Peveril of the Peak Page 41

  CHAPTER XLI

  Yet, Corah, thou shalt from oblivion pass; Erect thyself, thou monumental brass, High as the serpent of thy metal made, While nations stand secure beneath thy shade. --ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

  The morning which Charles had spent in visiting the Tower, had been verydifferently employed by those unhappy individuals, whom their bad fate,and the singular temper of the times, had made the innocent tenants ofthat state prison, and who had received official notice that they wereto stand their trial in the Court of Queen's Bench at Westminster, onthe seventh succeeding day. The stout old Cavalier at first only railedat the officer for spoiling his breakfast with the news, but evincedgreat feeling when he was told that Julian was to be put under the sameindictment.

  We intend to dwell only very generally on the nature of their trial,which corresponded, in the outline, with almost all those which tookplace during the prevalence of the Popish Plot. That is, one or twoinfamous and perjured evidences, whose profession of common informershad become frightfully lucrative, made oath to the prisoners havingexpressed themselves interested in the great confederacy of theCatholics. A number of others brought forward facts or suspicions,affecting the character of the parties as honest Protestants and goodsubjects; and betwixt the direct and presumptive evidence, enough wasusually extracted for justifying, to a corrupted court and perjuredjury, the fatal verdict of Guilty.

  The fury of the people had, however, now begun to pass away, exhaustedeven by its own violence. The English nation differ from all others,indeed even from those of the sister kingdoms, in being very easilysated with punishment, even when they suppose it most merited. Othernations are like the tamed tiger, which, when once its native appetitefor slaughter is indulged in one instance, rushes on in promiscuousravages. But the English public have always rather resembled what istold of the sleuth-dog, which, eager, fierce, and clamorous in pursuitof his prey, desists from it so soon as blood is sprinkled upon hispath.

  Men's minds were now beginning to cool--the character of the witnesseswas more closely sifted--their testimonies did not in all casestally--and a wholesome suspicion began to be entertained of men, whowould never say they had made a full discovery of all they knew, butavowedly reserved some points of evidence to bear on future trials.

  The King also, who had lain passive during the first burst of popularfury, was now beginning to bestir himself, which produced a markedeffect on the conduct of the Crown Counsel, and even the Judges. SirGeorge Wakeman had been acquitted in spite of Oates's direct testimony;and public attention was strongly excited concerning the event of thenext trial; which chanced to be that of the Peverils, father and son,with whom, I know not from what concatenation, little Hudson the dwarfwas placed at the bar of the Court of King's Bench.

  It was a piteous sight to behold a father and son, who had been so longseparated, meet under circumstances so melancholy; and many tears wereshed, when the majestic old man--for such he was, though now broken withyears--folded his son to his bosom, with a mixture of joy, affection,and a bitter anticipation of the event of the impending trial. There wasa feeling in the Court that for a moment overcame every prejudice andparty feeling. Many spectators shed tears; and there was even a lowmoaning, as of those who weep aloud.

  Such as felt themselves sufficiently at ease to remark the conductof poor little Geoffrey Hudson, who was scarcely observed amid thepreponderating interest created by his companions in misfortune, couldnot but notice a strong degree of mortification on the part of thatdiminutive gentleman. He had soothed his great mind by the thoughts ofplaying the character which he was called on to sustain, in a mannerwhich should be long remembered in that place; and on his entrance, hadsaluted the numerous spectators, as well as the Court, with a cavalierair, which he meant should express grace, high-breeding, perfectcoolness, with a noble disregard to the issue of their proceedings. Buthis little person was so obscured and jostled aside, on the meeting ofthe father and son, who had been brought in different boats from theTower, and placed at the bar at the same moment, that his distress andhis dignity were alike thrown into the background, and attracted neithersympathy nor admiration.

  The dwarf's wisest way to attract attention would have been to remainquiet, when so remarkable an exterior would certainly have received inits turn the share of public notice which he so eagerly coveted. Butwhen did personal vanity listen to the suggestions of prudence?--Ourimpatient friend scrambled, with some difficulty, on the top of thebench intended for his seat; and there, "paining himself to standa-tiptoe," like Chaucer's gallant Sir Chaunticlere, he challenged thenotice of the audience as he stood bowing and claiming acquaintanceof his namesake Sir Geoffrey the larger, with whose shoulders,notwithstanding his elevated situation, he was scarcely yet upon alevel.

