Of airy tongues that syllable men’s names.
--COMUS.
Julian had fallen asleep, with his brain rather filled with his own sad
reflections, than with the mystical lore of the little Knight; and yet
it seemed as if in his visions the latter had been more present to his
mind than the former.
He dreamed of gliding spirits, gibbering phantoms, bloody hands, which,
dimly seen by twilight, seemed to beckon him forward like errant-knight
on sad adventure bound. More than once he started from his sleep, so
lively was the influence of these visions on his imagination; and he
always awaked under the impression that some one stood by his bedside.
The chillness of his ankles, the weight and clatter of the fetters, as
he turned himself on his pallet, reminded him on these occasions where
he was, and under what circumstances. The extremity to which he saw all
that was dear to him at present reduced, struck a deeper cold on his
heart than the iron upon his limbs; nor could he compose himself again
to rest without a mental prayer to Heaven for protection. But when he
had been for a third time awakened from repose by these thick-stirring
fancies, his distress of mind vented itself in speech, and he was unable
to suppress the almost despairing ejaculation, “God have mercy upon us!”
“Amen!” answered a voice as sweet and “soft as honey dew,” which sounded
as if the words were spoken close by his bedside.
The natural inference was, that Geoffrey Hudson, his companion in
calamity, had echoed the prayer which was so proper to the situation
of both. But the tone of voice was so different from the harsh and
dissonant sounds of the dwarf’s enunciation, that Peveril was impressed
with the certainty it could not proceed from Hudson. He was struck with
involuntary terror, for which he could give no sufficient reason; and it
was not without an effort that he was able to utter the question, “Sir
Geoffrey, did you speak?”
No answer was returned. He repeated the question louder; and the same
silver-toned voice, which had formerly said “_Amen_” to his prayers,
answered to his interrogatory, “Your companion will not awake while I am
here.”
“And who are you?--What seek you?--How came you into this place?” said
Peveril, huddling, eagerly, question upon question.
“I am a wretched being, but one who loves you well.--I come for your
good.--Concern yourself no farther.”
It now rushed on Julian’s mind that he had heard of persons possessed
of the wonderful talent of counterfeiting sounds to such accuracy, that
they could impose on their hearers the belief, that they proceeded
from a point of the apartment entirely opposite to that which the real
speaker occupied. Persuaded that he had now gained the depth of the
mystery, he replied, “This trifling, Sir Geoffrey, is unseasonable.
Say what you have to say in your own voice and manner. These apish
pleasantries do not become midnight in a Newgate dungeon.”
“But the being who speaks with you,” answered the voice, “is fitted for
the darkest hour, and the most melancholy haunts.”
Impatient of suspense, and determined to satisfy his curiosity, Julian
jumped at once from his pallet, hoping to secure the speaker, whose
voice indicated he was so near. But he altogether failed in his attempt,
and grasped nothing save thin air.
For a turn or two, Peveril shuffled at random about the room, with his
arms extended; and then at last recollected, that with the impediment of
his shackles, and the noise which necessarily accompanied his motions,
and announced where he was, it would be impossible for him to lay hands
on any one who might be disposed to keep out of his reach. He therefore
endeavoured to return to his bed; but, in groping for his way, lighted
first on that of his fellow-prisoner. The little captive slept deep and
heavy, as was evinced from his breathing; and upon listening a moment,
Julian became again certain, either that his companion was the most
artful of ventriloquists and of dissemblers, or that there was actually
within the precincts of that guarded chamber, some third being, whose
very presence there seemed to intimate that it belonged not to the
ordinary line of humanity.
Julian was no ready believer in the supernatural; but that age was very
far from being so incredulous concerning ghostly occurrences as our
own; and it was no way derogatory to his good sense, that he shared the
prejudices of his time. His hair began to bristle, and the moisture to
stand on his brow, as he called on his companion to awake, for Heaven’s
sake.
The dwarf answered--but he spoke without awaking.--“The day may dawn
and be d--d. Tell the master of the horse I will not go to the hunting,
unless I have the little black jennet.”
“I tell you,” said Julian, “there is some one in the apartment. Have you
not a tinder-box to strike a light?”
“I care not how slight my horse be,” replied the slumberer, pursuing
his own train of ideas, which, doubtless, carried him back to the green
woods of Windsor, and the royal deer-hunts which he had witnessed there.
“I am not overweight--I will not ride that great Holstein brute, that
I must climb up to by a ladder, and then sit on his back like a
pin-cushion on an elephant.”
Julian at length put his hand to the sleeper’s shoulder, and shook him,
so as to awake him from his dream; when, after two or three snorts and
groans, the dwarf asked peevishly, what the devil ailed him?
