Peveril of the Peak

Peveril of the Peak

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Scott (#23 in our series by Sir Walter Scott)
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Title: Peveril of the Peak
Author: Sir Walter Scott
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5959] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 30,
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Edition: 10

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PEVERIL
OF THE PEAK ***

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK By Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
First published in 1822.
Etext prepared by Emma Wong Shee, John Bickers,
[email protected] and Dagny, [email protected]

PEVERIL OF THE PEAK
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