Degenerate youth, and not of Tydeus’ kind,
Whose little body lodged a mighty mind.
--ILIAD.
Left quiet at least, if not alone, for the first time after the events
of this troubled and varied day, Julian threw himself on an old oaken
seat, beside the embers of a sea-coal fire, and began to muse on the
miserable situation of anxiety and danger in which he was placed;
where, whether he contemplated the interests of his love, his family
affections, or his friendships, all seemed such a prospect as that of a
sailor who looks upon breakers on every hand, from the deck of a vessel
which no longer obeys the helm.
As Peveril sat sunk in despondency, his companion in misfortune drew a
chair to the opposite side of the chimney-corner, and began to gaze at
him with a sort of solemn earnestness, which at length compelled him,
though almost in spite of himself, to pay some attention to the singular
figure who seemed so much engrossed with contemplating him.
Geoffrey Hudson (we drop occasionally the title of knighthood, which
the King had bestowed on him in a frolic, but which might introduce
some confusion into our history), although a dwarf of the least possible
size, had nothing positively ugly in his countenance, or actually
distorted in his limbs. His head, hands, and feet were indeed large,
and disproportioned to the height of his body, and his body itself much
thicker than was consistent with symmetry, but in a degree which was
rather ludicrous than disagreeable to look upon. His countenance, in
particular, had he been a little taller, would have been accounted, in
youth, handsome, and now, in age, striking and expressive; it was but
the uncommon disproportion betwixt the head and the trunk which made the
features seem whimsical and bizarre--an effect which was considerably
increased by the dwarf’s moustaches, which it was his pleasure to wear
so large, that they almost twisted back amongst, and mingled with, his
grizzled hair.
The dress of this singular wight announced that he was not entirely free
from the unhappy taste which frequently induces those whom nature has
marked by personal deformity, to distinguish, and at the same time to
render themselves ridiculous, by the use of showy colours, and garments
fantastically and extraordinarily fashioned. But poor Geoffrey Hudson’s
laces, embroideries, and the rest of his finery, were sorely worn and
tarnished by the time which he had spent in jail, under the vague and
malicious accusation that he was somehow or other an accomplice in
this all-involving, all-devouring whirlpool of a Popish conspiracy--an
impeachment which, if pronounced by a mouth the foulest and most
malicious, was at that time sufficiently predominant to sully the
fairest reputation. It will presently appear, that in the poor man’s
manner of thinking, and tone of conversation, there was something
analogous to his absurd fashion of apparel; for, as in the latter, good
stuff and valuable decorations were rendered ludicrous by the fantastic
fashion in which they were made up; so, such glimmerings of good sense
and honourable feeling as the little man often evinced, were made
ridiculous by a restless desire to assume certain airs of importance,
and a great jealousy of being despised, on account of the peculiarity of
his outward form.
After the fellow-prisoners had looked at each other for some time in
silence, the dwarf, conscious of his dignity as first owner of their
joint apartment, thought it necessary to do the honours of it to the
new-comer. “Sir,” he said, modifying the alternate harsh and squeaking
tones of his voice into accents as harmonious as they could attain,
“I understand you to be the son of my worthy namesake, and ancient
acquaintance, the stout Sir Geoffrey Peveril of the Peak. I promise you,
I have seen your father where blows have been going more plenty than
gold pieces; and for a tall heavy man, who lacked, as we martialists
thought, some of the lightness and activity of our more slightly made
Cavaliers, he performed his duty as a man might desire. I am happy to
see you, his son; and, though by a mistake, I am glad we are to share
this comfortless cabin together.”
Julian bowed, and thanked his courtesy; and Geoffrey Hudson, having
broken the ice, preceded to question him without further ceremony. “You
are no courtier, I presume, young gentleman?”
Julian replied in the negative.
“I thought so,” continued the dwarf; “for although I have now no
official duty at Court, the region in which my early years were spent,
and where I once held a considerable office, yet I still, when I had my
liberty, visited the Presence from time to time, as in duty bound for
former service; and am wont, from old habit, to take some note of the
courtly gallants, those choice spirits of the age, among whom I was
once enrolled. You are, not to compliment you, a marked figure, Master
Peveril--though something of the tallest, as was your father’s case; I
think, I could scarce have seen you anywhere without remembering you.”
Peveril thought he might, with great justice, have returned the
compliment, but contented himself with saying, “he had scarce seen the
British Court.”
“Tis pity,” said Hudson; “a gallant can hardly be formed without
frequenting it. But you have been perhaps in a rougher school; you have
served, doubtless?”
“My Maker, I hope,” said Julian.
“Fie on it, you mistake. I meant,” said Hudson, “_á la François_,--you
have served in the army?”
“No. I have not yet had that honour,” said Julian.