“The devil himself, for what I know,” said Peveril, “is at this very
moment in the room here beside us.”
The dwarf on this information started up, crossed himself, and began
to hammer a flint and steel with all despatch, until he had lighted a
little piece of candle, which he said was consecrated to Saint Bridget,
and as powerful as the herb called _fuga dæmonum_, or the liver of the
fish burnt by Tobit in the house of Raguel, for chasing all goblins, and
evil or dubious spirits, from the place of its radiance; “if, indeed,”
as the dwarf carefully guarded his proposition, “they existed anywhere,
save in the imagination of his fellow-prisoner.”
Accordingly, the apartment was no sooner enlightened by this holy
candle’s end, than Julian began to doubt the evidence of his own ears;
for not only was there no one in the room save Sir Geoffrey Hudson and
himself, but all the fastenings of the door were so secure, that it
seemed impossible that they could have been opened and again fixed,
without a great deal of noise, which, on the last occasion at least,
could not possibly have escaped his ears, seeing that he must have been
on his feet, and employed in searching the chamber, when the unknown, if
an earthly being, was in the act of retreating from it.
Julian gazed for a moment with great earnestness, and no little
perplexity, first on the bolted door, then on the grated window; and
began to accuse his own imagination of having played him an unpleasant
trick. He answered little to the questions of Hudson, and returning
to his bed, heard, in silence, a long studied oration on the merits of
Saint Bridget, which comprehended the greater part of her long-winded
legend, and concluded with the assurance, that, from all accounts
preserved of her, that holy saint was the least of all possible women,
except those of the pigmy kind.
By the time the dwarf had ceased to speak, Julian’s desire of sleep had
returned; and after a few glances around the apartment, which was still
illuminated by the expiring beams of the holy taper, his eyes were again
closed in forgetfulness, and his repose was not again disturbed in the
course of that night.
Morning dawns on Newgate, as well as on the freest mountain-turf which
Welshman or wild-goat ever trode; but in so different a fashion, that
the very beams of heaven’s precious sun, when they penetrate into the
recesses of the prison-house, have the air of being committed to jail.
Still, with the light of day around him, Peveril easily persuaded
himself of the vanity of his preceding night’s visions; and smiled when
he reflected that fancies, similar to those to which his ear was often
exposed in the Isle of Man, had been able to arrange themselves in a
manner so impressive, when he heard them from the mouth of so singular a
character as Hudson, and in the solitude of a prison.
Before Julian had awaked, the dwarf had already quitted his bed, and
was seated in the chimney-corner of the apartment, where, with his
own hands, he had arranged a morsel of fire, partly attending to the
simmering of a small pot, which he had placed on the flame, partly
occupied with a huge folio volume which lay on the table before him, and
seemed well-nigh as tall and bulky as himself. He was wrapped up in
the dusky crimson cloak already mentioned, which served him for
a morning-gown, as well as a mantle against the cold, and which
corresponded with a large montero-cap, that enveloped his head. The
singularity of his features, and of the eyes, armed with spectacles,
which were now cast on the subject of his studies, now directed towards
his little cauldron, would have tempted Rembrandt to exhibit him on
canvas, either in the character of an alchymist, or of a necromancer,
engaged in some strange experiment, under the direction of one of the
huge manuals which treat of the theory of these mystic arts.
The attention of the dwarf was bent, however, upon a more domestic
object. He was only preparing soup, of no unsavoury quality, for
breakfast, which he invited Peveril to partake with him. “I am an old
soldier,” he said, “and, I must add, an old prisoner; and understand how
to shift for myself better than you can do, young man.--Confusion to
the scoundrel Clink, he has put the spice-box out of my reach!--Will you
hand it me from the mantelpiece?--I will teach you, as the French have
it, _faire la cuisine;_ and then, if you please, we will divide, like
brethren, the labours of our prison house.”
Julian readily assented to the little man’s friendly proposal, without
interposing any doubt as to his continuing an inmate of the same cell.
Truth is, that although, upon the whole, he was inclined to regard the
whispering voice of the preceding evening as the impression of his own
excited fancy, he felt, nevertheless, curiosity to see how a second
night was to pass over in the same cell; and the tone of the invisible
intruder, which at midnight had been heard by him with terror, now
excited, on recollection, a gentle and not unpleasing species of
agitation--the combined effect of awe, and of awakened curiosity.
Days of captivity have little to mark them as they glide away.
