Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Peveril of the Peak By: Walter Scott (1771-1832) |
---|
![]()
By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. PEVERIL OF THE PEAK
CHAPTER I When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When foul words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folk together by the ears
BUTLER. William, the Conqueror of England, was, or supposed himself to be, the
father of a certain William Peveril, who attended him to the battle of
Hastings, and there distinguished himself. The liberal minded monarch,
who assumed in his charters the veritable title of Gulielmus Bastardus,
was not likely to let his son's illegitimacy be any bar to the course of
his royal favour, when the laws of England were issued from the mouth
of the Norman victor, and the lands of the Saxons were at his unlimited
disposal. William Peveril obtained a liberal grant of property and
lordships in Derbyshire, and became the erecter of that Gothic fortress,
which, hanging over the mouth of the Devil's Cavern, so well known to
tourists, gives the name of Castleton to the adjacent village. From this feudal Baron, who chose his nest upon the principles on which
an eagle selects her eyry, and built it in such a fashion as if he had
intended it, as an Irishman said of the Martello towers, for the sole
purpose of puzzling posterity, there was, or conceived themselves to be,
descended (for their pedigree was rather hypothetical) an opulent
family of knightly rank, in the same county of Derby. The great fief
of Castleton, with its adjacent wastes and forests, and all the wonders
which they contain, had been forfeited in King John's stormy days, by
one William Peveril, and had been granted anew to the Lord Ferrers of
that day. Yet this William's descendants, though no longer possessed
of what they alleged to have been their original property, were long
distinguished by the proud title of Peverils of the Peak, which served
to mark their high descent and lofty pretensions. In Charles the Second's time, the representative of this ancient family
was Sir Geoffrey Peveril, a man who had many of the ordinary attributes
of an old fashioned country gentleman, and very few individual traits
to distinguish him from the general portrait of that worthy class
of mankind. He was proud of small advantages, angry at small
disappointments, incapable of forming any resolution or opinion
abstracted from his own prejudices he was proud of his birth, lavish
in his housekeeping, convivial with those kindred and acquaintances, who
would allow his superiority in rank contentious and quarrelsome with
all that crossed his pretensions kind to the poor, except when they
plundered his game a Royalist in his political opinions, and one who
detested alike a Roundhead, a poacher, and a Presbyterian. In religion
Sir Geoffrey was a high churchman, of so exalted a strain that many
thought he still nourished in private the Roman Catholic tenets, which
his family had only renounced in his father's time, and that he had a
dispensation for conforming in outward observances to the Protestant
faith. There was at least such a scandal amongst the Puritans, and
the influence which Sir Geoffrey Peveril certainly appeared to possess
amongst the Catholic gentlemen of Derbyshire and Cheshire, seemed to
give countenance to the rumour. Such was Sir Geoffrey, who might have passed to his grave without
further distinction than a brass plate in the chancel, had he not lived
in times which forced the most inactive spirits into exertion, as a
tempest influences the sluggish waters of the deadest mere. When the
Civil Wars broke out, Peveril of the Peak, proud from pedigree, and
brave by constitution, raised a regiment for the King, and showed upon
several occasions more capacity for command than men had heretofore
given him credit for. Even in the midst of the civil turmoil, he fell in love with, and
married, a beautiful and amiable young lady of the noble house of
Stanley; and from that time had the more merit in his loyalty, as it
divorced him from her society, unless at very brief intervals, when his
duty permitted an occasional visit to his home... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
History |
Literature |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Walter Scott |
Wikipedia – Peveril of the Peak |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|