Peveril of the Peak

harming, or being accessory to harm, your person.'

'I do not believe it,' said the King; 'I think of you, Villiers, as the companion of my dangers and my exile, and am so far from supposing you mean worse than you say, that I am convinced you acknowledge more than ever you meant to attempt.'

'By all that is sacred,' said the Duke, still kneeling, 'had I not been involved to the extent of life and fortune with the villain Christian——'

'Nay, if you bring Christian on the stage again,' said the King, smiling, 'it is time for me to withdraw. Come, Villiers, rise—I forgive thee, and only recommend one act of penance—the curse you yourself bestowed on the dog who bit you—marriage, and retirement to your country-seat.'

The Duke rose abashed, and followed the King into the circle, which Charles entered, leaning on the shoulder of his repentant peer; to whom he showed so much countenance, as led the most acute observers present, to doubt the possibility of there existing any real cause for the surmises to the Duke's prejudice.

The Countess of Derby had in the meanwhile consulted with the Duke of Ormond, with the Peverils, and with her other friends; and, by their unanimous advice, though with considerable difficulty, became satisfied, that to have thus shown herself at Court, was sufficient to vindicate the honour of her house; and that it was her wisest course, after having done so, to retire to her insular dominions, without farther provoking the resentment of a powerful faction. She took farewell of the King in form, and demanded his permission to carry back with her the helpless creature who had so strangely escaped from her protection, into a world where her condition rendered her so subject to every species of misfortune.

'Will your ladyship forgive me?' said Charles. 'I have studied your sex long—I am mistaken if your little maiden is not as capable of caring for herself as any of us.'

'Impossible!' said the Countess.

'Possible, and most true,' whispered the King. 'I will instantly convince you of the fact, though the experiment is too delicate to be made by any but your ladyship. Yonder she stands, looking as if she heard no more than the marble pillar against which she leans. Now, if Lady Derby will contrive either to place her hand near the region of the damsel's heart, or at least on her arm, so that she can feel the sensation of the blood when the pulse increases, then do you, my Lord of Ormond, beckon Julian Peveril out of sight—I will show you in a moment that it can stir at sounds spoken.'

The Countess, much surprised, afraid of some embarrassing pleasantry on the part of Charles, yet unable to repress her curiosity, placed herself near Fenella, as she called her little mute; and, while making signs to her, contrived to place her hand on her wrist.

At this moment the King, passing near them, said, 'This is a horrid deed—the villain Christian has stabbed young Peveril!'

The mute evidence of the pulse, which bounded as if a cannon had been discharged close by the poor girl's ear, was accompanied by such a loud scream of agony, as distressed, while it startled, the good-natured monarch himself. 'I did but jest,' he said; 'Julian is well, my pretty maiden. I only used the wand of a certain blind deity, called Cupid, to bring a deaf and dumb vassal of his to the exercise of her faculties.'

'I am betrayed!' she said, with her eyes fixed on the ground—'I am betrayed!—and it is fit that she, whose life has been spent in practising treason on others, should be caught in her own snare. But where is my tutor in iniquity?—where is Christian, who taught me to play the part of spy on this unsuspicious lady, until I had well-nigh delivered her into his bloody hands?'

'This,' said the King, 'craves more secret examination. Let all leave the apartment who are not immediately connected with these proceedings, and let this Christian be again brought before us.—Wretched man,' he continued, addressing Christian, 'what wiles are these you have practised, and by what extraordinary means?'

'She has betrayed me, then!' said Christian—'Betrayed me to bonds and death, merely for an idle passion, which can never be successful!—But know, Zarah,' he added, addressing her sternly, 'when my life is forfeited through thy evidence, the daughter has murdered the father!'

The unfortunate girl stared on him in astonishment. 'You said,' at length she stammered forth, 'that I was the daughter of your slaughtered brother?'

'That was partly to reconcile thee to the part thou wert to play in my destined drama of vengeance—partly to hide what men call the infamy of thy birth. But my daughter thou art! and from the eastern clime, in which thy mother was born, you derive that fierce torrent of passion which I laboured to train to my purposes, but which, turned into another channel, has become the cause of your father's destruction.—My destiny is the Tower, I suppose?'

He spoke these words with great composure, and scarce seemed to regard the agonies of his daughter, who, throwing herself at his feet, sobbed and wept most bitterly.

'This must not be,' said the King, moved with compassion at this scene of misery. 'If you consent, Christian, to leave this country, there is a vessel in the river bound for New England—Go, carry your dark intrigues to other lands.'

'I might dispute the sentence,' said Christian boldly; 'and if I submit to it, it is a matter of my own choice.— One half-hour had made me even with that proud woman, but fortune hath cast the balance against me.—Rise, Zarah, Fenella no more! Tell the Lady of Derby, that, if the daughter of Edward Christian, the niece of her murdered victim, served her as a menial, it was but for the purpose of vengeance—miserably, miserably frustrated!—Thou seest thy folly now—thou wouldst follow yonder ungrateful stripling—thou wouldst forsake all other thoughts to gain his slightest notice; and now thou art a forlorn outcast, ridiculed and insulted by those on whose necks you might have trod, had you governed yourself with more wisdom!—But come, thou art still my daughter—there are other skies than that which canopies Britain.'

'Stop him,' said the King; 'we must know by what means this maiden found access to those confined in our prisons.'

'I refer your Majesty to your most Protestant jailer, and to the most Protestant Peers, who, in order to obtain perfect knowledge of the depth of the Popish Plot, have contrived these ingenious apertures for visiting them in their cells by night or day. His Grace of Buckingham can assist your Majesty, if you are inclined to make the inquiry.'[34]

'Christian,' said the Duke, 'thou art the most barefaced villain who ever breathed.'

'Of a commoner, I may,' answered Christian, and led his daughter out of the presence.

'See after him, Selby,' said the King; 'lose not sight of him till the ship sail; if he dare return to Britain, it shall be at his peril. Would to God we had as good riddance of others as dangerous! And I would also,' he added, after a moment's pause, 'that all our political intrigues and feverish alarms could terminate as harmlessly as now. Here is a plot without a drop of blood; and all the elements of a romance, without its conclusion. Here we have a wandering island princess (I pray my Lady of Derby's pardon), a dwarf, a Moorish sorceress, an impenitent rogue, and a repentant man of rank, and yet all ends without either hanging or marriage.'

'Not altogether without the latter,' said the Countess, who had an opportunity, during the evening, of much private conversation with Julian Peveril. 'There is a certain Major Bridgenorth, who, since your Majesty relinquishes farther inquiry into these proceedings, which he had otherwise intended to abide, designs, as we are informed, to leave England for ever. Now, this Bridgenorth, by dint of law, hath acquired strong possession over the domains of Peveril, which he is desirous to restore to the ancient owners, with much fair land besides, conditionally, that our young Julian will receive them as the dowry of his only child and heir.'

'By my faith,' said the King, 'she must be a foul-favoured wench, indeed, if Julian requires to be pressed to accept her on such fair conditions.'

'They love each other like lovers of the last age,' said the Countess; 'but the stout old Knight likes not the round-headed alliance.'

'Our royal recommendation shall put that to rights,' said the King; 'Sir Geoffrey Peveril has not suffered hardship so often at our command, that he will refuse our recommendation when it comes to make him amends for all his losses.'

It may be supposed the King did not speak without being fully aware of the unlimited ascendancy which he possessed over the old Tory; for within four weeks afterwards, the bells of Martindale-Moultrassie were ringing for the union of the families, from whose estates it takes its compound name, and the beacon-light of the Castle blazed high over hill and dale, and summoned all to rejoice who were within twenty miles of its gleam.