“Speak not of niceness, when there’s chance of wreck,”
The captain said, as ladies writhed their neck
To see the dying dolphin flap the deck:
“If we go down, on us these gentry sup;
We dine upon them, if we haul them up.
Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters,
As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the cheaters.”
--THE SEA VOYAGE.
There was nothing in Duke’s manner towards Christian which could have
conveyed to that latter personage, experienced as he was in the worst
possible ways of the world, that Buckingham would, at that particular
moment, rather have seen the devil than himself; unless it was that
Buckingham’s reception of him, being rather extraordinarily courteous
towards so old an acquaintance, might have excited some degree of
suspicion.
Having escaped with some difficulty from the vague region of general
compliments, which bears the same relation to that of business that
Milton informs us the _Limbo Patrum_ has to the sensible and material
earth, Christian asked his Grace of Buckingham, with the same blunt
plainness with which he usually veiled a very deep and artificial
character, whether he had lately seen Chiffinch or his helpmate?
“Neither of them lately,” answered Buckingham. “Have not you waited on
them yourself?--I thought you would have been more anxious about the
great scheme.”
“I have called once and again,” said Christian, “but I can gain no
access to the sight of that important couple. I begin to be afraid they
are paltering with me.”
“Which, by the welkin and its stars, you would not be slow in avenging,
Master Christian. I know your puritanical principles on that point
well,” said the Duke. “Revenge may be well said to be sweet, when so
many grave and wise men are ready to exchange for it all the sugar-plums
which pleasures offer to the poor sinful people of the world, besides
the reversion of those which they talk of expecting in the way of _post
obit_.”
“You may jest, my lord,” said Christian, “but still----”
“But still you will be revenged on Chiffinch, and his little commodious
companion. And yet the task may be difficult--Chiffinch has so many ways
of obliging his master--his little woman is such a convenient pretty
sort of a screen, and has such winning little ways of her own, that, in
faith, in your case, I would not meddle with them. What is this refusing
their door, man? We all do it to our best friends now and then, as well
as to duns and dull company.”
“If your Grace is in a humour of rambling thus wildly in your talk,”
said Christian, “you know my old faculty of patience--I can wait till it
be your pleasure to talk more seriously.”
“Seriously!” said his Grace--“Wherefore not?--I only wait to know what
your serious business may be.”
“In a word, my lord, from Chiffinch’s refusal to see me, and some vain
calls which I have made at your Grace’s mansion, I am afraid either that
our plan has miscarried, or that there is some intention to exclude
me from the farther conduct of the matter.” Christian pronounced these
words with considerable emphasis.
“That were folly as well as treachery,” returned the Duke, “to exclude
from the spoil the very engineer who conducted the attack. But hark ye,
Christian--I am sorry to tell bad news without preparation; but as you
insist on knowing the worst, and are not ashamed to suspect your best
friends, out it must come--Your niece left Chiffinch’s house the morning
before yesterday.”
Christian staggered, as if he had received a severe blow; and the blood
ran to his face in such a current of passion, that the Duke concluded
he was struck with an apoplexy. But, exerting the extraordinary command
which he could maintain under the most trying circumstances, he said,
with a voice, the composure of which had an unnatural contrast with the
alteration of his countenance, “Am I to conclude, that in leaving the
protection of the roof in which I placed her, the girl has found shelter
under that of your Grace?”
“Sir,” replied Buckingham gravely, “the supposition does my gallantry
more credit than it deserves.”
“Oh, my Lord Duke,” answered Christian, “I am not one whom you can
impose on by this species of courtly jargon. I know of what your Grace
is capable; and that to gratify the caprice of a moment you would not
hesitate to disappoint even the schemes at which you yourself have
laboured most busily.--Suppose this jest played off. Take your laugh
at those simple precautions by which I intended to protect your Grace’s
interest, as well as that of others. Let us know the extent of your
frolic, and consider how far its consequences can be repaired.”
“On my word, Christian,” said the Duke, laughing, “you are the most
obliging of uncles and of guardians. Let your niece pass through as many
adventures as Boccaccio’s bride of the King of Garba, you care not. Pure
or soiled, she will still make the footstool of your fortune.”
An Indian proverb says, that the dart of contempt will even pierce
through the shell of the tortoise; but this is more peculiarly the
case when conscience tells the subject of the sarcasm that it is justly
merited. Christian, stung with Buckingham’s reproach, at once assumed
a haughty and threatening mien, totally inconsistent with that in which
sufferance seemed to be as much his badge as that of Shylock. “You are
a foul-mouthed and most unworthy lord,” he said; “and as such I will
proclaim you, unless you make reparation for the injury you have done
me.”
“And what,” said the Duke of Buckingham, “shall I proclaim _you_, that
can give you the least title to notice from such as I am? What name
shall I bestow on the little transaction which has given rise to such
unexpected misunderstanding?”
Christian was silent, either from rage or from mental conviction.
“Come, come, Christian,” said the Duke, smiling, “we know too much of
each other to make a quarrel safe. Hate each other we may--circumvent
each other--it is the way of Courts--but proclaim!--a fico for the
phrase.”
