Peveril of the Peak

“ And so, Master Ganlesse, keep your own pace, and I will keep the contrary; for I beg leave to forbear your company.”
As Peveril spoke thus, he pulled up his horse, and made a full stop.
The stranger burst out a-laughing. “What!” he said, “you forbear my company for a trifle of danger? Saint Anthony! How the warm blood of the Cavaliers is chilled in the young men of the present day! This young gallant, now, has a father, I warrant, who has endured as many adventures for hunting priests, as a knight-errant for distressed damsels.”
“This raillery avails nothing, sir,” said Peveril. ”

“ His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword; and in the left he held a small Bible, bearing the inscription, “In hoc signo.” The countenance was of a light complexion, with fair and almost effeminate blue eyes, and an oval form of face—one of those physiognomies, to which, though not otherwise unpleasing, we naturally attach the idea of melancholy and of misfortune. [*] Apparently it was well known to Julian Peveril; for after having looked at it for a long time, he could not forbear muttering aloud, “What would I give that that man had never been born, or that he still lived!” ”

“ 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 ”

“ The least allusion to this rumour used to drive him well-nigh frantic, and the fatal termination of his duel with young Crofts, which began in wanton mirth, and ended in bloodshed, made men more coy than they had formerly been, of making the fiery little hero the subject of their raillery.
While Peveril did the drudgery of the apartment, the dwarf remained much at his ease, carolling in the manner we have described ”

“ The summit is a peaty moorland, through which masses of rock project at intervals. The name of this high plateau has from the 17th century been identified with “peak,” the pointed or conical top of a mountain, but the very early references to the district and certain places in it show clearly, as the New English Dictionary points out, that this connexion is unwarranted. The name appears in the Old English Chronicle (924) as Péaclond, of the district governed from the castle of Peveril of the Peak (see Derbyshire) , and also in the name of the cavern under the hill at Castleton, Péac’s Arse. ”

“ I expect no immediate explosion of this grand conspiracy. When the rogues see us on our guard, they will be cautious how they break out. Only, once more make haste.”
Peveril thought this last advice was not to be neglected; and, glad to extricate himself from the raillery of his cousin, walked down towards the gate of the Castle, meaning to cross over to the village, and there take horse at the Earl’s stables, for the place of rendezvous. ”

“ An Italian fuoruscito, when he desires a parley with you, takes aim from behind a wall, with his long gun, and prefaces his conference with Posso tirare. So does your man-of-war fire a gun across the bows of a Hansmogan Indiaman, just to bring her to; and so do I show Master Julian Peveril, that, if I were one of the honourable society of witnesses and informers, with whom his imagination has associated me for these two hours past, he is as much within my danger now, as what he is ever likely to be. ”

“ Thou mayst perchance have seen me also have a fancy to play at trap-ball, or to kiss a serving wench, or to guzzle ale and eat toasted cheese in a porterly whimsy; but is it fitting thou shouldst remember such follies? No more on’t.—Hark you; how came the long lubberly fool, Jenkins, being a master of the noble science of defence, to suffer himself to be run through the body so simply by a rustic swain like this same Peveril?”
“Please your Grace, this same Corydon is no such novice. I saw the onset; and, except in one hand, I never saw a sword managed with such life, grace, and facility.” ”

“ They were now assaulted on all sides; but fortune complying with the wish of Sir Geoffrey the larger, ordained that the scuffle should happen near the booth of a cutler, from amongst whose wares, as they stood exposed to the public, Sir Geoffrey Peveril snatched a broadsword, which he brandished with the formidable address of one who had for many a day been in the familiar practice of using such a weapon. ”

“ But the stronger force is on my side; and, whatever harm you may meet with should you attempt to break forth by violence, the blame must rest with yourselves. It you will not believe me, I will permit Master Julian Peveril to accompany me, where he shall see that I am provided fully with the means of repressing violence.”
“Treason!—treason!” exclaimed the old Knight—“Treason against God and King Charles!—Oh, for one half-hour of the broadsword which I parted with like an ass!”
“Hold, my father, I conjure you!” said Julian. “I will go with Master Bridgenorth, since he requests it. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They rode, as the Spanish proverb expresses it, “with the beard on the shoulder,” looking around, that is, from time to time, and using every precaution to have the speediest knowledge of any pursuit which might take place.
But, however wise in discipline, Peveril and his followers were somewhat remiss in civil policy. The Knight had communicated to Whitaker, though without any apparent necessity, the precise nature of their present expedition; and Whitaker was equally communicative to his comrade Lance, the keeper. ”

“ Julian, though he had never before seen this important personage, had no difficulty in recognising, from description, the celebrated dwarf of Henrietta Maria, who had survived the dangers of civil war and private quarrel—the murder of his royal master, Charles I., and the exile of his widow—to fall upon evil tongues and evil days, amidst the unsparing accusations connected with the Popish Plot. He bowed to the unhappy old man, and hastened to explain to him, and to the turnkey, that it was Sir Geoffrey Peveril, of Martindale Castle in Derbyshire whose prison he desired to share. ”

“ Stones and sticks began now to fly very thick, and the crowd, notwithstanding the exertions of the Peverils to disperse them with as little harm as possible, seemed determined on mischief, when some gentlemen who had been at the trial, understanding that the prisoners who had been just acquitted were in danger of being murdered by the populace, drew their swords, and made forward to effect their rescue, which was completed by a small party of the King’s Life Guards, who had been despatched from their ordinary post of alarm, upon intelligence of what was passing. ”