That which followed the night which we have described afforded no
circumstance of note. The dwarf imparted to his youthful companion a
volume similar to that which formed his own studies, and which proved to
be a tome of one of Scuderi’s now forgotten romances, of which Geoffrey
Hudson was a great admirer, and which were then very fashionable both at
the French and English Courts; although they contrive to unite in
their immense folios all the improbabilities and absurdities of the old
romances of chivalry, without that tone of imagination which pervades
them, and all the metaphysical absurdities which Cowley and the poets of
the age had heaped upon the passion of love, like so many load of small
coal upon a slender fire, which it smothers instead of aiding.
But Julian had no alternative, saving only to muse over the sorrows
of Artamenes and Mandane, or on the complicated distresses of his own
situation; and in these disagreeable divertisements, the morning crept
through as it could.
Noon first, and thereafter nightfall, were successively marked by a
brief visit from their stern turnkey, who, with noiseless step and
sullen demeanour, did in silence the necessary offices about the meals
of the prisoners, exchanging with them as few words as an official in
the Spanish Inquisition might have permitted himself upon a similar
occasion. With the same taciturn gravity, very different from the
laughing humour into which he had been surprised on a former occasion,
he struck their fetters with a small hammer, to ascertain, by the sound
thus produced, whether they had been tampered with by file or otherwise.
He next mounted on a table, to make the same experiment on the
window-grating.
Julian’s heart throbbed; for might not one of those grates have been so
tampered with as to give entrance to the nocturnal visitant? But they
returned to the experienced ear of Master Clink, when he struck them in
turn with the hammer, a clear and ringing sound, which assured him of
their security.
“It would be difficult for any one to get in through these defences,”
said Julian, giving vent in words to his own feelings.
“Few wish that,” answered the surly groom, misconstruing what was
passing in Peveril’s mind; “and let me tell you, master, folks will find
it quite as difficult to get out.” He retired, and night came on.
The dwarf, who took upon himself for the day the whole duties of the
apartment, trundled about the room, making a most important clatter as
he extinguished their fire, and put aside various matters which had been
in use in the course of the day, talking to himself all the while in a
tone of no little consequence, occasionally grounded on the dexterity
with which an old soldier could turn his hand to anything. Then came the
repetition of his accustomed prayers; but his disposition to converse
did not, as on the former occasion, revive after his devotions. On the
contrary, long before Julian had closed an eye, the heavy breathing from
Sir Geoffrey Hudson’s pallet declared that the dwarf was already in the
arms of Morpheus.
Amid the total darkness of the apartment, and with a longing desire,
and at the same time no small fear, for the recurrence of the mysterious
address of the preceding evening, Julian lay long awake without his
thoughts receiving any interruption save when the clock told the passing
hour from the neighbouring steeple of St. Sepulchre. At length he sunk
into slumber; but had not slept to his judgment above an hour, when he
was roused by the sound which his waking ear had so long expected in
vain.
“Can you sleep?--Will you sleep?--Dare you sleep?” were the questions
impressed on his ear, in the same clear, soft, and melodious voice,
which had addressed him on the preceding night.
“Who is it asks me the question?” answered Julian. “But be the
questioner good or evil, I reply that I am a guiltless prisoner; and
that innocence may wish and dare to sleep soundly.”
“Ask no questions of me,” said the voice; “neither attempt to discover
who speaks to you; and be assured that folly alone can sleep, with fraud
around and danger before him.”
“Can you, who tell me of dangers, counsel me how to combat or how to
avoid them?” said Julian.
“My power is limited,” said the voice; “yet something I can do, as the
glow-worm can show a precipice. But you must confide in me.”
“Confidence must beget confidence,” answered Julian. “I cannot repose
trust in I know not what or whom.”
“Speak not so loud,” replied the voice, sinking almost into a whisper.
“Last night you said my companion would not awake,” said Julian.
“To-night I warrant not that he shall sleep,” said the voice. And as it
spoke, the hoarse, snatching, discordant tones of the dwarf were heard,
demanding of Julian why he talked in his sleep--wherefore he did not
rest himself, and let other people rest--and, finally, whether his
visions of last night were returned upon him again?
“Say yes,” said the voice in a whisper, so low, yet so distinct,
that Julian almost doubted whether it was not an echo of his own
thought.--“Say but yes--and I part to return no more!”
In desperate circumstances men look to strange and unusual remedies;
and although unable to calculate the chances of advantage which this
singular communication opened to him, Julian did not feel inclined to
let them at once escape from him. He answered the dwarf, that he had
been troubled by an alarming dream.
“I could have sworn it, from the sound of your voice,” said Hudson.
“It is strange, now, that you overgrown men never possess the extreme
firmness of nerves proper to us who are cast in a more compact mould.