  The taller Knight, whose mind was occupied in a very different manner,took no notice of these advances upon the dwarf's part, but sat downwith the determination rather to die on the spot than evince anysymptoms of weakness before Roundheads and Presbyterians; underwhich obnoxious epithets, being too old-fashioned to find out partydesignations of newer date, he comprehended all persons concerned in hispresent trouble.

  By Sir Geoffrey the larger's change of position, his face was thusbrought on a level with that of Sir Geoffrey the less, who had anopportunity of pulling him by the cloak. He of Martindale Castle,rather mechanically than consciously, turned his head towards thelarge wrinkled visage, which, struggling between an assumed air of easyimportance, and an anxious desire to be noticed, was grimacing within ayard of him. But neither the singular physiognomy, the nods and smilesof greeting and recognition into which it was wreathed, nor the strangelittle form by which it was supported, had at that moment the power ofexciting any recollections in the old Knight's mind; and having staredfor a moment at the poor little man, his bulky namesake turned away hishead without farther notice.

  Julian Peveril, the dwarf's more recent acquaintance, had, even amidhis own anxious feelings, room for sympathy with those of his littlefellow-sufferer. As soon as he discovered that he was at the sameterrible bar with himself, although he could not conceive how theircauses came to be conjoined, he acknowledged him by a hearty shake ofthe hand, which the old man returned with affected dignity and realgratitude. "Worthy youth," he said, "thy presence is restorative, likethe nepenthe of Homer even in this syncope of our mutual fate. I amconcerned to see that your father hath not the same alacrity of soul asthat of ours, which are lodged within smaller compass; and that he hathforgotten an ancient comrade and fellow-soldier, who now stands besidehim to perform, perhaps, their last campaign."

  Julian briefly replied, that his father had much to occupy him. But thelittle man--who, to do him justice, cared no more (in his own phrase)for imminent danger or death, than he did for the puncture of a flea'sproboscis--did not so easily renounce the secret object of his ambition,which was to acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir GeoffreyPeveril, who, being at least three inches taller than his son, was in sofar possessed of that superior excellence, which the poor dwarf, inhis secret soul, valued before all other distinctions, although inhis conversation, he was constantly depreciating it. "Good comrade andnamesake," he proceeded, stretching out his hand, so as to again toreach the elder Peveril's cloak, "I forgive your want of reminiscence,seeing it is long since I saw you at Naseby, fighting as if you had asmany arms as the fabled Briareus."

  The Knight of Martindale, who had again turned his head towards thelittle man, and had listened, as if endeavouring to make something outof his discourse, here interrupted him with a peevish, "Pshaw!"

  "Pshaw!" repeated Sir Geoffrey the less; "_Pshaw_ is an expression ofslight esteem,--nay, of contempt,--in all languages; and were this abefitting place----"

  But the Judges had now taken their places, the criers called silence,and the stern voice of the Lord Chief Justice (the notorious Scroggs)demanded what the officers meant by permitting the acc
used tocommunicate together in open court.

  It may here be observed, that this celebrated personage was, upon thepresent occasion, at a great loss how to proceed. A calm, dignified,judicial demeanour, was at no time the characteristic of his officialconduct. He always ranted and roared either on the one side or theother; and of late, he had been much unsettled which side to take, beingtotally incapable of anything resembling impartiality. At the firsttrials for the Plot, when the whole stream of popularity ran against theaccused, no one had been so loud as Scroggs; to attempt to the characterof Oates or Bedloe, or any other leading witnesses, he treated as acrime more heinous than it would have been to blaspheme the Gospelon which they had been sworn--it was a stifling of the Plot, ordiscrediting of the King's witnesses--a crime not greatly, if at all,short of high treason against the King himself.

  But, of late, a new light had begun to glimmer upon the understandingof this interpreter of the laws. Sagacious in the signs of the times, hebegan to see that the tide was turning; and that Court favour at least,and probably popular opinion also, were likely, in a short time, todeclare against the witnesses, and in favour of the accused.

  The opinion which Scroggs had hitherto entertained of the high respectin which Shaftesbury, the patron of the Plot, was held by Charles,had been definitely shaken by a whisper from his brother North to thefollowing effect: "His Lordship has no more interest at Court than yourfootman."

