Peveril of the Peak

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.

CHAPTER XXXIV

              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 François, – 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 estramaçon – 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.”