musicians, which the King, whose taste was indisputable, had himself selected. "Certainly," said the King; "that is, if the incognita be really entitled to the honour.-It may be as well to inquire her title-there are more madwomen abroad than the Duchess of Newcastle. I will walk into the anteroom myself, and receive your answer." But ere Charles had reached the lower end of the apartment in his progress to the anteroom, the usher surprised the assembly by announcing a name which had not for many a year been heard in these courtly halls-" the Countess of Derby!" At other tables in the apartment, the elder courtiers worshipped Fortune, at the various fashionable games of orbre, quadrille, hazard, and the like; while heaps of gold which lay before the players, augmented or dwindled with every turn of a card or cast of a die. Many a years' rent of fair estates was ventured upon the main or the odds; which, spent in the old deserted manor-house, had repaired the ravages of Cromwell upon its walls, and replaced the sources of Stately and tall, and still, at an advanced period of good housekeeping and hospitality, that, exhausted life, having a person unbroken by years, the noble in the last age by fine and sequestration, were now lady advanced towards her sovereign, with a step rein a fair way of being annihilated by careless prodi-sembling that with which she might have met an gality. Elsewhere, under cover of observing the equal. There was indeed nothing in her manner that gamester, or listening to the music, the gallantries of indicated either haughtiness or assumption unbecomthat all-licensed age were practised among the gay ing that presence; but her consciousness of wrongs, and fair, closely watched the whilst by the ugly or sustained from the administration of Charles, and of the old, who promised themselves at least the pleasure the superiority of the injured party over those from of observing, and it may be that of proclaiming, in- whom, or in whose name, the injury had been offered, trigues in which they could not be sharers. gave her look dignity and her step firmness. She was From one table to another glided the merry Mo-dressed in widow's weeds, of the same fashion which narch, exchanging now a glance with a Court beauty, now a jest with a Court wit, now beating time to the music, and anon losing or winning a few pieces of gold on the chance of the game to which he stood nearest ;-the most amiable of voluptuaries-the gayest and best-natured of companions-the man that would, of all others, have best sustained his character, had life been a continued banquet, and its only end to enjoy the passing hour, and send it away as pleasantly as might be. were worn at the time her husband was brought to the scaffold; and which, in the thirty years subsequent to that event, she had never permitted her tirewoman to alter. The surprise was no pleasing one to the King; and cursing in his heart the rashness which had allowed the lady entrance on the gay scene in which they were engaged, he saw at the same time the necessity of receiving her in a manner suitable to his own character, and her rank in the British Court. He ap threw all his natural grace, while he began, " Chere Comptesse de Derby, puissante Reine de Man, notre très auguste sœur" But Kings are least of all exempted from the ordina-proached her with an air of welcome, into which he ry lot of humanity; and Seged of Ethiopia is, amongst monarchs, no solitary example of the vanity of reckoning on a day or an hour of undisturbed serenity. An attendant on the Court announced suddenly to their Majesties that a lady, who would only announce herself as a Peeress of England, desired to be admitted into the presence. The Queen said, hastily, it was impossible. No peeress, without announcing her title, was entitled to the privilege of her rank. "I could be sworn," said a nobleman in attendance, "that it is some whim of the Duchess of Newcastle." The attendant, who brought the message, said that he did indeed believe it to be the Duchess, both from the singularity of the message, and that the lady spoke with somewhat a foreign accent. 