  This notice, from a sure hand, and received but that morning, hadput the Judge to a sore dilemma; for, however indifferent to actualconsistency, he was most anxious to save appearances. He could not butrecollect how violent he had been on former occasions in favour of theseprosecutions; and being sensible at the same time that the credit ofthe witnesses, though shaken in the opinion of the more judicious, was,amongst the bulk of the people out of doors, as strong as ever, he had adifficult part to play. His conduct, therefore, during the whole trial,resembled the appearance of a vessel about to go upon another tack,when her sails are shivering in the wind, ere they have yet caught theimpulse which is to send her forth in a new direction. In a word, he wasso uncertain which side it was his interest to favour, that he might besaid on that occasion to have come nearer a state of total impartialitythan he was ever capable of attaining, whether before or afterwards.This was shown by his bullying now the accused, and now the witnesses,like a mastiff too much irritated to lie still without baying, butuncertain whom he shall first bite.

  The indictment was then read; and Sir Geoffrey Peveril heard, with somecomposure, the first part of it, which stated him to have placed his sonin the household of the Countess of Derby, a recusant Papist, for thepurpose of aiding the horrible and bloodthirsty Popish Plot--with havinghad arms and ammunition concealed in his house--and with receivinga blank commission from the Lord Stafford, who had suffered death onaccount of the Plot. But when the charge went on to state that he hadcommunicated for the same purpose with Geoffrey Hudson, sometimes calledSir Geoffrey Hudson, now, or formerly in the domestic service of theQueen Dowager, he looked at his companion as if he suddenly recalled himto remembrance, and broke out impatiently, "These lies are too grossto require a moment's consideration. I might have had enough ofintercourse, though in nothing but what was loyal and innocent, with mynoble kinsman, the late Lord Stafford--I will call him so in spite ofhis misfortunes--and with my wife's relation, the Honourable Countessof Derby. But what likelihood can there be that I should havecolleagued with a decrepit buffoon, with whom I never had an instant'scommunication, save once at an Easter feast, when I whistled a hornpipe,as he danced on a trencher to amuse the company?"

  The rage of the poor dwarf brought tears in his eyes, while, with anaffected laugh, he said, that instead of those juvenile and festivepassages, Sir Geoffrey Peveril might have remembered his charging alongwith him at Wiggan Lane.

  "On my word," said Sir Geoffrey, after a moment's recollection, "I willdo you justice, Master Hudson--I believe you were there--I think I heardyou did good service. But you will allow you might have been near onewithout his seeing you."

  A sort of titter ran through the Court at the simplicity of the largerSir Geoffrey's testimony, which the dwarf endeavoured to control, bystanding on his tiptoes, and looking fiercely around, as if to admonishthe laughers that they indulged their mirth at their own peril. Butperceiving that this only excited farther scorn, he composed himselfinto a semblance of careless contempt, observing, with a smile, thatno one feared the glance of a chained lion; a magnificent simile, whichrather increased than diminished the mirth of those who heard it.

  Against Julian Peveril there failed not to be charged the aggravatedfact, that he had been bearer of letters between the Countess of Derbyand other Papists and priests, engaged in the universal treasonableconspiracy of the Catholics; and the attack of the house at MoultrassieHall,--with his skirmish with Chiffinch, and his assault, as itwas termed, on the person of John Jenkins, servant to the Duke ofBuckingham, were all narrated at length, as so many open and overt actsof treasonable import. To this charge Peveril contented himself withpleading--Not Guilty.

  His little companion was not satisfied with so simple a plea; for whenhe heard it read, as a part of the charge applying to him, that he hadreceived from an agent of the Plot a blank commission as Colonel of aregiment of grenadiers, he replied, in wrath and scorn, that if Goliathof Gath had come to him with such a proposal, and proffered him thecommand of the whole sons of Anak in a body, he should never have hadoccasion or opportunity to repeat the temptation to another. "I wouldhave slain him," said the little man of loyalty, "even where he stood."

  The charge was stated anew by the Counsel for the Crown; and forth camethe notorious Doctor Oates, rustling in the full silken canonicalsof priesthood, for it was a time when he affected no small dignity ofexterior decoration and deportment.

  This singular man, who, aided by the obscure intrigues of the Catholicsthemselves, and the fortuitous circumstance of Godfrey's murder, hadbeen able to cram down the public throat such a mass of absurdity as hisevidence amounts to, had no other talent for imposture than an impudencewhich set conviction and shame alike at defiance. A man of senseor reflection, by trying to give his plot an appearance of moreprobability, would most likely have failed, as wise men often to doin addressing the multitude, from not daring to calculate upon theprodigious extent of their credulity, especially where the figmentspresented to them involve the fearful and the terrible.