“What! neither courtier nor soldier, Master Peveril?” said the important
little man: “your father is to blame. By cock and pie he is, Master
Peveril! How shall a man be known, or distinguished, unless by his
bearing in peace and war? I tell you, sir, that at Newberry, where I
charged with my troop abreast with Prince Rupert, and when, as you may
have heard, we were both beaten off by those cuckoldly hinds the Trained
Bands of London,--we did what men could; and I think it was a matter of
three or four minutes after most of our gentlemen had been driven off,
that his Highness and I continued to cut at their long pikes with
our swords; and I think might have broken in, but that I had a tall,
long-legged brute of a horse, and my sword was somewhat short,--in fine,
at last we were obliged to make volte-face, and then, as I was going to
say, the fellows were so glad to get rid of us, that they set up a great
jubilee cry of ‘There goes Prince Robin and Cock Robin!’--Ay, ay, every
scoundrel among them knew me well. But those days are over.--And where
were you educated, young gentleman?”
Peveril named the household of the Countess of Derby.
“A most honourable lady, upon my word as a gentleman,” said Hudson.--“I
knew the noble Countess well when I was about the person of my royal
mistress, Henrietta Maria. She was then the very muster of all that was
noble, loyal, and lovely. She was, indeed, one of the fifteen fair ones
of the Court, whom I permitted to call me Piccoluomini--a foolish jest
on my somewhat diminutive figure, which always distinguished me from
ordinary beings, even when I was young--I have now lost much stature by
stooping; but, always the ladies had their jest at me.--Perhaps, young
man, I had my own amends of some of them somewhere, and somehow
or other--I _say_ nothing if I had or no; far less do I insinuate
disrespect to the noble Countess. She was daughter of the Duc de la
Tremouille, or, more correctly, des Thouars. But certainly to serve the
ladies, and condescend to their humours, even when somewhat too free, or
too fantastic, is the true decorum of gentle blood.”
Depressed as his spirits were, Peveril could scarce forbear smiling when
he looked at the pigmy creature, who told these stories with infinite
complacency, and appeared disposed to proclaim, as his own herald, that
he had been a very model of valour and gallantry, though love and
arms seemed to be pursuits totally irreconcilable to his shrivelled,
weather-beaten countenance, and wasted limbs. Julian was, however,
so careful to avoid giving his companion pain, that he endeavoured
to humour him, by saying, that, “unquestionably, one bred up like
Sir Geoffrey Hudson, in court and camps, knew exactly when to suffer
personal freedoms, and when to control them.”
The little Knight, with great vivacity, though with some difficulty,
began to drag his seat from the side of the fire opposite to that where
Julian was seated, and at length succeeded in bringing it near him, in
token of increasing cordiality.
“You say well, Master Peveril,” said the dwarf; “and I have given proofs
both of bearing and forbearing. Yes, sir, there was not that thing which
my most royal mistress, Henrietta Maria, could have required of me, that
I would not have complied with, sir; I was her sworn servant, both
in war and in festival, in battle and pageant, sir. At her Majesty’s
particular request, I once condescended to become--ladies, you know,
have strange fancies--to become the tenant, for a time, of the interior
of a pie.”
“Of a pie?” said Julian, somewhat amazed.
“Yes, sir, of a pie. I hope you find nothing risible in my
complaisance?” replied his companion, something jealously.
“Not I, sir,” said Peveril; “I have other matters than laughter in my
head at present.”
“So had I,” said the dwarfish champion, “when I found myself imprisoned
in a huge platter, of no ordinary dimensions you may be assured, since I
could lie at length in it, and when I was entombed, as it were, in walls
of standing crust, and a huge cover of pastry, the whole constituting
a sort of sarcophagus, of size enough to have recorded the epitaph of
a general officer or an archbishop on the lid. Sir, notwithstanding
the conveniences which were made to give me air, it was more like being
buried alive than aught else which I could think of.”
“I conceive it, sir,” said Julian.
“Moreover, sir,” continued the dwarf, “there were few in the secret,
which was contrived for the Queen’s divertisement; for advancing of
which I would have crept into a filbert nut, had it been possible;
and few, as I said, being private in the scheme, there was a risk of
accidents. I doubted, while in my darksome abode, whether some awkward
attendant might not have let me fall, as I have seen happen to a venison
pasty; or whether some hungry guest might not anticipate the moment of
my resurrection, by sticking his knife into my upper crust. And though I
had my weapons about me, young man, as has been my custom in every case
of peril, yet, if such a rash person had plunged deep into the bowels of
the supposed pasty, my sword and dagger could barely have served me to
avenge, assuredly not to prevent, either of these catastrophes.”
“Certainly I do so understand it,” said Julian, who began, however, to
feel that the company of little Hudson, talkative as he showed himself,
was likely rather to aggravate than to alleviate the inconveniences of a
prison.
