and
that because I fall martyr to the over-tenderness of my own heart. There
is a circumstance, good Master Julian Peveril, which should have been
yours, had Providence permitted our farther intimacy, but it fits not
the present hour. Go, then, my friend, and bear witness in life and
death, that Geoffrey Hudson scorns the insults and persecutions of
fortune, as he would despise, and has often despised, the mischievous
pranks of an overgrown schoolboy."

So saying, he turned away, and hid his face with his little
handkerchief, while Julian felt towards him that tragi-comic sensation
which makes us pity the object which excites it, not the less that we
are somewhat inclined to laugh amid our sympathy. The jailer made him
a signal, which Peveril obeyed, leaving the dwarf to disconsolate
solitude.

As Julian followed the keeper through the various windings of his penal
labyrinth, the man observed, that "he was a rum fellow, that little Sir
Geoffrey, and, for gallantry, a perfect Cock of Bantam, for as old as he
was. There was a certain gay wench," he said, "that had hooked him; but
what she could make of him, save she carried him to Smithfield, and took
money for him, as for a motion of puppets, it was," he said, "hard to
gather."

Encouraged by this opening, Julian asked if his attendant knew why
his prison was changed. "To teach you to become a King's post without
commission," answered the fellow.

He stopped in his tattle as they approached that formidable central
point, in which lay couched on his leathern elbow-chair the fat
commander of the fortress, stationed apparently for ever in the midst
of his citadel, as the huge Boa is sometimes said to lie stretched as a
guard upon the subterranean treasures of Eastern Rajas. This overgrown
man of authority eyed Julian wistfully and sullenly, as the miser the
guinea which he must part with, or the hungry mastiff the food which is
carried to another kennel. He growled to himself as he turned the leaves
of his ominous register, in order to make the necessary entry respecting
the removal of his prisoner. "To the Tower--to the Tower--ay, ay, all
must to the Tower--that's the fashion of it--free Britons to a military
prison, as if we had neither bolts nor chains here!--I hope Parliament
will have it up, this Towering work, that's all.--Well, the youngster
will take no good by the change, and that is one comfort."

Having finished at once his official act of registration, an