  Oates was by nature choleric; and the credit he had acquired made himinsolent and conceited. Even his exterior was portentous. A fleece ofwhite periwig showed a most uncouth visage, of great length, having themouth, as the organ by use of which he was to rise to eminence, placedin the very centre of the countenance, and exhibiting to the astonishedspectator as much chin below as there was nose and brow above theaperture. His pronunciation, too, was after a conceited fashion of hisown, in which he accented the vowels in a manner altogether peculiar tohimself.

  This notorious personage, such as we have described him, stood forth onthe present trial, and delivered his astonishing testimony concerningthe existence of a Catholic Plot for the subversion of the governmentand murder of the King, in the same general outline in which it may befound in every English history. But as the doctor always had in reservesome special piece of evidence affecting those immediately on trial, hewas pleased, on the present occasion, deeply to inculpate the Countessof Derby. "He had seen," as he said, "that honourable lady when he wasat the Jesuits' College at Saint Omer's. She had sent for him to an inn,or _auberge_, as it was there termed--the sign of the Golden Lamb; andhad ordered him to breakfast in the same room with her ladyship; andafterwards told him, that, knowing he was trusted by the Fathers of theSociety, she was determined that he should have a share of hersecrets also; and therewithal, that she drew from her bosom a broadsharp-pointed knife, such as butchers kill sheep with, and demanded ofhim what he thought of it for _the purpose_; and when he, the witness,said for what purpose she rapt him
on the fingers with her fan, calledhim a dull fellow, and said it was designed to kill the King with."

  Here Sir Geoffrey Peveril could no longer refrain his indignation andsurprise. "Mercy of Heaven!" he said, "did ever one hear of ladies ofquality carrying butchering knives about them, and telling every scurvycompanion she meant to kill the King with them?--Gentleman of the Jury,do but think if this is reasonable--though, if the villain could proveby any honest evidence, that my Lady of Derby ever let such a scum ashimself come to speech of her, I would believe all he can say."

  "Sir Geoffrey," said the Judge, "rest you quiet--You must not flyout--passion helps you not here--the Doctor must be suffered toproceed."

  Doctor Oates went on to state how the lady complained of the wrongs theHouse of Derby had sustained from the King and the oppression ofher religion, and boasted of the schemes of the Jesuits and seminarypriests; and how they would be farthered by her noble kinsman of theHouse of Stanley. He finally averred that both the Countess and theFathers of the seminary abroad, founded much upon the talents andcourage of Sir Geoffrey Peveril and his son--the latter of whom was amember of her family. Of Hudson, he only recollected of having heard oneof the Fathers say, that although but a dwarf in stature, he would provea giant in the cause of the Church.

  When he had ended his evidence, there was a pause, until the Judge,as if the thought had suddenly occurred to him, demanded of Dr. Oates,whether he had ever mentioned the names of the Countess of Derby inany of the previous informations which he had lodged before the PrivyCouncil, and elsewhere, upon this affair.

  Oates seemed rather surprised at the question, and coloured with anger,as he answered, in his peculiar mode of pronunciation, "Whoy, no, maaylaard."

  "And pray, Doctor," said the Judge, "how came so great a revealer ofmysteries as you have lately proved, to have suffered so material acircumstance as the accession of this powerful family to the Plot tohave remained undiscovered?"

  "Maay laard," said Oates, with much effrontery, "aye do not come here tohave my evidence questioned as touching the Plaat."

  "I do not question your evidence, Doctor," said Scroggs, for the timewas not arrived that he dared treat him roughly; "nor do I doubt theexistence of the _Plaat_, since it is your pleasure to swear to it. Iwould only have you, for your own sake, and the satisfaction of all goodProtestants, to explain why you have kept back such a weighty point ofinformation from the King and country."

  "Maay laard," said Oates, "I will tell you a pretty fable."

  "I hope," answered the Judge, "it may be the first and last which youshall tell in this place."

  "Maay laard," continued Oates, "there was once a faux, who having tocarry a goose over a frazen river, and being afraid the aice would notbear him and his booty, did caarry aaver a staane, my laard, in thefirst instance, to prove the strength of the aice."

  "So your former evidence was but the stone, and now, for the first time,you have brought us the goose?" said Sir William Scroggs; "to tell usthis, Doctor, is to make geese of the Court and Jury."