“I used it not,” said Christian, “till your Grace drove me to extremity.
You know, my lord, I have fought both at home and abroad; and you should
not rashly think that I will endure any indignity which blood can wipe
away.”
“On the contrary,” said the Duke, with the same civil and sneering
manner, “I can confidently assert, that the life of half a score of
your friends would seem very light to you, Christian, if their existence
interfered, I do not say with your character, as being a thing of much
less consequence, but with any advantage which their existence might
intercept. Fie upon it, man, we have known each other long. I never
thought you a coward; and am only glad to see I could strike a few
sparkles of heat out of your cold and constant disposition. I will now,
if you please, tell you at once the fate of the young lady, in which I
pray you to believe that I am truly interested.”
“I hear you, my Lord Duke,” said Christian. “The curl of your upper
lip, and your eyebrow, does not escape me. Your Grace knows the French
proverb, ‘He laughs best who laughs last.’ But I hear you.”
“Thank Heaven you do,” said Buckingham; “for your case requires haste,
I promise you, and involves no laughing matter. Well then, hear a simple
truth, on which (if it became me to offer any pledge for what I assert
to be such) I could pledge life, fortune, and honour. It was the morning
before last, when meeting with the King at Chiffinch’s unexpectedly--in
fact I had looked in to fool an hour away, and to learn how your
scheme advanced--I saw a singular scene. Your niece terrified little
Chiffinch--(the hen Chiffinch, I mean)--bid the King defiance to
his teeth, and walked out of the presence triumphantly, under the
guardianship of a young fellow of little mark or likelihood, excepting
a tolerable personal presence, and the advantage of a most unconquerable
impudence. Egad, I can hardly help laughing to think how the King and I
were both baffled; for I will not deny, that I had tried to trifle for
a moment with the fair Indamora. But, egad, the young fellow swooped
her off from under our noses, like my own Drawcansir clearing off the
banquet from the two Kings of Brentford. There was a dignity in the
gallant’s swaggering retreat which I must try to teach Mohun;[*] it will
suit his part admirably.”
[*] Then a noted actor.
“This is incomprehensible, my Lord Duke,” said Christian, who by this
time had recovered all his usual coolness; “you cannot expect me to
believe this. Who dared be so bold as to carry of my niece in such a
manner, and from so august a presence? And with whom, a stranger as
he must have been, would she, wise and cautious as I know her, have
consented to depart in such a manner?--My lord, I cannot believe this.”
“One of your priests, my most devoted Christian,” replied the Duke,
“would only answer, Die, infidel, in thine unbelief; but I am only a
poor worldling sinner, and I will add what mite of information I can.
The young fellow’s name, as I am given to understand, is Julian, son of
Sir Geoffrey, whom men call Peveril of the Peak.”
“Peveril of the Devil, who hath his cavern there!” said Christian
warmly; “for I know that gallant, and believe him capable of anything
bold and desperate. But how could he intrude himself into the royal
presence? Either Hell aids him, or Heaven looks nearer into mortal
dealings than I have yet believed. If so, may God forgive us, who deemed
he thought not on us at all!”
“Amen, most Christian Christian,” replied the Duke. “I am glad to see
thou hast yet some touch of grace that leads thee to augur so. But
Empson, the hen Chiffinch, and half-a-dozen more, saw the swain’s
entrance and departure. Please examine these witnesses with your own
wisdom, if you think your time may not be better employed in tracing
the fugitives. I believe he gained entrance as one of some dancing or
masking party. Rowley, you know, is accessible to all who will come
forth to make him sport. So in stole this termagant tearing gallant,
like Samson among the Philistines, to pull down our fine scheme about
our ears.”
“I believe you, my lord,” said Christian; “I cannot but believe you; and
I forgive you, since it is your nature, for making sport of what is ruin
and destruction. But which way did they take?”
“To Derbyshire, I should presume, to seek her father,” said the Duke.
“She spoke of going into paternal protection, instead of yours, Master
Christian. Something had chanced at Chiffinch’s, to give her cause to
suspect that you had not altogether provided for his daughter in the
manner which her father was likely to approve of.”
“Now, Heaven be praised,” said Christian, “she knows not her father is
come to London! and they must be gone down either to Martindale Castle,
or to Moultrassie Hall; in either case they are in my power--I must
follow them close. I will return instantly to Derbyshire--I am undone
if she meet her father until these errors are amended. Adieu, my lord.
I forgive the part which I fear your Grace must have had in baulking our
enterprise--it is no time for mutual reproaches.”
“You speak truth, Master Christian,” said the Duke, “and I wish you all
success. Can I help you with men, or horses, or money?”
“I thank your Grace,” said Christian, and hastily left the apartment.
The Duke watched his descending footsteps on the staircase, until they
could be heard no longer, and then exclaimed to Jerningham, who entered,
“_Victoria! victoria! magna est veritas et prævalebit!_--Had I told
the villain a word of a lie, he is so familiar with all the regions of
falsehood--his whole life has been such an absolute imposture, that I
had stood detected in an instant; but I told him truth, and that was the
only means of deceiving him. Victoria! my dear Jerningham, I am prouder
of cheating Christian, than I should have been of circumventing a
minister of state.”
