have driven it on — be good-natured for once, though it is scarcely thy wont, and interfere to shelter our old Worcester friend, Sir Godfrey. You have not forgot him?”
“No, sir,” answered the Duke; “for I never heard the name.”
“It is Sir Geoffrey his Majesty would say,” said Julian.
“And if his Majesty did say Sir Geoffrey, Master Peveril, I cannot see of what use I can be to your father,” replied the Duke coldly. “He is accused of a heavy crime; and a British subject so accused, can have no shelter either from prince or peer, but must stand to the award and deliverance of God and his country.”
“Now, Heaven forgive thee thy hypocrisy, George,” said the King hastily. “I would rather hear the devil preach religion than thee teach patriotism. Thou knowest as well as I, that the nation is in a scarlet fever for fear of the poor Catholics, who are not two men to five hundred; and that the public mind is so harassed with new narrations of conspiracy, and fresh horrors every day, that people have as little real sense of what is just or unjust as men who talk in their sleep of what is sense or nonsense. I have borne, and borne with it — I have seen blood flow on the scaffold, fearing to thwart the nation in its fury — and I pray to God that I or mine be not called on to answer for it. I will no longer swim with the torrent, which honour and conscience call upon me to stem — I will act the part of a Sovereign, and save my people from doing injustice, even in their own despite.”
Charles walked hastily up and down the room as he expressed these unwonted sentiments, with energy equally unwonted. After a momentary pause, the Duke answered him gravely, “Spoken like a Royal King, sir, but — pardon me — not like a King of England.”
Charles paused, as the Duke spoke, beside a window which looked full on Whitehall, and his eye was involuntarily attracted by the fatal window of the Banqueting House out of which his unhappy father was conducted to execution. Charles was naturally, or, more purposely, constitutionally brave; but a life of pleasure, together with the habit of governing his course rather by what was expedient than by what was right, rendered him unapt to dare the same scene of danger or of martyrdom, which had closed his father’s life and reign; and the thought came over his half-formed resolution, like the rain upon a kindling beacon. In another man, his perplexity would have seemed almost ludicrous; but Charles would not lose, even under these circumstances, the dignity and grace, which were as natural to him as his indifference and good humour. “Our Council must decide in this matter,” he said, looking to the Duke; “and be assured, young man,” he added, addressing Julian, “your father shall not want an intercessor in his King, so far as the laws will permit my interference in his behalf.”
Julian was about to retire, when Fenella, with a marked look, put into his hand a slip of paper, on which she had hastily written, “The packet — give him the packet.”
After a moment’s hesitation, during which he reflected that Fenella was the organ of the Countess’s pleasure, Julian resolved to obey. “Permit me, then, Sire,” he said, “to place in your royal hands this packet, entrusted to me by the Countess of Derby. The letters have already been once taken from me; and I have little hope that I can now deliver them as they are addressed. I place them, therefore, in your royal hands, certain that they will evince the innocence of the writer.”
The King shook his head as he took the packet reluctantly. “It is no safe office you have undertaken, young man. A messenger has sometimes his throat cut for the sake of his despatches — But give them to me; and, Chiffinch, give me wax and a taper.” He employed himself in folding the Countess’s packet in another envelope. “Buckingham,” he said, “you are evidence that I do not read them till the Council shall see them.”
Buckingham approached, and offered his services in folding the parcel, but Charles rejected his assistance; and having finished his task, he sealed the packet with his own signet-ring. The Duke bit his lip and retired.
“And now, young man,” said the King, “your errand is sped, so far as it can at present be forwarded.”
Julian bowed deeply, as to take leave at these words, which he rightly interpreted as a signal for his departure. Alice Bridgenorth still clung to his arm, and motioned to withdraw along with him. The King and Buckingham looked at each other in conscious astonishment, and yet not without a desire to smile, so strange did it seem to them that a prize, for which, an instant before, they had been mutually contending, should thus glide out of their grasp, or rather be borne off by a third and very inferior competitor.
“Mistress Chiffinch,” said the King, with a hesitation which he could not disguise, “I hope your fair charge is not about to leave you?”
“Certainly not, your Majesty,” answered Chiffinch. “Alice, my love — you mistake — that opposite door leads to your apartments.”
“Pardon me, madam,” answered Alice; “I have indeed mistaken my road, but it was when I came hither.”
“The errant damosel,” said Buckingham, looking at Charles with as much intelligence as etiquette permitted him to throw into his eye, and then turning it towards Alice, as she still held by Julian’s arm, “is resolved not to mistake her road a second time. She has chosen a sufficient guide.”
“And yet stories tell that such guides have led maidens astray,” said the King.
Alice blushed deeply, but instantly recovered her composure so soon as she saw that her liberty was likely to depend upon the immediate exercise of resolution. She quitted, from a sense of insulted delicacy, the arm of Julian, to which she had hitherto clung; but as she spoke, she continued to retain a slight grasp of his cloak. “I have indeed mistaken my way,” she repeated still addressing Mrs. Chiffinch, “but it was when I crossed this threshold. The usage to which I have been exposed in your house has determined me to quit it instantly.”
“I will not permit that, my young mistress,” answered Mrs. Chiffinch, “until your uncle, who placed you under my care, shall relieve me of the charge of you.”
“I will answer for my conduct, both to my uncle, and, what is of more importance, to my father,” said Alice. “You must permit me to depart, madam; I am free-born, and you have no right to detain me.”
“Pardon me, my young madam,” said Mistress Chiffinch, “I have a right, and I will maintain it too.”
“I will know that before quitting this presence,” said Alice firmly; and, advancing a step or two, she dropped on her knee before the King. “Your Majesty,” said she, “if indeed I kneel before King Charles, is the father of your subjects.”
“Of a good many of them,” said the Duke of Buckingham apart.
“I demand protection of you, in the name of God, and of the oath your Majesty swore when you placed on your head the crown of this kingdom!”
“You have my protection,” said the King, a little confused by an appeal so unexpected and so solemn. “Do but remain quiet with this lady, with whom your parents have placed you; neither Buckingham nor any one else shall intrude on you.”
“His Majesty,” added Buckingham, in the same tone, and speaking from the restless and mischief-making spirit of contradiction, which he never could restrain, even when indulging it was most contrary, not only to propriety, but to his own interest — “His Majesty will protect you, fair lady, from all intrusion save what must not be termed such.”
Alice darted a keen look on the Duke, as if to read his meaning; another on Charles, to know whether she had guessed it rightly. There was a guilty confession on the King’s brow, which confirmed Alice’s determination to depart. “Your Majesty will forgive me,” she said; “it is not here that I can enjoy the advantage of your royal protection. I am resolved to leave this house. If I am detained, it must be by violence, which I trust no one dare offer to me in your Majesty’s presence. This gentleman, whom I have long known, will conduct me to my friends.”
“We make but an indifferent figure in this scene, methinks,” said the King, addressing the Duke of Buckingham, and speaking in a whisper; “but she must go — I neither will, nor dare, stop her from returning to her father.”
“And if she does,” swore the Duke internally, “I would, as Sir Andrew Smith saith, I might never touch fair lady’s hand.” And stepping back, he spoke a few words with Empson the musician, who left the apartment, for a few minutes, and presently returned.
The King seemed irresolute concerning the part he should act under circumstances so peculiar. To be foiled in a gallant intrigue, was to subject himself to the ridicule of his gay court; to persist in it by any means which approached to constraint, would have been tyrannical; and, what perhaps he might judge as severe an imputation, it would have been unbecoming a gentleman. “Upon my honour, young lady,” he said, with an emphasis, “you have nothing to fear in this house. But it is improper, for your own sake, that you should leave it in this abrupt manner. If you will have the goodness to wait but a quarter of an hour, Mistress Chiffinch’s coach will be placed at your command, to transport you where you will. Spare yourself the ridicule, and me the pain of seeing you leave the house of one of my servants, as if you were escaping from a prison.”
The King spoke in good-natured sincerity, and Alice was inclined for an instant to listen to his advice; but recollecting that she had to search for her father and uncle, or, failing them, for some suitable place of secure residence, it rushed on her mind that the attendants of Mistress Chiffinch were not likely to prove trusty guides or assistants in such a purpose. Firmly and respectfully she announced her purpose of instant departure. She needed no other escort, she said, than what this gentleman, Master Julian Peveril, who was well known to her father, would willingly afford her; nor did she need that farther than until she had reached her father’s residence.
“Farewell, then, lady, a God’s name!” said the King; “I am sorry so much beauty should be wedded to so many shrewish suspicions. — For you, Master Peveril, I should have thought you had enough to do with your own affairs without interfering with the humours of the fair sex. The duty of conducting all strayed damsels into the right path is, as matters go in this good city, rather too weighty an undertaking for your youth and inexperience.”
Julian, eager to conduct Alice from a place of which he began fully to appreciate the perils, answered nothing to this taunt, but bowing reverently, led her from the apartment. Her sudden appearance, and the animated scene which followed, had entirely absorbed, for the moment, the recollection of his father and of the Countess of Derby; and while the dumb attendant of the latter remained in the room, a silent, and, as it were, stunned spectator of all that had happened, Peveril had become, in the predominating interest of Alice’s critical situation, totally forgetful of her presence. But no sooner had he left the room, without noticing or attending to her, than Fenella, starting, as from a trance, drew herself up, and looked wildly around, like one waking from a dream, as if to assure herself that her companion was gone, and gone without paying the slightest attention to her. She folded her hands together, and cast her eyes upwards, with an expression of such agony as explained to Charles (as he thought) what painful ideas were passing in her mind. “This Peveril is a perfect pattern of successful perfidy, carrying off this Queen of the Amazons, but he has left us, I think, a disconsolate Ariadne in her place. — But weep not, my princess of pretty movements,” he said, addressing himself to Fenella; “if we cannot call in Bacchus to console you, we will commit you to the care of Empson, who shall drink with Liber Pater for a thousand pounds, and I will say done first.”
As the King spoke these words, Fenella rushed past him with her wonted rapidity of step, and, with much less courtesy than was due to the royal presence, hurried downstairs, and out of the house, without attempting to open any communication with the Monarch. He saw her abrupt departure with more surprise than displeasure; and presently afterwards, bursting into a fit of laughter, he said to the Duke, “Oddsfish, George, this young spark might teach the best of us how to manage the wenches. I have had my own experience, but I could never yet contrive either to win or lose them with so little ceremony.”
“Experience, sir,” replied the duke, “cannot be acquired without years.”
“True, George; and you would, I suppose, insinuate,” said Charles, “that the gallant who acquires it, loses as much in youth as he gains in art? I defy your insinuation, George. You cannot overreach your master, old as you think him, either in love or politics. You have not the secret plumer la poule sans la faire crier, witness this morning’s work. I will give you odds at all games — ay, and at the Mall too, if thou darest accept my challenge. — Chiffinch, what for dost thou convulse thy pretty throat and face with sobbing and hatching tears, which seem rather unwilling to make their appearance!”
“It is for fear,” whined Chiffinch, “that your Majesty should think — that you should expect ——”
“That I should expect gratitude from a courtier, or faith from a woman?” answered the King, patting her at the same time under the chin, to make her raise her face —“Tush! chicken, I am not so superfluous.”
“There it is now,” said Chiffinch, continuing to sob the more bitterly, as she felt herself unable to produce any tears; “I see your Majesty is determined to lay all the blame on me, when I am innocent as an unborn babe — I will be judged by his Grace.”
“No doubt, no doubt, Chiffie,” said the King. “His Grace and you will be excellent judges in each other’s cause, and as good witnesses in each other’s favour. But to investigate the matter impartially, we must examine our evidence apart. — My Lord Duke, we meet at the Mall at noon, if your Grace dare accept my challenge.”
His Grace of Buckingham bowed, and retired.
But when the bully with assuming pace,
Cocks his broad hat, edged round with tarnish’d lace,
Yield not the way — defy his strutting pride,
And thrust him to the muddy kennel’s side,
Yet rather bear the shower and toils of mud,
Than in the doubtful quarrel risk thy blood.
GAY’S TRIVIA.
Julian Peveril, half-leading, half-supporting, Alice Bridgenorth, had reached the middle of Saint Jame’s Street ere the doubt occurred to him which way they should bend their course. He then asked Alice whither he should conduct her, and learned, to his surprise and embarrassment, that, far from knowing where her father was to be found, she had no certain knowledge that he was in London, and only hoped that he had arrived, from the expressions which he had used at parting. She mentioned her uncle Christian’s address, but it was with doubt and hesitation, arising from the hands in which he had already placed her; and her reluctance to go again under his protection was strongly confirmed by her youthful guide, when a few words had established to his conviction the identity of Ganlesse and Christian. — What then was to be done?
“Alice,” said Julian, after a moment’s reflection, “you must seek your earliest and best friend — I mean my mother. She has now no castle in which to receive you — she has but a miserable lodging, so near the jail in which my father is confined, that it seems almost a cell of the same prison. I have not seen her since my coming hither; but thus much have I learned by inquiry. We will now go to her apartment; such as it is, I know she will share it with one so innocent and so unprotected as you are.”
“Gracious Heaven!” said the poor girl, “am I then so totally deserted, that I must throw myself on the mercy of her who, of all the world, has most reason to spurn me from her? — Julian, can you advise me to this? — Is there none else who will afford me a few hours’ refuge, till I can hear from my father? — No other protectress but her whose ruin has, I fear, been accelerated by —— Julian, I dare not appear before your mother! she must hate me for my family, and despise me for my meanness. To be a second time cast on her protection, when the first has been so evil repaid — Julian, I dare not go with you.”
“She has never ceased to love you, Alice,” said her conductor, whose steps she continued to attend, even while declaring her resolution not to go with him, “she never felt anything but kindness towards you, nay, towards your father; for though his dealings with us have been harsh, she can allow much for the provocation which he has received. Believe me, with her you will be safe as with a mother — perhaps it may be the means of reconciling the divisions by which we have suffered so much.”
“Might God grant it!” said Alice. “Yet how shall I face your mother? And will she be able to protect me against these powerful men — against my uncle Christian? Alas, that I must call him my worst enemy!”
“She has the ascendancy which honour hath over infamy, and virtue over vice,” said Julian; “and to no human power but your father’s will she resign you, if you consent to choose her for your protectress. Come, then, with me, Alice; and ——”
Julian was interrupted by some one, who, laying an unceremonious hold of his cloak, pulled it with so much force as compelled him to stop and lay his hand on his sword. He turned at the same time, and, when he turned, beheld Fenella. The cheek of the mute glowed like fire; her eyes sparkled, and her lips were forcibly drawn together, as if she had difficulty to repress those wild screams which usually attended her agonies of passion, and which, uttered in the open street, must instantly have collected a crowd. As it was, her appearance was so singular, and her emotion so evident, that men gazed as they came on, and looked back after they had passed, at the singular vivacity of her gestures; while, holding Peveril’s cloak with one hand, she made with the other the most eager and imperious signs that he should leave Alice Bridgenorth and follow her. She touched the plume in her bonnet to remind him of the Earl — pointed to her heart, to imitate the Countess — raised her closed hand, as if to command him in their name — and next moment folded both, as if to supplicate him in her own; while pointing to Alice with an expression at once of angry and scornful derision, she waved her hand repeatedly and disdainfully, to intimate that Peveril ought to cast her off, as something undeserving his protection.
Frightened, she knew not why, at these wild gestures, Alice clung closer to Julian’s arm than she had at first dared to do; and this mark of confidence in his protection seemed to increase the passion of Fenella.
Julian was dreadfully embarrassed; his situation was sufficiently precarious, even before Fenella’s ungovernable passions threatened to ruin the only plan which he had been able to suggest. What she wanted with him — how far the fate of the Earl and Countess might depend on his following her, he could not even conjecture; but be the call how peremptory soever, he resolved not to comply with it until he had seen Alice placed in safety. In the meantime, he determined not to lose sight of Fenella; and disregarding her repeated, disdainful, and impetuous rejection of the hand which he offered her, he at length seemed so far to have soothed her, that she seized upon his right arm, and, as if despairing of his following her path, appeared reconciled to attend him on that which he himself should choose.
Thus, with a youthful female clinging to each arm, and both remarkably calculated to attract the public eye, though from very different reasons, Julian resolved to make the shortest road to the water-side, and there to take boat for Blackfriars, as the nearest point of landing to Newgate, where he concluded that Lance had already announced his arrival in London to Sir Geoffrey, then inhabiting that dismal region, and to his lady, who, so far as the jailer’s rigour permitted, shared and softened his imprisonment.
Julian’s embarrassment in passing Charing Cross and Northumberland House was so great as to excite the attention of the passengers; for he had to compose his steps so as to moderate the unequal and rapid pace of Fenella to the timid and faint progress of his left-hand companion; and while it would have been needless to address himself to the former, who could not comprehend him, he dared not speak himself to Alice, for fear of awakening into frenzy the jealousy, or at least the impatience of Fenella.
Many passengers looked at them with wonder, and some with smiles; but Julian remarked that there were two who never lost sight of them, and to whom his situation, and the demeanour of his companions, seemed to afford matter of undisguised merriment. These were young men, such as may be seen in the same precincts in the present day, allowing for the difference in the fashion of their apparel. They abounded in periwig, and fluttered with many hundred yards of ribbon, disposed in bow-knots upon their sleeves, their breeches, and their waistcoats, in the very extremity of the existing mode. A quantity of lace and embroidery made their habits rather fine than tasteful. In a word, they were dressed in that caricature of the fashion, which sometimes denotes a harebrained man of quality who has a mind to be distinguished as a fop of the first order, but is much more frequently in the disguise of those who desire to be esteemed men of rank on account of their dress, having no other pretension to the distinction.
These two gallants passed Peveril more than once, linked arm in arm, then sauntered, so as to oblige him to pass them in turn, laughing and whispering during these manoeuvres — staring broadly at Peveril and his female companions — and affording them, as they came into contact, none of those facilities of giving place which are required on such occasions by the ordinary rules of the pavé.
Peveril did not immediately observe their impertinence; but when it was too gross to escape his notice, his gall began to arise; and, in addition to all the other embarrassments of his situation, he had to combat the longing desire which he felt to cudgel handsomely the two coxcombs who seemed thus determined on insulting him. Patience and sufferance were indeed strongly imposed on him by circumstances; but at length it became scarcely possible to observe their dictates any longer.
When, for the third time, Julian found himself obliged, with his companions, to pass this troublesome brace of fops, they kept walking close behind him, speaking so loud as to be heard, and in a tone of perfect indifference whether he listened to them or not.
“This is bumpkin’s best luck,” said the taller of the two (who was indeed a man of remarkable size, alluding to the plainness of Peveril’s dress, which was scarce fit for the streets of London)—“Two such fine wenches, and under guard of a grey frock and an oaken riding-rod!”
“Nay, Puritan’s luck rather, and more than enough of it,” said his companion. “You may read Puritan in his pace and in his patience.”
“Right as a pint bumper, Tom,” said his friend —“Isschar is an ass that stoopeth between two burdens.”
“I have a mind to ease long-eared Laurence of one of his encumbrances,” said the shorter fellow. “That black-eyed sparkler looks as if she had a mind to run away from him.”
“Ay,” answered the taller, “and the blue-eyed trembler looks as if she would fall behind into my loving arms.”
At these words, Alice, holding still closer by Peveril’s arm than formerly, mended her pace almost to running, in order to escape from men whose language was so alarming; and Fenella walked hastily forward in the same manner, having perhaps caught, from the men’s gestures and demeanour, that apprehension which Alice had taken from their language.
Fearful of the consequences of a fray in the streets, which must necessarily separate him from these unprotected females, Peveril endeavoured to compound betwixt the prudence necessary for their protection and his own rising resentment; and as this troublesome pair of attendants endeavoured again to pass them close to Hungerford Stairs, he said to them with constrained calmness, “Gentlemen, I owe you something for the attention you have bestowed on the affairs of a stranger. If you have any pretension to the name I have given you, you will tell me where you are to be found.”
“And with what purpose,” said the taller of the two sneeringly, “does your most rustic gravity, or your most grave rusticity, require of us such information?”
So saying, they both faced about, in such a manner as to make it impossible for Julian to advance any farther.
“Make for the stairs, Alice,” he said; “I will be with you in an instant.” Then freeing himself with difficulty from the grasp of his companions, he cast his cloak hastily round his left arm, and said, sternly, to his opponents, “Will you give me your names, sirs; or will you be pleased to make way?”
“Not till we know for whom we are to give place,” said one of them.
“For one who will else teach you what you want — good manners,” said Peveril, and advanced as if to push between them.
They separated, but one of them stretched forth his foot before Peveril, as if he meant to trip him. The blood of his ancestors was already boiling within him; he struck the man on the face with the oaken rod which he had just sneered at, and throwing it from him, instantly unsheathed his sword. Both the others drew, and pushed at once; but he caught the point of the one rapier in his cloak, and parried the other thrust with his own weapon. He must have been less lucky in the second close, but a cry arose among the watermen, of “Shame, shame! two upon one!”
“They are men of the Duke of Buckingham’s,” said one fellow —“there’s no safe meddling with them.”
“They may be the devil’s men, if they will,” said an ancient Triton, flourishing his stretcher; “but I say fair play, and old England for ever; and, I say, knock the gold-laced puppies down, unless they will fight turn about with grey jerkin, like honest fellows. One down — t’other come on.”
The lower orders of London have in all times been remarkable for the delight which they have taken in club-law, or fist-law; and for the equity and impartiality with which they see it administered. The noble science of defence was then so generally known, that a bout at single rapier excited at that time as much interest and as little wonder as a boxing-match in our own days. The bystanders experienced in such affrays, presently formed a ring, within which Peveril and the taller and more forward of his antagonists were soon engaged in close combat with their swords, whilst the other, overawed by the spectators, was prevented from interfering.
“Well done the tall fellow!”—“Well thrust, long-legs!’—“Huzza for two ells and a quarter!” were the sounds with which the fray was at first cheered; for Peveril’s opponent not only showed great activity and skill in fence, but had also a decided advantage, from the anxiety with which Julian looked out for Alice Bridgenorth; the care for whose safety diverted him in the beginning of the onset from that which he ought to have exclusively bestowed on the defence of his own life. A slight flesh-wound in the side at once punished, and warned him of, his inadvertence; when, turning his whole thoughts on the business in which he was engaged, and animated with anger against his impertinent intruder, the rencontre speedily began to assume another face, amidst cries of “Well done, grey jerkin!”—“Try the metal of his gold doublet!”—“Finely thrust!”—“Curiously parried!”—“There went another eyelet-hole to his broidered jerkin!”—“Fairly pinked, by G— d!” In applause, accompanying a successful and conclusive lunge, by which Peveril ran his gigantic antagonist through the body. He looked at his prostrate foe for a moment; then, recovering himself, called loudly to know what had become of the lady.
“Never mind the lady, if you be wise,” said one of the watermen; “the constable will be here in an instant. I’ll give your honour a cast across the water in a moment. It may be as much as your neck’s worth. Shall only charge a Jacobus.”
“You be d — d!” said one of his rivals in profession, “as your father was before you; for a Jacobus, I’ll set the gentleman into Alsatia, where neither bailiff nor constable dare trespass.”
“The lady, you scoundrels, the lady!” exclaimed Peveril ——“Where is the lady?”
“I’ll carry your honour where you shall have enough of ladies, if that be your want,” said the old Triton; and as he spoke, the clamour amongst the watermen was renewed, each hoping to cut his own profit out of the emergency of Julian’s situation.
“A sculler will be least suspected, your honour,” said one fellow.
“A pair of oars will carry you through the water like a wild-duck,” said another.