'Speak English, sire, if I may presume to ask such a favour," said the Countess, "I am a Peeress of this nation-mother to one English Earl, and widow, alas, to another! In England I have spent my brief days of happiness, my long years of widowhood and sorrow. France and its language are but to me the dreams of an uninteresting childhood. I know no tongue save that of my husband and my son. Permit me, as the widow and mother of Derby, thus to render my homage." She would have kneeled, but the King gracefully prevented her, and, saluting her cheek, according to the form, led her towards the Queen, and himself performed the ceremony of introduction. "Your Ma"In the name of madness, then," said the King, jesty," he said, "must be informed that the Countess "let us admit her. Her Grace is an entire raree-show has imposed a restriction on French--the language of in her own person-a universal masquerade-indeed gallantry and compliment. I trust your Majesty will, a sort of private Bedlam-hospital, her whole ideas though a foreigner like herself, find enough of honest being like so many patients crazed upon the subjects English to assure the Countess of Derby, with what of love and literature, who act nothing in their vaga-pleasure we see her at Court, after the absence of so ries, save Minerva, Venus, and the nine Muses." "Your Majesty's pleasure must always supersede mine," said the Queen. "I only hope I shall not be expected to entertain so fantastic a personage. The last time she came to Court, Isabella,"-(she spoke to one of her Portuguese ladies of honour)-"you had not returned from our lovely Lisbon,-her Grace had the assurance to assume a right to bring a train-bearer into my apartment; and when this was not allowed, what then, think you, she did ?-even caused her train to be made so long, that three mortal yards of satin and silver remained in the antechamber, supported by four wenches, while the other end was attached to her Grace's person, as she paid her duty at the upper end of the presence-room. Full thirty yards of the most beautiful silk did her Grace's madness employ in this manner.' many years. "I will endeavour to do so at least," said the Queen, on whom the appearance of the Countess of Derby made a more favourable impression than that of many strangers, whom, at the King's request she was in the habit of receiving with courtesy. Charles himself again spoke. "To any other lady of the same rank I might put the question, why she was so long absent from the circle? I fear I can only ask the Countess of Derby, what fortunate cause produces the pleasure of seeing her here? "No fortunate cause, my liege, though one most strong and urgent." The King augured nothing agreeable from this commencement; and in truth, from the Countess's first entrance, he had anticipated some unpleasant expla nation, which he therefore hastened to parry, having first composed his features into an expression of sym And most beautiful damsels they were who bore this portentous train," said the King-" a train never|pathy and interest. equalled save by that of the great comet in sixty-six. Sedley and Etherege told us wonders of them; for it is one advantage of this new fashion brought up by the Duchess, that a matron may be totally unconscious of the coquetry of her train and its attend ants.' Am I to understand, then, your Majesty's pleasure is, that the lady is to be admitted?" said the usher. "If," said he, "the cause is of a nature in which we can render assistance, we cannot expect your ladyship should enter upon it at the present time; but a memorial addressed to our secretary, or, if it is more satisfactory, to ourselves directly, will receive our immediate, and, I trust I need not add, our favourable construction." The Countess bowed with some state, and answered, "My business, sire, is indeed important; but CHAP. XLVI.] PEVERIL OF THE PEAK. so brief, that it need not for more than a few minutes, changed since we were young. Men fought in the And now that we have met," said the King, taking her hand kindly-"a meeting which gives me the greatest pleasure-may I recommend to you speedily to return to your royal island with as little eclat as vou came hither? The world, my dear Countess, has CHAPTER XLVI. Here stand I tight and trim, Lay of the Little John de Saintre. WHEN Charles had re-conducted the Countess of Derby into the presence-chamber, before he parted verned by good counsel, and to regard her own with her, he entreated her, in a whisper, to be godistribute his attentions equally among the other safety; and then turned easily from her, as if to guests. These were a good deal circumscribed at the inone of whom, a German, under the patronage of the stant by the arrival of a party of five or six musicians; Duke of Buckingham, was particularly renowned for his performance on the violoncello, but had been detained in inactivity in the antechamber by the nonarrival of his instrument, which had now at length made its appearance. The domestic who placed it before the owner, shrouded as it was within its wooden case, seemed heartily glad to be rid of his load, and lingered for a moment, as if interested in discovering what sort of instrument was to be produced that could weigh so heavily. His curiosity was satisfied, and in a most extraordinary manner; for, while the