My own voice retains its masculine sounds on all occasions. Dr. Cockerel
was of opinion, that there was the same allowance of nerve and sinew
to men of every size, and that nature spun the stock out thinner or
stronger, according to the extent of surface which they were to cover.
Hence, the least creatures are oftentimes the strongest. Place a beetle
under a tall candlestick, and the insect will move it by its efforts
to get out; which is, in point of comparative strength, as if one of us
should shake his Majesty’s prison of Newgate by similar struggles. Cats
also, and weasels, are creatures of greater exertion or endurance than
dogs or sheep. And in general, you may remark, that little men dance
better, and are more unwearied under exertion of every kind, than those
to whom their own weight must necessarily be burdensome. I respect you,
Master Peveril, because I am told you have killed one of those gigantic
fellows, who go about swaggering as if their souls were taller than
ours, because their noses are nearer to the clouds by a cubit or two.
But do not value yourself on this as anything very unusual. I would have
you to know it hath been always thus; and that, in the history of all
ages, the clean, tight, dapper little fellow, hath proved an overmatch
for his bulky antagonist. I need only instance out of Holy Writ, the
celebrated downfall of Goliah, and of another lubbard, who had more
fingers to his hand, and more inches to his stature, than ought to
belong to an honest man, and who was slain by a nephew of good King
David; and of many others whom I do not remember; nevertheless they were
all Philistines of gigantic stature. In the classics, also, you have
Tydeus, and other tight, compact heroes, whose diminutive bodies were
the abode of large minds. And indeed you may observe, in sacred as well
as profane history, that your giants are ever heretics and blasphemers,
robbers and oppressors, outragers of the female sex, and scoffers
at regular authority. Such were Gog and Magog, whom our authentic
chronicles vouch to have been slain near to Plymouth, by the good little
Knight Corineus, who gave name to Cornwall. Ascaparte also was subdued
by Bevis, and Colbrand by Guy, as Southampton and Warwick can testify.
Like unto these was the giant Hoel, slain in Bretagne by King Arthur.
And if Ryence, King of North Wales, who was done to death by the same
worthy champion of Christendom, be not actually termed a giant, it is
plain he was little better, since he required twenty-four kings’ beards,
which were then worn full and long, to fur his gown; whereby computing
each beard at eighteen inches (and you cannot allow less for a
beard-royal), and supposing only the front of the gown trimmed
therewith, as we use ermine; and that the back was mounted and lined,
instead of cat-skins and squirrels’ fur, with the beards of earls and
dukes, and other inferior dignitaries--may amount to--But I will work
the question to-morrow.”
Nothing is more soporific to any (save a philosopher or moneyed
man) than the operation of figures; and when in bed, the effect is
irresistible. Sir Geoffrey fell asleep in the act of calculating King
Ryence’s height, from the supposed length of his mantle. Indeed, had
he not stumbled on this abstruse subject of calculation, there is no
guessing how long he might have held forth upon the superiority of
men of little stature, which was so great a favourite with him, that,
numerous as such narratives are, the dwarf had collected almost all
the instances of their victories over giants, which history or romance
afforded.
No sooner had unequivocal signs of the dwarf’s sound slumbers reached
Julian’s ears, than he began to listen eagerly for the renewal of that
mysterious communication which was at once interesting and awful. Even
whilst Hudson was speaking, he had, instead of bestowing his attention
upon his eulogy on persons of low statue, kept his ears on watchful
guard to mark if possible, the lightest sounds of any sort which might
occur in the apartment; so that he thought it scarce possible that
even a fly should have left it withouts its motion being overheard. If,
therefore, his invisible monitor was indeed a creature of this
world--an opinion which Julian’s sound sense rendered him unwilling to
renounce--that being could not have left the apartment; and he waited
impatiently for a renewal of their communication. He was disappointed;
not the slightest sound reached his ear; and the nocturnal visitor, if
still in the room, appeared determined on silence.
It was in vain that Peveril coughed, hemmed, and gave other symptoms of
being awake; at length, such became his impatience, that he resolved, at
any risk, to speak first, in hopes of renewing the communication betwixt
them. “Whoever thou art,” he said, in a voice loud enough to be heard
by a waking person, but not so high as to disturb his sleeping
companion--“Whoever, or whatever thou art, thou hast shown some interest
in the fate of such a castaway as Julian Peveril, speak once more, I
conjure thee; and be your communication for good or evil, believe me, I
am equally prepared to abide the issue.”
No answer of any kind was returned to this invocation; nor did the least
sound intimate the presence of the being to whom it was so solemnly
addressed.