  "I desoire your laardship's honest construction," said Oates, who sawthe current changing against him, but was determined to pay the scorewith effrontery. "All men knaw at what coast and praice I have given myevidence, which has been always, under Gaad, the means of awakening thispoor naation to the dangerous state in which it staunds. Many here knawthat I have been obliged to faartify my ladging at Whitehall against thebloody Papists. It was not to be thought that I should have broughtall the story out at aance. I think your wisdome would have advised meotherwise."[*]

  [*] It was on such terms that Dr. Oates was pleased to claim the extraordinary privilege of dealing out the information which he chose to communicate to a court of justice. The only sense in which his story of the fox, stone, and goose could be applicable, is by supposing that he was determined to ascertain the extent of his countrymen's credulity before supplying it with a full meal.

  "Nay, Doctor," said the Judge, "it is not for me to direct you in thisaffair; and it is for the Jury to believe you or not; and as for myself,I sit here to do justice to both--the Jury have heard your answer to myquestion."

  Doctor Oates retired from the witness-box reddening like a turkey-cock,as one totally unused to have such accounts questioned as he chose tolay before the courts of justice; and there was, perhaps, for the firsttime, amongst the counsel and solicitors, as well as the templarsand students of law there present, a murmur, distinct and audible,unfavourable to the character of the great father of the Popish Plot.

  Everett and Dangerfield, with whom the reader is already acquainted,were then called in succession to sustain the accusation. They weresubordinate informers--a sort of under-spur-leathers, as the cant termwent--who followed the path of Oates, with all deference to his superiorgenius and invention, and made their own fictions chime in and harmonisewith his, as well as their talents could devise. But as their evidencehad at no time received the full credence into which the impudence ofOates had cajoled the public, so they now began to fall into discreditrather more hastily than their prototype, as the super-added turrets ofan ill-constructed building are naturally the first to give way.

  It was in vain that Everett, with the precision of a hypocrite,and Dangerfield, with the audacity of a bully, narrated, with addedcircumstances of suspicion and criminality, their meeting with JulianPeveril in Liverpool, and again at Martindale Castle. It was in vainthey described the arms and accoutrements which they pretended to havediscovered in old Sir Geoffrey's possession; and that they gave a mostdreadful account of the escape of the younger Peveril from MoultrassieHall, by means of an armed force.

  The Jury listened coldly, and it was visible that they were but littlemoved by the accusation; especially as the Judge, always professing hisbelief in the Plot, and his zeal for the Protestant religion, was everand anon reminding them that presumptions were no proofs--that hearsaywas no evidence--that those who made a trade of discovery were likely toaid their researches by invention--and that without doubting theguilt of the unfortunate persons at the bar, he would gladly hear someevidence brought against them of a different nature. "Here we are toldof a riot, and an escape achieved by the younger Peveril, at the houseof a grave and worthy magistrate, known, I think, to most of us. Why,Master Attorney, bring ye not Master Bridgenorth himself to prove thefact, or all his household, if it be necessary?--A rising in arms isan affair over public to be left on the hearsay tale of these twomen--though Heaven forbid that I should suppose they speak one word morethan they believe! They are the witnesses for the King--and, what isequally dear to us, the Protestant religion--and witnesses against amost foul and heathenish Plot. On the other hand, here is a worshipfulold knight, for such I must suppose him to be, since he has bled oftenin battle for the King,--such, I must say, I suppose him to be, until heis proved otherwise. And here is his son, a hopeful young gentleman--wemust see that they have right, Master Attorney."

  "Unquestionably, my lord," answered the Attorney. "God forbid else!But we will make out these matters against these unhappy gentlemen ina manner more close, if your lordship will permit us to bring in ourevidence."

  "Go on, Master Attorney," said the Judge, throwing himself back in hisseat. "Heaven forbid I hinder proving the King's accusation! I onlysay, what you know as well as I, that _de non apparentibus et nonexistentibus eadem est ratio_."

  "We shall then call Master Bridgenorth, as your lordship advised, who Ithink is in waiting."

  "No!" answered a voice from the crowd, apparently that of a female; "heis too wise and too honest to be here."

  The voice was distinct as that of Lady Fairfax, when she expressedherself to a similar effect on the trial of Charles the First; butthe researches which were made on the present occasion to discover thespeaker were unsuccessful.

  After the slight confusion occasioned by this circumstance was abated,the Attorney, who had been talking aside with the conductors of theprosecution, said, "Whoever favoured us with that infor
mation, my lord,had good reason for what they said. Master Bridgenorth has become, I amtold, suddenly invisible since this morning."

