The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peveril of the Peak, by Sir Walter Scott

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Title: Peveril of the Peak

Author: Sir Walter Scott

Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5959]
Posting Date: May 1, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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

Produced by Emma Wong Shee, John Bickers, and Dagny

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, thou