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

the fowl of ill augury which he resembles.”

The Colonel, to whom no other appellation seemed to be given, than that which belonged to his military station, now entered the apartment. He was tall, strongly built, and past the middle period of life, and his countenance, but for the heavy cloud which dwelt upon it, might have been pronounced a handsome one. While the Duke spoke to him, either from humility or some other cause, his large serious eye was cast down upon the ground; but he raised it when he answered, with a keen look of earnest observation. His dress was very plain, and more allied to that of the Puritans than of the Cavaliers of the time; a shadowy black hat, like the Spanish sombrero; a large black mantle or cloak, and a long rapier, gave him something the air of a Castilione, to which his gravity and stiffness of demeanour added considerable strength.

“Well, Colonel,” said the Duke, “we have been long strangers—how have matters gone with you?”

“As with other men of action in quiet times,” answered the colonel, “or as a good war-caper[*] that lies high and dry in a muddy creek, till seams and planks are rent and riven.”

[*] A privateer.

“Well, Colonel,” said the Duke, “I have used your valour before now, and I may again; so that I shall speedily see that the vessel is careened, and undergoes a thorough repair.”

“I conjecture, then,” said the Colonel, “that your Grace has some voyage in hand?”

“No, but there is one which I want to interrupt,” replied the Duke.

“Tis but another stave of the same tune.—Well, my lord, I listen,” answered the stranger.

“Nay,” said the Duke, “it is but a trifling matter after all.—You know Ned Christian?”

“Ay, surely, my lord,” replied the Colonel, “we have been long known to each other.”

“He is about to go down to Derbyshire to seek a certain niece of his, whom he will scarcely find there. Now, I trust to your tried friendship to interrupt his return to London. Go with him, or meet him, cajole him, or assail him, or do what thou wilt with him—only keep him from London for a fortnight at least, and then I care little how soon he comes.”

“For by that time, I suppose,” replied the Colonel, “any one may find the wench that thinks her worth the looking for.”

“Thou mayst think her worth the looking for thyself, Colonel,” rejoined the Duke; “I promise you she hath many a thousand stitched to her petticoat; such a wife would save thee from skeldering on the public.”

“My lord, I sell my blood and my sword, but not my honour,” answered the man sullenly; “if I marry, my bed may be a poor, but it shall be an honest one.”

“Then thy wife will be the only honest matter in thy possession, Colonel—at least since I have known you,” replied the Duke.

“Why, truly, your Grace may speak your pleasure on that point. It is chiefly your business which I have done of late; and if it were less strictly honest than I could have wished, the employer was to blame as well as the agent. But for marrying a cast-off mistress, the man (saving your Grace, to whom I am bound) lives not who dares propose it to me.”

The Duke laughed loudly. “Why, this is mine Ancient Pistol’s vein,” he replied.

——“Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become, And by my side wear steel?—then Lucifer take all!”

“My breeding is too plain to understand ends of playhouse verse, my lord,” said the Colonel suddenly. “Has your Grace no other service to command me?”

“None—only I am told you have published a Narrative concerning the Plot.”

“What should ail me, my lord?” said the Colonel; “I hope I am a witness as competent as any that has yet appeared?”

“Truly, I think so to the full,” said the Duke; “and it would have been hard, when so much profitable mischief was going, if so excellent a Protestant as yourself had not come in for a share.”

“I came to take your Grace’s commands, not to be the object of your wit,” said the Colonel.

“Gallantly spoken, most resolute and most immaculate Colonel! As you are to be on full pay in my service for a month to come, I pray your acceptance of this purse, for contingents and equipments, and you shall have my instructions from time to time.”

“They shall be punctually obeyed, my lord,” said the Colonel; “I know the duty of a subaltern officer. I wish your Grace a good morning.”

So saying, he pocketed the purse, without either affecting hesitation, or expressing gratitude, but merely as a part of a transaction in the regular way of business, and stalked from the apartment with the same sullen gravity which marked his entrance. “Now, there goes a scoundrel after my own heart,” said the Duke; “a robber from his cradle, a murderer since he could hold a knife, a profound hypocrite in religion, and a worse and deeper hypocrite in honour,—would sell his soul to the devil to accomplish any villainy, and would cut the throat of his brother, did he dare to give the villainy he had so acted its right name.—Now, why stand you amazed, good Master Jerningham, and look on me as you would on some monster of Ind, when you had paid your shilling to see it, and were staring out your pennyworth with your eyes as round as a pair of spectacles? Wink, man, and save them, and then let thy tongue untie the mystery.”

“On my word, my Lord Duke,” answered Jerningham, “since I am compelled to speak, I can only say, that the longer I live with your Grace, I am the more at a loss to fathom your motives of action. Others lay plans, either to attain profit or pleasure by their execution; but your Grace’s delight is to counteract your own schemes, when in the very act of performance; like a child—forgive me—that breaks its favourite toy, or a man who should set fire to the house he has half built.”

“And why not, if he wanted to warm his hands at the blaze?” said the Duke.

“Ay, my lord,” replied his dependent; “but what if, in doing so, he should burn his fingers?—My lord, it is one of your noblest qualities, that you will sometimes listen to the truth without taking offence; but were it otherwise, I could not, at this moment, help speaking out at every risk.”

“Well, say on, I can bear it,” said the Duke, throwing himself into an easy-chair, and using his toothpick with graceful indifference and equanimity; “I love to hear what such potsherds as thou art, think of the proceeding of us who are of the pure porcelain clay of the earth.”

“In the name of Heaven, my lord, let me then ask you,” said Jerningham, “what merit you claim, or what advantage you expect, from having embroiled everything in which you are concerned to a degree which equals the chaos of the blind old Roundhead’s poem which your Grace is so fond of? To begin with the King. In spite of