“But you have got never a tilt, brother,” said a third. “Now I can put the gentleman as snug as if he were under hatches.”
In the midst of the oaths and clamour attending this aquatic controversy for his custom, Peveril at length made them understand that he would bestow a Jacobus, not on him whose boat was first oars, but on whomsoever should inform him of the fate of the lady.
“Of which lady?” said a sharp fellow: “for, to my thought, there was a pair of them.”
“Of both, of both,” answered Peveril; “but first, of the fair-haired lady?”
“Ay, ay, that was she that shrieked so when gold-jacket’s companion handed her into No. 20.”
“Who — what — who dared to hand her?” exclaimed Peveril.
“Nay, master, you have heard enough of my tale without a fee,” said the waterman.
“Sordid rascal!” said Peveril, giving him a gold piece, “speak out, or I’ll run my sword through you!”
“For the matter of that, master,” answered the fellow, “not while I can handle this trunnion — but a bargain’s a bargain; and so I’ll tell you, for your gold piece, that the comrade of the fellow forced one of your wenches, her with the fair hair, will she, nill she, into Tickling Tom’s wherry; and they are far enough up Thames by this time, with wind and tide.”
“Sacred Heaven, and I stand here!” exclaimed Julian.
“Why, that is because your honour will not take a boat.”
“You are right, my friend — a boat — a boat instantly!”
“Follow me, then, squire. — Here, Tom, bear a hand — the gentleman is our fare.”
A volley of water language was exchanged betwixt the successful candidate for Peveril’s custom and his disappointed brethren, which concluded by the ancient Triton’s bellowing out, in a tone above them all, “that the gentleman was in a fair way to make a voyage to the isle of gulls, for that sly Jack was only bantering him — No. 20 had rowed for York Buildings.”
“To the isle of gallows,” cried another; “for here comes one who will mar his trip up Thames, and carry him down to Execution Dock.”
In fact, as he spoke the word, a constable, with three or four of his assistants, armed with the old-fashioned brown bills, which were still used for arming those guardians of the peace, cut off our hero’s farther progress to the water’s edge, by arresting him in the King’s name. To attempt resistance would have been madness, as he was surrounded on all sides; so Peveril was disarmed, and carried before the nearest Justice of the Peace, for examination and committal.
The legal sage before whom Julian was taken was a man very honest in his intentions, very bounded in his talents, and rather timid in his disposition. Before the general alarm given to England, and to the city of London in particular, by the notable discovery of the Popish Plot, Master Maulstatute had taken serene and undisturbed pride and pleasure in the discharge of his duties as a Justice of the Peace, with the exercise of all its honorary privileges and awful authority. But the murder of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey had made a strong, nay, an indelible impression on his mind; and he walked the Courts of Themis with fear and trembling after that memorable and melancholy event.
Having a high idea of his official importance, and rather an exalted notion of his personal consequence, his honour saw nothing from that time but cords and daggers before his eyes, and never stepped out of his own house, which he fortified, and in some measure garrisoned, with half-a-dozen tall watchmen and constables, without seeing himself watched by a Papist in disguise, with a drawn sword under his cloak. It was even whispered, that, in the agonies of his fears, the worshipful Master Maulstatute mistook the kitchen-wench with a tinderbox, for a Jesuit with a pistol; but if any one dared to laugh at such an error, he would have done well to conceal his mirth, lest he fell under the heavy inculpation of being a banterer and stifler of the Plot — a crime almost as deep as that of being himself a plotter. In fact, the fears of the honest Justice, however ridiculously exorbitant, were kept so much in countenance by the outcry of the day, and the general nervous fever, which afflicted every good Protestant, that Master Maulstatute was accounted the bolder man and the better magistrate, while, under the terror of the air-drawn dagger which fancy placed continually before his eyes, he continued to dole forth Justice in the recesses of his private chamber, nay, occasionally to attend Quarter-Sessions, when the hall was guarded by a sufficient body of the militia. Such was the wight, at whose door, well chained and doubly bolted, the constable who had Julian in custody now gave his important and well-known knock.
Notwithstanding this official signal, the party was not admitted until the clerk, who acted the part of high-warder, had reconnoitred them through a grated wicket; for who could say whether the Papists might not have made themselves master of Master Constable’s sign, and have prepared a pseudo watch to burst in and murder the Justice, under pretence of bringing in a criminal before him? — Less hopeful projects had figured in the Narrative of the Popish Plot.
All being found right, the key was turned, the bolts were drawn, and the chain unhooked, so as to permit entrance to the constable, the prisoner, and the assistants; and the door was then a suddenly shut against the witnesses, who, as less trustworthy persons, were requested (through the wicket) to remain in the yard, until they should be called in their respective turns.
Had Julian been inclined for mirth, as was far from being the case, he must have smiled at the incongruity of the clerk’s apparel, who had belted over his black buckram suit a buff baldric, sustaining a broadsword, and a pair of huge horse-pistols; and, instead of the low flat hat, which, coming in place of the city cap, completed the dress of a scrivener, had placed on his greasy locks a rusted steel-cap, which had seen Marston-Moor; across which projected his well-used quill, in the guise of a plume — the shape of the morion not admitting of its being stuck, as usual, behind his ear.
This whimsical figure conducted the constable, his assistants, and the prisoner, into the low hall, where his principal dealt forth justice; who presented an appearance still more singular than that of his dependant.
Sundry good Protestants, who thought so highly of themselves as to suppose they were worthy to be distinguished as objects of Catholic cruelty, had taken to defensive arms on the occasion. But it was quickly found that a breast-plate and back-plate of proof, fastened together with iron clasps, was no convenient enclosure for a man who meant to eat venison and custard; and that a buff-coat or shirt of mail was scarcely more accommodating to the exertions necessary on such active occasions. Besides, there were other objections, as the alarming and menacing aspects which such warlike habiliments gave to the Exchange, and other places, where merchants most do congregate; and excoriations were bitterly complained of by many, who, not belonging to the artillery company, or trained bands, had no experience in bearing defensive armour.
To obviate these objections, and, at the same time, to secure the persons of all true Protestant citizens against open force or privy assassinations on the part of the Papists, some ingenious artist, belonging, we may presume, to the worshipful Mercers’ Company, had contrived a species of armour, of which neither the horse-armory in the Tower, nor Gwynnap’s Gothic Hall, no, nor Dr. Meyrick’s invaluable collection of ancient arms, has preserved any specimen. It was called silk-armour, being composed of a doublet and breeches of quilted silk, so closely stitched, and of such thickness, as to be proof against either bullet or steel; while a thick bonnet of the same materials, with ear-flaps attached to it, and on the whole, much resembling a nightcap, completed the equipment and ascertained the security of the wearer from the head to the knee.
Master Maulstatute, among other worthy citizens, had adopted this singular panoply, which had the advantage of being soft, and warm, and flexible, as well as safe. And he now sat in his judicial elbow-chair — a short, rotund figure, hung round, as it were, with cushions, for such was the appearance of the quilted garments; and with a nose protruded from under the silken casque, the size of which, together with the unwieldiness of the whole figure, gave his worship no indifferent resemblance to the sign of the Hog in Armour, which was considerably improved by the defensive garment being of dusty orange colour, not altogether unlike the hue of those half-wild swine which are to be found in the forest of Hampshire.
Secure in these invulnerable envelopments, his worship had rested content, although severed from his own death-doing weapons, of rapier, poniard, and pistols, which were placed nevertheless, at no great distance from his chair. One offensive implement, indeed, he thought it prudent to keep on the table beside his huge Coke upon Lyttleton. This was a sort of pocket flail, consisting of a piece of strong ash, about eighteen inches long, to which was attached a swinging club of lignum-vit?, nearly twice as long as the handle, but jointed so as to be easily folded up. This instrument, which bore at that time the singular name of the Protestant flail, might be concealed under the coat, until circumstances demanded its public appearance. A better precaution against surprise than his arms, whether offensive or defensive, was a strong iron grating, which, crossing the room in front of the justice’s table, and communicating by a grated door, which was usually kept locked, effectually separated the accused party from his judge.
Justice Maulstatute, such as we have described him, chose to hear the accusation of the witnesses before calling on Peveril for his defence. The detail of the affray was briefly given by the bystanders, and seemed deeply to touch the spirit of the examinator. He shook his silken casque emphatically, when he understood that, after some language betwixt the parties, which the witnesses did not quite understand, the young man in custody struck the first blow, and drew his sword before the wounded party had unsheathed his weapon. Again he shook his crested head yet more solemnly, when the result of the conflict was known; and yet again, when one of the witnesses declared, that, to the best of his knowledge, the sufferer in the fray was a gentleman belonging to the household of his Grace the Duke of Buckingham.
“A worthy peer,” quoth the armed magistrate —“a true Protestant, and a friend to his country. Mercy on us, to what a height of audacity hath this age arisen! We see well, and could, were we as blind as a mole, out of what quiver this shaft hath been drawn.”
He then put on his spectacles, and having desired Julian to be brought forward, he glared upon him awfully with those glazen eyes, from under the shade of his quilted turban.
“So young,” he said, “and so hardened — lack-a-day! — and a Papist, I’ll warrant.”
Peveril had time enough to recollect the necessity of his being at large, if he could possibly obtain his freedom, and interposed here a civil contradiction of his worship’s gracious supposition. “He was no Catholic,” he said, “but an unworthy member of the Church of England.”
“Perhaps but a lukewarm Protestant, notwithstanding,” said the sage Justice; “there are those amongst us who ride tantivy to Rome, and have already made out half the journey — ahem!”
Peveril disowned his being any such.
“And who art thou, then?” said the Justice; “for, friend, to tell you plainly, I like not your visage — ahem!”
These short and emphatic coughs were accompanied each by a succinct nod, intimating the perfect conviction of the speaker that he had made the best, the wisest, and the most acute observation, of which the premises admitted.
Julian, irritated by the whole circumstances of his detention, answered the Justice’s interrogation in rather a lofty tone. “My name is Julian Peveril!”
“Now, Heaven be around us!” said the terrified Justice —“the son of that black-hearted Papist and traitor, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, now in hands, and on the verge of trial!”
“How, sir!” exclaimed Julian, forgetting his situation, and, stepping forward to the grating, with a violence which made the bars clatter, he so startled the appalled Justice, that, snatching his Protestant flail, Master Maulstatute aimed a blow at his prisoner, to repel what he apprehended was a premeditated attack. But whether it was owing to the Justice’s hurry of mind, or inexperience in managing the weapon, he not only missed his aim, but brought the swinging part of the machine round his own skull, with such a severe counter-buff, as completely to try the efficacy of his cushioned helmet, and, in spite of its defence, to convey a stunning sensation, which he rather hastily imputed to the consequence of a blow received from Peveril.
His assistants did not directly confirm the opinion which the Justice had so unwarrantably adopted; but all with one voice agreed that, but for their own active and instantaneous interference, there was no knowing what mischief might have been done by a person so dangerous as the prisoner. The general opinion that he meant to proceed in the matter of his own rescue, par voie du fait, was indeed so deeply impressed on all present, that Julian saw it would be in vain to offer any defence, especially being but too conscious that the alarming and probably the fatal consequences of his rencontre with the bully, rendered his commitment inevitable. He contented himself with asking into what prison he was to be thrown; and when the formidable word Newgate was returned as full answer, he had at least the satisfaction to reflect, that, stern and dangerous as was the shelter of that roof, he should at least enjoy it in company with his father; and that, by some means or other, they might perhaps obtain the satisfaction of a melancholy meeting, under the circumstances of mutual calamity, which seemed impending over their house.
Assuming the virtue of more patience than he actually possessed, Julian gave the magistrate (to whom all the mildness of his demeanour could not, however, reconcile him), the direction to the house where he lodged, together with a request that his servant, Lance Outram, might be permitted to send him his money and wearing apparel; adding, that all which might be in his possession, either of arms or writings, — the former amounting to a pair of travelling pistols, and the last to a few memoranda of little consequence, he willingly consented to place at the disposal of the magistrate. It was in that moment that he entertained, with sincere satisfaction, the comforting reflection, that the important papers of Lady Derby were already in the possession of the sovereign.
The Justice promised attention to his requests; but reminded him, with great dignity, that his present complacent and submissive behaviour ought, for his own sake, to have been adopted from the beginning, instead of disturbing the presence of magistracy with such atrocious marks of the malignant, rebellious, and murderous spirit of Popery, as he had at first exhibited. “Yet,” he said, “as he was a goodly young man, and of honourable quality, he would not suffer him to be dragged through the streets as a felon, but had ordered a coach for his accommodation.”
His honour, Master Maulstatute, uttered the word “coach” with the importance of one who, as Dr. Johnson saith of later date, is conscious of the dignity of putting horses to his chariot. The worshipful Master Maulstatute did not, however on this occasion, do Julian the honour of yoking to his huge family caroche the two “frampal jades” (to use the term of the period), which were wont to drag that ark to the meeting house of pure and precious Master Howlaglass, on a Thursday’s evening for lecture, and on a Sunday for a four-hours’ sermon. He had recourse to a leathern convenience, then more rare, but just introduced, with every prospect of the great facility which has since been afforded by hackney coaches, to all manner of communication, honest and dishonest, legal and illegal. Our friend Julian, hitherto much more accustomed to the saddle than to any other conveyance, soon found himself in a hackney carriage, with the constable and two assistants for his companions, armed up to the teeth — the port of destination being, as they had already intimated, the ancient fortress of Newgate.
’Tis the black ban-dog of our jail — Pray look on him,
But at a wary distance — rouse him not —
He bays not till he worries.
THE BLACK DOG OF NEWGATE.
The coach stopped before those tremendous gates, which resemble those of Tartarus, save only that they rather more frequently permit safe and honourable egress; although at the price of the same anxiety and labour with which Hercules, and one or two of the demi-gods, extricated themselves from the Hell of the ancient mythology, and sometimes, it is said, by the assistance of the golden boughs.
Julian stepped out of the vehicle, carefully supported on either side by his companions, and also by one or two turnkeys, whom the first summons of the deep bell at the gate had called to their assistance. That attention, it may be guessed, was not bestowed lest he should make a false step, so much as for fear of his attempting an escape, of which he had no intentions. A few prentices and straggling boys of the neighbouring market, which derived considerable advantage from increase of custom, in consequence of the numerous committals on account of the Popish Plot, and who therefore were zealous of Protestants, saluted him on his descent with jubilee shouts of “Whoop, Papist! whoop, Papist! D——n to the Pope, and all his adherents!”
Under such auspices, Peveril was ushered in beneath that gloomy gateway, where so many bid adieu on their entrance at once to honour and to life. The dark and dismal arch under which he soon found himself opened upon a large courtyard, where a number of debtors were employed in playing at handball, pitch-and-toss, hustle-cap, and other games, for which relaxations the rigour of their creditors afforded them full leisure, while it debarred them the means of pursuing the honest labour by which they might have redeemed their affairs, and maintained their starving and beggared families.
But with this careless and desperate group Julian was not to be numbered, being led, or rather forced, by his conductors, into a low arched door, which, carefully secured by bolts and bars, opened for his reception on one side of the archway, and closed, with all its fastenings, the moment after his hasty entrance. He was then conducted along two or three gloomy passages, which, where they intersected each other, were guarded by as many strong wickets, one of iron gates, and the others of stout oak, clinched with plates, and studded with nails of the same metal. He was not allowed to pause until he found himself hurried into a little round vaulted room, which several of these passages opened into, and which seemed, with respect to the labyrinth through part of which he had passed, to resemble the central point of a spider’s web, in which the main lines of that reptile’s curious maze are always found to terminate.
The resemblance did not end here; for in this small vaulted apartment, the walls of which were hung round with musketoons, pistols, cutlasses, and other weapons, as well as with many sets of fetters and irons of different construction, all disposed in great order, and ready for employment, a person sat, who might not unaptly be compared to a huge bloated and bottled spider, placed there to secure the prey which had fallen into his toils.
This official had originally been a very strong and square-built man, of large size, but was now so overgrown, from overfeeding, perhaps, and want of exercise, as to bear the same resemblance to his former self which a stall-fed ox still retains to a wild bull. The look of no man is so inauspicious as a fat man, upon whose features ill-nature has marked an habitual stamp. He seems to have reversed the old proverb of “laugh and be fat,” and to have thriven under the influence of the worst affections of the mind. Passionate we can allow a jolly mortal to be; but it seems unnatural to his goodly case to be sulky and brutal. Now this man’s features, surly and tallow-coloured; his limbs, swelled and disproportioned; his huge paunch and unwieldy carcass, suggested the idea, that, having once found his way into this central recess, he had there fattened, like the weasel in the fable, and fed largely and foully, until he had become incapable of retreating through any of the narrow paths that terminated at his cell; and was thus compelled to remain, like a toad under the cold stone, fattening amid the squalid airs of the dungeons by which he was surrounded, which would have proved pestiferous to any other than such a congenial inhabitant. Huge iron-clasped books lay before this ominous specimen of pinguitude — the records of the realm of misery, in which office he officiated as prime minister; and had Peveril come thither as an unconcerned visitor, his heart would have sunk within him at considering the mass of human wretchedness which must needs be registered in these fatal volumes. But his own distresses sat too heavy on his mind to permit any general reflections of this nature.
The constable and this bulky official whispered together, after the former had delivered to the latter the warrant of Julian’s commitment. The word whispered is not quite accurate, for their communication was carried on less by words than by looks and expressive signs; by which, in all such situations, men learn to supply the use of language, and to add mystery to what is in itself sufficiently terrible to the captive. The only words which could be heard were those of the Warden, or, as he was called then, the Captain of the Jail, “Another bird to the cage ——?”
“Who will whistle ‘Pretty Pope of Rome,’ with any starling in your Knight’s ward,” answered the constable, with a facetious air, checked, however, by the due respect to the supreme presence in which he stood.
The Grim Feature relaxed into something like a smile as he heard the officer’s observation; but instantly composing himself into the stern solemnity which for an instant had been disturbed, he looked fiercely at his new guest, and pronounced with an awful and emphatic, yet rather an under-voice, the single and impressive word, “Garnish!”
Julian Peveril replied with assumed composure; for he had heard of the customs of such places, and was resolved to comply with them, so as if possible to obtain the favour of seeing his father, which he shrewdly guessed must depend on his gratifying the avarice of the keeper. “I am quite ready,” he said, “to accede to the customs of the place in which I unhappily find myself. You have but to name your demands, and I will satisfy them.”
So saying, he drew out his purse, thinking himself at the same time fortunate that he had retained about him a considerable sum of gold. The Captain remarked its width, depth, its extension, and depression, with an involuntary smile, which had scarce contorted his hanging under-lip, and the wiry and greasy moustache which thatched the upper, when it was checked by the recollection that there were regulations which set bounds to his rapacity, and prevented him from pouncing on his prey like a kite, and swooping it all off at once.
This chilling reflection produced the following sullen reply to Peveril:—“There were sundry rates. Gentlemen must choose for themselves. He asked nothing but his fees. But civility,” he muttered, “must be paid for.”
“And shall, if I can have it for payment,” said Peveril; “but the price, my good sir, the price?”
He spoke with some degree of scorn, which he was the less anxious to repress, that he saw, even in this jail, his purse gave him an indirect but powerful influence over his jailer.
The Captain seemed to feel the same; for, as he spoke, he plucked from his head, almost involuntarily, a sort of scalded fur-cap, which served it for covering. But his fingers revolting from so unusual an act of complaisance, began to indemnify themselves by scratching his grizzly shock-head, as he muttered, in a tone resembling the softened growling of a mastiff when he has ceased to bay the intruder who shows no fear of him — “There are different rates. There is the Little Ease, for common fees of the crown — rather dark, and the common sewer runs below it; and some gentlemen object to the company, who are chiefly padders and michers. Then the Master’s side — the garnish came to one piece — and none lay stowed there but who were in for murder at the least.”
“Name your highest price, sir, and take it,” was Julian’s concise reply.
“Three pieces for the Knight’s ward,” answered the governor of this terrestrial Tartarus.
“Take five, and place me with Sir Geoffrey,” was again Julian’s answer, throwing down the money upon the desk before him.
“Sir Geoffrey? — Hum! — ay, Sir Geoffrey,” said the jailer, as if meditating what he ought to do. “Well, many a man has paid money to see Sir Geoffrey — Scarce so much as you have, though. But then you are like to see the last of him. — Ha, ha ha!”
These broken muttered exclamations, which terminated somewhat like the joyous growl of a tiger over his meal, Julian could not comprehend; and only replied to by repeating his request to be placed in the same cell with Sir Geoffrey.
“Ay, master,” said the jailer, “never fear; I’ll keep word with you, as you seem to know something of what belongs to your station and mine. And hark ye, Jem Clink will fetch you the darbies.”
“Derby!” interrupted Julian — “Has the Earl or Countess ——”
“Earl or Countess! — Ha, ha, ha!” again laughed, or rather growled, the warden. “What is your head running on? You are a high fellow belike! but all is one here. The darbies are the fetlocks — the fast-keepers, my boy — the bail for good behaviour, my darling; and if you are not the more conforming, I can add you a steel nightcap, and a curious bosom-friend, to keep you warm of a winter night. But don’t be disheartened; you have behaved genteel; and you shall not be put upon. And as for this here matter, ten to one it will turn out chance-medley, or manslaughter, at the worst on it; and then it is but a singed thumb instead of a twisted neck — always if there be no Papistry about it, for then I warrant nothing. — Take the gentleman’s worship away, Clink.”
A turnkey, who was one of the party that had ushered Peveril into the presence of this Cerberus, now conveyed him out in silence; and, under his guidance, the prisoner was carried through a second labyrinth of passages with cells opening on each side, to that which was destined for his reception.
On the road through this sad region, the turnkey more than once ejaculated, “Why, the gentleman must be stark-mad! Could have had the best crown cell to himself for less than half the garnish, and must pay double to pig in with Sir Geoffrey! Ha, ha! — Is Sir Geoffrey akin to you, if any one may make free to ask?”
“I am his son,” answered Peveril sternly, in hopes to impose some curb on the fellow’s impertinence; but the man only laughed louder than before.
“His son! — Why, that’s best of all — Why, you are a strapping youth — five feet ten, if you be an inch — and Sir Geoffrey’s son! — Ha, ha, ha!”
“Truce with your impertinence,” said Julian. “My situation gives you no title to insult me!”
“No more I do,” said the turnkey, smothering his mirth at the recollection, perhaps, that the prisoner’s purse was not exhausted. “I only laughed because you said you were Sir Geoffrey’s son. But no matter —’tis a wise child that knows his own father. And here is Sir Geoffrey’s cell; so you and he may settle the fatherhood between you.”
So saying, he ushered his prisoner into a cell, or rather a strong room of the better order, in which there were four chairs, a truckle-bed, and one or two other articles of furniture.
Julian looked eagerly around for his father; but to his surprise the room appeared totally empty. He turned with anger on the turnkey, and charged him with misleading him; but the fellow answered, “No, no, master; I have kept faith with you. Your father, if you call him so, is only tappiced in some corner. A small hole will hide him; but I’ll rouse him out presently for you. — Here, hoicks! — Turn out, Sir Geoffrey! — Here is — Ha, ha, ha! — your son — or your wife’s son — for I think you have but little share in him — come to wait on you.”