musician was fumbling with the key, the case being for his greater convenience placed upright against the wall, the case and instrument itself at once flew open, and out started the dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson, at sight of whose unearthly appearance, thus suddenly introduced, the ladies shrieked, and ran backwards; the gentlemen started; and the poor German, on seeing the portentous delivery of his fiddle case, tumbled on the floor in an agony, supposing, it might be, that his instrument was metamorphosed into the strange figure which supplied its place. So soon, however, as he recovered, he glided out of the apartment, and was followed by most of his companions. "Hudson!" said the King-"My little old friend, I am not sorry to see you; though Buckingham, who I suppose is the purveyor of this jest, hath served us up but a stale one." "Will your Majesty honour me with one moment's attention?" said Hudson. "Assuredly, my good friend," said the King. "Old acquaintances are springing up in every quarter tonight; and our leisure can hardly be better employed than in listening to them.-It was an idle trick of Buckingham," he added, in a whisper to Ormond, "to send the poor thing hither, especially as he was to-day tried for the affair of the Plot. At any rate, he comes not to ask protection from us, having had the rare fortune to come off Plot-free. He is but fishing, I suppose, for some little present or pension." The little man, precise in Court etiquette, yet impatient of the King's delaying to attend to him, stood in the midst of the floor, most valorously pawing and prancing, like a Scots pony assuming the airs of a war-horse, waving mean while his little hat with the tarnished feather, and bowing from time to time, as if impatient to be heard. Speak on, then, my friend," said Charles; "if thou hast some poetical address penned for thee, out with it, that thou mayst have time to repose these flourishing little limbs of thine." words in private with our little friend. You, my Lord of Ormond-you, Arlington," (and he named one or two others,) "may remain with us." The gay crowd bore back, and dispersed through the apartment-the men to conjecture what the end of this mummery, as they supposed it, was likely to prove; and what jest, as Sedley said, the bass-fiddle had been brought to bed of-and the ladies to admire and criticise the antique dress and richly embroidered ruff and hood of the Countess of Derby, to whom the Queen was showing particular attention. And now, in the name of Heaven, and amongst friends," said the King to the dwarf, "what means all this?" "Treason my lord the King!-Treason to his Majesty of England!-When I was chambered in yonder instrument, my lord, the High-Dutch fellows who bore me, carried me into a certain chapel, to see, as they said to each other, that all was ready. Sire, I went where bass-fiddle never went before, even into a conventicle of Fifth-Monarchists; and when they brought me away, the preacher was concluding his sermon, and was within a 'Now to apply' of setting off like the bell-wether at the head of his flock, to surprise your Majesty in your royal Court! I heard him through the sound-holes of my instrument, when the fellow set me down for a moment to profit by this precious doctrine." "It would be singular," said Lord Arlington, "were there some reality at the bottom of this buffoonery; for we know these wild men have been consulting together to-day, and five conventicles have held a solemn fast." "Nay," said the King, "if that be the case, they are certainly determined on some villany." "Might I advise," said the Duke of Ormond, "I would summon the Duke of Buckingham. to this presence. His connexions with the fanatics are well known, though he affects to conceal them." canst devise. I would fain save him from what lawyers call an overt act. The Court would be dull as a dead horse, were Buckingham to miscarry." แ 'Will not your Majesty order the Horse Guards to turn out?" said young Selby, who was present and an officer. "You would not, my lord, do his Grace the injustice to treat him as a criminal on such a charge as this?" said the King. 'However," he added, after a moment's consideration, Buckingham is accessible to every sort of temptation, from the flightiness of his genius. I should not be surprised if he nourished hopes of an aspiring kind-I think we had some proof of it but lately.