Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📕

“it scarce argues the respect due to me, or to my roof.”

“I know not what you mean, my lord,” replied Christian.

“Nay, I care not if the whole world heard what I said but now to Jerningham. But to the matter,” replied the Duke of Buckingham.

“Your Grace is so much occupied with conquests over the fair and over the witty, that you have perhaps forgotten what a stake you have in the little Island of Man.”

“Not a whit, Master Christian. I remember well enough that my roundheaded father-in-law, Fairfax, had the island from the Long Parliament; and was ass enough to quit hold of it at the Restoration, when, if he had closed his clutches, and held fast, like a true bird of prey, as he should have done, he might have kept it for him and his. It had been a rare thing to have had a little kingdom—made laws of my own—had my Chamberlain with his white staff—I would have taught Jerningham, in half a day, to look as wise, walk as stiffly, and speak as silly, as Harry Bennet.”

“You might have done this, and more, if it had pleased your Grace.”

“Ay, and if it had pleased my Grace, thou, Ned Christian, shouldst have been the Jack Ketch of my dominions.”

“I your Jack Ketch, my lord?” said Christian, more in a tone of surprise than of displeasure.

“Why, ay; thou hast been perpetually intriguing against the life of yonder poor old woman. It were a kingdom to thee to gratify thy spleen with thy own hands.”

“I only seek justice against the Countess,” said Christian.

“And the end of justice is always a gibbet,” said the Duke.

“Be it so,” answered Christian. “Well, the Countess is in the Plot.”

“The devil confound the Plot, as I believe he first invented it!” said the Duke of Buckingham; “I have heard of nothing else for months. If one must go to hell, I would it were by some new road, and in gentlemen’s company. I should not like to travel with Oates, Bedloe, and the rest of that famous cloud of witnesses.”

“Your Grace is then resolved to forego all the advantages which may arise? If the House of Derby fall under forfeiture, the grant to Fairfax, now worthily represented by your Duchess, revives, and you become the Lord and Sovereign of Man.”

“In right of a woman,” said the Duke; “but, in troth, my godly dame owes me some advantage for having lived the first year of our marriage with her and old Black Tom, her grim, fighting, puritanic father. A man might as well have married the Devil’s daughter, and set up housekeeping with his father-in-law.” [*]

[*] Mary, daughter of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was wedded to the Duke of Buckingham, whose versatility made him capable of rendering himself for a time as agreeable to his father-in-law, though a rigid Presbyterian, as to the gay Charles II.

“I understand you are willing, then, to join your interest for a heave at the House of Derby, my Lord Duke?”

“As they are unlawfully possessed of my wife’s kingdom, they certainly can expect no favour at my hand. But thou knowest there is an interest at Whitehall predominant over mine.”

“That is only by your Grace’s sufferance,” said Christian.

“No, no; I tell thee a hundred times, no,” said the Duke, rousing himself to anger at the recollection. “I tell thee that base courtezan, the Duchess of Portsmouth, hath impudently set herself to thwart and contradict me; and Charles has given me both cloudy looks and hard words before the Court. I would he could but guess what is the offence between her and me! I would he knew but that! But I will have her plumes picked, or my name is not Villiers. A worthless French fille-de-joie to brave me thus!—Christian, thou art right; there is no passion so spirit-stirring as revenge. I will patronise the Plot, if it be but to spite her, and make it impossible for the King to uphold her.”

As the Duke spoke, he gradually wrought himself into a passion, and traversed the apartment with as much vehemence as if the only object he had on earth was to deprive the Duchess of her power and favour with the King. Christian smiled internally to see him approach the state of mind in which he was most easily worked upon, and judiciously kept silence, until the Duke called out to him, in a pet, “Well, Sir Oracle, you that have laid so many schemes to supplant this she-wolf of Gaul, where are all your contrivances now?—Where is the exquisite beauty who was to catch the Sovereign’s eye at the first glance?—Chiffinch, hath he seen her?—and what does he say, that exquisite critic in beauty and blank-mange, women and wine?”

“He has seen and approves, but has not yet heard her; and her speech answers to all the rest. We came here yesterday; and to-day I intend to introduce Chiffinch to her, the instant he arrives from the country; and I expect him every hour. I am but afraid of the damsel’s peevish virtue, for she hath been brought up after the fashion of our grandmothers—our mothers had better sense.”

“What! so fair, so young, so quick-witted, and so difficult?” said the Duke. “By your leave, you shall introduce me as well as Chiffinch.”

“That your Grace may cure her of her intractable modesty?” said Christian.

“Why,” replied the Duke, “it will but teach her to stand in her own light. Kings do not love to court and sue; they should have their game run down for them.”

“Under your Grace’s favour,” said Christian, “this cannot be—Non omnibus dormio—Your Grace knows the classic allusion. If this maiden become a Prince’s favourite, rank gilds the shame and the sin. But to any under Majesty, she must not vail topsail.”

“Why, thou suspicious fool, I was but in jest,” said the Duke. “Do you think I would interfere to spoil a plan so much to my own advantage as that which you have laid before me?”

Christian smiled and shook his head. “My lord,” he said, “I know your Grace as well, or better, perhaps, than you know yourself. To spoil a well-concerted intrigue by some cross stroke of your own, would give you more pleasure, than to bring it to a successful termination according to the plans of others. But Shaftesbury, and all concerned, have determined that our scheme shall at least have fair play. We reckon, therefore, on your help; and—forgive me when I say so—we will not permit ourselves to be impeded by your levity and fickleness of purpose.”

“Who?—I light and fickle of purpose?” said the Duke. “You see me here as resolved as any of you, to dispossess the mistress, and to carry on the plot; these are the only two things I live for in this world. No one can play the man of business like me, when I please, to the very filing and labelling of my letters. I am regular as a scrivener.”

“You have Chiffinch’s letter from the country; he told me he had written to you about some passages betwixt him and the young Lord Saville.”

“He did so—he did so,” said the Duke, looking among his letters;