Peveril knew not how to resent the man’s insolence; and indeed his anxiety, and apprehension of some strange mistake, mingled with, and in some degree neutralised his anger. He looked again and again, around and around the room; until at length he became aware of something rolled up in a dark corner, which rather resembled a small bundle of crimson cloth than any living creature. At the vociferation of the turnkey, however, the object seemed to acquire life and motion, uncoiled itself in some degree, and, after an effort or two, gained an erect posture; still covered from top to toe with the crimson drapery in which it was at first wrapped. Julian, at the first glance, imagined from the size that he saw a child of five years old; but a shrill and peculiar tone of voice soon assured him of his mistake.
“Warder,” said this unearthly sound, “what is the meaning of this disturbance? Have you more insults to heap on the head of one who hath ever been the butt of fortune’s malice? But I have a soul that can wrestle with all my misfortunes; it is as large as any of your bodies.”
“Nay, Sir Geoffrey, if this be the way you welcome your own son!” said the turnkey; “but you quality folks know your own ways best.”
“My son!” exclaimed the little figure. “Audacious ——”
“Here is some strange mistake,” said Peveril, in the same breath. “I sought Sir Geoffrey ——”
“And you have him before you, young man,” said the pigmy tenant of the cell, with an air of dignity; at the same time casting on the floor his crimson cloak, and standing before them in his full dignity of three feet six inches of height. “I who was the favoured servant of three successive Sovereigns of the Crown of England, am now the tenant of this dungeon, and the sport of its brutal keepers. I am Sir Geoffrey Hudson.”
Julian, though he had never before seen this important personage, had no difficulty in recognising, from description, the celebrated dwarf of Henrietta Maria, who had survived the dangers of civil war and private quarrel — the murder of his royal master, Charles I., and the exile of his widow — to fall upon evil tongues and evil days, amidst the unsparing accusations connected with the Popish Plot. He bowed to the unhappy old man, and hastened to explain to him, and to the turnkey, that it was Sir Geoffrey Peveril, of Martindale Castle in Derbyshire whose prison he desired to share.
“You should have said that before you parted with the gold-dust, my master,” answered the turnkey; “for t’other Sir Geoffrey, that is the big, tall, grey-haired man, was sent to the Tower last night; and the Captain will think he has kept his word well enow with you, by lodging you with this here Sir Geoffrey Hudson, who is the better show of the two.”
“I pray you go to your master,” said Peveril; “explain the mistake; and say to him I beg to be sent to the Tower.”
“The Tower! — Ha, ha, ha!” exclaimed the fellow. “The Tower is for lords and knights, and not for squires of low degree — for high treason, and not for ruffing on the streets with rapier and dagger; and there must go a secretary’s warrant to send you there.”
“At least, let me not be a burden on this gentleman,” said Julian. “There can be no use in quartering us together, since we are not even acquainted. Go tell your master of the mistake.”
“Why, so I should,” said Clink, still grinning, “if I were not sure that he knew it already. You paid to be sent to Sir Geoffrey, and he sent you to Sir Geoffrey. You are so put down in the register, and he will blot it for no man. Come, come, be comfortable, and you shall have light and easy irons — that’s all I can do for you.”
Resistance and expostulation being out of the question, Peveril submitted to have a light pair of fetters secured on his ankles, which allowed him, nevertheless, the power of traversing the apartment.
During this operation, he reflected that the jailer, who had taken the advantage of the equivoque betwixt the two Sir Geoffreys, must have acted as his assistant had hinted, and cheated him from malice prepense, since the warrant of committal described him as the son of Sir Geoffrey Peveril. It was therefore in vain, as well as degrading, to make farther application to such a man on the subject. Julian determined to submit to his fate, as what could not be averted by any effort of his own.
Even the turnkey was moved in some degree by his youth, good mien, and the patience with which, after the first effervescence of disappointment, the new prisoner resigned himself to his situation. “You seem a brave young gentleman,” he said; “and shall at least have a good dinner, and as good a pallet to sleep on, as is within the walls of Newgate. —— And, Master Sir Geoffrey, you ought to make much of him, since you do not like tall fellows; for I can tell you that Master Peveril is in for pinking long Jack Jenkins, that was the Master of Defence — as tall a man as in London, always excepting the King’s Porter, Master Evans, that carried you about in his pocket, Sir Geoffrey, as all the world heard tell.”
“Begone, fellow!” answered the dwarf. “Fellow, I scorn you!”
The turnkey sneered, withdrew, and locked the door behind him.
Degenerate youth, and not of Tydeus’ kind,
Whose little body lodged a mighty mind.
ILIAD.
Left quiet at least, if not alone, for the first time after the events of this troubled and varied day, Julian threw himself on an old oaken seat, beside the embers of a sea-coal fire, and began to muse on the miserable situation of anxiety and danger in which he was placed; where, whether he contemplated the interests of his love, his family affections, or his friendships, all seemed such a prospect as that of a sailor who looks upon breakers on every hand, from the deck of a vessel which no longer obeys the helm.
As Peveril sat sunk in despondency, his companion in misfortune drew a chair to the opposite side of the chimney-corner, and began to gaze at him with a sort of solemn earnestness, which at length compelled him, though almost in spite of himself, to pay some attention to the singular figure who seemed so much engrossed with contemplating him.
Geoffrey Hudson (we drop occasionally the title of knighthood, which the King had bestowed on him in a frolic, but which might introduce some confusion into our history), although a dwarf of the least possible size, had nothing positively ugly in his countenance, or actually distorted in his limbs. His head, hands, and feet were indeed large, and disproportioned to the height of his body, and his body itself much thicker than was consistent with symmetry, but in a degree which was rather ludicrous than disagreeable to look upon. His countenance, in particular, had he been a little taller, would have been accounted, in youth, handsome, and now, in age, striking and expressive; it was but the uncommon disproportion betwixt the head and the trunk which made the features seem whimsical and bizarre — an effect which was considerably increased by the dwarf’s moustaches, which it was his pleasure to wear so large, that they almost twisted back amongst, and mingled with, his grizzled hair.
The dress of this singular wight announced that he was not entirely free from the unhappy taste which frequently induces those whom nature has marked by personal deformity, to distinguish, and at the same time to render themselves ridiculous, by the use of showy colours, and garments fantastically and extraordinarily fashioned. But poor Geoffrey Hudson’s laces, embroideries, and the rest of his finery, were sorely worn and tarnished by the time which he had spent in jail, under the vague and malicious accusation that he was somehow or other an accomplice in this all-involving, all-devouring whirlpool of a Popish conspiracy — an impeachment which, if pronounced by a mouth the foulest and most malicious, was at that time sufficiently predominant to sully the fairest reputation. It will presently appear, that in the poor man’s manner of thinking, and tone of conversation, there was something analogous to his absurd fashion of apparel; for, as in the latter, good stuff and valuable decorations were rendered ludicrous by the fantastic fashion in which they were made up; so, such glimmerings of good sense and honourable feeling as the little man often evinced, were made ridiculous by a restless desire to assume certain airs of importance, and a great jealousy of being despised, on account of the peculiarity of his outward form.
After the fellow-prisoners had looked at each other for some time in silence, the dwarf, conscious of his dignity as first owner of their joint apartment, thought it necessary to do the honours of it to the new-comer. “Sir,” he said, modifying the alternate harsh and squeaking tones of his voice into accents as harmonious as they could attain, “I understand you to be the son of my worthy namesake, and ancient acquaintance, the stout Sir Geoffrey Peveril of the Peak. I promise you, I have seen your father where blows have been going more plenty than gold pieces; and for a tall heavy man, who lacked, as we martialists thought, some of the lightness and activity of our more slightly made Cavaliers, he performed his duty as a man might desire. I am happy to see you, his son; and, though by a mistake, I am glad we are to share this comfortless cabin together.”
Julian bowed, and thanked his courtesy; and Geoffrey Hudson, having broken the ice, preceded to question him without further ceremony. “You are no courtier, I presume, young gentleman?”
Julian replied in the negative.
“I thought so,” continued the dwarf; “for although I have now no official duty at Court, the region in which my early years were spent, and where I once held a considerable office, yet I still, when I had my liberty, visited the Presence from time to time, as in duty bound for former service; and am wont, from old habit, to take some note of the courtly gallants, those choice spirits of the age, among whom I was once enrolled. You are, not to compliment you, a marked figure, Master Peveril — though something of the tallest, as was your father’s case; I think, I could scarce have seen you anywhere without remembering you.”
Peveril thought he might, with great justice, have returned the compliment, but contented himself with saying, “he had scarce seen the British Court.”
“Tis pity,” said Hudson; “a gallant can hardly be formed without frequenting it. But you have been perhaps in a rougher school; you have served, doubtless?”
“My Maker, I hope,” said Julian.
“Fie on it, you mistake. I meant,” said Hudson, “á la Fran?ois — you have served in the army?”
“No. I have not yet had that honour,” said Julian.
“What! neither courtier nor soldier, Master Peveril?” said the important little man: “your father is to blame. By cock and pie he is, Master Peveril! How shall a man be known, or distinguished, unless by his bearing in peace and war? I tell you, sir, that at Newberry, where I charged with my troop abreast with Prince Rupert, and when, as you may have heard, we were both beaten off by those cuckoldly hinds the Trained Bands of London — we did what men could; and I think it was a matter of three or four minutes after most of our gentlemen had been driven off, that his Highness and I continued to cut at their long pikes with our swords; and I think might have broken in, but that I had a tall, long-legged brute of a horse, and my sword was somewhat short — in fine, at last we were obliged to make volte-face, and then, as I was going to say, the fellows were so glad to get rid of us, that they set up a great jubilee cry of ‘There goes Prince Robin and Cock Robin!’— Ay, ay, every scoundrel among them knew me well. But those days are over. — And where were you educated, young gentleman?”
Peveril named the household of the Countess of Derby.
“A most honourable lady, upon my word as a gentleman,” said Hudson. — “I knew the noble Countess well when I was about the person of my royal mistress, Henrietta Maria. She was then the very muster of all that was noble, loyal, and lovely. She was, indeed, one of the fifteen fair ones of the Court, whom I permitted to call me Piccoluomini — a foolish jest on my somewhat diminutive figure, which always distinguished me from ordinary beings, even when I was young — I have now lost much stature by stooping; but, always the ladies had their jest at me. — Perhaps, young man, I had my own amends of some of them somewhere, and somehow or other — I say nothing if I had or no; far less do I insinuate disrespect to the noble Countess. She was daughter of the Duc de la Tremouille, or, more correctly, des Thouars. But certainly to serve the ladies, and condescend to their humours, even when somewhat too free, or too fantastic, is the true decorum of gentle blood.”
Depressed as his spirits were, Peveril could scarce forbear smiling when he looked at the pigmy creature, who told these stories with infinite complacency, and appeared disposed to proclaim, as his own herald, that he had been a very model of valour and gallantry, though love and arms seemed to be pursuits totally irreconcilable to his shrivelled, weather-beaten countenance, and wasted limbs. Julian was, however, so careful to avoid giving his companion pain, that he endeavoured to humour him, by saying, that, “unquestionably, one bred up like Sir Geoffrey Hudson, in court and camps, knew exactly when to suffer personal freedoms, and when to control them.”
The little Knight, with great vivacity, though with some difficulty, began to drag his seat from the side of the fire opposite to that where Julian was seated, and at length succeeded in bringing it near him, in token of increasing cordiality.
“You say well, Master Peveril,” said the dwarf; “and I have given proofs both of bearing and forbearing. Yes, sir, there was not that thing which my most royal mistress, Henrietta Maria, could have required of me, that I would not have complied with, sir; I was her sworn servant, both in war and in festival, in battle and pageant, sir. At her Majesty’s particular request, I once condescended to become — ladies, you know, have strange fancies — to become the tenant, for a time, of the interior of a pie.”
“Of a pie?” said Julian, somewhat amazed.
“Yes, sir, of a pie. I hope you find nothing risible in my complaisance?” replied his companion, something jealously.
“Not I, sir,” said Peveril; “I have other matters than laughter in my head at present.”
“So had I,” said the dwarfish champion, “when I found myself imprisoned in a huge platter, of no ordinary dimensions you may be assured, since I could lie at length in it, and when I was entombed, as it were, in walls of standing crust, and a huge cover of pastry, the whole constituting a sort of sarcophagus, of size enough to have recorded the epitaph of a general officer or an archbishop on the lid. Sir, notwithstanding the conveniences which were made to give me air, it was more like being buried alive than aught else which I could think of.”
“I conceive it, sir,” said Julian.
“Moreover, sir,” continued the dwarf, “there were few in the secret, which was contrived for the Queen’s divertisement; for advancing of which I would have crept into a filbert nut, had it been possible; and few, as I said, being private in the scheme, there was a risk of accidents. I doubted, while in my darksome abode, whether some awkward attendant might not have let me fall, as I have seen happen to a venison pasty; or whether some hungry guest might not anticipate the moment of my resurrection, by sticking his knife into my upper crust. And though I had my weapons about me, young man, as has been my custom in every case of peril, yet, if such a rash person had plunged deep into the bowels of the supposed pasty, my sword and dagger could barely have served me to avenge, assuredly not to prevent, either of these catastrophes.”
“Certainly I do so understand it,” said Julian, who began, however, to feel that the company of little Hudson, talkative as he showed himself, was likely rather to aggravate than to alleviate the inconveniences of a prison.
“Nay,” continued the little man, enlarging on his former topic, “I had other subjects of apprehension; for it pleased my Lord of Buckingham, his Grace’s father who now bears the title, in his plenitude of Court favour, to command the pasty to be carried down to the office, and committed anew to the oven, alleging preposterously that it was better to be eaten warm than cold.”
“And did this, sir, not disturb your equanimity?” said Julian.
“My young friend,” said Geoffrey Hudson, “I cannot deny it. — Nature will claim her rights from the best and boldest of us. — I thought of Nebuchadnezzar and his fiery furnace; and I waxed warm with apprehension. — But, I thank Heaven, I also thought of my sworn duty to my royal mistress; and was thereby obliged and enabled to resist all temptations to make myself prematurely known. Nevertheless, the Duke — if of malice, may Heaven forgive him — followed down into the office himself, and urged the master-cook very hard that the pasty should be heated, were it but for five minutes. But the master-cook, being privy to the very different intentions of my royal mistress, did most manfully resist the order; and I was again reconveyed in safety to the royal table.”
“And in due time liberated from your confinement, I doubt not?” said Peveril.
“Yes, sir; that happy, and I may say, glorious moment, at length arrived,” continued the dwarf. “The upper crust was removed — I started up to the sound of trumpet and clarion, like the soul of a warrior when the last summons shall sound — or rather (if that simile be over audacious), like a spell-bound champion relieved from his enchanted state. It was then that, with my buckler on my arm, and my trusty Bilboa in my hand, I executed a sort of warlike dance, in which my skill and agility then rendered me pre-eminent, displaying, at the same time my postures, both of defence and offence, in a manner so totally inimitable, that I was almost deafened with the applause of all around me, and half-drowned by the scented waters with which the ladies of the Court deluged me from their casting bottles. I had amends of his Grace of Buckingham also; for as I tripped a hasty morris hither and thither upon the dining-table, now offering my blade, now recovering it, I made a blow at his nose — a sort of estrama?on — the dexterity of which consists in coming mighty near to the object you seem to aim at, yet not attaining it. You may have seen a barber make such a flourish with his razor. I promise you his Grace sprung back a half-yard at least. He was pleased to threaten to brain me with a chicken-bone, as he disdainfully expressed it; but the King said, ‘George, you have but a Rowland for an Oliver.’ And so I tripped on, showing a bold heedlessness of his displeasure, which few dared to have done at that time, albeit countenanced to the utmost like me by the smiles of the brave and the fair. But, well-a-day! sir, youth, its fashions, its follies, its frolics, and all its pomp and pride, are as idle and transitory as the crackling of thorns under a pot.”
“The flower that is cast into the oven were a better simile,” thought Peveril. “Good God, that a man should live to regret not being young enough to be still treated as baked meat, and served up in a pie!”
His companion, whose tongue had for many days been as closely imprisoned as his person, seemed resolved to indemnify his loquacity, by continuing to indulge it on the present occasion at his companion’s expense. He proceeded, therefore, in a solemn tone, to moralise on the adventure which he had narrated.
“Young men will no doubt think one to be envied,” he said, “who was thus enabled to be the darling and admiration of the Court”—(Julian internally stood self-exculpated from the suspicion)—“and yet it is better to possess fewer means of distinction, and remain free from the backbiting, the slander, and the odium, which are always the share of Court favour. Men who had no other cause, cast reflections upon me because my size varied somewhat from the common proportion; and jests were sometimes unthinkingly passed upon me by those I was bound to, who did not in that case, peradventure, sufficiently consider that the wren is made by the same hand which formed the bustard, and that the diamond, though small in size, out-values ten thousand-fold the rude granite. Nevertheless, they proceeded in the vein of humour; and as I could not in duty or gratitude retort upon nobles and princes, I was compelled to cast about in my mind how to vindicate my honour towards those, who, being in the same rank with myself, as servants and courtiers, nevertheless bore themselves towards me as if they were of a superior class in the rank of honour, as well as in the accidental circumstance of stature. And as a lesson to my own pride, and that of others, it so happened, that the pageant which I have but just narrated — which I justly reckon the most honourable moment of my life, excepting perhaps my distinguished share in the battle of Round-way-down — became the cause of a most tragic event, in which I acknowledge the greatest misfortune of my existence.”
The dwarf here paused, fetched a sigh, big at once with regret, and with the importance becoming the subject of a tragic history; then proceeded as follows:—
“You would have thought in your simplicity, young gentleman, that the pretty pageant I have mentioned could only have been quoted to my advantage, as a rare masking frolic, prettily devised, and not less deftly executed; and yet the malice of the courtiers, who maligned and envied me, made them strain their wit, and exhaust their ingenuity, in putting false and ridiculous constructions upon it. In short, my ears were so much offended with allusions to pies, puff-paste, ovens, and the like, that I was compelled to prohibit such subject of mirth, under penalty of my instant and severe displeasure. But it happ’d there was then a gallant about the Court, a man of good quality, son to a knight baronet, and in high esteem with the best in that sphere, also a familiar friend of mine own, from whom, therefore, I had no reason to expect any of that species of gibing which I had intimated my purpose to treat as offensive. Howbeit, it pleased the Honourable Mr. Crofts, so was this youth called and designed, one night, at the Groom Porter’s being full of wine and waggery, to introduce this threadbare subject, and to say something concerning a goose-pie, which I could not but consider as levelled at me. Nevertheless, I did but calmly and solidly pray him to choose a different subject; failing which, I let him know I should be sudden in my resentment. Notwithstanding, he continued in the same tone, and even aggravated the offence, by speaking of a tomtit, and other unnecessary and obnoxious comparisons; whereupon I was compelled to send him a cartel, and we met accordingly. Now, as I really loved the youth, it was my intention only to correct him by a flesh wound or two; and I would willingly that he had named the sword for his weapon. Nevertheless, he made pistols his election; and being on horseback, he produced by way of his own weapon, a foolish engine, which children are wont, in their roguery, to use for spouting water; a — a — in short, I forget the name.”
“A squirt, doubtless,” said Peveril, who began to recollect having heard something of this adventure.
“You are right,” said the dwarf; “you have indeed the name of the little engine, of which I have had experience in passing the yards at Westminster. — Well, sir, this token of slight regard compelled me to give the gentleman such language, as soon rendered it necessary for him to make more serious arms. We fought on horseback — breaking ground, and advancing by signal; and, as I never miss aim, I had the misadventure to kill the Honourable Master Crofts at the first shot. I would not wish my worst foe the pain which I felt, when I saw him reel on his saddle, and so fall down to the earth! — and, when I perceived that the life-blood was pouring fast, I could not but wish to Heaven that it had been my own instead of his. Thus fell youth, hopes, and bravery, a sacrifice to a silly and thoughtless jest; yet, alas! wherein had I choice, seeing that honour is, as it were, the very breath in our nostrils; and that in no sense can we be said to live, if we permit ourselves to be deprived of it?”
The tone of feeling in which the dwarfish hero concluded his story, gave Julian a better opinion of his heart, and even of his understanding, than he had been able to form of one who gloried in having, upon a grand occasion, formed the contents of a pasty. He was indeed enabled to conjecture that the little champion was seduced into such exhibitions, by the necessity attached to his condition, by his own vanity, and by the flattery bestowed on him by those who sought pleasure in practical jokes. The fate of the unlucky Master Crofts, however, as well as various exploits of this diminutive person during the Civil Wars, in which he actually, and with great gallantry, commanded a troop of horse, rendered most men cautious of openly rallying him; which was indeed the less necessary, as, when left alone, he seldom failed voluntarily to show himself on the ludicrous side.
At one hour after noon, the turnkey, true to his word, supplied the prisoners with a very tolerable dinner and a flask of well-flavoured though light claret; which the old man, who was something of a bon-vivant, regretted to observe, was nearly as diminutive as himself. The evening also passed away, but not without continued symptoms of garrulity on the part of Geoffrey Hudson.
It is true these were of a graver character than he had hitherto exhibited, for when the flask was empty, he repeated a long Latin prayer. But the religious act in which he had been engaged, only gave his discourse a more serious turn than belonged to his former themes, of war, lady’s love, and courtly splendour.
The little Knight harangued, at first on polemical points of divinity, and diverged from this thorny path, into the neighbouring and twilight walk of mysticism. He talked of secret warnings — of the predictions of sad-eyed prophets — of the visits of monitory spirits, and the Rosicrucian secrets of the Cabala; all which topics he treated of with such apparent conviction, nay, with so many appeals to personal experience, that one would have supposed him a member of the fraternity of gnomes, or fairies, whom he resembled so much in point of size.
In short, he persevered for a stricken hour in such a torrent of unnecessary tattle, as determined Peveril, at all events, to endeavour to procure a separate lodging. Having repeated his evening prayers in Latin, as formerly (for the old gentleman was a Catholic, which was the sole cause of his falling under suspicion), he set off on a new score, as they were undressing, and continued to prattle until he had fairly talked both himself and his companion to sleep.
Of airy tongues that syllable men’s names.
COMUS.
Julian had fallen asleep, with his brain rather filled with his own sad reflections, than with the mystical lore of the little Knight; and yet it seemed as if in his visions the latter had been more present to his mind than the former.
He dreamed of gliding spirits, gibbering phantoms, bloody hands, which, dimly seen by twilight, seemed to beckon him forward like errant-knight on sad adventure bound. More than once he started from his sleep, so lively was the influence of these visions on his imagination; and he always awaked under the impression that some one stood by his bedside. The chillness of his ankles, the weight and clatter of the fetters, as he turned himself on his pallet, reminded him on these occasions where he was, and under what circumstances. The extremity to which he saw all that was dear to him at present reduced, struck a deeper cold on his heart than the iron upon his limbs; nor could he compose himself again to rest without a mental prayer to Heaven for protection. But when he had been for a third time awakened from repose by these thick-stirring fancies, his distress of mind vented itself in speech, and he was unable to suppress the almost despairing ejaculation, “God have mercy upon us!”
“Amen!” answered a voice as sweet and “soft as honey dew,” which sounded as if the words were spoken close by his bedside.
The natural inference was, that Geoffrey Hudson, his companion in calamity, had echoed the prayer which was so proper to the situation of both. But the tone of voice was so different from the harsh and dissonant sounds of the dwarf’s enunciation, that Peveril was impressed with the certainty it could not proceed from Hudson. He was struck with involuntary terror, for which he could give no sufficient reason; and it was not without an effort that he was able to utter the question, “Sir Geoffrey, did you speak?”
No answer was returned. He repeated the question louder; and the same silver-toned voice, which had formerly said “Amen” to his prayers, answered to his interrogatory, “Your companion will not awake while I am here.”