-Hark ye, Chiffinch; go to him No poetical speech have I, most mighty Sove-instantly, and bring him here on any fair pretext thou reign," answered the dwarf; "but, in plain and most loyal prose, I do accuse, before this company, the once noble Duke of Buckingham of high treason!" "Well spoken, and manfully-Get on, man," said the King, who never doubted that this was the introduction to something burlesque or witty, not conceiving that the charge was made in solemn earnest. A great laugh took place among such courtiers as heard, and among many who did not hear, what was uttered by the dwarf; the former entertained by the extravagant emphasis and gesticulation of the little champion, and the others laughing not the less loud that they laughed for example's sake, and upon trust. "What matter is there for all this mirth ?" said he, very indignantly-"Is it fit subject for laughing, that I, Geoffrey Hudson, Knight, do, before King and nobles, impeach George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, of high treason?" "No subject of mirth, certainly," said Charles, composing his features; "but great matter of wonder.-Come, cease this mouthing, and prancing, and mummery. If there be a jest, come out with it, man; and if not, even get thee to the beauffet, and drink a cup of wine to refresh thee after thy close lodging." I tell you, my liege," said Hudson, impatiently, yet in a whisper, intended only to be audible by the King, that if you spend over much time in trifling, you will be convinced by dire experience of Buckingham's treason. I tell you, I asseverate to your Majesty, two hundred armed fanatics will be here within the hour, to surprise the guards." 'Stand back, ladies," said the King, "or you may hear more than you will care to listen to. My Lord of Buckingham's jests are not always, you know, quite fitted for female ears; besides, we want a few "No, Selby," said the King, "I like not horse-play. But let them be prepared; and let the High Bailiff collect his civil officers, and command the Sheriff to summon their worshipful attendants, from javelinmen to hangmen,* and have them in readiness, in case of any sudden tumult-double the sentinels on the doors of the palace--and see no strangers get in." "Or out," said the Duke of Ormond. Where are the foreign fellows who brought in the dwarf?" They were sought for, but they were not to be found. They had retreated, leaving their instruments-a circumstance which seemed to bear hard on the Duke of Buckingham, their patron. *It can hardly be forgotten that one of the great difficulties of Charles II.'s reign was to obtain for the crown the power of choosing the sheriffs of London. Roger North gives a lively account of his brother, Sir Dudley North, who agreed to serve mults about burning the Pope, because that is accounted for in for the court. "I omit the share he had in composing the tu the Examen, and the life of the Lord Keeper North. Neither is there occasion to say any thing of the rise and discovery of the Rye Plot, for the same reason. Nor is my subject much concerned with this latter, farther than that the conspirators had taken especial care of Sir Dudley North. For he was one of those who, if they had succeeded, was to have been knocked on the head, and his skin to be stuffed, and hung up in Guildhall. But, all that apart, he reckoned it a great unhappiness, that so many trials for high treason, and executions, should happen in his year. However in these affairs, the sheriffs were passive; for all returns of panels, and other despatches of the law, were issued and done by under-officers; which was a fair screen for them The keep order, which was enough for them to do. I have heard Sir attended at the trials and executions, to coerce the crowds, and Dudley North say, that, striking with his cane, he wondered to Hasty preparations were made to provide resistance | desty," said the King, "But what chanced next? to any effort of despair which the supposed conspira- Be brief-be like thyself, man." tors might be driven to; and in the mean while, the King, withdrawing with Arlington, Ormond, and a few other counsellors, into the cabinet where the Countess of Derby had had her audience, resumed the examination of the little discoverer. His declaration, though singular, was quite coherent; the strain of romance intermingled with it, being in fact a part of his character, which often gained him the fate of being laughed at, when he would otherwise have been pitied, or even esteemed. He commenced with a flourish about his sufferings for the Plot, which the impatience of Ormond would have cut short, had not the King reminded his Grace, that a top, when it is not flogged, must needs go down of itself at the end of a definite time, while the application of the whip may keep it up for hours. Geoffrey Hudson was, therefore, allowed to exhaust himself on the subject of his prison-house, which he informed the King was not without a beam of light -an emanation of loveliness-a mortal angel-quick of step and beautiful of eye, who