h intended for his seat; and there, "paining himself to stand
a-tiptoe," like Chaucer's gallant Sir Chaunticlere, he challenged the
notice of the audience as he stood bowing and claiming acquaintance
of his namesake Sir Geoffrey the larger, with whose shoulders,
notwithstanding his elevated situation, he was scarcely yet upon a
level.

The taller Knight, whose mind was occupied in a very different manner,
took no notice of these advances upon the dwarf's part, but sat down
with the determination rather to die on the spot than evince any
symptoms of weakness before Roundheads and Presbyterians; under
which obnoxious epithets, being too old-fashioned to find out party
designations of newer date, he comprehended all persons concerned in his
present trouble.

By Sir Geoffrey the larger's change of position, his face was thus
brought on a level with that of Sir Geoffrey the less, who had an
opportunity of pulling him by the cloak. He of Martindale Castle,
rather mechanically than consciously, turned his head towards the
large wrinkled visage, which, struggling between an assumed air of easy
importance, and an anxious desire to be noticed, was grimacing within a
yard of him. But neither the singular physiognomy, the nods and smiles
of greeting and recognition into which it was wreathed, nor the strange
little form by which it was supported, had at that moment the power of
exciting any recollections in the old Knight's mind; and having stared
for a moment at the poor little man, his bulky namesake turned away his
head without farther notice.

Julian Peveril, the dwarf's more recent acquaintance, had, even amid
his own anxious feelings, room for sympathy with those of his little
fellow-sufferer. As soon as he discovered that he was at the same
terrible bar with himself, although he could not conceive how their
causes came to be conjoined, he acknowledged him by a hearty shake of
the hand, which the old man returned with affected dignity and real
gratitude. "Worthy youth," he said, "thy presence is restorative, like
the nepenthe of Homer even in this syncope of our mutual fate. I am
concerned to see that your father hath not the same alacrity of soul as
that of ours, which are lodged within smaller compass; and that he hath
forgotten an ancient comrade and fellow-soldier, who now stands beside
him to perform, perhaps, their last campaign."

Julian briefly replied, that his father had much to occupy him. But the
little man--