“And who are you? — What seek you? — How came you into this place?” said Peveril, huddling, eagerly, question upon question.
“I am a wretched being, but one who loves you well. — I come for your good. — Concern yourself no farther.”
It now rushed on Julian’s mind that he had heard of persons possessed of the wonderful talent of counterfeiting sounds to such accuracy, that they could impose on their hearers the belief, that they proceeded from a point of the apartment entirely opposite to that which the real speaker occupied. Persuaded that he had now gained the depth of the mystery, he replied, “This trifling, Sir Geoffrey, is unseasonable. Say what you have to say in your own voice and manner. These apish pleasantries do not become midnight in a Newgate dungeon.”
“But the being who speaks with you,” answered the voice, “is fitted for the darkest hour, and the most melancholy haunts.”
Impatient of suspense, and determined to satisfy his curiosity, Julian jumped at once from his pallet, hoping to secure the speaker, whose voice indicated he was so near. But he altogether failed in his attempt, and grasped nothing save thin air.
For a turn or two, Peveril shuffled at random about the room, with his arms extended; and then at last recollected, that with the impediment of his shackles, and the noise which necessarily accompanied his motions, and announced where he was, it would be impossible for him to lay hands on any one who might be disposed to keep out of his reach. He therefore endeavoured to return to his bed; but, in groping for his way, lighted first on that of his fellow-prisoner. The little captive slept deep and heavy, as was evinced from his breathing; and upon listening a moment, Julian became again certain, either that his companion was the most artful of ventriloquists and of dissemblers, or that there was actually within the precincts of that guarded chamber, some third being, whose very presence there seemed to intimate that it belonged not to the ordinary line of humanity.
Julian was no ready believer in the supernatural; but that age was very far from being so incredulous concerning ghostly occurrences as our own; and it was no way derogatory to his good sense, that he shared the prejudices of his time. His hair began to bristle, and the moisture to stand on his brow, as he called on his companion to awake, for Heaven’s sake.
The dwarf answered — but he spoke without awaking. —“The day may dawn and be d — d. Tell the master of the horse I will not go to the hunting, unless I have the little black jennet.”
“I tell you,” said Julian, “there is some one in the apartment. Have you not a tinder-box to strike a light?”
“I care not how slight my horse be,” replied the slumberer, pursuing his own train of ideas, which, doubtless, carried him back to the green woods of Windsor, and the royal deer-hunts which he had witnessed there. “I am not overweight — I will not ride that great Holstein brute, that I must climb up to by a ladder, and then sit on his back like a pin-cushion on an elephant.”
Julian at length put his hand to the sleeper’s shoulder, and shook him, so as to awake him from his dream; when, after two or three snorts and groans, the dwarf asked peevishly, what the devil ailed him?
“The devil himself, for what I know,” said Peveril, “is at this very moment in the room here beside us.”
The dwarf on this information started up, crossed himself, and began to hammer a flint and steel with all despatch, until he had lighted a little piece of candle, which he said was consecrated to Saint Bridget, and as powerful as the herb called fuga d?monum, or the liver of the fish burnt by Tobit in the house of Raguel, for chasing all goblins, and evil or dubious spirits, from the place of its radiance; “if, indeed,” as the dwarf carefully guarded his proposition, “they existed anywhere, save in the imagination of his fellow-prisoner.”
Accordingly, the apartment was no sooner enlightened by this holy candle’s end, than Julian began to doubt the evidence of his own ears; for not only was there no one in the room save Sir Geoffrey Hudson and himself, but all the fastenings of the door were so secure, that it seemed impossible that they could have been opened and again fixed, without a great deal of noise, which, on the last occasion at least, could not possibly have escaped his ears, seeing that he must have been on his feet, and employed in searching the chamber, when the unknown, if an earthly being, was in the act of retreating from it.
Julian gazed for a moment with great earnestness, and no little perplexity, first on the bolted door, then on the grated window; and began to accuse his own imagination of having played him an unpleasant trick. He answered little to the questions of Hudson, and returning to his bed, heard, in silence, a long studied oration on the merits of Saint Bridget, which comprehended the greater part of her long-winded legend, and concluded with the assurance, that, from all accounts preserved of her, that holy saint was the least of all possible women, except those of the pigmy kind.
By the time the dwarf had ceased to speak, Julian’s desire of sleep had returned; and after a few glances around the apartment, which was still illuminated by the expiring beams of the holy taper, his eyes were again closed in forgetfulness, and his repose was not again disturbed in the course of that night.
Morning dawns on Newgate, as well as on the freest mountain-turf which Welshman or wild-goat ever trode; but in so different a fashion, that the very beams of heaven’s precious sun, when they penetrate into the recesses of the prison-house, have the air of being committed to jail. Still, with the light of day around him, Peveril easily persuaded himself of the vanity of his preceding night’s visions; and smiled when he reflected that fancies, similar to those to which his ear was often exposed in the Isle of Man, had been able to arrange themselves in a manner so impressive, when he heard them from the mouth of so singular a character as Hudson, and in the solitude of a prison.
Before Julian had awaked, the dwarf had already quitted his bed, and was seated in the chimney-corner of the apartment, where, with his own hands, he had arranged a morsel of fire, partly attending to the simmering of a small pot, which he had placed on the flame, partly occupied with a huge folio volume which lay on the table before him, and seemed well-nigh as tall and bulky as himself. He was wrapped up in the dusky crimson cloak already mentioned, which served him for a morning-gown, as well as a mantle against the cold, and which corresponded with a large montero-cap, that enveloped his head. The singularity of his features, and of the eyes, armed with spectacles, which were now cast on the subject of his studies, now directed towards his little cauldron, would have tempted Rembrandt to exhibit him on canvas, either in the character of an alchymist, or of a necromancer, engaged in some strange experiment, under the direction of one of the huge manuals which treat of the theory of these mystic arts.
The attention of the dwarf was bent, however, upon a more domestic object. He was only preparing soup, of no unsavoury quality, for breakfast, which he invited Peveril to partake with him. “I am an old soldier,” he said, “and, I must add, an old prisoner; and understand how to shift for myself better than you can do, young man. — Confusion to the scoundrel Clink, he has put the spice-box out of my reach! — Will you hand it me from the mantelpiece? — I will teach you, as the French have it, faire la cuisine; and then, if you please, we will divide, like brethren, the labours of our prison house.”
Julian readily assented to the little man’s friendly proposal, without interposing any doubt as to his continuing an inmate of the same cell. Truth is, that although, upon the whole, he was inclined to regard the whispering voice of the preceding evening as the impression of his own excited fancy, he felt, nevertheless, curiosity to see how a second night was to pass over in the same cell; and the tone of the invisible intruder, which at midnight had been heard by him with terror, now excited, on recollection, a gentle and not unpleasing species of agitation — the combined effect of awe, and of awakened curiosity.
Days of captivity have little to mark them as they glide away. That which followed the night which we have described afforded no circumstance of note. The dwarf imparted to his youthful companion a volume similar to that which formed his own studies, and which proved to be a tome of one of Scuderi’s now forgotten romances, of which Geoffrey Hudson was a great admirer, and which were then very fashionable both at the French and English Courts; although they contrive to unite in their immense folios all the improbabilities and absurdities of the old romances of chivalry, without that tone of imagination which pervades them, and all the metaphysical absurdities which Cowley and the poets of the age had heaped upon the passion of love, like so many load of small coal upon a slender fire, which it smothers instead of aiding.
But Julian had no alternative, saving only to muse over the sorrows of Artamenes and Mandane, or on the complicated distresses of his own situation; and in these disagreeable divertisements, the morning crept through as it could.
Noon first, and thereafter nightfall, were successively marked by a brief visit from their stern turnkey, who, with noiseless step and sullen demeanour, did in silence the necessary offices about the meals of the prisoners, exchanging with them as few words as an official in the Spanish Inquisition might have permitted himself upon a similar occasion. With the same taciturn gravity, very different from the laughing humour into which he had been surprised on a former occasion, he struck their fetters with a small hammer, to ascertain, by the sound thus produced, whether they had been tampered with by file or otherwise. He next mounted on a table, to make the same experiment on the window-grating.
Julian’s heart throbbed; for might not one of those grates have been so tampered with as to give entrance to the nocturnal visitant? But they returned to the experienced ear of Master Clink, when he struck them in turn with the hammer, a clear and ringing sound, which assured him of their security.
“It would be difficult for any one to get in through these defences,” said Julian, giving vent in words to his own feelings.
“Few wish that,” answered the surly groom, misconstruing what was passing in Peveril’s mind; “and let me tell you, master, folks will find it quite as difficult to get out.” He retired, and night came on.
The dwarf, who took upon himself for the day the whole duties of the apartment, trundled about the room, making a most important clatter as he extinguished their fire, and put aside various matters which had been in use in the course of the day, talking to himself all the while in a tone of no little consequence, occasionally grounded on the dexterity with which an old soldier could turn his hand to anything. Then came the repetition of his accustomed prayers; but his disposition to converse did not, as on the former occasion, revive after his devotions. On the contrary, long before Julian had closed an eye, the heavy breathing from Sir Geoffrey Hudson’s pallet declared that the dwarf was already in the arms of Morpheus.
Amid the total darkness of the apartment, and with a longing desire, and at the same time no small fear, for the recurrence of the mysterious address of the preceding evening, Julian lay long awake without his thoughts receiving any interruption save when the clock told the passing hour from the neighbouring steeple of St. Sepulchre. At length he sunk into slumber; but had not slept to his judgment above an hour, when he was roused by the sound which his waking ear had so long expected in vain.
“Can you sleep? — Will you sleep? — Dare you sleep?” were the questions impressed on his ear, in the same clear, soft, and melodious voice, which had addressed him on the preceding night.
“Who is it asks me the question?” answered Julian. “But be the questioner good or evil, I reply that I am a guiltless prisoner; and that innocence may wish and dare to sleep soundly.”
“Ask no questions of me,” said the voice; “neither attempt to discover who speaks to you; and be assured that folly alone can sleep, with fraud around and danger before him.”
“Can you, who tell me of dangers, counsel me how to combat or how to avoid them?” said Julian.
“My power is limited,” said the voice; “yet something I can do, as the glow-worm can show a precipice. But you must confide in me.”
“Confidence must beget confidence,” answered Julian. “I cannot repose trust in I know not what or whom.”
“Speak not so loud,” replied the voice, sinking almost into a whisper.
“Last night you said my companion would not awake,” said Julian.
“To-night I warrant not that he shall sleep,” said the voice. And as it spoke, the hoarse, snatching, discordant tones of the dwarf were heard, demanding of Julian why he talked in his sleep — wherefore he did not rest himself, and let other people rest — and, finally, whether his visions of last night were returned upon him again?
“Say yes,” said the voice in a whisper, so low, yet so distinct, that Julian almost doubted whether it was not an echo of his own thought. — “Say but yes — and I part to return no more!”
In desperate circumstances men look to strange and unusual remedies; and although unable to calculate the chances of advantage which this singular communication opened to him, Julian did not feel inclined to let them at once escape from him. He answered the dwarf, that he had been troubled by an alarming dream.
“I could have sworn it, from the sound of your voice,” said Hudson. “It is strange, now, that you overgrown men never possess the extreme firmness of nerves proper to us who are cast in a more compact mould. My own voice retains its masculine sounds on all occasions. Dr. Cockerel was of opinion, that there was the same allowance of nerve and sinew to men of every size, and that nature spun the stock out thinner or stronger, according to the extent of surface which they were to cover. Hence, the least creatures are oftentimes the strongest. Place a beetle under a tall candlestick, and the insect will move it by its efforts to get out; which is, in point of comparative strength, as if one of us should shake his Majesty’s prison of Newgate by similar struggles. Cats also, and weasels, are creatures of greater exertion or endurance than dogs or sheep. And in general, you may remark, that little men dance better, and are more unwearied under exertion of every kind, than those to whom their own weight must necessarily be burdensome. I respect you, Master Peveril, because I am told you have killed one of those gigantic fellows, who go about swaggering as if their souls were taller than ours, because their noses are nearer to the clouds by a cubit or two. But do not value yourself on this as anything very unusual. I would have you to know it hath been always thus; and that, in the history of all ages, the clean, tight, dapper little fellow, hath proved an overmatch for his bulky antagonist. I need only instance out of Holy Writ, the celebrated downfall of Goliah, and of another lubbard, who had more fingers to his hand, and more inches to his stature, than ought to belong to an honest man, and who was slain by a nephew of good King David; and of many others whom I do not remember; nevertheless they were all Philistines of gigantic stature. In the classics, also, you have Tydeus, and other tight, compact heroes, whose diminutive bodies were the abode of large minds. And indeed you may observe, in sacred as well as profane history, that your giants are ever heretics and blasphemers, robbers and oppressors, outragers of the female sex, and scoffers at regular authority. Such were Gog and Magog, whom our authentic chronicles vouch to have been slain near to Plymouth, by the good little Knight Corineus, who gave name to Cornwall. Ascaparte also was subdued by Bevis, and Colbrand by Guy, as Southampton and Warwick can testify. Like unto these was the giant Hoel, slain in Bretagne by King Arthur. And if Ryence, King of North Wales, who was done to death by the same worthy champion of Christendom, be not actually termed a giant, it is plain he was little better, since he required twenty-four kings’ beards, which were then worn full and long, to fur his gown; whereby computing each beard at eighteen inches (and you cannot allow less for a beard-royal), and supposing only the front of the gown trimmed therewith, as we use ermine; and that the back was mounted and lined, instead of cat-skins and squirrels’ fur, with the beards of earls and dukes, and other inferior dignitaries — may amount to — But I will work the question tomorrow.”
Nothing is more soporific to any (save a philosopher or moneyed man) than the operation of figures; and when in bed, the effect is irresistible. Sir Geoffrey fell asleep in the act of calculating King Ryence’s height, from the supposed length of his mantle. Indeed, had he not stumbled on this abstruse subject of calculation, there is no guessing how long he might have held forth upon the superiority of men of little stature, which was so great a favourite with him, that, numerous as such narratives are, the dwarf had collected almost all the instances of their victories over giants, which history or romance afforded.
No sooner had unequivocal signs of the dwarf’s sound slumbers reached Julian’s ears, than he began to listen eagerly for the renewal of that mysterious communication which was at once interesting and awful. Even whilst Hudson was speaking, he had, instead of bestowing his attention upon his eulogy on persons of low statue, kept his ears on watchful guard to mark if possible, the lightest sounds of any sort which might occur in the apartment; so that he thought it scarce possible that even a fly should have left it withouts its motion being overheard. If, therefore, his invisible monitor was indeed a creature of this world — an opinion which Julian’s sound sense rendered him unwilling to renounce — that being could not have left the apartment; and he waited impatiently for a renewal of their communication. He was disappointed; not the slightest sound reached his ear; and the nocturnal visitor, if still in the room, appeared determined on silence.
It was in vain that Peveril coughed, hemmed, and gave other symptoms of being awake; at length, such became his impatience, that he resolved, at any risk, to speak first, in hopes of renewing the communication betwixt them. “Whoever thou art,” he said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by a waking person, but not so high as to disturb his sleeping companion —“Whoever, or whatever thou art, thou hast shown some interest in the fate of such a castaway as Julian Peveril, speak once more, I conjure thee; and be your communication for good or evil, believe me, I am equally prepared to abide the issue.”
No answer of any kind was returned to this invocation; nor did the least sound intimate the presence of the being to whom it was so solemnly addressed.
“I speak in vain,” said Julian; “and perhaps I am but invoking that which is insensible of human feeling, or which takes a malign pleasure in human suffering.”
There was a gentle and half-broken sigh from a corner of the apartment, which, answering to this exclamation, seemed to contradict the imputation which it conveyed.
Julian, naturally courageous, and familiarised by this time to his situation, raised himself in bed, and stretched out his arm, to repeat his adjuration, when the voice, as if alarmed at his action and energy, whispered, in a tone more hurried than that which it had hitherto used, “Be still — move not — or I am mute for ever!”
“It is then a mortal being who is present with me,” was the natural inference of Julian, “and one who is probably afraid of being detected; I have then some power over my visitor, though I must be cautious how I use it. — If your intents are friendly,” he proceeded, “there was never a time in which I lacked friends more, or would be more grateful for kindness. The fate of all who are dear to me is weighed in the balance, and with worlds would I buy the tidings of their safety.”
“I have said my power is limited,” replied the voice. “You I may be able to preserve — the fate of your friends is beyond my control.”
“Let me at least know it,” said Julian; “and, be it as it may, I will not shun to share it.”
“For whom would you inquire?” said the soft, sweet voice, not without a tremulousness of accent, as if the question was put with diffident reluctance.
“My parents,” said Julian, after a moment’s hesitation; “how fare they? — What will be their fate?”
“They fare as the fort under which the enemy has dug a deadly mine. The work may have cost the labour of years, such were the impediments to the engineers; but Time brings opportunity upon its wings.”
“And what will be the event?” said Peveril.
“Can I read the future,” answered the voice, “save by comparison with past? — Who has been hunted on these stern and unmitigable accusations, but has been at last brought to bay? Did high and noble birth, honoured age, and approved benevolence, save the unfortunate Lord Stafford? Did learning, capacity of intrigue, or high Court favour, redeem Coleman, although the confidential servant of the heir presumptive of the Crown of England? — Did subtilty and genius, and exertions of a numerous sect, save Fenwicke, or Whitbread, or any other of the accused priests? — Were Groves, Pickering, or the other humble wretches who have suffered, safe in their obscurity? There is no condition in life, no degree of talent, no form of principle, which affords protection against an accusation, which levels conditions, confounds characters, renders men’s virtues their sins, and rates them as dangerous in proportion as they have influence, though attained in the noblest manner, and used for the best purposes. Call such a one but an accessory to the Plot — let him be mouthed in the evidence of Oates or Dugdale — and the blindest shall foresee the issue of their trial.”
“Prophet of Evil!” said Julian, “my father has a shield invulnerable to protect him. He is innocent.”
“Let him plead his innocence at the bar of Heaven,” said the voice; “it will serve him little where Scroggs presides.”
“Still I fear not,” said Julian, counterfeiting more confidence than he really possessed; “my father’s cause will be pleaded before twelve Englishmen.”
“Better before twelve wild beasts,” answered the Invisible, “than before Englishmen, influenced with party prejudice, passion, and epidemic terror of an imaginary danger. They are bold in guilt in proportion to the number amongst whom the crime is divided.”
“Ill-omened speaker,” said Julian, “thine is indeed a voice fitted only to sound with the midnight bell, and the screeching owl. Yet speak again. Tell me, if thou canst”—(He would have said of Alice Bridgenorth, but the word would not leave his tongue)—“Tell me,” he said, “if the noble house of Derby ——”
“Let them keep their rock like the sea-fowl in the tempest; and it may so fall out,” answered the voice, “that their rock may be a safe refuge. But there is blood on their ermine; and revenge has dogged them for many a year, like a bloodhound that hath been distanced in the morning chase, but may yet grapple the quarry ere the sun shall set. At present, however, they are safe. — Am I now to speak farther on your own affairs, which involve little short of your life and honour?”
“There is,” said Julian, “one, from whom I was violently parted yesterday; if I knew but of her safety, I were little anxious for my own.”
“One!” returned the voice, “only one from whom you were parted yesterday?”
“But in parting from whom,” said Julian, “I felt separated from all happiness which the world can give me.”
“You mean Alice Bridgenorth,” said the Invisible, with some bitterness of accent; “but her you will never see more. Your own life and hers depend on your forgetting each other.”
“I cannot purchase my own life at that price,” replied Julian.
“Then DIE in your obstinacy,” returned the Invisible; nor to all the entreaties which he used was he able obtain another word in the course of that remarkable night.
A short hough’d man, but full of pride.
ALLAN RAMSAY.
The blood of Julian Peveril was so much fevered by the state in which his invisible visitor left him, that he was unable, for a length of time, to find repose. He swore to himself, that he would discover and expose the nocturnal demon which stole on his hours of rest, only to add gall to bitterness, and to pour poison into those wounds which already smarted so severely. There was nothing which his power extended to, that, in his rage, he did not threaten. He proposed a closer and a more rigorous survey of his cell, so that he might discover the mode by which his tormentor entered, were it as unnoticeable as an auger-hole. If his diligence should prove unavailing, he determined to inform the jailers, to whom it could not be indifferent to know, that their prison was open to such intrusions. He proposed to himself, to discover from their looks whether they were already privy to these visits; and if so, to denounce them to the magistrates, to the judges, to the House of Commons, was the least that his resentment proposed. Sleep surprised his worn-out frame in the midst of his projects of discovery and vengeance, and, as frequently happens, the light of the ensuing day proved favourable to calmer resolutions.
He now reflected that he had no ground to consider the motives of his visitor as positively malevolent, although he had afforded him little encouragement to hope for assistance on the points he had most at heart. Towards himself, there had been expressed a decided feeling, both of sympathy and interest; if through means of these he could acquire his liberty, he might, when possessed of freedom, turn it to the benefit of those for whom he was more interested than for his own welfare. “I have behaved like a fool,” he said; “I ought to have temporised with this singular being, learned the motives of its interference, and availed myself of its succour, provided I could do so without any dishonourable conditions. It would have been always time enough to reject such when they should have been proposed to me.”
So saying, he was forming projects for regulating his intercourse with the stranger more prudently, in case their communication should be renewed, when his meditations were interrupted by the peremptory summons of Sir Geoffrey Hudson, that he would, in his turn, be pleased to perform those domestic duties of their common habitation, which the dwarf had yesterday taken upon himself.
There was no resisting a request so reasonable, and Peveril accordingly rose and betook himself to the arrangement of their prison, while Sir Hudson, perched upon a stool from which his legs did not by half-way reach the ground, sat in a posture of elegant languor, twangling upon an old broken-winded guitar, and singing songs in Spanish, Moorish, and Lingua Franca, most detestably out of tune. He failed not, at the conclusion of each ditty, to favour Julian with some account of what he had sung, either in the way of translation, or historical anecdote, or as the lay was connected with some peculiar part of his own eventful history, in the course of which the poor little man had chanced to have been taken by a Sallee rover, and carried captive into Morocco.
This part of his life Hudson used to make the era of many strange adventures; and, if he could himself be believed, he had made wild work among the affections of the Emperor’s seraglio. But, although few were in a situation to cross-examine him on gallantries and intrigues of which the scene was so remote, the officers of the garrison of Tangier had a report current amongst them, that the only use to which the tyrannical Moors could convert a slave of such slender corporeal strength, was to employ him to lie a-bed all day and hatch turkey’s eggs. The least allusion to this rumour used to drive him well-nigh frantic, and the fatal termination of his duel with young Crofts, which began in wanton mirth, and ended in bloodshed, made men more coy than they had formerly been, of making the fiery little hero the subject of their raillery.
While Peveril did the drudgery of the apartment, the dwarf remained much at his ease, carolling in the manner we have described; but when he beheld Julian attempting the task of the cook, Sir Geoffrey Hudson sprang from the stool on which he sat en Signor, at the risk of breaking both his guitar and his neck, exclaiming, “That he would rather prepare breakfast every morning betwixt this and the day of judgment, than commit a task of such consequence to an inexperienced bungler like his companion.”
The young man gladly resigned his task to the splenetic little Knight, and only smiled at his resentment when he added, that, to be but a mortal of middle stature, Julian was as stupid as a giant. Leaving the dwarf to prepare the meal after his own pleasure, Peveril employed himself in measuring the room with his eyes on every side, and in endeavouring to discover some private entrance, such as might admit his midnight visitant, and perhaps could be employed in case of need for effecting his own escape. The floor next engaged a scrutiny equally minute, but more successful.
