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

this very Justice Bridgenorth, not without actual violence. Moreover, I could have proved against young Peveril the whole affray charged upon him by the same worshipful evidence.”

Here the Judge stuck his thumbs into his girdle, which was a favourite attitude of his on such occasions, and exclaimed, “Pshaw, pshaw, Master Attorney!—Tell me not that you could have proved that, or that, or this—Prove what you will, but let it be through the mouths of your evidence. Men are not to be licked out of their lives by the rough side of a lawyer’s tongue.”

“Nor is a foul Plot to be smothered,” said the Attorney, “for all the haste your lordship is in. I cannot call Master Chiffinch neither, as he is employed on the King’s especial affairs, as I am this instant certiorated from the Court at Whitehall.”

“Produce the papers, then, Master Attorney, of which this young man is said to be the bearer,” said the Judge.

“They are before the Privy Council, my lord.”

“Then why do you found on them here?” said the Judge—“This is something like trifling with the Court.”

“Since your lordship gives it that name,” said the Attorney, sitting down in a huff, “you may manage the cause as you will.”

“If you do not bring more evidence, I pray you to charge the Jury,” said the Judge.

“I shall not take the trouble to do so,” said the Crown Counsel. “I see plainly how the matter is to go.”

“Nay, but be better advised,” said Scroggs. “Consider, your case is but half proved respecting the two Peverils, and doth not pinch on the little man at all, saving that Doctor Oates said that he was in a certain case to prove a giant, which seems no very probable Popish miracle.”

This sally occasioned a laugh in the Court, which the Attorney-General seemed to take in great dudgeon.

“Master Attorney,” said Oates, who always interfered in the management of these law-suits, “this is a plain an absolute giving away of the cause—I must needs say it, a mere stoifling of the Plaat.”

“Then the devil who bred it may blow wind into it again, if he lists,” answered the Attorney-General; and, flinging down his brief, he left the Court, as if in a huff with all who were concerned in the affair.

The Judge having obtained silence,—for a murmur arose in the Court when the Counsel for the prosecution threw up his brief,—began to charge the Jury, balancing, as he had done throughout the whole day, the different opinions by which he seemed alternately swayed. He protested on his salvation that he had no more doubt of the existence of the horrid and damnable conspiracy called the Popish Plot, than he had of the treachery of Judas Iscariot; and that he considered Oates as the instrument under Providence of preserving the nation from all the miseries of his Majesty’s assassination, and of a second Saint Bartholomew, acted in the streets of London. But then he stated it was the candid construction of the law of England, that the worse the crime, the more strong should be the evidence. Here was the case of accessories tried, whilst their principal—for such he should call the Countess of Derby—was unconvicted and at large; and for Doctor Oates, he had but spoke of matters which personally applied to that noble lady, whose words, if she used such in passion, touching aid which she expected in some treasonable matters from these Peverils, and from her kinsmen, or her son’s kinsmen, of the House of Stanley, may have been but a burst of female resentment—dulcis Amaryllidis ira, as the poet hath it. Who knoweth but Doctor Oates did mistake—he being a gentleman of a comely countenance and easy demeanour—this same rap with the fan as a chastisement for lack of courage in the Catholic cause, when, peradventure, it was otherwise meant, as Popish ladies will put, it is said, such neophytes and youthful candidates for orders, to many severe trials. “I speak these things jocularly,” said the Judge, “having no wish to stain the reputation either of the Honourable Countess or the Reverend Doctor; only I think the bearing between them may have related to something short of high treason. As for what the Attorney-General hath set forth of rescues and force, and I wot not what, sure I am, that in a civil country, when such things happen such things may be proved; and that you and I, gentlemen, are not to take them for granted gratuitously. Touching this other prisoner, this Galfridus minimus, he must needs say,” he continued, “he could not discover even a shadow of suspicion against him. Was it to be thought so abortive a creature would thrust himself into depths of policy, far less into stratagems of war? They had but to look at him to conclude the contrary—the creature was, from his age, fitter for the grave than a conspiracy—and by his size and appearance, for the inside of a raree-show, than the mysteries of a plot.”

The dwarf here broke in upon the Judge by force of screaming, to assure him that he had been, simple as he sat there, engaged in seven plots in Cromwell’s time; and, as he proudly added, with some of the tallest men of England. The matchless look and air with which Sir Geoffrey made this vaunt, set all a-laughing, and increased the ridicule with which the whole trial began to be received; so that it was amidst shaking sides and watery eyes that a general verdict of Not Guilty was pronounced, and the prisoners dismissed from the bar.

But a warmer sentiment awakened among those who saw the father and son throw themselves into each other’s arms, and, after a hearty embrace, extend their hands to their poor little companion in peril, who, like a dog, when present at a similar scene, had at last succeeded, by stretching himself up to them and whimpering at the same time, to secure to himself a portion of their sympathy and gratulation.

Such was the singular termination of this trial. Charles himself was desirous to have taken considerable credit with the Duke of Ormond for the evasion of the law, which had been thus effected by his private connivance; and was both surprised and mortified at the coldness with which his Grace replied, that he was rejoiced at the poor gentleman’s safety, but would rather have had the King redeem them like a prince, by his royal prerogative of mercy, than that his Judge should convey them out of the power of the law, like a juggler with his cups and balls.