“Nay,” continued the little man, enlarging on his former topic, “I had
other subjects of apprehension; for it pleased my Lord of Buckingham,
his Grace’s father who now bears the title, in his plenitude of Court
favour, to command the pasty to be carried down to the office, and
committed anew to the oven, alleging preposterously that it was better
to be eaten warm than cold.”
“And did this, sir, not disturb your equanimity?” said Julian.
“My young friend,” said Geoffrey Hudson, “I cannot deny it.--Nature
will claim her rights from the best and boldest of us.--I thought
of Nebuchadnezzar and his fiery furnace; and I waxed warm with
apprehension.--But, I thank Heaven, I also thought of my sworn duty to
my royal mistress; and was thereby obliged and enabled to resist all
temptations to make myself prematurely known. Nevertheless, the Duke--if
of malice, may Heaven forgive him--followed down into the office
himself, and urged the master-cook very hard that the pasty should be
heated, were it but for five minutes. But the master-cook, being privy
to the very different intentions of my royal mistress, did most manfully
resist the order; and I was again reconveyed in safety to the royal
table.”
“And in due time liberated from your confinement, I doubt not?” said
Peveril.
“Yes, sir; that happy, and I may say, glorious moment, at length
arrived,” continued the dwarf. “The upper crust was removed--I started
up to the sound of trumpet and clarion, like the soul of a warrior
when the last summons shall sound--or rather (if that simile be over
audacious), like a spell-bound champion relieved from his enchanted
state. It was then that, with my buckler on my arm, and my trusty Bilboa
in my hand, I executed a sort of warlike dance, in which my skill and
agility then rendered me pre-eminent, displaying, at the same time
my postures, both of defence and offence, in a manner so totally
inimitable, that I was almost deafened with the applause of all around
me, and half-drowned by the scented waters with which the ladies of the
Court deluged me from their casting bottles. I had amends of his Grace
of Buckingham also; for as I tripped a hasty morris hither and thither
upon the dining-table, now offering my blade, now recovering it, I
made a blow at his nose--a sort of estramaçon--the dexterity of which
consists in coming mighty near to the object you seem to aim at, yet not
attaining it. You may have seen a barber make such a flourish with his
razor. I promise you his Grace sprung back a half-yard at least. He was
pleased to threaten to brain me with a chicken-bone, as he disdainfully
expressed it; but the King said, ‘George, you have but a Rowland for
an Oliver.’ And so I tripped on, showing a bold heedlessness of
his displeasure, which few dared to have done at that time, albeit
countenanced to the utmost like me by the smiles of the brave and
the fair. But, well-a-day! sir, youth, its fashions, its follies, its
frolics, and all its pomp and pride, are as idle and transitory as the
crackling of thorns under a pot.”
“The flower that is cast into the oven were a better simile,” thought
Peveril. “Good God, that a man should live to regret not being young
enough to be still treated as baked meat, and served up in a pie!”
His companion, whose tongue had for many days been as closely imprisoned
as his person, seemed resolved to indemnify his loquacity, by continuing
to indulge it on the present occasion at his companion’s expense. He
proceeded, therefore, in a solemn tone, to moralise on the adventure
which he had narrated.
“Young men will no doubt think one to be envied,” he said, “who was
thus enabled to be the darling and admiration of the Court”--(Julian
internally stood self-exculpated from the suspicion)--“and yet it is
better to possess fewer means of distinction, and remain free from the
backbiting, the slander, and the odium, which are always the share
of Court favour. Men who had no other cause, cast reflections upon me
because my size varied somewhat from the common proportion; and jests
were sometimes unthinkingly passed upon me by those I was bound to, who
did not in that case, peradventure, sufficiently consider that the wren
is made by the same hand which formed the bustard, and that the diamond,
though small in size, out-values ten thousand-fold the rude granite.
Nevertheless, they proceeded in the vein of humour; and as I could not
in duty or gratitude retort upon nobles and princes, I was compelled
to cast about in my mind how to vindicate my honour towards those,
who, being in the same rank with myself, as servants and courtiers,
nevertheless bore themselves towards me as if they were of a superior
class in the rank of honour, as well as in the accidental circumstance
of stature. And as a lesson to my own pride, and that of others, it
so happened, that the pageant which I have but just narrated--which I
justly reckon the most honourable moment of my life, excepting perhaps
my distinguished share in the battle of Round-way-down--became the cause
of a most tragic event, in which I acknowledge the greatest misfortune
of my existence.”