Close by his own pallet, and dropped in such a manner that he must have seen it sooner but for the hurry with which he obeyed the summons of the impatient dwarf, lay a slip of paper, sealed, and directed with the initial letters, J.P., which seemed to ascertain that it was addressed to himself. He took the opportunity of opening it while the soup was in the very moment of projection, and the full attention of his companion was occupied by what he, in common with wiser and taller men, considered as one of the principal occupations of life; so that, without incurring his observation or awaking his curiosity, Julian had the opportunity to read as follows:—
“Rash and infatuated as you are, there is one who would forfeit much to stand betwixt you and your fate. You are tomorrow to be removed to the Tower, where your life cannot be assured for a single day; for, during the few hours you have been in London, you have provoked a resentment which is not easily slaked. There is but one chance for you — renounce A.B. — think no more of her. If that be impossible, think of her but as one whom you can never see again. If your heart can resolve to give up an attachment which it should never have entertained, and which it would be madness to cherish longer, make your acquiescence in this condition known by putting on your hat a white band, or white feather, or knot of ribbon of the same colour, whichever you may most easily come by. A boat will, in that case, run, as if by accident, on board of that which is to convey you to the Tower. Do you in the confusion jump overboard, and swim to the Southwark side of the Thames. Friends will attend there to secure your escape, and you will find yourself with one who will rather lose character and life, than that a hair of your head should fall to the ground; but who, if you reject the warning, can only think of you as of the fool who perishes in his folly. May Heaven guide you to a sound judgment of your condition! So prays one who would be your friend, if you pleased,
“UNKNOWN.”
The Tower! — it was a word of terror, even more so than a civil prison; for how many passages to death did that dark structure present! The severe executions which it had witnessed in preceding reigns, were not perhaps more numerous than the secret murders which had taken place within its walls; yet Peveril did not a moment hesitate on the part which he had to perform. “I will share my father’s fate,” he said; “I thought but of him when they brought me hither; I will think of nothing else when they convey me to yonder still more dreadful place of confinement; it is his, and it is but meet that it should be his son’s. — And thou, Alice Bridgenorth, the day that I renounce thee, may I be held alike a traitor and a dastard! — Go, false adviser, and share the fate of seducers and heretical teachers!”
He could not help uttering this last expression aloud, as he threw the billet into the fire, with a vehemence which made the dwarf start with surprise. “What say you of burning heretics, young man?” he exclaimed; “by my faith, your zeal must be warmer than mine, if you talk on such a subject when the heretics are the prevailing number. May I measure six feet without my shoes, but the heretics would have the best of it if we came to that work. Beware of such words.”
“Too late to beware of words spoken and heard,” said the turnkey, who, opening the door with unusual precautions to avoid noise, had stolen unperceived into the room; “However, Master Peveril has behaved like a gentlemen, and I am no tale-bearer, on condition he will consider I have had trouble in his matters.”
Julian had no alternative but to take the fellow’s hint and administer a bribe, with which Master Clink was so well satisfied, that he exclaimed, “It went to his heart to take leave of such a kind-natured gentleman, and that he could have turned the key on him for twenty years with pleasure. But the best friends must part.”
“I am to be removed, then?” said Julian.
“Ay, truly, master, the warrant is come from the Council.”
“To convey me to the Tower.”
“Whew!” exclaimed the officer of the law —“who the devil told you that? But since you do know it, there is no harm to say ay. So make yourself ready to move immediately; and first, hold out your dew-beaters till I take off the darbies.”
“Is that usual?” said Peveril, stretching out his feet as the fellow directed, while his fetters were unlocked.
“Why, ay, master, these fetters belong to the keeper; they are not a-going to send them to the Lieutenant, I trow. No, no, the warders must bring their own gear with them; they get none here, I promise them. Nevertheless, if your honour hath a fancy to go in fetters, as thinking it may move compassion of your case ——”
“I have no intention to make my case seem worse than it is,” said Julian; whilst at the same time it crossed his mind that his anonymous correspondent must be well acquainted both with his own personal habits, since the letter proposed a plan of escape which could only be executed by a bold swimmer, and with the fashions of prison, since it was foreseen that he would not be ironed on his passage to the Tower. The turnkey’s next speech made him carry conjecture still farther.
“There is nothing in life I would not do for so brave a guest,” said Clink; “I would nab one of my wife’s ribbons for you, if your honour had the fancy to mount the white flag in your beaver.”
“To what good purpose?” said Julian, shortly connecting, as was natural, the man’s proposed civility with the advice given and the signal prescribed in the letter.
“Nay, to no good purpose I know of,” said the turnkey; “only it is the fashion to seem white and harmless — a sort of token of not-guiltiness, as I may say, which folks desire to show the world, whether they be truly guilty or not; but I cannot say that guiltiness or not-guiltiness argufies much, saving they be words in the verdict.”
“Strange,” thought Peveril, although the man seemed to speak quite naturally, and without any double meaning, “strange that all should apparently combine to realise the plan of escape, could I but give my consent to it! And had I not better consent? Whoever does so much for me must wish me well, and a well-wisher would never enforce the unjust conditions on which I am required to consent to my liberation.”
But this misgiving of his resolution was but for a moment. He speedily recollected, that whoever aided him in escaping, must be necessarily exposed to great risk, and had a right to name the stipulation on which he was willing to incur it. He also recollected that falsehood is equally base, whether expressed in words or in dumb show; and that he should lie as flatly by using the signal agreed upon in evidence of his renouncing Alice Bridgenorth, as he would in direct terms if he made such renunciation without the purpose of abiding by it.
“If you would oblige me,” he said to the turnkey, “let me have a piece of black silk or crape for the purpose you mention.”
“Of crape!” said the fellow; “what should that signify? Why, the bien morts, who bing out to tour at you,* will think you a chimney-sweeper on Mayday.”
* The smart girls, who turn out to look at you.
“It will show my settled sorrow,” said Julian, “as well as my determined resolution.”
“As you will, sir,” answered the fellow; “I’ll provide you with a black rag of some kind or other. So, now; let us be moving.”
Julian intimated his readiness to attend him, and proceeded to bid farewell to his late companion, the stout Geoffrey Hudson. The parting was not without emotion on both sides, more particularly on that of the poor little man, who had taken a particular liking to the companion of whom he was now about to be deprived. “Fare ye well,” he said, “my young friend,” taking Julian’s hand in both his own uplifted palms, in which action he somewhat resembled the attitude of a sailor pulling a rope overhead — “Many in my situation would think himself wronged, as a soldier and servant of the king’s chamber, in seeing you removed to a more honourable prison than that which I am limited unto. But, I thank God, I grudge you not the Tower, nor the rocks of Scilly, nor even Carisbrooke Castle, though the latter was graced with the captivity of my blessed and martyred master. Go where you will, I wish you all the distinction of an honourable prison-house, and a safe and speedy deliverance in God’s own time. For myself, my race is near a close, and that because I fall martyr to the over-tenderness of my own heart. There is a circumstance, good Master Julian Peveril, which should have been yours, had Providence permitted our farther intimacy, but it fits not the present hour. Go, then, my friend, and bear witness in life and death, that Geoffrey Hudson scorns the insults and persecutions of fortune, as he would despise, and has often despised, the mischievous pranks of an overgrown schoolboy.”
So saying, he turned away, and hid his face with his little handkerchief, while Julian felt towards him that tragi-comic sensation which makes us pity the object which excites it, not the less that we are somewhat inclined to laugh amid our sympathy. The jailer made him a signal, which Peveril obeyed, leaving the dwarf to disconsolate solitude.
As Julian followed the keeper through the various windings of his penal labyrinth, the man observed, that “he was a rum fellow, that little Sir Geoffrey, and, for gallantry, a perfect Cock of Bantam, for as old as he was. There was a certain gay wench,” he said, “that had hooked him; but what she could make of him, save she carried him to Smithfield, and took money for him, as for a motion of puppets, it was,” he said, “hard to gather.”
Encouraged by this opening, Julian asked if his attendant knew why his prison was changed. “To teach you to become a King’s post without commission,” answered the fellow.
He stopped in his tattle as they approached that formidable central point, in which lay couched on his leathern elbow-chair the fat commander of the fortress, stationed apparently for ever in the midst of his citadel, as the huge Boa is sometimes said to lie stretched as a guard upon the subterranean treasures of Eastern Rajas. This overgrown man of authority eyed Julian wistfully and sullenly, as the miser the guinea which he must part with, or the hungry mastiff the food which is carried to another kennel. He growled to himself as he turned the leaves of his ominous register, in order to make the necessary entry respecting the removal of his prisoner. “To the Tower — to the Tower — ay, ay, all must to the Tower — that’s the fashion of it — free Britons to a military prison, as if we had neither bolts nor chains here! — I hope Parliament will have it up, this Towering work, that’s all. — Well, the youngster will take no good by the change, and that is one comfort.”
Having finished at once his official act of registration, and his soliloquy, he made a signal to his assistants to remove Julian, who was led along the same stern passages which he had traversed upon his entrance, to the gate of the prison, whence a coach, escorted by two officers of justice, conveyed him to the water-side.
A boat here waited him, with four warders of the Tower, to whose custody he was formally resigned by his late attendants. Clink, however, the turnkey, with whom he was more especially acquainted, did not take leave of him without furnishing him with the piece of black crape which he requested. Peveril fixed it on his hat amid the whispers of his new guardians. “The gentleman is in a hurry to go into mourning,” said one; “mayhap he had better wait till he has cause.”
“Perhaps others may wear mourning for him, ere he can mourn for any one,” answered another of these functionaries.
Yet notwithstanding the tenor of these whispers, their behaviour to their prisoner was more respectful than he had experienced from his former keepers, and might be termed a sullen civility. The ordinary officers of the law were in general rude, as having to do with felons of every description; whereas these men were only employed with persons accused of state crimes — men who were from birth and circumstances usually entitled to expect, and able to reward, decent usage.
The change of keepers passed unnoticed by Julian, as did the gay and busy scene presented by the broad and beautiful river on which he was now launched. A hundred boats shot past them, bearing parties intent on business, or on pleasure. Julian only viewed them with the stern hope, that whoever had endeavoured to bribe him from his fidelity by the hope of freedom, might see, from the colour of the badge which he had assumed, how determined he was to resist the temptation presented to him.
It was about high-water, and a stout wherry came up the river, with sail and oar, so directly upon that in which Julian was embarked, that it seemed as if likely to run her aboard. “Get your carabines ready,” cried the principal warder to his assistants. “What the devil can these scoundrels mean?”
But the crew in the other boat seemed to have perceived their error, for they suddenly altered their course, and struck off into the middle stream, while a torrent of mutual abuse was exchanged betwixt them and the boat whose course they had threatened to impede.
“The Unknown has kept his faith,” said Julian to himself; “I too have kept mine.”
It even seemed to him, as the boats neared each other, that he heard, from the other wherry, something like a stifled scream or groan; and when the momentary bustle was over, he asked the warder who sat next him, what boat that was.
“Men-of-war’s-men, on a frolic, I suppose,” answered the warder. “I know no one else would be so impudent as run foul of the King’s boat; for I am sure the fellow put the helm up on purpose. But mayhap you, sir, know more of the matter than I do.”
This insinuation effectually prevented Julian from putting farther questions, and he remained silent until the boat came under the dusky bastions of the Tower. The tide carried them up under a dark and lowering arch, closed at the upper end by the well-known Traitor’s gate,* formed like a wicket of huge intersecting bars of wood, through which might be seen a dim and imperfect view of soldiers and warders upon duty, and of the steep ascending causeway which leads up from the river into the interior of the fortress. By this gate — and it is the well-known circumstance which assigned its name — those accused of state crimes were usually committed to the Tower. The Thames afforded a secret and silent mode of conveyance for transporting thither such whose fallen fortunes might move the commiseration, or whose popular qualities might excite the sympathy, of the public; and even where no cause for especial secrecy existed, the peace of the city was undisturbed by the tumult attending the passage of the prisoner and his guards through the most frequented streets.
* See note, “Fortunes of Nigel.”
Yet this custom, however recommended by state policy, must have often struck chill upon the heart of the criminal, who thus, stolen, as it were, out of society, reached the place of his confinement, without encountering even one glance of compassion on the road; and as, from under the dusky arch, he landed on those flinty steps, worn by many a footstep anxious as his own, against which the tide lapped fitfully with small successive waves, and hence looked forward to the steep ascent into a Gothic state prison, and backward to such part of the river as the low-brow’d vault suffered to become visible, he must often have felt that he was leaving daylight, hope, and life itself, behind him.
While the warder’s challenge was made and answered, Peveril endeavoured to obtain information from his conductors where he was likely to be confined; but the answer was brief and general —“Where the Lieutenant should direct.”
“Could he not be permitted to share the imprisonment of his father, Sir Geoffrey Peveril?” He forgot not, on this occasion, to add the surname of his house.
The warder, an old man of respectable appearance, stared, as if at the extravagance of the demand, and said bluntly, “It is impossible.”
“At least,” said Peveril, “show me where my father is confined, that I may look upon the walls which separate us.”
“Young gentleman,” said the senior warder, shaking his grey head, “I am sorry for you; but asking questions will do you no service. In this place we know nothing of fathers and sons.”
Yet chance seemed, in a few minutes afterwards, to offer Peveril that satisfaction which the rigour of his keepers was disposed to deny to him. As he was conveyed up the steep passage which leads under what is called the Wakefield Tower, a female voice, in a tone wherein grief and joy were indescribably mixed, exclaimed, “My son! — My dear son!”
Even those who guarded Julian seemed softened by a tone of such acute feeling. They slackened their pace. They almost paused to permit him to look up towards the casement from which the sounds of maternal agony proceeded; but the aperture was so narrow, and so closely grated, that nothing was visible save a white female hand, which grasped one of those rusty barricadoes, as if for supporting the person within, while another streamed a white handkerchief, and then let it fall. The casement was instantly deserted.
“Give it me,” said Julian to the officer who lifted the handkerchief; “it is perhaps a mother’s last gift.”
The old warder lifted the napkin, and looked at it with the jealous minuteness of one who is accustomed to detect secret correspondence in the most trifling acts of intercourse.
“There may be writing on it with invisible ink,” said one of his comrades.
“It is wetted, but I think it is only with tears,” answered the senior. “I cannot keep it from the poor young gentleman.”
“Ah, Master Coleby,” said his comrade, in a gentle tone of reproach, “you would have been wearing a better coat than a yeoman’s today, had it not been for your tender heart.”
“It signifies little,” said old Coleby, “while my heart is true to my King, what I feel in discharging my duty, or what coat keeps my old bosom from the cold weather.”
Peveril, meanwhile, folded in his breast the token of his mother’s affection which chance had favoured him with; and when placed in the small and solitary chamber which he was told to consider as his own during his residence in the Tower, he was soothed even to weeping by this trifling circumstance, which he could not help considering as an omen, that his unfortunate house was not entirely deserted by Providence.
But the thoughts and occurrences of a prison are too uniform for a narrative, and we must now convey our readers into a more bustling scene.
Henceforth ’tis done — Fortune and I are friends;
And I must live, for Buckingham commends.
POPE.
The spacious mansion of the Duke of Buckingham, with the demesne belonging to it, originally bore the name of York House and occupied a large portion of the ground adjacent to the Savoy.
This had been laid out by the munificence of his father, the favourite of Charles the First, in a most splendid manner, so as almost to rival Whitehall itself. But during the increasing rage for building new streets, and the creating of almost an additional town, in order to connect London and Westminster, this ground had become of very great value; and the second Duke of Buckingham, who was at once fond of scheming, and needy of money, had agreed to a plan laid before him by some adventurous architect, for converting the extensive grounds around his palace into those streets, lanes, and courts, which still perpetuate his name and titles; though those who live in Buckingham Street, Duke Street, Villiers Street, or in Of-alley (for even that connecting particle is locally commemorated), probably think seldom of the memory of the witty, eccentric, and licentious George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whose titles are preserved in the names of their residence and its neighbourhood.
This building-plan the Duke had entered upon with all the eagerness which he usually attached to novelty. His gardens were destroyed — his pavilions levelled — his splendid stables demolished — the whole pomp of his suburban demesne laid waste, cumbered with ruins, and intersected with the foundations of new buildings and cellars, and the process of levelling different lines for the intended streets. But the undertaking, although it proved afterwards both lucrative and successful, met with a check at the outset, partly from want of the necessary funds, partly from the impatient and mercurial temper of the Duke, which soon carried him off in pursuit of some more new object. So that, though much was demolished, very little, in comparison, was reared up in the stead, and nothing was completed. The principal part of the ducal mansion still remained uninjured; but the demesne in which it stood bore a strange analogy to the irregular mind of its noble owner. Here stood a beautiful group of exotic trees and shrubs, the remnant of the garden, amid yawning common-sewers, and heaps of rubbish. In one place an old tower threatened to fall upon the spectator; and in another he ran the risk of being swallowed up by a modern vault. Grandeur of conception could be discovered in the undertaking, but was almost everywhere marred by poverty or negligence of execution. In short, the whole place was the true emblem of an understanding and talents run to waste, and become more dangerous than advantageous to society, by the want of steady principle, and the improvidence of the possessor.
There were men who took a different view of the Duke’s purpose in permitting his mansion to be thus surrounded, and his demesne occupied by modern buildings which were incomplete, and ancient which were but half demolished. They alleged, that, engaged as he was in so many mysteries of love and of politics, and having the character of the most daring and dangerous intriguer of his time, his Grace found it convenient to surround himself with this ruinous arena, into which officers of justice could not penetrate without some difficulty and hazard; and which might afford, upon occasion, a safe and secret shelter for such tools as were fit for desperate enterprises, and a private and unobserved mode of access to those whom he might have any special reason for receiving in secret.
Leaving Peveril in the Tower, we must once more convey our readers to the Levee of the Duke, who, on the morning of Julian’s transference to that fortress, thus addressed his minister-inchief, and principal attendant: “I have been so pleased with your conduct in this matter, Jerningham, that if Old Nick were to arise in our presence, and offer me his best imp as a familiar in thy room, I would hold it but a poor compliment.”
“A legion of imps,” said Jerningham, bowing, “could not have been more busy than I in your Grace’s service; but if your Grace will permit me to say so, your whole plan was well-nigh marred by your not returning home till last night, or rather this morning.”
“And why, I pray you, sage Master Jerningham,” said his Grace, “should I have returned home an instant sooner than my pleasure and convenience served?”
“Nay, my Lord Duke,” replied the attendant, “I know not; only, when you sent us word by Empson, in Chiffinch’s apartment, to command us to make sure of the girl at any rate, and at all risks, you said you would be here so soon as you could get freed of the King.”
“Freed of the King, you rascal! What sort of phrase is that?” demanded the Duke.
“It was Empson who used it, my lord, as coming from your Grace.”
“There is much very fit for my Grace to say, that misbecomes such mouths as Empson’s or yours to repeat,” answered the Duke haughtily, but instantly resumed his tone of familiarity, for his humour was as capricious as his pursuits. “But I know what thou wouldst have; first, your wisdom would know what became of me since thou hadst my commands at Chiffinch’s; and next, your valour would fain sound another flourish of trumpets on thine own most artificial retreat, leaving thy comrade in the hands of the Philistines.”
“May it please your Grace,” said Jerningham, “I did but retreat for the preservation of the baggage.”
“What! do you play at crambo with me?” said the Duke. “I would have you to know that the common parish fool should be whipt, were he to attempt to pass pun or quodlibet as a genuine jest, even amongst ticket-porters and hackney chairmen.”
“And yet I have heard your Grace indulge in the jeu de mots,” answered the attendant.
“Sirrah Jerningham,” answered the patron, “discard they memory, or keep it under correction, else it will hamper thy rise in the world. Thou mayst perchance have seen me also have a fancy to play at trap-ball, or to kiss a serving wench, or to guzzle ale and eat toasted cheese in a porterly whimsy; but is it fitting thou shouldst remember such follies? No more on’t. — Hark you; how came the long lubberly fool, Jenkins, being a master of the noble science of defence, to suffer himself to be run through the body so simply by a rustic swain like this same Peveril?”
“Please your Grace, this same Corydon is no such novice. I saw the onset; and, except in one hand, I never saw a sword managed with such life, grace, and facility.”
“Ay, indeed?” said the Duke, taking his own sheathed rapier in his hand, “I could not have thought that. I am somewhat rusted, and have need of breathing. Peveril is a name of note. As well go to the Barns-elms, or behind Montagu House, with him as with another. His father a rumoured plotter, too. The public would have noted it in me as becoming a zealous Protestant. Needful I do something to maintain my good name in the city, to atone for non-attendance on prayer and preaching. But your Laertes is fast in the Fleet; and I suppose his blundering blockhead of an antagonist is dead or dying.”
“Recovering, my lord, on the contrary,” replied Jerningham; “the blade fortunately avoided his vitals.”
“D— n his vitals!” answered the Duke. “Tell him to postpone his recovery, or I will put him to death in earnest.”
“I will caution his surgeon,” said Jerningham, “which will answer equally well.”
“Do so; and tell him he had better be on his own deathbed as cure his patient till I send him notice. — That young fellow must be let loose again at no rate.”
“There is little danger,” said the attendant. “I hear some of the witnesses have got their net flung over him on account of some matters down in the north; and that he is to be translated to the Tower for that, and for some letters of the Countess of Derby, as rumour goes.”
“To the Tower let him go, and get out as he can,” replied the Duke; “and when you hear he is fast there, let the fencing fellow recover as fast as the surgeon and he can mutually settle it.”
The Duke, having said this, took two or three turns in the apartment, and appeared to be in deep thought. His attendant waited the issue of his meditations with patience, being well aware that such moods, during which his mind was strongly directed in one point, were never of so long duration with his patron as to prove a severe burden to his own patience.
Accordingly, after the silence of seven or eight minutes, the Duke broke through it, taking from the toilette a large silk purse, which seemed full of gold. “Jerningham,” he said, “thou art a faithful fellow, and it would be sin not to cherish thee. I beat the King at Mall on his bold defiance. The honour is enough for me; and thou, my boy, shalt have the winnings.”
Jerningham pocketed the purse with due acknowledgements.
“Jerningham,” his Grace continued, “I know you blame me for changing my plans too often; and on my soul I have heard you so learned on the subject, that I have become of your opinion, and have been vexed at myself for two or three hours together, for not sticking as constantly to one object, as doubtless I shall, when age (touching his forehead) shall make this same weathercock too rusty to turn with the changing breeze. But as yet, while I have spirit and action, let it whirl like the vane at the mast-head, which teaches the pilot how to steer his course; and when I shift mine, think I am bound to follow Fortune, and not to control her.”
“I can understand nothing from all this, please your Grace,” replied Jerningham, “save that you have been pleased to change some purposed measures, and think that you have profited by doing so.”
“You shall judge yourself,” replied the Duke. “I have seen the Duchess of Portsmouth. — You start. It is true, by Heaven! I have seen her, and from sworn enemies we have become sworn friends. The treaty between such high and mighty powers had some weighty articles; besides, I had a French negotiator to deal with; so that you will allow a few hours’ absence was but a necessary interval to make up our matters of diplomacy.”
“Your Grace astonishes me,” said Jerningham. “Christian’s plan of supplanting the great lady is then entirely abandoned? I thought you had but desired to have the fair successor here, in order to carry it on under your own management.”