“ Peveril called the hole a shaft, because, while he could neither see to the top nor clearly make out the outlines of the portions nearest at hand, it still [Pg 127] impressed him as being of artificial construction, while the opening at one side, in which he stood, also seemed very much like a drift or gallery hewn from the solid rock by human hands. ”

“ And yet, so little do I value the goods of this world, that it might not be utterly beyond thy power to reconcile me to the match which you have proposed."
"Show me but the means, Major Bridgenorth," said Peveril, "and you shall see how eagerly I will obey your directions, or submit to your conditions."
"This is a critical period," cried the major; "it becomes the duty of all men to step forward. You, Julian Peveril, yourself know the secret but rapid strides which Rome has made to erect her Dagon of idolatry within our Protestant land." ”

“ For weeks and months the work goes on with unabated energy. Peveril, always willing to listen to advice and never ashamed to ask it from those more experienced than himself, is everywhere, seeing to everything and directing everything. ”

“ Finally all these sounds blended into a vanishing echo upon the bosom of the great waters, leaving Billy Peverley “of New York and Boston”—and Camp Umsit—to chew the cud of reflection on a rotting wharf in an obscure lake of the Maine wilderness, at half-past ten of a dark May evening.
Now, this same Billy Peverley, indubitably possessed of “nerve,” was a resourceful young man: resourceful, that is, as measured by the standards of city men. ”

“ The path clambered up the rocks which covered the entire area of the mountain-summit. Frequent were our traveller’s falls; her hands were sadly wounded by the sharp jagged projections of the lava; and her eyes suffered severely from the dazzling brilliancy of the snow that filled every gorge and ravine.
But every obstacle gives way to the resolute; and at last Madame Pfeiffer stood on the topmost peak of Hekla. Here she made a discovery: in books of travel she had read of the crater of Mount Hekla, but a careful survey convinced her that none existed. ”

“ At last, however, and when the exhausted men had come under the very shadow of the great hill which stood as a barrier between them and the outer world, it narrowed again, running between high ramparts of rock straight toward the headland. ”

“ You know that the leadsman had called, "By the deep, six." Now, as though to witness the changing sea beneath us, he called, "By the mark, twenty," so that we must have passed from six fathoms to twenty in as many feet of our drifting. A spell further, and the rocks before us opened as though a Titan's axe had cleaved them to the base. I saw that we had rounded a bluff of the cliff, and found behind it a little circular basin for all the world like a pool between two spurs of the great cliff. ”

“ For every rock in the desert, every boulder on the plain, every pebble by the brook-side, every grain of sand on the sea-shore, is fraught with lessons of wisdom to the mind which is fitted to receive and comprehend their sublime import. ”

“ By some trick of light reflected from peak or cloud, the trail and the valley below it were visible in a green-gray ghost of daylight, which made us seem unreal even to ourselves. And we climbed, interminably, forever, putting one foot before the other with the patient deep attentiveness of trudging animals, while rain dripped unheeded from forehead to cheek to chin. We climbed, absorbed in detail of slippery shale and stubborn bowlder, till Perolli’s exclamation shocked us as though a rock had spoken. ”

“ If this great bed of pebbles, without including the mud necessarily derived from their attrition, was piled into a mound, it would form a great mountain chain! When we consider that all these pebbles, countless as the grains of sand in the desert, have been derived from the slow falling of masses of rock on the old coast-lines and banks of rivers, and that these fragments have been dashed into smaller pieces, and that each of them has since been slowly rolled, rounded, and far transported, the mind is stupefied in thinking over the long, absolutely necessary, lapse of years. ”

“ Below this ledge of rock a long and fertile valley, dotted with hamlets and pastures, spread for many miles. Even by the moon's light the land had a fair aspect; the breeze upon the heights was exhilarating as strong wine. The Spaniards, trusting in the sure steps of the mules, did not even come down from their saddles; the woman set a brisk pace, now gossiping to Messenger behind her with the flippancy of a girl of twenty. ”

“ Thence onward was lurching, staggering work, but half-an-hour of it brought us right up out of the sea, and we sank breathless upon a heap of sand at the foot of a tremendous cliff, and there lay like dead men. ”

“ You and Brown have no stockings, we none of us have proper clothing—no blankets, no provisions, and there’s little prospect of game. We’ve come so far, and taxed our strength to the limit. Comparing the height of that mountain with this, I believe that no human being can climb the Grand Peak and survive. It is a region of eternal snow, barred to all vestige of life. ”

“ Payn Peveril actually held fiefs in the neighbourhood of those exalted mountains called now by the name of his foe. He had a hard fight; but luckily his arms were or with a cross édentée azure, and this cross constantly turned the giant-devil's mace-strokes, while it also weakened him, and he had besides to bear the strokes of Peveril's sword. So he gave in, remarking with as much truth as King Padella in similar circumstances, that it was no good fighting under these conditions. Then he tells a story of some length about the original Gogmagog and his treasure. ”

“ Any other man but Pepin would have been lost beyond hope in this labyrinth; but the guide knew the forest as he knew his own face. The very darkness of the way inspired him. He turned gaily from the path he had struck at the first, and riding as it were straight towards a gloomy bog whose shallow waters caught a leaden glow of the moon's beams, he encouraged the bewildered Abbé to new efforts.
"Well done, monsieur, well done," he cried; "a half a league ridden like that and you shall smack your lips over a wine-cup. ”