“I speak in vain,” said Julian; “and perhaps I am but invoking that
which is insensible of human feeling, or which takes a malign pleasure
in human suffering.”
There was a gentle and half-broken sigh from a corner of the apartment,
which, answering to this exclamation, seemed to contradict the
imputation which it conveyed.
Julian, naturally courageous, and familiarised by this time to his
situation, raised himself in bed, and stretched out his arm, to repeat
his adjuration, when the voice, as if alarmed at his action and energy,
whispered, in a tone more hurried than that which it had hitherto used,
“Be still--move not--or I am mute for ever!”
“It is then a mortal being who is present with me,” was the natural
inference of Julian, “and one who is probably afraid of being detected;
I have then some power over my visitor, though I must be cautious how I
use it.--If your intents are friendly,” he proceeded, “there was never
a time in which I lacked friends more, or would be more grateful for
kindness. The fate of all who are dear to me is weighed in the balance,
and with worlds would I buy the tidings of their safety.”
“I have said my power is limited,” replied the voice. “_You_ I may be
able to preserve--the fate of your friends is beyond my control.”
“Let me at least know it,” said Julian; “and, be it as it may, I will
not shun to share it.”
“For whom would you inquire?” said the soft, sweet voice, not without
a tremulousness of accent, as if the question was put with diffident
reluctance.
“My parents,” said Julian, after a moment’s hesitation; “how fare
they?--What will be their fate?”
“They fare as the fort under which the enemy has dug a deadly mine. The
work may have cost the labour of years, such were the impediments to the
engineers; but Time brings opportunity upon its wings.”
“And what will be the event?” said Peveril.
“Can I read the future,” answered the voice, “save by comparison with
past?--Who has been hunted on these stern and unmitigable accusations,
but has been at last brought to bay? Did high and noble birth, honoured
age, and approved benevolence, save the unfortunate Lord Stafford? Did
learning, capacity of intrigue, or high Court favour, redeem Coleman,
although the confidential servant of the heir presumptive of the Crown
of England?--Did subtilty and genius, and exertions of a numerous sect,
save Fenwicke, or Whitbread, or any other of the accused priests?--Were
Groves, Pickering, or the other humble wretches who have suffered, safe
in their obscurity? There is no condition in life, no degree of talent,
no form of principle, which affords protection against an accusation,
which levels conditions, confounds characters, renders men’s virtues
their sins, and rates them as dangerous in proportion as they have
influence, though attained in the noblest manner, and used for the
best purposes. Call such a one but an accessory to the Plot--let him
be mouthed in the evidence of Oates or Dugdale--and the blindest shall
foresee the issue of their trial.”
“Prophet of Evil!” said Julian, “my father has a shield invulnerable to
protect him. He is innocent.”
“Let him plead his innocence at the bar of Heaven,” said the voice; “it
will serve him little where Scroggs presides.”
“Still I fear not,” said Julian, counterfeiting more confidence than
he really possessed; “my father’s cause will be pleaded before twelve
Englishmen.”
“Better before twelve wild beasts,” answered the Invisible, “than before
Englishmen, influenced with party prejudice, passion, and epidemic
terror of an imaginary danger. They are bold in guilt in proportion to
the number amongst whom the crime is divided.”
“Ill-omened speaker,” said Julian, “thine is indeed a voice fitted
only to sound with the midnight bell, and the screeching owl. Yet
speak again. Tell me, if thou canst”--(He would have said of Alice
Bridgenorth, but the word would not leave his tongue)--“Tell me,” he
said, “if the noble house of Derby----”
“Let them keep their rock like the sea-fowl in the tempest; and it may
so fall out,” answered the voice, “that their rock may be a safe refuge.
But there is blood on their ermine; and revenge has dogged them for many
a year, like a bloodhound that hath been distanced in the morning
chase, but may yet grapple the quarry ere the sun shall set. At present,
however, they are safe.--Am I now to speak farther on your own affairs,
which involve little short of your life and honour?”
“There is,” said Julian, “one, from whom I was violently parted
yesterday; if I knew but of her safety, I were little anxious for my
own.”
“One!” returned the voice, “only _one_ from whom you were parted
yesterday?”
“But in parting from whom,” said Julian, “I felt separated from all
happiness which the world can give me.”
“You mean Alice Bridgenorth,” said the Invisible, with some bitterness
of accent; “but her you will never see more. Your own life and hers
depend on your forgetting each other.”
“I cannot purchase my own life at that price,” replied Julian.
“Then DIE in your obstinacy,” returned the Invisible; nor to all the
entreaties which he used was he able obtain another word in the course
of that remarkable night.