“Your Grace holds his wisdom very high,” said the attendant.
“His cunning, at least, I do, which, in Court affairs, often takes the
weather-gage of wisdom,--as in Yarmouth Roads a herring-buss will baffle
a frigate. He shall not return to London if I can help it, until all
these intrigues are over.”
As his Grace spoke, the Colonel, after whom he had repeatedly made
inquiry, was announced by a gentleman of his household. “He met not
Christian, did he?” said the Duke hastily.
“No, my lord,” returned the domestic, “the Colonel came by the old
garden staircase.”
“I judged as much,” replied the Duke; “‘tis an owl that will not take
wing in daylight, when there is a thicket left to skulk under. Here he
comes from threading lane, vault, and ruinous alley, very near ominous a
creature as 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 good-humour, he will be incensed
at your repeated rivalry.”
“His Majesty defied me to it.”
“You have lost all hopes of the Isle, by quarrelling with Christian.”
“I have ceased to care a farthing about it,” replied the Duke.
“In Christian himself, whom you have insulted, and to whose family you
intend dishonour, you have lost a sagacious, artful, and cool-headed
instrument and adherent,” said the monitor.
“Poor Jerningham!” answered the Duke; “Christian would say as much for
thee, I doubt not, wert thou discarded tomorrow. It is the common error
of such tools as you and he to think themselves indispensable. As to
his family, what was never honourable cannot be dishonoured by any
connection with my house.”
“I say nothing of Chiffinch,” said Jerningham, “offended as he will be
when he learns why, and by whom, his scheme has been ruined, and the
lady spirited away--He and his wife, I say nothing of them.”
“You need not,” said the Duke; “for were they even fit persons to
speak to me about, the Duchess of Portsmouth has bargained for their
disgrace.”
“Then this bloodhound of a Colonel, as he calls himself, your Grace
cannot even lay _him_ on a quest which is to do you service, but you
must do him such indignity at the same time, as he will not fail to
remember, and be sure to fly at your throat should he ever have an
opportunity of turning on you.”
“I will take care he has none,” said the Duke; “and yours, Jerningham,
is a low-lived apprehension. Beat your spaniel heartily if you would
have him under command. Ever let your agents see you know what they are,
and prize them accordingly. A rogue, who must needs be treated as a
man of honour, is apt to get above his work. Enough, therefore, of your
advice and censure, Jerningham; we differ in every particular. Were we
both engineers, you would spend your life in watching some old woman’s
wheel, which spins flax by the ounce; I must be in the midst of the
most varied and counteracting machinery, regulating checks and
counter-checks, balancing weights, proving springs and wheels, directing
and controlling a hundred combined powers.”
“And your fortune, in the meanwhile?” said Jerningham; “pardon this last
hint, my lord.”
“My fortune,” said the Duke, “is too vast to be hurt by a petty
wound; and I have, as thou knowest, a thousand salves in store for
the scratches and scars which it sometimes receives in greasing my
machinery.”
“Your Grace does not mean Dr. Wilderhead’s powder of projection?”
“Pshaw! he is a quacksalver, and mountebank, and beggar.”
“Or Solicitor Drowndland’s plan for draining the fens?”
“He is a cheat,--_videlicet_, an attorney.”
“Or the Laird of Lackpelf’s sale of Highland woods?”
“He is a Scotsman,” said the Duke,--“_videlicet_, both cheat and
beggar.”
“These streets here, upon the site of your noble mansion-house?” said
Jerningham.
“The architect’s a bite, and the plan’s a bubble. I am sick of the sight
of this rubbish, and I will soon replace our old alcoves, alleys, and
flower-pots by an Italian garden and a new palace.”
“That, my lord, would be to waste, not to improve your fortune,” said
his domestic.
“Clodpate, and muddy spirit that thou art, thou hast forgot the most
hopeful scheme of all--the South Sea Fisheries--their stock is up 50
per cent. already. Post down to the Alley, and tell old Mansses to buy
£20,000 for me.--Forgive me, Plutus, I forgot to lay my sacrifice on thy
shrine, and yet expected thy favours!--Fly post-haste, Jerningham--for
thy life, for thy life, for thy life!”[*]
[*] Stock-jobbing, as it is called, that is, dealing in shares of
monopolies, patent, and joint-stock companies of every
description, was at least as common in Charles II.’s time as our
own; and as the exercise of ingenuity in this way promised a road
to wealth without the necessity of industry, it was then much
pursued by dissolute courtiers.
With hands and eyes uplifted, Jerningham left the apartment; and the
Duke, without thinking a moment farther on old or new intrigues--on the
friendship he had formed, or the enmity he had provoked--on the beauty
whom he had carried off from her natural protectors, as well as from
her lover--or on the monarch against whom he had placed himself in
rivalship,--sat down to calculate chances with all the zeal of Demoivre,
tired of the drudgery in half-an-hour, and refused to see the zealous
agent whom he had employed in the city, because he was busily engaged in
writing a new lampoon.