g
smacking of a Puritan, having boots of neat's leather, and wearing his
weapon without a sword-knot. When Master Julian returned, he informed
us, for the first time, that we were in the power of a body of armed
fanatics who were, as the poet says, prompt for direful act. And your
Majesty will remark, that both father and son were in some measure
desperate, and disregardful from that moment of the assurances which I
gave them, that the star which I was bound to worship, would, in her own
time, shine forth in signal of our safety. May it please your Majesty,
in answer to my hilarious exhortations to confidence, the father did
but say _tush_, and the son _pshaw_, which showed how men's prudence and
manners are disturbed by affliction. Nevertheless, these two gentlemen,
the Peverils, forming a strong opinion of the necessity there was to
break forth, were it only to convey a knowledge of these dangerous
passages to your Majesty, commenced an assault on the door of the
apartment, I also assisting with the strength which Heaven hath given,
and some threescore years have left me. We could not, as it unhappily
proved, manage our attempt so silently, but that our guards overheard
us, and, entering in numbers, separated us from each other, and
compelled my companions, at point of pike and poniard, to go to some
other and more distant apartment, thus separating our fair society. I
was again enclosed in the now solitary chamber, and I will own that I
felt a certain depression of soul. But when bale is at highest, as
the poet singeth, boot is at nighest, for a door of hope was suddenly
opened----"

"In the name of God, my liege," said the Duke of Ormond, "let this poor
creature's story be translated into the language of common sense by some
of the scribblers of romances about Court, and we may be able to make
meaning of it."

Geoffrey Hudson looked with a frowning countenance of reproof upon the
impatient old Irish nobleman, and said, with a very dignified air, "That
one Duke upon a poor gentleman's hand was enough at a time, and
that, but for his present engagement and dependency with the Duke
of Buckingham, he would have endured no such terms from the Duke of
Ormond."

"Abate your valour, and diminish your choler, at our request, most
puissant Sir Geoffrey Hudson," said the King; "and forgive the Duke of
Ormond for my sake; but at all events go on with your story."

Geoffrey Hudson laid his hand on his bosom, and bowed in pr