Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott (sci fi books to read .txt) 📖

CHAPTER XXVII ——This is some creature of the elements, Most like your sea-gull. He can wheel and whistle His screaming song, e’en when the storm is loudest— Take for his sheeted couch the restless foam Of the wild wave-crest—slumber in the calm, And daily with the storm. Yet ‘tis a gull, An arrant gull, with all this. —THE CHAMPION.

“And here is to thee,” said the fashionable gallant whom we have described, “honest Tom; and a cup of welcome to thee out of Looby-land. Why, thou hast been so long in the country, that thou hast got a bumpkinly clod-compelling sort of look thyself. That greasy doublet fits thee as if it were thy reserved Sunday’s apparel; and the points seem as if they were stay-laces bought for thy true-love Marjory. I marvel thou canst still relish a ragout. Methinks now, to a stomach bound in such a jacket, eggs and bacon were a diet more conforming.”

“Rally away, my good lord, while wit lasts,” answered his companion; “yours is not the sort of ammunition which will bear much expenditure. Or rather, tell me news from Court, since we have met so opportunely.”

“You would have asked me these an hour ago,” said the lord, “had not your very soul been under Chaubert’s covered dishes. You remembered King’s affairs will keep cool, and entre-mets must be eaten hot.”

“Not so, my lord; I only kept common talk whilst that eavesdropping rascal of a landlord was in the room; so that, now the coast is clear once more, I pray you for news from Court.”

“The Plot is nonsuited,” answered the courtier—“Sir George Wakeman acquitted—the witnesses discredited by the jury—Scroggs, who ranted on one side, is now ranting on t’other.”

“Rat the Plot, Wakeman, witnesses, Papists, and Protestants, all together! Do you think I care for such trash as that?—Till the Plot comes up the Palace backstair, and gets possession of old Rowley’s own imagination, I care not a farthing who believes or disbelieves. I hang by him will bear me out.”

“Well, then,” said the lord, “the next news is Rochester’s disgrace.”

“Disgraced!—How, and for what? The morning I came off he stood as fair as any one.”

“That’s over—the epitaph[*] has broken his neck—and now he may write one for his own Court favour, for it is dead and buried.”

[*] The epitaph alluded to is the celebrated epigram made by Rochester on Charles II. It was composed at the King’s request, who nevertheless resented its poignancy. The lines are well known:— “Here lies our sovereign lord the King, Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one.”

“The epitaph!” exclaimed Tom; “why, I was by when it was made; and it passed for an excellent good jest with him whom it was made upon.”

“Ay, so it did amongst ourselves,” answered his companion; “but it got abroad, and had a run like a mill-race. It was in every coffee-house, and in half the diurnals. Grammont translated it into French too; and there is no laughing at so sharp a jest, when it is dinned into your ears on all sides. So disgraced is the author; and but for his Grace of Buckingham, the Court would be as dull as my Lord Chancellor’s wig.”

“Or as the head it covers.—Well, my lord, the fewer at Court, there is the more room for those that can bustle there. But there are two mainstrings of Shaftesbury’s fiddle broken—the Popish Plot fallen into discredit—and Rochester disgraced. Changeful times—but here is to the little man who shall mend them.”

“I apprehend you,” replied his lordship; “and meet your health with my love. Trust me, my lord loves you, and longs for you.—Nay, I have done you reason.—By your leave, the cup is with me. Here is to his buxom Grace of Bucks.”

“As blithe a peer,” said Smith, “as ever turned night to day. Nay, it shall be an overflowing bumper, an you will; and I will drink it super naculum.—And how stands the great Madam?” [*]

[*] The Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles II.‘s favourite mistress; very unpopular at the time of the Popish Plot, as well from her religion as her country, being a Frenchwoman and a Catholic.

“Stoutly against all change,” answered the lord—“Little Anthony[*] can make nought of her.”

[*] Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, the politician and intriguer of the period.

“Then he shall bring her influence to nought. Hark in thine ear. Thou knowest——” (Here he whispered so low that Julian could not catch the sound.)

“Know him?” answered the other—“Know Ned of the Island?—To be sure I do.”

“He is the man that shall knot the great fiddle-strings that have snapped. Say I told you so; and thereupon I give thee his health.”

“And thereupon I pledge thee,” said the young nobleman, “which on any other argument I were loath to do—thinking of Ned as somewhat the