Peveril of the Peak

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 to-day 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 congee, 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 to- day.'

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