“This,” said the King, “is carrying the frolic somewhat far.”
The dwarf proceeded to state, that he was carried after his metamorphosis into the chapel, where he heard the preacher seemingly about the close of his harangue, the tenor of which he also mentioned. Words, he said, could not express the agony which he felt when he found that his bearer, in placing the instrument in a corner, was about to invert its position, in which case, he said, human frailty might have proved too great for love, for loyalty, for true obedience, nay, for the fear of death, which was like to ensue on discovery; and he concluded, that he greatly doubted he could not have stood on his head for many minutes without screaming aloud.
“I could not have blamed you,” said the King; “placed in such a posture in the royal oak, I must needs have roared myself.—Is this all you have to tell us of this strange conspiracy?” Sir Geoffrey Hudson replied in the affirmative, and the King presently subjoined—“Go, my little friend, your services shall not be forgotten. Since thou hast crept into the bowels of a fiddle for our service, we are bound, in duty and conscience, to find you a more roomy dwelling in future.”
“It was a violoncello, if your Majesty is pleased to remember,” said the little jealous man, “not a common fiddle; though, for your Majesty’s service, I would have crept even into a kit.”
“Whatever of that nature could have been performed by any subject of ours, thou wouldst have enacted in our behalf—of that we hold ourselves certain. Withdraw for a little; and hark ye, for the present, beware what you say about this matter. Let your appearance be considered—do you mark me—as a frolic of the Duke of Buckingham; and not a word of conspiracy.”
“Were it not better to put him under some restraint, sire?” said the Duke of Ormond, when Hudson had left the room.
“It is unnecessary,” said the King. “I remember the little wretch of old. Fortune, to make him the model of absurdity, has closed a most lofty soul within that little miserable carcass. For wielding his sword and keeping his word, he is a perfect Don Quixote in decimo-octavo. He shall be taken care of.—But, oddsfish, my lords, is not this freak of Buckingham too villainous and ungrateful?”
“He had not had the means of being so, had your Majesty,” said the Duke of Ormond, “been less lenient on other occasions.”
“My lord, my lord,” said Charles hastily—“your lordship is Buckingham’s known enemy—we will take other and more impartial counsel—Arlington, what think you of all this?”
“May it please your Majesty,” said Arlington, “I think the thing is absolutely impossible, unless the Duke has had some quarrel with your Majesty, of which we know nothing. His Grace is very flighty, doubtless, but this seems actual insanity.”