“I forgot what I meant at the time,” said the Duke; “unless that I was resolved she should not jilt me as she did the good-natured man of royalty; and so I am still determined, since you put me in mind of the fair Dowsabelle. But I had a contrite note from the Duchess while we were at the Mall. I went to see her, and found her a perfect Niobe. — On my soul, in spite of red eyes and swelled features, and dishevelled hair, there are, after all, Jerningham, some women who do, as the poets say, look lovely in affliction. Out came the cause; and with such humility, such penitence, such throwing herself on my mercy (she the proudest devil, too, in the whole Court), that I must have had heart of steel to resist it all. In short, Chiffinch in a drunken fit had played the babbler, and let young Saville into our intrigue. Saville plays the rogue, and informs the Duchess by a messenger, who luckily came a little late into the market. She learned, too, being a very devil for intelligence, that there had been some jarring between the master and me about this new Phillis; and that I was most likely to catch the bird — as any one may see who looks on us both. It must have been Empson who fluted all this into her Grace’s ear; and thinking she saw how her ladyship and I could hunt in couples, she entreats me to break Christian’s scheme, and keep the wench out of the King’s sight, especially if she were such a rare piece of perfection as fame has reported her.”
“And your Grace has promised her your hand to uphold the influence which you have so often threatened to ruin?” said Jerningham.
“Ay, Jerningham; my turn was as much served when she seemed to own herself in my power, and cry me mercy. — And observe, it is all one to me by which ladder I climb into the King’s cabinet. That of Portsmouth is ready fixed — better ascend by it than fling it down to put up another — I hate all unnecessary trouble.”
“And Christian?” said Jerningham.
“May go to the devil for a self-conceited ass. One pleasure of this twist of intrigue is, to revenge me of that villain, who thought himself so essential, that, by Heaven! he forced himself on my privacy, and lectured me like a schoolboy. Hang the cold-blooded hypocritical vermin! If he mutters, I will have his nose slit as wide as Coventry’s.*— Hark ye, is the Colonel come?”
“I expect him every moment, your Grace,”
* The ill-usage of Sir John Coventry by some of the Life Guardsmen, in revenge of something said in Parliament concerning the King’s theatrical amours, gave rise to what was called Coventry’s Act, against cutting and maiming the person.
“Send him up when he arrives,” said the Duke. ——“Why do you stand looking at me? What would you have?”
“Your Grace’s direction respecting the young lady,” said Jerningham.
“Odd zooks,” said the Duke, “I had totally forgotten her. — Is she very tearful? — Exceedingly afflicted?”
“She does not take on so violently as I have seen some do,” said Jerningham; “but for a strong, firm, concentrated indignation, I have seen none to match her.”
“Well, we will permit her to cool. I will not face the affliction of a second fair one immediately. I am tired of snivelling, and swelled eyes, and blubbered cheeks for some time; and, moreover, must husband my powers of consolation. Begone, and send the Colonel.”
“Will your Grace permit me one other question?” demanded his confidant.
“Ask what thou wilt, Jerningham, and then begone.”
“Your Grace has determined to give up Christian,” said the attendant. “May I ask what becomes of the kingdom of Man?”
“Forgotten, as I have a Christian soul!” said the Duke; “as much forgotten as if I had never nourished that scheme of royal ambition. — D— n it, we must knit up the ravelled skein of that intrigue. — Yet it is but a miserable rock, not worth the trouble I have been bestowing on it; and for a kingdom — it has a sound indeed; but, in reality, I might as well stick a cock-chicken’s feather into my hat, and call it a plume. Besides, now I think upon it, it would scarce be honourable to sweep that petty royalty out of Derby’s possession. I won a thousand pieces of the young Earl when he was last here, and suffered him to hang about me at Court. I question if the whole revenue of his kingdom is worth twice as much. Easily I could win it of him, were he here, with less trouble than it would cost me to carry on these troublesome intrigues of Christian’s.”
“If I may be permitted to say so, please your Grace,” answered Jerningham, “although your Grace is perhaps somewhat liable to change your mind, no man in England can afford better reasons for doing so.”
“I think so myself, Jerningham,” said the Duke; “and it may be it is one reason for my changing. One likes to vindicate his own conduct, and to find out fine reasons for doing what one has a mind to. — And now, once again, begone. Or, hark ye — hark ye — I shall need some loose gold. You may leave the purse I gave you; and I will give you an order for as much, and two years’ interest, on old Jacob Doublefee.”
“As your Grace pleases,” said Jerningham, his whole stock of complaisance scarcely able to conceal his mortification at exchanging for a distant order, of a kind which of late had not been very regularly honoured, the sunny contents of the purse which had actually been in his pocket. Secretly, but solemnly did he make a vow, that two years’ interest alone should not be the compensation for this involuntary exchange in the form of his remuneration.
As the discontented dependant left the apartment, he met, at the head of the grand staircase, Christian himself, who, exercising the freedom of an ancient friend of the house, was making his way, unannounced, to the Duke’s dressing apartment. Jerningham, conjecturing that his visit at this crisis would be anything but well timed, or well taken, endeavoured to avert his purpose by asserting that the Duke was indisposed, and in his bedchamber; and this he said so loud that his master might hear him, and, if he pleased, realise the apology which he offered in his name, by retreating into the bedroom as his last sanctuary, and drawing the bolt against intrusion.
But, far from adopting a stratagem to which he had had recourse on former occasions, in order to avoid those who came upon him, though at an appointed hour, and upon business of importance, Buckingham called, in a loud voice, from his dressing apartment, commanding his chamberlain instantly to introduce his good friend Master Christian, and censuring him for hesitating for an instant to do so.
“Now,” thought Jerningham within himself, “if Christian knew the Duke as well as I do, he would sooner stand the leap of a lion, like the London ‘prentice bold, than venture on my master at this moment, who is even now in a humour nearly as dangerous as the animal.”
He then ushered Christian into his master’s presence, taking care to post himself within earshot of the door.
“Speak not of niceness, when there’s chance of wreck,”
The captain said, as ladies writhed their neck
To see the dying dolphin flap the deck:
“If we go down, on us these gentry sup;
We dine upon them, if we haul them up.
Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters,
As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the cheaters.”
THE SEA VOYAGE.
There was nothing in Duke’s manner towards Christian which could have conveyed to that latter personage, experienced as he was in the worst possible ways of the world, that Buckingham would, at that particular moment, rather have seen the devil than himself; unless it was that Buckingham’s reception of him, being rather extraordinarily courteous towards so old an acquaintance, might have excited some degree of suspicion.
Having escaped with some difficulty from the vague region of general compliments, which bears the same relation to that of business that Milton informs us the Limbo Patrum has to the sensible and material earth, Christian asked his Grace of Buckingham, with the same blunt plainness with which he usually veiled a very deep and artificial character, whether he had lately seen Chiffinch or his helpmate?
“Neither of them lately,” answered Buckingham. “Have not you waited on them yourself? — I thought you would have been more anxious about the great scheme.”
“I have called once and again,” said Christian, “but I can gain no access to the sight of that important couple. I begin to be afraid they are paltering with me.”
“Which, by the welkin and its stars, you would not be slow in avenging, Master Christian. I know your puritanical principles on that point well,” said the Duke. “Revenge may be well said to be sweet, when so many grave and wise men are ready to exchange for it all the sugar-plums which pleasures offer to the poor sinful people of the world, besides the reversion of those which they talk of expecting in the way of post obit.”
“You may jest, my lord,” said Christian, “but still ——”
“But still you will be revenged on Chiffinch, and his little commodious companion. And yet the task may be difficult — Chiffinch has so many ways of obliging his master — his little woman is such a convenient pretty sort of a screen, and has such winning little ways of her own, that, in faith, in your case, I would not meddle with them. What is this refusing their door, man? We all do it to our best friends now and then, as well as to duns and dull company.”
“If your Grace is in a humour of rambling thus wildly in your talk,” said Christian, “you know my old faculty of patience — I can wait till it be your pleasure to talk more seriously.”
“Seriously!” said his Grace —“Wherefore not? — I only wait to know what your serious business may be.”
“In a word, my lord, from Chiffinch’s refusal to see me, and some vain calls which I have made at your Grace’s mansion, I am afraid either that our plan has miscarried, or that there is some intention to exclude me from the farther conduct of the matter.” Christian pronounced these words with considerable emphasis.
“That were folly as well as treachery,” returned the Duke, “to exclude from the spoil the very engineer who conducted the attack. But hark ye, Christian — I am sorry to tell bad news without preparation; but as you insist on knowing the worst, and are not ashamed to suspect your best friends, out it must come — Your niece left Chiffinch’s house the morning before yesterday.”
Christian staggered, as if he had received a severe blow; and the blood ran to his face in such a current of passion, that the Duke concluded he was struck with an apoplexy. But, exerting the extraordinary command which he could maintain under the most trying circumstances, he said, with a voice, the composure of which had an unnatural contrast with the alteration of his countenance, “Am I to conclude, that in leaving the protection of the roof in which I placed her, the girl has found shelter under that of your Grace?”
“Sir,” replied Buckingham gravely, “the supposition does my gallantry more credit than it deserves.”
“Oh, my Lord Duke,” answered Christian, “I am not one whom you can impose on by this species of courtly jargon. I know of what your Grace is capable; and that to gratify the caprice of a moment you would not hesitate to disappoint even the schemes at which you yourself have laboured most busily. — Suppose this jest played off. Take your laugh at those simple precautions by which I intended to protect your Grace’s interest, as well as that of others. Let us know the extent of your frolic, and consider how far its consequences can be repaired.”
“On my word, Christian,” said the Duke, laughing, “you are the most obliging of uncles and of guardians. Let your niece pass through as many adventures as Boccaccio’s bride of the King of Garba, you care not. Pure or soiled, she will still make the footstool of your fortune.”
An Indian proverb says, that the dart of contempt will even pierce through the shell of the tortoise; but this is more peculiarly the case when conscience tells the subject of the sarcasm that it is justly merited. Christian, stung with Buckingham’s reproach, at once assumed a haughty and threatening mien, totally inconsistent with that in which sufferance seemed to be as much his badge as that of Shylock. “You are a foul-mouthed and most unworthy lord,” he said; “and as such I will proclaim you, unless you make reparation for the injury you have done me.”
“And what,” said the Duke of Buckingham, “shall I proclaim you, that can give you the least title to notice from such as I am? What name shall I bestow on the little transaction which has given rise to such unexpected misunderstanding?”
Christian was silent, either from rage or from mental conviction.
“Come, come, Christian,” said the Duke, smiling, “we know too much of each other to make a quarrel safe. Hate each other we may — circumvent each other — it is the way of Courts — but proclaim! — a fico for the phrase.”
“I used it not,” said Christian, “till your Grace drove me to extremity. You know, my lord, I have fought both at home and abroad; and you should not rashly think that I will endure any indignity which blood can wipe away.”
“On the contrary,” said the Duke, with the same civil and sneering manner, “I can confidently assert, that the life of half a score of your friends would seem very light to you, Christian, if their existence interfered, I do not say with your character, as being a thing of much less consequence, but with any advantage which their existence might intercept. Fie upon it, man, we have known each other long. I never thought you a coward; and am only glad to see I could strike a few sparkles of heat out of your cold and constant disposition. I will now, if you please, tell you at once the fate of the young lady, in which I pray you to believe that I am truly interested.”
“I hear you, my Lord Duke,” said Christian. “The curl of your upper lip, and your eyebrow, does not escape me. Your Grace knows the French proverb, ‘He laughs best who laughs last.’ But I hear you.”
“Thank Heaven you do,” said Buckingham; “for your case requires haste, I promise you, and involves no laughing matter. Well then, hear a simple truth, on which (if it became me to offer any pledge for what I assert to be such) I could pledge life, fortune, and honour. It was the morning before last, when meeting with the King at Chiffinch’s unexpectedly — in fact I had looked in to fool an hour away, and to learn how your scheme advanced — I saw a singular scene. Your niece terrified little Chiffinch —(the hen Chiffinch, I mean)— bid the King defiance to his teeth, and walked out of the presence triumphantly, under the guardianship of a young fellow of little mark or likelihood, excepting a tolerable personal presence, and the advantage of a most unconquerable impudence. Egad, I can hardly help laughing to think how the King and I were both baffled; for I will not deny, that I had tried to trifle for a moment with the fair Indamora. But, egad, the young fellow swooped her off from under our noses, like my own Drawcansir clearing off the banquet from the two Kings of Brentford. There was a dignity in the gallant’s swaggering retreat which I must try to teach Mohun;* it will suit his part admirably.”
* Then a noted actor.
“This is incomprehensible, my Lord Duke,” said Christian, who by this time had recovered all his usual coolness; “you cannot expect me to believe this. Who dared be so bold as to carry of my niece in such a manner, and from so august a presence? And with whom, a stranger as he must have been, would she, wise and cautious as I know her, have consented to depart in such a manner? — My lord, I cannot believe this.”
“One of your priests, my most devoted Christian,” replied the Duke, “would only answer, Die, infidel, in thine unbelief; but I am only a poor worldling sinner, and I will add what mite of information I can. The young fellow’s name, as I am given to understand, is Julian, son of Sir Geoffrey, whom men call Peveril of the Peak.”
“Peveril of the Devil, who hath his cavern there!” said Christian warmly; “for I know that gallant, and believe him capable of anything bold and desperate. But how could he intrude himself into the royal presence? Either Hell aids him, or Heaven looks nearer into mortal dealings than I have yet believed. If so, may God forgive us, who deemed he thought not on us at all!”
“Amen, most Christian Christian,” replied the Duke. “I am glad to see thou hast yet some touch of grace that leads thee to augur so. But Empson, the hen Chiffinch, and half-a-dozen more, saw the swain’s entrance and departure. Please examine these witnesses with your own wisdom, if you think your time may not be better employed in tracing the fugitives. I believe he gained entrance as one of some dancing or masking party. Rowley, you know, is accessible to all who will come forth to make him sport. So in stole this termagant tearing gallant, like Samson among the Philistines, to pull down our fine scheme about our ears.”
“I believe you, my lord,” said Christian; “I cannot but believe you; and I forgive you, since it is your nature, for making sport of what is ruin and destruction. But which way did they take?”
“To Derbyshire, I should presume, to seek her father,” said the Duke. “She spoke of going into paternal protection, instead of yours, Master Christian. Something had chanced at Chiffinch’s, to give her cause to suspect that you had not altogether provided for his daughter in the manner which her father was likely to approve of.”
“Now, Heaven be praised,” said Christian, “she knows not her father is come to London! and they must be gone down either to Martindale Castle, or to Moultrassie Hall; in either case they are in my power — I must follow them close. I will return instantly to Derbyshire — I am undone if she meet her father until these errors are amended. Adieu, my lord. I forgive the part which I fear your Grace must have had in baulking our enterprise — it is no time for mutual reproaches.”
“You speak truth, Master Christian,” said the Duke, “and I wish you all success. Can I help you with men, or horses, or money?”
“I thank your Grace,” said Christian, and hastily left the apartment.
The Duke watched his descending footsteps on the staircase, until they could be heard no longer, and then exclaimed to Jerningham, who entered, “Victoria! victoria! magna est veritas et pr?valebit! — Had I told the villain a word of a lie, he is so familiar with all the regions of falsehood — his whole life has been such an absolute imposture, that I had stood detected in an instant; but I told him truth, and that was the only means of deceiving him. Victoria! my dear Jerningham, I am prouder of cheating Christian, than I should have been of circumventing a minister of state.”
“Your Grace holds his wisdom very high,” said the attendant.
“His cunning, at least, I do, which, in Court affairs, often takes the weather-gage of wisdom — as in Yarmouth Roads a herring-buss will baffle a frigate. He shall not return to London if I can help it, until all these intrigues are over.”
As his Grace spoke, the Colonel, after whom he had repeatedly made inquiry, was announced by a gentleman of his household. “He met not Christian, did he?” said the Duke hastily.
“No, my lord,” returned the domestic, “the Colonel came by the old garden staircase.”
“I judged as much,” replied the Duke; “’tis an owl that will not take wing in daylight, when there is a thicket left to skulk under. Here he comes from threading lane, vault, and ruinous alley, very near ominous a creature as the fowl of ill augury which he resembles.”
The Colonel, to whom no other appellation seemed to be given, than that which belonged to his military station, now entered the apartment. He was tall, strongly built, and past the middle period of life, and his countenance, but for the heavy cloud which dwelt upon it, might have been pronounced a handsome one. While the Duke spoke to him, either from humility or some other cause, his large serious eye was cast down upon the ground; but he raised it when he answered, with a keen look of earnest observation. His dress was very plain, and more allied to that of the Puritans than of the Cavaliers of the time; a shadowy black hat, like the Spanish sombrero; a large black mantle or cloak, and a long rapier, gave him something the air of a Castilione, to which his gravity and stiffness of demeanour added considerable strength.
“Well, Colonel,” said the Duke, “we have been long strangers — how have matters gone with you?”
“As with other men of action in quiet times,” answered the colonel, “or as a good war-caper* that lies high and dry in a muddy creek, till seams and planks are rent and riven.”
* A privateer.
“Well, Colonel,” said the Duke, “I have used your valour before now, and I may again; so that I shall speedily see that the vessel is careened, and undergoes a thorough repair.”
“I conjecture, then,” said the Colonel, “that your Grace has some voyage in hand?”
“No, but there is one which I want to interrupt,” replied the Duke.
“Tis but another stave of the same tune. — Well, my lord, I listen,” answered the stranger.
“Nay,” said the Duke, “it is but a trifling matter after all. — You know Ned Christian?”
“Ay, surely, my lord,” replied the Colonel, “we have been long known to each other.”
“He is about to go down to Derbyshire to seek a certain niece of his, whom he will scarcely find there. Now, I trust to your tried friendship to interrupt his return to London. Go with him, or meet him, cajole him, or assail him, or do what thou wilt with him — only keep him from London for a fortnight at least, and then I care little how soon he comes.”
“For by that time, I suppose,” replied the Colonel, “any one may find the wench that thinks her worth the looking for.”
“Thou mayst think her worth the looking for thyself, Colonel,” rejoined the Duke; “I promise you she hath many a thousand stitched to her petticoat; such a wife would save thee from skeldering on the public.”
“My lord, I sell my blood and my sword, but not my honour,” answered the man sullenly; “if I marry, my bed may be a poor, but it shall be an honest one.”
“Then thy wife will be the only honest matter in thy possession, Colonel — at least since I have known you,” replied the Duke.
“Why, truly, your Grace may speak your pleasure on that point. It is chiefly your business which I have done of late; and if it were less strictly honest than I could have wished, the employer was to blame as well as the agent. But for marrying a cast-off mistress, the man (saving your Grace, to whom I am bound) lives not who dares propose it to me.”
The Duke laughed loudly. “Why, this is mine Ancient Pistol’s vein,” he replied.
——“Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
And by my side wear steel? — then Lucifer take all!”
“My breeding is too plain to understand ends of playhouse verse, my lord,” said the Colonel suddenly. “Has your Grace no other service to command me?”
“None — only I am told you have published a Narrative concerning the Plot.”
“What should ail me, my lord?” said the Colonel; “I hope I am a witness as competent as any that has yet appeared?”
“Truly, I think so to the full,” said the Duke; “and it would have been hard, when so much profitable mischief was going, if so excellent a Protestant as yourself had not come in for a share.”
“I came to take your Grace’s commands, not to be the object of your wit,” said the Colonel.
“Gallantly spoken, most resolute and most immaculate Colonel! As you are to be on full pay in my service for a month to come, I pray your acceptance of this purse, for contingents and equipments, and you shall have my instructions from time to time.”
“They shall be punctually obeyed, my lord,” said the Colonel; “I know the duty of a subaltern officer. I wish your Grace a good morning.”
So saying, he pocketed the purse, without either affecting hesitation, or expressing gratitude, but merely as a part of a transaction in the regular way of business, and stalked from the apartment with the same sullen gravity which marked his entrance. “Now, there goes a scoundrel after my own heart,” said the Duke; “a robber from his cradle, a murderer since he could hold a knife, a profound hypocrite in religion, and a worse and deeper hypocrite in honour — would sell his soul to the devil to accomplish any villainy, and would cut the throat of his brother, did he dare to give the villainy he had so acted its right name. — Now, why stand you amazed, good Master Jerningham, and look on me as you would on some monster of Ind, when you had paid your shilling to see it, and were staring out your pennyworth with your eyes as round as a pair of spectacles? Wink, man, and save them, and then let thy tongue untie the mystery.”
“On my word, my Lord Duke,” answered Jerningham, “since I am compelled to speak, I can only say, that the longer I live with your Grace, I am the more at a loss to fathom your motives of action. Others lay plans, either to attain profit or pleasure by their execution; but your Grace’s delight is to counteract your own schemes, when in the very act of performance; like a child — forgive me — that breaks its favourite toy, or a man who should set fire to the house he has half built.”
“And why not, if he wanted to warm his hands at the blaze?” said the Duke.
“Ay, my lord,” replied his dependent; “but what if, in doing so, he should burn his fingers? — My lord, it is one of your noblest qualities, that you will sometimes listen to the truth without taking offence; but were it otherwise, I could not, at this moment, help speaking out at every risk.”
“Well, say on, I can bear it,” said the Duke, throwing himself into an easy-chair, and using his toothpick with graceful indifference and equanimity; “I love to hear what such potsherds as thou art, think of the proceeding of us who are of the pure porcelain clay of the earth.”
“In the name of Heaven, my lord, let me then ask you,” said Jerningham, “what merit you claim, or what advantage you expect, from having embroiled everything in which you are concerned to a degree which equals the chaos of the blind old Roundhead’s poem which your Grace is so fond of? To begin with the King. In spite of good-humour, he will be incensed at your repeated rivalry.”
“His Majesty defied me to it.”
“You have lost all hopes of the Isle, by quarrelling with Christian.”
“I have ceased to care a farthing about it,” replied the Duke.
“In Christian himself, whom you have insulted, and to whose family you intend dishonour, you have lost a sagacious, artful, and cool-headed instrument and adherent,” said the monitor.
“Poor Jerningham!” answered the Duke; “Christian would say as much for thee, I doubt not, wert thou discarded tomorrow. It is the common error of such tools as you and he to think themselves indispensable. As to his family, what was never honourable cannot be dishonoured by any connection with my house.”
“I say nothing of Chiffinch,” said Jerningham, “offended as he will be when he learns why, and by whom, his scheme has been ruined, and the lady spirited away — He and his wife, I say nothing of them.”
“You need not,” said the Duke; “for were they even fit persons to speak to me about, the Duchess of Portsmouth has bargained for their disgrace.”
“Then this bloodhound of a Colonel, as he calls himself, your Grace cannot even lay him on a quest which is to do you service, but you must do him such indignity at the same time, as he will not fail to remember, and be sure to fly at your throat should he ever have an opportunity of turning on you.”
“I will take care he has none,” said the Duke; “and yours, Jerningham, is a low-lived apprehension. Beat your spaniel heartily if you would have him under command. Ever let your agents see you know what they are, and prize them accordingly. A rogue, who must needs be treated as a man of honour, is apt to get above his work. Enough, therefore, of your advice and censure, Jerningham; we differ in every particular. Were we both engineers, you would spend your life in watching some old woman’s wheel, which spins flax by the ounce; I must be in the midst of the most varied and counteracting machinery, regulating checks and counter-checks, balancing weights, proving springs and wheels, directing and controlling a hundred combined powers.”
“And your fortune, in the meanwhile?” said Jerningham; “pardon this last hint, my lord.”
“My fortune,” said the Duke, “is too vast to be hurt by a petty wound; and I have, as thou knowest, a thousand salves in store for the scratches and scars which it sometimes receives in greasing my machinery.”