  "Look you there now, Master Attorney," said the Judge--"This comes ofnot keeping the crown witnesses together and in readiness--I am sure Icannot help the consequences."

  "Nor I either, my lord," said the Attorney pettishly. "I could haveproved by this worshipful gentleman, Master Justice Bridgenorth, theancient friendship betwixt this party, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, and theCountess of Derby, of whose doings and intentions Dr. Oates has givensuch a deliberate evidence. I could have proved his having shelteredher in his Castle against a process of law, and rescued her, by force ofarms, from this very Justice Bridgenorth, not without actual violence.Moreover, I could have proved against young Peveril the whole affraycharged upon him by the same worshipful evidence."

  Here the Judge stuck his thumbs into his girdle, which was a favouriteattitude of his on such occasions, and exclaimed, "Pshaw, pshaw, MasterAttorney!--Tell me not that you _could_ have proved that, or that, orthis--Prove what you will, but let it be through the mouths of yourevidence. Men are not to be licked out of their lives by the rough sideof a lawyer's tongue."

  "Nor is a foul Plot to be smothered," said the Attorney, "for all thehaste your lordship is in. I cannot call Master Chiffinch neither, ashe is employed on the King's especial affairs, as I am this instantcertiorated from the Court at Whitehall."

  "Produce the papers, then, Master Attorney, of which this young man issaid 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 somethinglike trifling with the Court."

  "Since your lordship gives it that name," said the Attorney, sittingdown 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," saidthe Judge.

  "I shall not take the trouble to do so," said the Crown Counsel. "I seeplainly how the matter is to go."

  "Nay, but be better advised," said Scroggs. "Consider, your case isbut half proved respecting the two Peverils, and doth not pinch onthe little man at all, saving that Doctor Oates said that he was ina certain case to prove a giant, which seems no very probable Popishmiracle."

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

  "Master Attorney," said Oates, who always interfered in the managementof these law-suits, "this is a plain an absolute giving away of thecause--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 theCourt, 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 whenthe Counsel for the prosecution threw up his brief,--began to charge theJury, balancing, as he had done throughout the whole day, the differentopinions by which he seemed alternately swayed. He protested on hissalvation that he had no more doubt of the existence of the horrid anddamnable conspiracy called the Popish Plot, than he had of the treacheryof Judas Iscariot; and that he considered Oates as the instrumentunder Providence of preserving the nation from all the miseries of hisMajesty's assassination, and of a second Saint Bartholomew, acted in thestreets of London. But then he stated it was the candid construction ofthe law of England, that the worse the crime, the more strong shouldbe the evidence. Here was the case of accessories tried, whilsttheir principal--for such he should call the Countess of Derby--wasunconvicted and at large; and for Doctor Oates, he had but spoke ofmatters which personally applied to that noble lady, whose words, ifshe used such in passion, touching aid which she expected in sometreasonable matters from these Peverils, and from her kinsmen, or herson's kinsmen, of the House of Stanley, may have been but a burst offemale resentment--_dulcis Amaryllidis ira_, as the poet hath it. Whoknoweth but Doctor Oates did mistake--he being a gentleman of acomely countenance and easy demeanour--this same rap with the fan asa chastisement for lack of courage in the Catholic cause, when,peradventure, it was otherwise meant, as Popish ladies will put, it issaid, such neophytes and youthful candidates for orders, to many severetrials. "I speak these things jocularly," said the Judge, "having nowish to stain the reputation either of the Honourable Countess or theReverend Doctor; only I think the bearing between them may have relatedto something short of high treason. As for what the Attorney-Generalhath set forth of rescues and force, and I wot not what, sure I am, thatin a civil country, when such things happen such things may be proved;and that you and I, gentlemen, are not to take them for grantedgratuitously. Touching this other prisoner, this _Galfridus minimus_, hemust needs say," he continued, "he could not discover even a shadow ofsuspicion against him. Was it to be thought so abortive a creature wouldthrust 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 sizeand appearance, for the inside of a raree-show, than the mysteries of aplot."

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

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

  Such was the singular termination of this trial. Charles himself wasdesirous to have taken considerable credit with the Duke of Ormond forthe evasion of the law, which had been thus effected by his privateconnivance; and was both surprised and mortified at the coldness withwhich his Grace replied, that he was rejoiced at the poor gentleman'ssafety, but would rather have had the King redeem them like a prince, byhis royal prerogative of mercy, than that his Judge should convey themout of the power of the law, like a juggler with his cups and balls.