"To whom your Grace said you owed five pieces and a beating!" replied Jerningham.
"The money for his satire, and the cudgel for his praise—Good—find him—give him the five pieces, and thrust the Countess's billet-doux—Hold—take Araminta's and the rest of them—thrust them all into his portfolio—All will come out at the Wit's Coffee-house; and if the promulgator be not cudgelled into all the colours of the rainbow, there is no spite in woman, no faith in crabtree, or pith in heart of oak—Araminta's wrath alone would overburden one pair of mortal shoulders."
"But, my Lord Duke," said his attendant, "this Settle[19] is so dull a rascal, that nothing he can write will take."
"Then as we have given him steel to head the arrow," said the Duke, "we will give him wings to waft it with—wood, he has enough of his own to make a shaft or bolt of. Hand me my own unfinished lampoon—give it to him with the letters—let him make what he can of them all."
"My Lord Duke—I crave pardon—but your Grace's style will be discovered; and though the ladies' names are not at the letters, yet they will be traced."
"I would have it so, you blockhead. Have you lived with me so long, and cannot discover that the éclat of an intrigue is, with me, worth all the rest of it?"
"But the danger, my Lord Duke?" replied Jerningham. "There are husbands, brothers, friends, whose revenge may be awakened."
"And beaten to sleep again," said Buckingham haughtily. "I have Black Will and his cudgel for plebeian grumblers; and those of quality I can deal with myself. I lack breathing and exercise of late."
"But yet your Grace——"
"Hold your peace, fool! I tell you that your poor dwarfish spirit cannot measure the scope of mine. I tell thee I would have the course of my life a torrent—I am weary of easy achievements, and wish for obstacles, that I can sweep before my irresistible course."
Another gentleman now entered the apartment. "I humbly crave your Grace's pardon," he said; "but Master Christian is so importunate for admission instantly, that I am obliged to take your Grace's pleasure."
"Tell him to call three hours hence. Damn his politic pate, that would make all men dance after his pipe!"
"I thank thee for the compliment, my Lord Duke," said Christian, entering the apartment in somewhat a more courtly garb, but with the same unpretending and undistinguished mien, and in the same placid and indifferent manner with which he had accosted Julian Peveril upon different occasions during his journey to London. "It is precisely my present object to pipe to you; and you may dance to your own profit, if you will."
"On my word, Master Christian," said the Duke haughtily, "the affair should be weighty, that removes ceremony so entirely from betwixt us. If it relates to the subject of our last conversation, I must request our interview be postponed to some farther opportunity. I am engaged in an affair of some weight." Then turning his back on Christian, he went on with his conversation with Jerningham. "Find the person you wot of, and give him the papers; and hark ye, give him this gold to pay for the shaft of his arrow—the steel-head and peacock's wing we have already provided."
"This is all well, my lord," said Christian calmly, and taking his seat at the same time in an easy-chair at some distance; "but your Grace's levity is no match for my equanimity. It is necessary I should speak with you; and I will await your Grace's leisure in the apartment."
"Very well, sir," said the Duke peevishly; "if an evil is to be undergone, the sooner it is over the better—I can take measures to prevent its being renewed. So let me hear your errand without farther delay."
"I will wait till your Grace's toilette is completed," said Christian, with the indifferent tone which was natural to him. "What I have to say must be between ourselves."
"Begone, Jerningham; and remain without till I call. Leave my doublet on the couch.—How now, I have worn this cloth of silver a hundred times."
"Only twice, if it please your Grace," replied Jerningham.
"As well twenty times—keep it for yourself, or give it to my valet, if you are too proud of your gentility."
"Your Grace has made better men than me wear your cast clothes," said Jerningham submissively.
"Thou art sharp, Jerningham," said the Duke—"in one sense I have, and I may again. So now, that pearl-coloured will do with the ribbon and George. Get away with thee.—And now that he is gone, Master Christian, may I once more crave your pleasure?"
"My Lord Duke," said Christian, "you are a worshipper of difficulties in state affairs, as in love matters."
"I trust you have been no eavesdropper, Master Christian," replied the Duke; "it scarce argues the respect due to me, or to my roof."
"I know not what you mean, my lord," replied Christian.
"Nay, I care not if the whole world heard what I said but now to Jerningham. But to the matter," replied the Duke of Buckingham.
"Your Grace is so much occupied with conquests over the fair and over the witty, that you have perhaps forgotten what a stake you have in the little Island of Man."
"Not a whit, Master Christian. I remember well enough that my roundheaded father-in-law, Fairfax, had the island from the Long Parliament; and was ass enough to quit hold of it at the Restoration, when, if he had closed his clutches, and held fast, like a true bird of prey, as he should have done, he might have kept it for him and his. It had been a rare thing to have had a little kingdom—made laws of my own—had my Chamberlain with his white staff—I would have taught Jerningham, in half a day, to look as wise, walk as stiffly, and speak as silly, as Harry Bennet."
"You might have done this, and more, if it had pleased your Grace."
"Ay, and if it had pleased my Grace, thou, Ned Christian, shouldst have been the Jack Ketch of my dominions."
"I your Jack Ketch, my lord?" said Christian, more in a tone of surprise than of displeasure.
"Why, ay; thou hast been perpetually intriguing against the life of yonder poor old woman. It were a kingdom to thee to gratify thy spleen with thy own hands."
"I only seek justice against the Countess," said Christian.
"And the end of justice is always a gibbet," said the Duke.
"Be it so," answered Christian. "Well, the Countess is in the Plot."
"The devil confound the Plot, as I believe he first invented it!" said the Duke of Buckingham; "I have heard of nothing else for months. If one must go to hell, I would it were by some new road, and in gentlemen's company. I should not like to travel with Oates, Bedloe, and the rest of that famous cloud of witnesses."
"Your Grace is then resolved to forego all the advantages which may arise? If the House of Derby fall under forfeiture, the grant to Fairfax, now worthily represented by your Duchess, revives, and you become the Lord and Sovereign of Man."
"In right of a woman," said the Duke; "but, in troth, my godly dame owes me some advantage for having lived the first year of our marriage with her and old Black Tom, her grim, fighting, puritanic father. A man might as well have married the Devil's daughter, and set up housekeeping with his father-in-law."[20]
"I understand you are willing, then, to join your interest for a heave at the House of Derby, my Lord Duke?"
"As they are unlawfully possessed of my wife's kingdom, they certainly can expect no favour at my hand. But thou knowest there is an interest at Whitehall predominant over mine."
"That is only by your Grace's sufferance," said Christian.
"No, no; I tell thee a hundred times, no," said the Duke, rousing himself to anger at the recollection. "I tell thee that base courtezan, the Duchess of Portsmouth, hath impudently set herself to thwart and contradict me; and Charles has given me both cloudy looks and hard words before the Court. I would he could but guess what is the offence between her and me! I would he knew but that! But I will have her plumes picked, or my name is not Villiers. A worthless French fille-de-joie to brave me thus!—Christian, thou art right; there is no passion so spirit-stirring as revenge. I will patronise the Plot, if it be but to spite her, and make it impossible for the King to uphold her."
19
Elkana Settle, the unworthy scribbler whom the envy of Rochester and others tried to raise to public estimation, as a rival to Dryden; a circumstance which has been the means of elevating him to a very painful species of immortality.
20
Mary, daughter of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was wedded to the Duke of Buckingham, whose versatility made him capable of rendering himself for a time as agreeable to his father-in-law, though a rigid Presbyterian, as to the gay Charles II.