“Your Grace does not mean Dr. Wilderhead’s powder of projection?”
“Pshaw! he is a quacksalver, and mountebank, and beggar.”
“Or Solicitor Drowndland’s plan for draining the fens?”
“He is a cheat — videlicet, an attorney.”
“Or the Laird of Lackpelf’s sale of Highland woods?”
“He is a Scotsman,” said the Duke — "videlicet, both cheat and beggar.”
“These streets here, upon the site of your noble mansion-house?” said Jerningham.
“The architect’s a bite, and the plan’s a bubble. I am sick of the sight of this rubbish, and I will soon replace our old alcoves, alleys, and flower-pots by an Italian garden and a new palace.”
“That, my lord, would be to waste, not to improve your fortune,” said his domestic.
“Clodpate, and muddy spirit that thou art, thou hast forgot the most hopeful scheme of all — the South Sea Fisheries — their stock is up 50 per cent. already. Post down to the Alley, and tell old Mansses to buy ￡20,000 for me. — Forgive me, Plutus, I forgot to lay my sacrifice on thy shrine, and yet expected thy favours! — Fly post-haste, Jerningham — for thy life, for thy life, for thy life!”*
* Stock-jobbing, as it is called, that is, dealing in shares of monopolies, patent, and joint-stock companies of every description, was at least as common in Charles II.‘s time as our own; and as the exercise of ingenuity in this way promised a road to wealth without the necessity of industry, it was then much pursued by dissolute courtiers.
With hands and eyes uplifted, Jerningham left the apartment; and the Duke, without thinking a moment farther on old or new intrigues — on the friendship he had formed, or the enmity he had provoked — on the beauty whom he had carried off from her natural protectors, as well as from her lover — or on the monarch against whom he had placed himself in rivalship — sat down to calculate chances with all the zeal of Demoivre, tired of the drudgery in half-an-hour, and refused to see the zealous agent whom he had employed in the city, because he was busily engaged in writing a new lampoon.
Ah! changeful head, and fickle heart!
PROGRESS OF DISCONTENT.
No event is more ordinary in narratives of this nature, than the abduction of the female on whose fate the interest is supposed to turn; but that of Alice Bridgenorth was thus far particular, that she was spirited away by the Duke of Buckingham, more in contradiction than in the rivalry of passion; and that, as he made his first addresses to her at Chiffinch’s, rather in the spirit of rivalry to this Sovereign, than from any strong impression which her beauty had made on his affections, so he had formed the sudden plan of spiriting her away by means of his dependents, rather to perplex Christian, the King, Chiffinch, and all concerned, than because he had any particular desire for her society at his own mansion. Indeed, so far was this from being the case, that his Grace was rather surprised than delighted with the success of the enterprise which had made her an inmate there, although it is probable he might have thrown himself into an uncontrollable passion, had he learned its miscarriage instead of its success.
Twenty-four hours had passed over since he had returned to his own roof, before, notwithstanding sundry hints from Jerningham, he could even determine on the exertion necessary to pay his fair captive a visit; and then it was with the internal reluctance of one who can only be stirred from indolence by novelty.
“I wonder what made me plague myself about this wench,” said he, “and doom myself to encounter all the hysterical rhapsodies of a country Phillis, with her head stuffed with her grandmother’s lessons about virtue and the Bible-book, when the finest and best-bred women in town may be had upon more easy terms. It is a pity one cannot mount the victor’s car of triumph without having a victory to boast of; yet, faith, it is what most of our modern gallants do, though it would not become Buckingham. — Well, I must see her,” he concluded, “though it were but to rid the house of her. The Portsmouth will not hear of her being set at liberty near Charles, so much is she afraid of a new fair seducing the old sinner from his allegiance. So how the girl is to be disposed of — for I shall have little fancy to keep her here, and she is too wealthy to be sent down to Cliefden as a housekeeper — is a matter to be thought on.”
He then called for such a dress as might set off his natural good mien — a compliment which he considered as due to his own merit; for as to anything farther, he went to pay his respects to his fair prisoner with almost as little zeal in the cause, as a gallant to fight a duel in which he has no warmer interest than the maintenance of his reputation as man of honour.
The set of apartments consecrated to the use of those favourites who occasionally made Buckingham’s mansion their place of abode, and who were, so far as liberty was concerned, often required to observe the regulations of a convent, were separated from the rest of the Duke’s extensive mansion. He lived in the age when what was called gallantry warranted the most atrocious actions of deceit and violence; as may be best illustrated by the catastrophe of an unfortunate actress, whose beauty attracted the attention of the last De Vere, Earl of Oxford. While her virtue defied his seductions, he ruined her under colour of a mock marriage, and was rewarded for a success which occasioned the death of his victim, by the general applause of the men of wit and gallantry who filled the drawing-room of Charles.
Buckingham had made provision in the interior of his ducal mansion for exploits of a similar nature; and the set of apartments which he now visited were alternately used to confine the reluctant, and to accommodate the willing.
Being now destined for the former purpose, the key was delivered to the Duke by a hooded and spectacled old lady, who sat reading a devout book in the outer hall which divided these apartments (usually called the Nunnery) from the rest of the house. This experienced dowager acted as mistress of the ceremonies on such occasions, and was the trusty depositary of more intrigues than were known to any dozen of her worshipful calling besides.
“As sweet a linnet,” she said, as she undid the outward door, “as ever sung in a cage.”
“I was afraid she might have been more for moping than for singing, Dowlas,” said the Duke.
“Till yesterday she was so, please your Grace,” answered Dowlas; “or, to speak sooth, till early this morning, we heard of nothing but Lachrym?. But the air of your noble Grace’s house is favourable to singing-birds; and today matters have been a-much mended.”
“Tis sudden, dame,” said the Duke; “and ’tis something strange, considering that I have never visited her, that the pretty trembler should have been so soon reconciled to her fate.”
“Ah, your Grace has such magic, that it communicates itself to your very walls; as wholesome Scripture says, Exodus, first and seventh, ‘It cleaveth to the walls and the doorposts.’”
“You are too partial, Dame Dowlas,” said the Duke of Buckingham.
“Not a word but truth,” said the dame; “and I wish I may be an outcast from the fold of the lambs, but I think this damsel’s very frame has changed since she was under your Grace’s roof. Methinks she hath a lighter form, a finer step, a more displayed ankle — I cannot tell, but I think there is a change. But, lack-a-day, your Grace knows I am as old as I am trusty, and that my eyes wax something uncertain.”
“Especially when you wash them with a cup of canary, Dame Dowlas,” answered the Duke, who was aware that temperance was not amongst the cardinal virtues which were most familiar to the old lady’s practice.
“Was it canary, your Grace said? — Was it indeed with canary, that your Grace should have supposed me to have washed my eyes?” said the offended matron. “I am sorry that your Grace should know me no better.”
“I crave your pardon, dame,” said the Duke, shaking aside, fastidiously, the grasp which, in the earnestness of her exculpation, Madam Dowlas had clutched upon his sleeve. “I crave your pardon. Your nearer approach has convinced me of my erroneous imputation — I should have said nantz — not canary.”
So saying, he walked forward into the inner apartments, which were fitted up with an air of voluptuous magnificence.
“The dame said true, however,” said the proud deviser and proprietor of the splendid mansion —“A country Phillis might well reconcile herself to such a prison as this, even without a skilful bird-fancier to touch a bird-call. But I wonder where she can be, this rural Phidele. Is it possible she can have retreated, like a despairing commandant, into her bedchamber, the very citadel of the place, without even an attempt to defend the outworks?”
As he made this reflection, he passed through an antechamber and little eating parlour, exquisitely furnished, and hung with excellent paintings of the Venetian school.
Beyond these lay a withdrawing-room, fitted up in a style of still more studied elegance. The windows were darkened with painted glass, of such a deep and rich colour, as made the midday beams, which found their way into the apartment, imitate the rich colours of sunset; and, in the celebrated expression of the poet, “taught light to counterfeit a gloom.”
Buckingham’s feelings and taste had been too much, and too often, and too readily gratified, to permit him, in the general case, to be easily accessible, even to those pleasures which it had been the business of his life to pursue. The hackneyed voluptuary is like the jaded epicure, the mere listlessness of whose appetite becomes at length a sufficient penalty for having made it the principal object of his enjoyment and cultivation. Yet novelty has always some charms, and uncertainty has more.
The doubt how he was to be received — the change of mood which his prisoner was said to have evinced — the curiosity to know how such a creature as Alice Bridgenorth had been described, was likely to bear herself under the circumstances in which she was so unexpectedly placed, had upon Buckingham the effect of exciting unusual interest. On his own part, he had none of those feelings of anxiety with which a man, even of the most vulgar mind, comes to the presence of the female whom he wishes to please, far less the more refined sentiments of love, respect, desire, and awe, with which the more refined lover approaches the beloved object. He had been, to use an expressive French phrase, too completely blasé even from his earliest youth, to permit him now to experience the animal eagerness of the one, far less the more sentimental pleasure of the other. It is no small aggravation of this jaded and uncomfortable state of mind, that the voluptuary cannot renounce the pursuits with which he is satiated, but must continue, for his character’s sake, or from the mere force of habit, to take all the toil, fatigue, and danger of the chase, while he has so little real interest in the termination.
Buckingham, therefore, felt it due to his reputation as a successful hero of intrigue, to pay his addresses to Alice Bridgenorth with dissembled eagerness; and, as he opened the door of the inner apartment, he paused to consider, whether the tone of gallantry, or that of passion, was fittest to use on the occasion. This delay enabled him to hear a few notes of a lute touched with exquisite skill, and accompanied by the still sweeter strains of a female voice, which, without executing any complete melody, seemed to sport itself in rivalship of the silver sound of the instrument.
“A creature so well educated,” said the Duke, “with the sense she is said to possess, would, rustic as she is, laugh at the assumed rants of Oroondates. It is the vein of Dorimont — once, Buckingham, thine own — that must here do the feat, besides that the part is easier.”
So thinking, he entered the room with that easy grace which characterised the gay courtiers among whom he flourished, and approached the fair tenant, whom he found seated near a table covered with books and music, and having on her left hand the large half-open casement, dim with stained glass, admitting only a doubtful light into this lordly retiring-room, which, hung with the richest tapestry of the Gobelines, and ornamented with piles if china and splendid mirrors, seemed like a bower built for a prince to receive his bride.
The splendid dress of the inmate corresponded with the taste of the apartment which she occupied and partook of the Oriental costume which the much-admired Roxalana had the brought into fashion. A slender foot and ankle, which escaped from the wide trowser of richly ornamented and embroidered blue satin, was the only part of her person distinctly seen; the rest was enveloped, from head to foot, in a long veil of silver gauze, which, like a feathery and light mist on a beautiful landscape, suffered you to perceive that what it concealed was rarely lovely, yet induced the imagination even to enhance the charms it shaded. Such part of the dress as could be discovered was, like the veil and the trowsers, in the Oriental taste; a rich turban, and splendid caftan, were rather indicated than distinguished through the folds of the former. The whole attire argued at least coquetry on the part of the fair one, who must have expected, from her situation, a visitor of some pretension; and induced Buckingham to smile internally at Christian’s account of the extreme simplicity and purity of his niece.
He approached the lady en cavalier, and addressed her with the air of being conscious, while he acknowledged his offences, that his condescending to do so formed a sufficient apology for them. “Fair Mistress Alice,” he said, “I am sensible how deeply I ought to sue for pardon for the mistaken zeal of my servants, who, seeing you deserted and exposed without protection during an unlucky affray, took it upon them to bring you under the roof of one who would expose his life rather than suffer you to sustain a moment’s anxiety. Was it my fault that those around me should have judged it necessary to interfere for your preservation; or that, aware of the interest I must take in you, they have detained you till I could myself, in personal attendance, receive your commands?”
“That attendance has not been speedily rendered, my lord,” answered the lady. “I have been a prisoner for two days — neglected, and left to the charge of menials.”
“How say you, lady? — Neglected!” exclaimed the Duke. “By Heaven, if the best in my household has failed in his duty, I will discard him on the instant!”
“I complain of no lack of courtesy from your servants, my lord,” she replied; “but methinks it had been but complaisant in the Duke himself to explain to me earlier wherefore he has had the boldness to detain me as a state prisoner.”
“And can the divine Alice doubt,” said Buckingham, “that, had time and space, those cruel enemies to the flight of passion, given permission, the instant in which you crossed your vassal’s threshold had seen its devoted master at your feet, who hath thought, since he saw you, of nothing but the charms which that fatal morning placed before him at Chiffinch’s?”
“I understand, then, my lord,” said the lady, “that you have been absent, and have had no part in the restraint which has been exercised upon me?”
“Absent on the King’s command, lady, and employed in the discharge of his duty,” answered Buckingham without hesitation. “What could I do? — The moment you left Chiffinch’s, his Majesty commanded me to the saddle in such haste, that I had no time to change my satin buskins for riding-boots.* If my absence has occasioned you a moment of inconvenience, blame the inconsiderate zeal of those who, seeing me depart from London, half distracted at my separation from you, were willing to contribute their unmannered, though well-meant exertions, to preserve their master from despair, by retaining the fair Alice within his reach. To whom, indeed, could they have restored you? He whom you selected as your champion is in prison, or fled — your father absent from town — your uncle in the north. To Chiffinch’s house you had expressed your well-founded aversion; and what fitter asylum remained than that of your devoted slave, where you must ever reign a queen?”
* This case is not without precedent. Among the jealousies and fears expressed by the Long Parliament, they insisted much upon an agent for the King departing for the continent so abruptly, that he had not time to change his court dress — white buskins, to wit, and black silk pantaloons — for an equipment more suitable to travel with.
“An imprisoned one,” said the lady. “I desire not royalty.”
“Alas! how wilfully you misconstrue me!” said the Duke, kneeling on one knee; “and what right can you have to complain of a few hours’ gentle restraint — you, who destine so many to hopeless captivity? Be merciful for once, and withdraw that envious veil; for the divinities are ever most cruel when they deliver their oracles from such clouded recesses. Suffer at least my rash hand ——”
“I will save your Grace that unworthy trouble,” said the lady haughtily; and rising up, she flung back over her shoulders the veil which shrouded her, saying, at the same time, “Look on me, my Lord Duke, and see if these be indeed the charms which have made on your Grace an impression so powerful.”
Buckingham did look; and the effect produced on him by surprise was so strong, that he rose hastily from his knee, and remained for a few seconds as if he had been petrified. The figure that stood before him had neither the height nor the rich shape of Alice Bridgenorth; and, though perfectly well made, was so slightly formed, as to seem almost infantine. Her dress was three or four short vests of embroidered satin, disposed one over the other, of different colours, or rather different shades of similar colours; for strong contrast was carefully avoided. These opened in front, so as to show part of the throat and neck, partially obscured by an inner covering of the finest lace; over the uppermost vest was worn a sort of mantle, or coat of rich fur. A small but magnificent turban was carelessly placed on her head, from under which flowed a profusion of coal-black tresses, which Cleopatra might have envied. The taste and splendour of the Eastern dress corresponded with the complexion of the lady’s face, which was brunette, of a shade so dark as might almost have served an Indian.
Amidst a set of features, in which rapid and keen expression made amends for the want of regular beauty, the essential points of eyes as bright as diamonds, and teeth as white as pearls, did not escape the Duke of Buckingham, a professed connoisseur in female charms. In a word, the fanciful and singular female who thus unexpectedly produced herself before him, had one of those faces which are never seen without making an impression; which, when removed, are long after remembered; and for which, in our idleness, we are tempted to invent a hundred histories, that we may please our fancy by supposing the features under the influence of different kinds of emotion. Every one must have in recollection countenances of this kind, which, from a captivating and stimulating originality of expression, abide longer in the memory, and are more seductive to the imagination, than ever regular beauty.
“My Lord Duke,” said the lady, “it seems the lifting of my veil has done the work of magic upon your Grace. Alas, for the captive princess, whose nod was to command a vassal so costly as your Grace! She runs, methinks, no slight chance of being turned out of doors, like a second Cinderella, to seek her fortune among lackeys and lightermen.”
“I am astonished!” said the Duke. “That villain, Jerningham — I will have the scoundrel’s blood!”
“Nay, never abuse Jerningham for the matter,” said the Unknown; “but lament your own unhappy engagements. While you, my Lord Duke, were posting northward, in white satin buskins, to toil in the King’s affairs, the right and lawful princess sat weeping in sables in the uncheered solitude to which your absence condemned her. Two days she was disconsolate in vain; on the third came an African enchantress to change the scene for her, and the person for your Grace. Methinks, my lord, this adventure will tell but ill, when some faithful squire shall recount or record the gallant adventures of the second Duke of Buckingham.”
“Fairly bit and bantered to boot,” said the Duke —“the monkey has a turn for satire, too, by all that is piquante. — Hark ye, fair Princess, how dared you adventure on such a trick as you have been accomplice to?”
“Dare, my lord,” answered the stranger; “put the question to others, not to one who fears nothing.”
“By my faith, I believe so; for thy front is bronzed by nature. — Hark ye, once more, mistress — What is your name and condition?”
“My condition I have told you — I am a Mauritanian sorceress by profession, and my name is Zarah,” replied the Eastern maiden.
“But methinks that face, shape, and eyes”— said the Duke —“when didst thou pass for a dancing fairy? — Some such imp thou wert not many days since.”
“My sister you may have seen — my twin sister; but not me, my lord,” answered Zarah.
“Indeed,” said the Duke, “that duplicate of thine, if it was not thy very self, was possessed with a dumb spirit, as thou with a talking one. I am still in the mind that you are the same; and that Satan, always so powerful with your sex, had art enough on our former meeting, to make thee hold thy tongue.”
“Believe what you will of it, my lord,” replied Zarah, “it cannot change the truth. — And now, my lord, I bid you farewell. Have you any commands to Mauritania?”
“Tarry a little, my Princess,” said the Duke; “and remember, that you have voluntarily entered yourself as pledge for another; and are justly subjected to any penalty which it is my pleasure to exact. None must brave Buckingham with impunity.”
“I am in no hurry to depart, if your Grace hath any commands for me.”
“What! are you neither afraid of my resentment, nor of my love, fair Zarah?” said the Duke.
“Of neither, by this glove,” answered the lady. “Your resentment must be a pretty passion indeed, if it could stoop to such a helpless object as I am; and for your love — good lack! good lack!”
“And why good lack with such a tone of contempt, lady?” said the Duke, piqued in spite of himself. “Think you Buckingham cannot love, or has never been beloved in return?”
“He may have thought himself beloved,” said the maiden; “but by what slight creatures! — things whose heads could be rendered giddy by a playhouse rant — whose brains were only filled with red-heeled shoes and satin buskins — and who run altogether mad on the argument of a George and a star.”
“And are there no such frail fair ones in your climate, most scornful Princess?” said the Duke.
“There are,” said the lady; “but men rate them as parrots and monkeys — things without either sense or soul, head or heart. The nearness we bear to the sun has purified, while it strengthens, our passions. The icicles of your frozen climate shall as soon hammer hot bars into ploughshares, as shall the foppery and folly of your pretended gallantry make an instant’s impression on a breast like mine.”
“You speak like one who knows what passion is,” said the Duke. “Sit down, fair lady, and grieve not that I detain you. Who can consent to part with a tongue of so much melody, or an eye of such expressive eloquence! — You have known then what it is to love?”
“I know — no matter if by experience, or through the report of others — but I do know, that to love, as I would love, would be to yield not an iota to avarice, not one inch to vanity, not to sacrifice the slightest feeling to interest or to ambition; but to give up all to fidelity of heart and reciprocal affection.”
“And how many women, think you, are capable of feeling such disinterested passion?”
“More, by thousands, than there are men who merit it,” answered Zarah. “Alas! how often do you see the female, pale, and wretched, and degraded, still following with patient constancy the footsteps of some predominating tyrant, and submitting to all his injustice with the endurance of a faithful and misused spaniel, which prizes a look from his master, though the surliest groom that ever disgraced humanity, more than all the pleasure which the world besides can furnish him? Think what such would be to one who merited and repaid her devotion.”
“Perhaps the very reverse,” said the Duke; “and for your simile, I can see little resemblance. I cannot charge my spaniel with any perfidy; but for my mistresses — to confess truth, I must always be in a cursed hurry if I would have the credit of changing them before they leave me.”
“And they serve you but rightly, my lord,” answered the lady; “for what are you? — Nay, frown not; for you must hear the truth for once. Nature has done its part, and made a fair outside, and courtly education hath added its share. You are noble, it is the accident of birth — handsome, it is the caprice of Nature — generous, because to give is more easy than to refuse — well-apparelled, it is to the credit of your tailor — well-natured in the main, because you have youth and health — brave, because to be otherwise were to be degraded — and witty, because you cannot help it.”
The Duke darted a glance on one of the large mirrors. “Noble, and handsome, and court-like, generous, well-attired, good-humoured, brave, and witty! — You allow me more, madam, than I have the slightest pretension to, and surely enough to make my way, at some point at least, to female favour.”
“I have neither allowed you a heart nor a head,” said Zarah calmly. — “Nay, never redden as if you would fly at me. I say not but nature may have given you both; but folly has confounded the one, and selfishness perverted the other. The man whom I call deserving the name is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others, rather than himself — whose high purpose is adopted on just principles, and never abandoned while heaven or earth affords means of accomplishing it. He is one who will neither seek an indirect advantage by a specious road, nor take an evil path to gain a real good purpose. Such a man were one for whom a woman’s heart should beat constant while he breathes, and break when he dies.”
She spoke with so much energy that the water sparkled in her eyes, and her cheek coloured with the vehemence of her feelings.
“You speak,” said the Duke, “as if you had yourself a heart which could pay the full tribute to the merit which you describe so warmly.”
“And have I not?” said she, laying her hand on her bosom. “Here beats one that would bear me out in what I have said, whether in life or in death.”
“Were it in my power,” said the Duke, who began to get farther interested in his visitor than he could at first have thought possible —“Were it in my power to deserve such faithful attachment, methinks it should be my care to requite it.”
“Your wealth, your titles, your reputation as a gallant — all you possess, were too little to merit such sincere affection.”
“Come, fair lady,” said the Duke, a good deal piqued, “do not be quite so disdainful. Bethink you, that if your love be as pure as coined gold, still a poor fellow like myself may offer you an equivalent in silver — The quantity of my affection must make up for its quality.”
“But I am not carrying my affection to market, my lord; and therefore I need none of the base coin you offer in change for it.”
“How do I know that, my fairest?” said the Duke. “This is the realm of Paphos — You have invaded it, with what purpose you best know; but I think with none consistent with your present assumption of cruelty. Come, come — eyes that are so intelligent can laugh with delight, as well as gleam with scorn and anger. You are here a waif on Cupid’s manor, and I must seize on you in name of the deity.”
“Do not think of touching me, my lord,” said the lady. “Approach me not, if you would hope to learn the purpose of my being here. Your Grace may suppose yourself a Solomon if you please, but I am no travelling princess, come from distant climes, either to flatter your pride, or wonder at your glory.”
“A defiance, by Jupiter!” said the Duke.
“You mistake the signal,” said the ‘dark ladye’; “I came not here without taking sufficient precautions for my retreat.”
“You mouth it bravely,” said the Duke; “but never fortress so boasted its resources but the garrison had some thoughts of surrender. Thus I open the first parallel.”