had more than once visited his confinement with words of cheering and comfort. "By my faith," said the King, "they fare better in Newgate than I was aware of. Who would have thought of the little gentleman being solaced with female society in such a place?" "I pray your Majesty," said the dwarf, after the manner of a solemn protest," to understand nothing amiss. My devotion to this fair creature is rather like what we poor Catholics pay to the blessed saints, than mixed with any grosser quality. Indeed, she seems rather a sylphid of the Rosicrucian system, than aught more carnal; being slighter, lighter, and less than the females of common life, who have something of that coarseness of make which is doubtless derived from the sinful and gigantic race of the antediluvians." "Well, say on, man," quoth Charles. "Didst thou not discover this sylph to be a mere mortal wench after all ?" "Who?-I, my liege ?-O fie!" "Nay, little gentleman, do not be so particularly scandalized," said the King; "I promise you I suspect you of no audacity of gallantry." "Time wears fast," said the Duke of Ormond, impatiently, and looking at his watch. 'Chiffinch hath been gone ten minutes, and ten minutes will bring him back. "True," said Charles gravely. "Come to the point, Hudson; and tell us what this female has to do with your coming hither in this extraordinary manner." "Every thing, my lord," said little Hudson. "I saw her twice during my confinement in Newgate, and, in my thought, she is the very angel who guards my life and welfare; for, after my acquittal, as I walked towards the city with two tall gentlemen, who had been in trouble along with me, and just while we stood to our defence against a rascally mob, and just as I had taken possession of an elevated situation to have some vantage against the great odds of numbers, I heard a heavenly voice sound, as it were, from a window behind me, counselling me to take refuge in a certain house; to which measure I readily persuaded my gallant friends the Peverils, who have always shown themselves willing to be counselled by me. "Showing therein their wisdom at once and mosee what blows his countrymen would take upon their bare heads, and never look up at it. And indeed, nothing can match the zeal of the common people to see executions. The worst grievance was the executioner coming to him for orders, touching the abscinded members, and to know where to dispose of them. Once, while he was abroad, a cart, with some of them, came into the court-yard of his house, and frighted his lady almost out of her wits; and she could never be reconciled to the dog hangman's saying he came to speak with his master. These are inconveniences that attend the stations of public magistracy, and are necessary to be borne with, as magistracy itself is necessary. I have now no more to say of any incidents during the shrievalty; but that, at the year's end, he delivered up his charges to his successor in like manner as he had received them from his predecessor; and, having reinstated his family, he lived well and easy at his own house, as he did before these disturb ances put him out of order." ambuscades and concealments-I am accustomed to them-have lurked in the pocket of a giant, and have formed the contents of a pasty. Get in, then,' she said, and lose no time.' Nevertheless, while I prepared to obey, I will not deny that some cold apprehensions came over my hot valour, and I confessed to her, if it might so be, I would rather find my way to the palace on my own feet. But she would not listen to me, saying hastily, 'I would be intercepted, or refused admittance, and that I must embrace the means she offered me of introduction into the presence, and when there, tell the King to be on his guard-little more is necessary; for once the scheme is known it becomes desperate.' Rashly and boldly, I bid adieu to the daylight which was then fading away. She withdrew the contents of the instrument destined for my concealment, and having put them behind the chimney-board, introduced me in their room. As she clasped me in, I implored her to warn the men who were to be intrusted with me, to take heed and keep the neck of the violoncello uppermost; but ere I had completed my request, I found I was left alone, and in darkness. Presently, two or three fellows entered, whom, by their language, which I in some sort understood, I perceived to be Germans, and under the influence of the Duke of Buckingham. I heard them receive from the leader a charge how they were to deport themselves, when they should assume the concealed arms -and-for I will do the Duke no wrong-I understood their orders were precise, not only to spare the person of the King, but also those of the courtiers, and