The dwarf here paused, fetched a sigh, big at once with regret, and with
the importance becoming the subject of a tragic history; then proceeded
as follows:--
“You would have thought in your simplicity, young gentleman, that
the pretty pageant I have mentioned could only have been quoted to my
advantage, as a rare masking frolic, prettily devised, and not less
deftly executed; and yet the malice of the courtiers, who maligned and
envied me, made them strain their wit, and exhaust their ingenuity, in
putting false and ridiculous constructions upon it. In short, my ears
were so much offended with allusions to pies, puff-paste, ovens, and
the like, that I was compelled to prohibit such subject of mirth, under
penalty of my instant and severe displeasure. But it happ’d there was
then a gallant about the Court, a man of good quality, son to a knight
baronet, and in high esteem with the best in that sphere, also a
familiar friend of mine own, from whom, therefore, I had no reason to
expect any of that species of gibing which I had intimated my purpose
to treat as offensive. Howbeit, it pleased the Honourable Mr. Crofts,
so was this youth called and designed, one night, at the Groom Porter’s
being full of wine and waggery, to introduce this threadbare subject,
and to say something concerning a goose-pie, which I could not but
consider as levelled at me. Nevertheless, I did but calmly and solidly
pray him to choose a different subject; failing which, I let him know I
should be sudden in my resentment. Notwithstanding, he continued in the
same tone, and even aggravated the offence, by speaking of a tomtit, and
other unnecessary and obnoxious comparisons; whereupon I was compelled
to send him a cartel, and we met accordingly. Now, as I really loved the
youth, it was my intention only to correct him by a flesh wound or
two; and I would willingly that he had named the sword for his weapon.
Nevertheless, he made pistols his election; and being on horseback, he
produced by way of his own weapon, a foolish engine, which children are
wont, in their roguery, to use for spouting water; a--a--in short, I
forget the name.”
“A squirt, doubtless,” said Peveril, who began to recollect having heard
something of this adventure.
“You are right,” said the dwarf; “you have indeed the name of the
little engine, of which I have had experience in passing the yards at
Westminster.--Well, sir, this token of slight regard compelled me to
give the gentleman such language, as soon rendered it necessary for him
to make more serious arms. We fought on horseback--breaking ground, and
advancing by signal; and, as I never miss aim, I had the misadventure to
kill the Honourable Master Crofts at the first shot. I would not wish my
worst foe the pain which I felt, when I saw him reel on his saddle, and
so fall down to the earth!--and, when I perceived that the life-blood
was pouring fast, I could not but wish to Heaven that it had been my own
instead of his. Thus fell youth, hopes, and bravery, a sacrifice to a
silly and thoughtless jest; yet, alas! wherein had I choice, seeing that
honour is, as it were, the very breath in our nostrils; and that in no
sense can we be said to live, if we permit ourselves to be deprived of
it?”
The tone of feeling in which the dwarfish hero concluded his story, gave
Julian a better opinion of his heart, and even of his understanding,
than he had been able to form of one who gloried in having, upon a
grand occasion, formed the contents of a pasty. He was indeed enabled to
conjecture that the little champion was seduced into such exhibitions,
by the necessity attached to his condition, by his own vanity, and by
the flattery bestowed on him by those who sought pleasure in practical
jokes. The fate of the unlucky Master Crofts, however, as well as
various exploits of this diminutive person during the Civil Wars, in
which he actually, and with great gallantry, commanded a troop of horse,
rendered most men cautious of openly rallying him; which was indeed the
less necessary, as, when left alone, he seldom failed voluntarily to
show himself on the ludicrous side.
At one hour after noon, the turnkey, true to his word, supplied the
prisoners with a very tolerable dinner and a flask of well-flavoured
though light claret; which the old man, who was something of a
bon-vivant, regretted to observe, was nearly as diminutive as himself.
The evening also passed away, but not without continued symptoms of
garrulity on the part of Geoffrey Hudson.
It is true these were of a graver character than he had hitherto
exhibited, for when the flask was empty, he repeated a long Latin
prayer. But the religious act in which he had been engaged, only gave
his discourse a more serious turn than belonged to his former themes, of
war, lady’s love, and courtly splendour.
The little Knight harangued, at first on polemical points of divinity,
and diverged from this thorny path, into the neighbouring and twilight
walk of mysticism. He talked of secret warnings--of the predictions
of sad-eyed prophets--of the visits of monitory spirits, and the
Rosicrucian secrets of the Cabala; all which topics he treated of
with such apparent conviction, nay, with so many appeals to personal
experience, that one would have supposed him a member of the fraternity
of gnomes, or fairies, whom he resembled so much in point of size.
In short, he persevered for a stricken hour in such a torrent of
unnecessary tattle, as determined Peveril, at all events, to endeavour
to procure a separate lodging. Having repeated his evening prayers in
Latin, as formerly (for the old gentleman was a Catholic, which was the
sole cause of his falling under suspicion), he set off on a new score,
as they were undressing, and continued to prattle until he had fairly
talked both himself and his companion to sleep.