They had been hitherto divided from each other by a long narrow table, which, placed in the recess of the large casement we have mentioned, had formed a sort of barrier on the lady’s side, against the adventurous gallant. The Duke went hastily to remove it as he spoke; but, attentive to all his motions, his visitor instantly darted through the half-open window. Buckingham uttered a cry of horror and surprise, having no doubt, at first, that she had precipitated herself from a height of at least fourteen feet; for so far the window was distant from the ground. But when he sprung to the spot, he perceived, to his astonishment, that she had effected her descent with equal agility and safety.
The outside of this stately mansion was decorated with a quantity of carving, in the mixed state, betwixt the Gothic and Grecian styles, which marks the age of Elizabeth and her successor; and though the feat seemed a surprising one, the projections of these ornaments were sufficient to afford footing to a creature so light and active, even in her hasty descent.
Inflamed alike by mortification and curiosity, Buckingham at first entertained some thought of following her by the same dangerous route, and had actually got upon the sill of the window for that purpose; and was contemplating what might be his next safe movement, when, from a neighbouring thicket of shrubs, amongst which his visitor had disappeared, he heard her chant a verse of a comic song, then much in fashion, concerning a despairing lover who had recourse to a precipice —
“But when he came near,
Beholding how steep
The sides did appear,
And the bottom how deep;
Though his suit was rejected,
He sadly reflected,
That a lover forsaken
A new love may get;
But a neck that’s once broken
Can never be set.”
The Duke could not help laughing, though much against his will, at the resemblance which the verses bore to his own absurd situation, and, stepping back into the apartment, desisted from an attempt which might have proved dangerous as well as ridiculous. He called his attendants, and contented himself with watching the little thicket, unwilling to think that a female, who had thrown herself in a great measure into his way, meant absolutely to mortify him by a retreat.
That question was determined in an instant. A form, wrapped in a mantle, with a slouched hat and shadowy plume, issued from the bushes, and was lost in a moment amongst the ruins of ancient and of modern buildings, with which, as we have already stated, the demesne formerly termed York House, was now encumbered in all directions.
The Duke’s servants, who had obeyed his impatient summons, were hastily directed to search for this tantalising siren in every direction. Their master, in the meantime, eager and vehement in every new pursuit, but especially when his vanity was piqued, encouraged their diligence by bribes, and threats, and commands. All was in vain. They found nothing of the Mauritanian Princess, as she called herself, but the turban and the veil; both of which she had left in the thicket, together with her satin slippers; which articles, doubtless, she had thrown aside as she exchanged them for others less remarkable.
Finding all his search in vain, the Duke of Buckingham, after the example of spoiled children of all ages and stations, gave a loose to the frantic vehemence of passion; and fiercely he swore vengeance on his late visitor, whom he termed by a thousand opprobrious epithets, of which the elegant phrase “Jilt” was most frequently repeated.
Even Jerningham, who knew the depths and the shallows of his master’s mood, and was bold to fathom them at almost every state of his passions, kept out of his way on the present occasion; and, cabineted with the pious old housekeeper, declared to her, over a bottle of ratafia, that, in his apprehension, if his Grace did not learn to put some control on his temper, chains, darkness, straw, and Bedlam, would be the final doom of the gifted and admired Duke of Buckingham.
—— Contentious fierce,
Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.
ALBION.
The quarrels between man and wife are proverbial; but let not these honest folks think that connections of a less permanent nature are free from similar jars. The frolic of the Duke of Buckingham, and the subsequent escape of Alice Bridgenorth, had kindled fierce dissension in Chiffinch’s family, when, on his arrival in town, he learned these two stunning events: “I tell you,” he said to his obliging helpmate, who seemed but little moved by all that he could say on the subject, “that your d — d carelessness has ruined the work of years.”
“I think it is the twentieth time you have said so,” replied the dame; “and without such frequent assurance, I was quite ready to believe that a very trifling matter would overset any scheme of yours, however long thought of.”
“How on earth could you have the folly to let the Duke into the house when you expected the King?” said the irritated courtier.
“Lord, Chiffinch,” answered the lady, “ought not you to ask the porter rather than me, that sort of question? — I was putting on my cap to receive his Majesty.”
“With the address of a madge-howlet,” said Chiffinch, “and in the meanwhile you gave the cat the cream to keep.”
“Indeed, Chiffinch,” said the lady, “these jaunts to the country do render you excessively vulgar! there is a brutality about your very boots! nay, your muslin ruffles, being somewhat soiled, give to your knuckles a sort of rural rusticity, as I may call it.”
“It were a good deed,” muttered Chiffinch, “to make both boots and knuckles bang the folly and affectation out of thee.” Then speaking aloud, he added, like a man who would fain break off an argument, by extorting from his adversary a confession that he has reason on his side, “I am sure, Kate, you must be sensible that our all depends on his Majesty’s pleasure.”
“Leave that to me,” said she; “I know how to pleasure his Majesty better than you can teach me. Do you think his Majesty is booby enough to cry like a schoolboy because his sparrow has flown away? His Majesty has better taste. I am surprised at you, Chiffinch,” she added, drawing herself up, “who were once thought to know the points of a fine woman, that you should have made such a roaring about this country wench. Why, she has not even the country quality of being plump as a barn-door fowl, but is more like a Dunstable lark, that one must crack bones and all if you would make a mouthful of it. What signifies whence she came, or where she goes? There will be those behind that are much more worthy of his Majesty’s condescending attention, even when the Duchess of Portsmouth takes the frumps.”
“You mean your neighbour, Mistress Nelly,” said her worthy helpmate; “but Kate, her date is out. Wit she has, let her keep herself warm with it in worse company, for the cant of a gang of strollers is not language for a prince’s chamber.”*
* In Evelyn’s Memoirs is the following curious passage respecting Nell Gwyn, who is hinted at in the text:—“I walked with him [King Charles II.] through Saint James Park to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between . . . [the King] and Mrs. Nelly, as they called her, an intimate comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall, and [the King] standing on the green walk under it. I was heartily sorry at this scene.”— EVELYN’S Memoirs, vol. i. p.413.
“It is no matter what I mean, or whom I mean,” said Mrs. Chiffinch; “but I tell you, Tom Chiffinch, that you will find your master quite consoled for loss of the piece of prudish puritanism that you would need saddle him with; as if the good man were not plagued enough with them in Parliament, but you must, forsooth, bring them into his very bedchamber.”
“Well, Kate,” said Chiffinch, “if a man were to speak all the sense of the seven wise masters, a woman would find nonsense enough to overwhelm him with; so I shall say no more, but that I would to Heaven I may find the King in no worse humour than you describe him. I am commanded to attend him down the river to the Tower today, where he is to make some survey of arms and stores. They are clever fellows who contrive to keep Rowley from engaging in business, for, by my word, he has a turn for it.”
“I warrant you,” said Chiffinch the female, nodding, but rather to her own figure, reflected from a mirror, than to her politic husband — “I warrant you we will find means of occupying him that will sufficiently fill up his time.”
“On my honour, Kate,” said the male Chiffinch, “I find you strangely altered, and, to speak truth, grown most extremely opinionative. I shall be happy if you have good reason for your confidence.”
The dame smiled superciliously, but deigned no other answer, unless this were one — “I shall order a boat to go upon the Thames today with the royal party.”
“Take care what you do, Kate; there are none dare presume so far but women of the first rank. Duchess of Bolton — of Buckingham — of ——”
“Who cares for a list of names? why may not I be as forward as the greatest B. amongst your string of them?”
“Nay, faith, thou mayest match the greatest B. in Court already,” answered Chiffinch; “so e’en take thy own course of it. But do not let Chaubert forget to get some collation ready, and a souper au petit couvert, in case it should be commanded for the evening.”
“Ay, there your boasted knowledge of Court matters begins and ends. — Chiffinch, Chaubert, and Company; — dissolve that partnership, and you break Tom Chiffinch for a courtier.”
“Amen, Kate,” replied Chiffinch; “and let me tell you it is as safe to rely on another person’s fingers as on our own wit. But I must give orders for the water. — If you will take the pinnace, there are the cloth-of-gold cushions in the chapel may serve to cover the benches for the day. They are never wanted where they lie, so you may make free with them too.”
Madam Chiffinch accordingly mingled with the flotilla which attended the King on his voyage down the Thames, amongst whom was the Queen, attended by some of the principal ladies of the Court. The little plump Cleopatra, dressed to as much advantage as her taste could devise, and seated upon her embroidered cushions like Venus in her shell, neglected nothing that effrontery and minauderie could perform to draw upon herself some portion of the King’s observation; but Charles was not in the vein, and did not even pay her the slightest passing attention of any kind, until her boatmen having ventured to approach nearer to the Queen’s barge than etiquette permitted, received a peremptory order to back their oars, and fall out of the royal procession. Madam Chiffinch cried for spite, and transgressed Solomon’s warning, by cursing the King in her heart; but had no better course than to return to Westminster, and direct Chaubert’s preparations for the evening.
In the meantime the royal barge paused at the Tower; and, accompanied by a laughing train of ladies and of courtiers, the gay Monarch made the echoes of the old prison-towers ring with the unwonted sounds of mirth and revelry. As they ascended from the river-side to the centre of the building, where the fine old keep of William the Conqueror, called the White Tower, predominates over the exterior defences, Heaven only knows how many gallant jests, good or bad, were run on the comparison of his Majesty’s state-prison to that of Cupid, and what killing similes were drawn between the ladies’ eyes and the guns of the fortress, which, spoken with a fashionable congée, and listened to with a smile from a fair lady, formed the fine conversations of the day.
This gay swarm of flutterers did not, however, attend close on the King’s person, though they had accompanied him upon his party on the river. Charles, who often formed manly and sensible resolutions, though he was too easily diverted from them by indolence or pleasure, had some desire to make himself personally acquainted with the state of the military stores, arms, &c. of which the Tower was then, as now, the magazine; and, although he had brought with him the usual number of his courtiers, only three or four attended him on the scrutiny which he intended. Whilst, therefore, the rest of the train amused themselves as they might in other parts of the Tower, the King, accompanied by the Dukes of Buckingham, Ormond, and one or two others, walked through the well-known hall, in which is preserved the most splendid magazine of arms in the world, and which, though far from exhibiting its present extraordinary state of perfection, was even then an arsenal worthy of the great nation to which it belonged.
The Duke of Ormond, well known for his services during the Great Civil War, was, as we have elsewhere noticed, at present rather on cold terms with his Sovereign, who nevertheless asked his advice on many occasions, and who required it on the present amongst others, when it was not a little feared that the Parliament, in their zeal for the Protestant religion, might desire to take the magazines of arms and ammunition under their own exclusive orders. While Charles sadly hinted at such a termination of the popular jealousies of the period, and discussed with Ormond the means of resisting, or evading it, Buckingham, falling a little behind, amused himself with ridiculing the antiquated appearance and embarrassed demeanour of the old warder who attended on the occasion, and who chanced to be the very same who escorted Julian Peveril to his present place of confinement. The Duke prosecuted his raillery with the greater activity, that he found the old man, though restrained by the place and presence, was rather upon the whole testy, and disposed to afford what sportsmen call play to his persecutor. The various pieces of ancient armour, with which the wall was covered, afforded the principal source of the Duke’s wit, as he insisted upon knowing from the old man, who, he said, could best remember matters from the days of King Arthur downwards at the least, the history of the different warlike weapons, and anecdotes of the battles in which they had been wielded. The old man obviously suffered, when he was obliged, by repeated questions, to tell the legends (often sufficiently absurd) which the tradition of the place had assigned to particular relics. Far from flourishing his partisan, and augmenting the emphasis of his voice, as was and is the prevailing fashion of these warlike Ciceroni, it was scarcely possible to extort from him a single word concerning those topics on which their information is usually overflowing.
“Do you know, my friend,” said the Duke to him at last, “I begin to change my mind respecting you. I supposed you must have served as a Yeoman of the Guard since bluff King Henry’s time, and expected to hear something from you about the Field of the Cloth of Gold — and I thought of asking you the colour of Anne Bullen’s breastknot, which cost the Pope three kingdoms; but I am afraid you are but a novice in such recollections of love and chivalry. Art sure thou didst not creep into thy warlike office from some dark shop in Tower-Hamlets, and that thou hast not converted an unlawful measuring-yard into that glorious halberd? — I warrant thou canst not even tell you whom this piece of antique panoply pertained to?”
The Duke pointed at random to a cuirass which hung amongst others, but was rather remarkable from being better cleansed.
“I should know that piece of iron,” said the warder bluntly, yet with some change in his voice; “for I have known a man within side of it who would not have endured half the impertinence I have heard spoken today.”
The tone of the old man, as well as the words, attracted the attention of Charles and the Duke of Ormond, who were only two steps before the speaker. They both stopped, and turned round; the former saying at the same time — “how now, sirrah! — what answers are these? — What man do you speak of?”
“Of one who is none now,” said the warder, “whatever he may have been.”
“The old man surely speaks of himself,” said the Duke of Ormond, closely examining the countenance of the warder, which he in vain endeavoured to turn away. “I am sure I remember these features — Are not you my old friend, Major Coleby?”
“I wish your Grace’s memory had been less accurate,” said the old man, colouring deeply, and fixing his eyes on the ground.
The King was greatly shocked. —“Good God!” he said, “the gallant Major Coleby, who joined us with his four sons and a hundred and fifty men at Warrington! — And is this all we could do for an old Worcester friend?”
The tears rushed thick into the old man’s eyes as he said in broken accents, “Never mind me, sire; I am well enough here — a worn-out soldier rusting among old armour. Where one old Cavalier is better, there are twenty worse. — I am sorry your Majesty should know anything of it, since it grieves you.”
With that kindness, which was a redeeming point of his character, Charles, while the old man was speaking, took the partisan from him with his own hand, and put it into that of Buckingham, saying, “What Coleby’s hand has borne, can disgrace neither yours nor mine — and you owe him this atonement. Time has been with him, that, for less provocation, he would have laid it about your ears.”
The Duke bowed deeply, but coloured with resentment, and took an immediate opportunity to place the weapon carelessly against a pile of arms. The King did not observe a contemptuous motion, which, perhaps, would not have pleased him, being at the moment occupied with the veteran, whom he exhorted to lean upon him, as he conveyed him to a seat, permitting no other person to assist him. “Rest there,” he said, “my brave old friend; and Charles Stewart must be poor indeed, if you wear that dress an hour longer. — You look very pale, my good Coleby, to have had so much colour a few minutes since. Be not vexed at what Buckingham says; no one minds his folly. — You look worse and worse. Come, come, you are too much hurried by this meeting. Sit still — do not rise — do not attempt to kneel. I command you to repose yourself till I have made the round of these apartments.”
The old Cavalier stooped his head in token of acquiescence in the command of his Sovereign, but he raised it not again. The tumultuous agitation of the moment had been too much for spirits which had been long in a state of depression, and health which was much decayed. When the King and his attendants, after half-an-hour’s absence, returned to the spot where they had left the veteran, they found him dead, and already cold, in the attitude of one who has fallen easily asleep. The King was dreadfully shocked; and it was with a low and faltering voice that he directed the body, in due time, to be honourably buried in the chapel of the Tower.* He was then silent, until he attained the steps in front of the arsenal, where the party in attendance upon his person began to assemble at his approach, along with some other persons of respectable appearance, whom curiosity had attracted.
* A story of this nature is current in the legends of the Tower. The affecting circumstances are, I believe, recorded in one of the little manuals which are put into the hands of visitors, but are not to be found in the later editions.
“This is dreadful,” said the King. “We must find some means of relieving the distresses, and rewarding the fidelity of our suffering followers, or posterity will cry fie upon our memory.”
“Your Majesty has had often such plans agitated in your Council,” said Buckingham.
“True, George,” said the King. “I can safely say it is not my fault. I have thought of it for years.”
“It cannot be too well considered,” said Buckingham; “besides, every year makes the task of relief easier.”
“True,” said the Duke of Ormond, “by diminishing the number of sufferers. Here is poor old Coleby will no longer be a burden to the Crown.”
“You are too severe, my Lord of Ormond,” said the King, “and should respect the feelings you trespass on. You cannot suppose that we would have permitted this poor man to hold such a situation, had we known of the circumstances?”
“For God’s sake, then, sire,” said the Duke of Ormond, “turn your eyes, which have just rested on the corpse of one old friend, upon the distresses of others. Here is the valiant old Sir Geoffrey Peveril of the Peak, who fought through the whole war, wherever blows were going, and was the last man, I believe, in England, who laid down his arms — Here is his son, of whom I have the highest accounts, as a gallant of spirit, accomplishments, and courage — Here is the unfortunate House of Derby — for pity’s sake, interfere in behalf of these victims, whom the folds of this hydra-plot have entangled, in order to crush them to death — rebuke the fiends that are seeking to devour their lives, and disappoint the harpies that are gaping for their property. This very day seven-night the unfortunate family, father and son, are to be brought upon trial for crimes of which they are as guiltless, I boldly pronounce, as any who stand in this presence. For God’s sake, sire, let us hope that, should the prejudices of the people condemn them, as it has done others, you will at last step in between the blood-hunters and their prey.”
The King looked, as he really was, exceedingly perplexed.
Buckingham, between whom and Ormond there existed a constant and almost mortal quarrel, interfered to effect a diversion in Charles’s favour. “Your Majesty’s royal benevolence,” he said, “needs never want exercise, while the Duke of Ormond is near your person. He has his sleeve cut in the old and ample fashion, that he may always have store of ruined cavaliers stowed in it to produce at demand, rare old raw-boned boys, with Malmsey noses, bald heads, spindle shanks, and merciless histories of Edgehill and Naseby.”
“My sleeve is, I dare say, of an antique cut,” said Ormond, looking full at the Duke; “but I pin neither bravoes nor ruffians upon it, my Lord of Buckingham, as I see fastened to coats of the new mode.”
“That is a little too sharp for our presence, my lord,” said the King.
“Not if I make my words good,” said Ormond. —“My Lord of Buckingham, will you name the man you spoke to as you left the boat?”
“I spoke to no one,” said the Duke hastily —“nay, I mistake, I remember a fellow whispered in my ear, that one, who I thought had left London was still lingering in town. A person whom I had business with.”
“Was yon the messenger?” said Ormond, singling out from the crowd who stood in the court-yard a tall dark-looking man, muffled in a large cloak, wearing a broad shadowy black beaver hat, with a long sword of the Spanish fashion — the very Colonel, in short, whom Buckingham had despatched in quest of Christian, with the intention of detaining him in the country.
When Buckingham’s eyes had followed the direction of Ormond’s finger, he could not help blushing so deeply as to attract the King’s attention.
“What new frolic is this, George?” he said. “Gentlemen, bring that fellow forward. On my life, a truculent-looking caitiff — Hark ye, friend, who are you? If an honest man, Nature has forgot to label it upon your countenance. — Does none here know him?
‘With every symptom of a knave complete,
If he be honest, he’s a devilish cheat.’”
“He is well known to many, sire,” replied Ormond; “and that he walks in this area with his neck safe, and his limbs unshackled, is an instance, amongst many, that we live under the sway of the most merciful Prince of Europe.”
“Oddsfish! who is the man, my Lord Duke?” said the King. “Your Grace talks mysteries — Buckingham blushes — and the rogue himself is dumb.”
“That honest gentleman, please your Majesty,” replied the Duke of Ormond, “whose modesty makes him mute, though it cannot make him blush, is the notorious Colonel Blood, as he calls himself, whose attempt to possess himself of your Majesty’s royal crown took place at no very distant date, in this very Tower of London.”
“That exploit is not easily forgotten,” said the King; “but that the fellow lives, shows your Grace’s clemency as well as mine.”
“I cannot deny that I was in his hands, sire,” said Ormond, “and had certainly been murdered by him, had he chosen to take my life on the spot, instead of destining me — I thank him for the honour — to be hanged at Tyburn. I had certainly been sped, if he had thought me worth knife or pistol, or anything short of the cord. — Look at him sire! If the rascal dared, he would say at this moment, like Caliban in the play, ‘Ho, ho, I would I had done it!’”
“Why, oddsfish!” answered the King, “he hath a villainous sneer, my lord, which seems to say as much; but, my Lord Duke, we have pardoned him, and so has your Grace.”
“It would ill have become me,” said the Duke of Ormond, “to have been severe in prosecuting an attempt on my poor life, when your Majesty was pleased to remit his more outrageous and insolent attempt upon your royal crown. But I must conceive it as a piece of supreme insolence on the part of this bloodthirsty bully, by whomsoever he may be now backed, to appear in the Tower, which was the theatre of one of his villainies, or before me, who was well-nigh the victim of another.”
“It shall be amended in future,” said the King. —“Hark ye, sirrah Blood, if you again presume to thrust yourself in the way you have done but now, I will have the hangman’s knife and your knavish ears made acquainted.”
Blood bowed, and with a coolness of impudence which did his nerves great honour, he said he had only come to the Tower accidentally, to communicate with a particular friend on business of importance. “My Lord Duke of Buckingham,” he said, “knew he had no other intentions.”
“Get you gone, you scoundrelly cut-throat,” said the Duke, as much impatient of Colonel Blood’s claim of acquaintance, as a town-rake of the low and blackguard companions of his midnight rambles, when they accost him in daylight amidst better company; “if you dare to quote my name again, I will have you thrown into the Thames.”
Blood, thus repulsed, turned round with the most insolent composure, and walked away down from the parade, all men looking at him, as at some strange and monstrous prodigy, so much was he renowned for daring and desperate villainy. Some even followed him, to have a better survey of the notorious Colonel Blood, like the smaller tribe of birds which keep fluttering round an owl when he appears in the light of the sun. But as, in the latter case, these thoughtless flutterers are careful to keep out of reach of the beak and claws of the bird of Minerva, so none of those who followed and gazed on Blood as something ominous, cared to bandy looks with him, or to endure and return the lowering and deadly glances, which he shot from time to time on those who pressed nearest to him. He stalked on in this manner, like a daunted, yet sullen wolf, afraid to stop, yet unwilling to fly, until he reached the Traitor’s Gate, and getting on board a sculler which waited for him, he disappeared from their eyes.
Charles would fain have obliterated all recollection of his appearance, by the observation, “It were a shame that such a reprobate scoundrel should be the subject of discord between two noblemen of distinction;” and he recommended to the Dukes of Buckingham and Ormond to join hands, and forget a misunderstanding which rose on so unworthy a subject.
Buckingham answered carelessly, “That the Duke of Ormond’s honoured white hairs were a sufficient apology for his making the first overtures to a reconciliation,” and he held out his hand accordingly. But Ormond only bowed in return, and said, “The King had no cause to expect that the Court would be disturbed by his personal resentments, since time would not yield him back twenty years, nor the grave restore his gallant son Ossory. As to the ruffian who had intruded himself there, he was obliged to him, since, by showing that his Majesty’s clemency extended even to the very worst of criminals, he strengthened his hopes of obtaining the King’s favour for such of his innocent friends as were now in prison, and in danger, from the odious charges brought against them on the score of the Popish Plot.”
The King made no other answer to this insinuation, than by directing that the company should embark for their return to Whitehall; and thus took leave of the officers of the Tower who were in attendance, with one of those well-turned compliments to their discharge of duty, which no man knew better how to express; and issued at the same time strict and anxious orders for protection and defence of the important fortress confided to them, and all which it contained.
Before he parted with Ormond on their arrival at Whitehall, he turned round to him, as one who has made up his resolution, and said, “Be satisfied, my Lord Duke — our friends’ case shall be looked to.”
In the same evening the Attorney-General, and North, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, had orders with all secrecy, to meet his Majesty that evening on especial matters of state, at the apartments of Chiffinch, the centre of all affairs, whether of gallantry or business.