to protect all who might be in the presence against an irruption of the fanatics. In other respects, they had charge to disarm the gentleman-pensioners in the guard-room, and, in fine, to obtain the command of the Court." The King looked disconcerted and thoughtful at this communication, and bade Lord Arlington see that Selby quietly made search into the contents of the other cases which had been brought as containing musical instruments. He then signed to the dwarf to proceed in his story, asking him again and again, and very solemnly, whether he was sure that he heard the Duke's name mentioned, as commanding or approving this action. The dwarf answered in the affirmative. "This," said the King, "is carrying the frolic somewhat far." The dwarf proceeded to state, that he was carried after his metamorphosis into the chapel, where he heard the preacher seemingly about the close of his harangue, the tenor of which he also mentioned. Words, he said, could not express the agony which he felt when he found that his bearer, in placing the instrument in a corner, was about to invert its position, in which case, he said, human frailty might have proved too great for love, for loyalty, for true obedience, nay, for the fear of death, which was like to ensue on discovery; and he concluded, that he greatly doubted he could not have stood on his head for many minutes without screaming aloud. "I could not have blamed you," said the King; "placed in such a posture in the royal oak, I must eeds have roared myself.-Is this all you have to lus of this strange conspiracy?" Sir Geoffrey Hudson replied in the affirmative, and the King presently subjoined-"Go my little friend, your services shall not be forgotten. Since thou hast crept into the bowels of a fiddle for our service, we are bound, in duty and conscience, to find you a more roomy dwelling in future." "It was a violoncello, if your Majesty is pleased to remember," said the little jealous man, not a common fiddle; though, for your Majesty's service, I would have crept even into a kit." "Whatever of that nature could have been performed by any subject of ours, thou wouldst have enacted in our behalf-of that we hold ourselves certain. Withdraw for a little; and hark ye, for the present, beware what you say about this matter. Let your appearance be considered-do you mark me-as a frolic of the Duke of Buckingham'; and not a word of conspiracy." "Were it not, better to put him under some restraint, sire?" said the Duke of Ormond, when Hudson had left the room. "It is unnecessary," said the King. "I remember the little wretch of old. Fortune, to make him the model of absurdity, has closed a most lofty soul within that little miserable carcass. For wielding his sword and keeping his word, he is a perfect Don Quixote in decimo-octavo. He shall be taken care of. But, oddsfish, my lords, is not this freak of Buckingham too villanous and ungrateful?” He had not had the means of being so, had your Majesty," said the Duke of Ormond, "been less le nient on other occasions." 'My lord, my lord," said Charles, hastily-"your lordship is Buckingham's known enemy-we will take other and more impartial counsel.-Arlington, what think you of all this?" "May it please your Majesty," said Arlington, "I think the thing is absolutely impossible, unless the Duke has had some quarrel with your Majesty, of which we know nothing. His Grace is very flighty, doubtless, but this seems actual insanity." "Why, faith," said the King, "some words passed betwixt us this morning-his Duchess it seems is dead-and to lose no time, his Grace had cast his eyes about for means of repairing the loss, and had the assurance to ask our consent to woo my niece Lady Anne." 46 'Which your Majesty of course rejected?" said the statesman." And not without rebuking his assurance," added the King, "In private, sir, or before any witness?" said the Duke of Ormond. "Before no one, said the King,-"excepting, indeed, little Chiffinch; and he, you know, is no one.' "Hinc illæ lachryma," said Ormond. "I know his Grace well. While the rebuke of his aspiring petulance was a matter betwixt your Majesty and him, he might have let it pass by; but a check before a fellow from whom it was likely enough to travel through the Court was a matter to be revenged." Here Selby came hastily from the other room, to say, that his Grace of Buckingham had just entered the presence chamber. The King rose. "Let a boat be in readiness, with a party of the yeomen," said he. "It may be necessary to attach him of treason, and send him to the Tower." "Should not a Secretary of State's warrant be prepared?" said Ormond. No, my Lord Duke," said the King, sharply. "I still hope that the necessity may be avoided." |