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Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Woodstock; or, The Cavalier




Thus triumphed the old cavalier, in the treble glory of having recovered
his dwelling,--regained, as he thought, his character as a man of fence,
and finally, discovered some prospect of a change of times, in which he
was not without hopes that something might turn up for the royal
interest.

Meanwhile, Alice, with a prouder and a lighter heart than had danced in
her bosom for several days, went forth with a gaiety to which she of
late had been a stranger, to contribute her assistance to the regulation
and supply of the household, by bringing the fresh water wanted from
fair Rosamond's well.

Perhaps she remembered, that when she was but a girl, her cousin Markham
used, among others, to make her perform that duty, as presenting the
character of some captive Trojan princess, condemned by her situation to
draw the waters from some Grecian spring, for the use of the proud
victor. At any rate, she certainly joyed to see her father reinstated in
his ancient habitation; and the joy was not the less sincere, that she
knew their return to Woodstock had been procured by means of her cousin,
and that even in her father's prejudiced eyes, Everard had been in some
degree exculpated of the accusations the old knight had brought against
him; and that, if a reconciliation had not yet taken place, the
preliminaries had been established on which such a desirable conclusion
might easily be founded. It was like the commencement of a bridge; when
the foundation is securely laid, and the piers raised above the
influence of the torrent, the throwing of the arches may be accomplished
in a subsequent season.

The doubtful fate of her only brother might have clouded even this
momentary gleam of sunshine; but Alice had been bred up during the close
and frequent contest of civil war, and had acquired the habit of hoping
in behalf of those dear to her, until hope was lost. In the present
case, all reports seemed to assure her of her brother's safety.

Besides these causes for gaiety, Alice Lee had the pleasing feeling that
she was restored to the habitation and the haunts of her childhood, from
which she had not departed without much pain, the more felt, perhaps,
because suppressed, in order to avoid irritating her father's sense of
his misfortune. Finally, she enjoyed for the instant the gleam of
self-satisfaction by which we see the young and well-disposed so often
animated, when they can be, in common phrase, helpful to those whom they
love, and perform at the moment of need some of those little domestic
tasks, which age receives with so much pleasure from the dutiful hands
of youth. So that, altogether, as she hasted through the remains and
vestiges of a wilderness already mentioned, and from thence about a
bow-shot into the Park, to bring a pitcher of water from Rosamond's
spring, Alice Lee, her features enlivened and her complexion a little
raised by the exercise, had, for the moment, regained the gay and
brilliant vivacity of expression which had been the characteristic of
her beauty in her earlier and happier days.

This fountain of old memory had been once adorned with architectural
ornaments in the style of the sixteenth century, chiefly relating to
ancient mythology. All these were now wasted and overthrown, and existed
only as moss-covered ruins, while the living spring continued to furnish
its daily treasures, unrivalled in purity, though the quantity was
small, gushing out amid disjointed stones, and bubbling through
fragments of ancient sculpture.

With a light step and laughing brow the young Lady of Lee was
approaching, the fountain usually so solitary, when she paused on
beholding some one seated beside it. She proceeded, however, with
confidence, though with a step something less gay, when she observed
that the person was a female; some menial perhaps from the town, whom a
fanciful mistress occasionally dispatched for the water of a spring,
supposed to be peculiarly pure, or some aged woman, who made a little
trade by carrying it to the better sort of families, and selling it for
a trifle. There was no cause, therefore, for apprehension.

Yet the terrors of the times were so great, that Alice did not see a
stranger even of her own sex without some apprehension. Denaturalized
women had as usual followed the camps of both armies during the Civil
War; who, on the one side with open profligacy and profanity, on the
other with the fraudful tone of fanaticism or hypocrisy, exercised
nearly in like degree their talents, for murder or plunder. But it was
broad daylight, the distance from the Lodge was but trifling, and though
a little alarmed at seeing a stranger where she expected deep solitude,
the daughter of the haughty old Knight had too much of the lion about
her, to fear without some determined and decided cause.

Alice walked, therefore, gravely on toward the fount, and composed her
looks as she took a hasty glance of the female who was seated there, and
addressed herself to her task of filling her pitcher.

The woman, whose presence had surprised and somewhat startled Alice Lee,
was a person of the lower rank, whose red cloak, russet kirtle,
handkerchief trimmed with Coventry blue, and a coarse steeple hat, could
not indicate at best any thing higher than the wife of a small farmer,
or, perhaps, the helpmate of a bailiff or hind. It was well if she
proved nothing worse. Her clothes, indeed, were of good materials; but,
what the female eye discerns with half a glance, they were indifferently
adjusted and put on. This looked as if they did not belong to the person
by whom they were worn, but were articles of which she had become the
mistress by some accident, if not by some successful robbery. Her size,
too, as did not escape Alice, even in the short perusal she afforded the
stranger, was unusual; her features swarthy and singularly harsh, and
her manner altogether unpropitious. The young lady almost wished, as she
stooped to fill her pitcher, that she had rather turned back, and sent
Joceline on the errand; but repentance was too late now, and she had
only to disguise as well as she could her unpleasant feelings.

"The blessings of this bright day to one as bright as it is," said the
stranger, with no unfriendly, though a harsh voice.

"I thank you," said Alice in reply; and continued to fill her pitcher
busily, by assistance of an iron bowl which remained still chained to
one of the stones beside the fountain.

"Perhaps, my pretty maiden, if you would accept my help, your work would
be sooner done," said the stranger.

"I thank you," said Alice; "but had I needed assistance, I could have
brought those with me who had rendered it."

"I do not doubt of that, my pretty maiden," answered the female; "there
are too many lads in Woodstock with eyes in their heads--No doubt you
could have brought with you any one of them who looked on you, if you
had listed."

Alice replied not a syllable, for she did not like the freedom used by
the speaker, and was desirous to break off the conversation.

"Are you offended, my pretty mistress?" said the stranger; "that was far
from my purpose.--I will put my question otherwise.--Are the good dames
of Woodstock so careless of their pretty daughters as to let the flower
of them all wander about the wild chase without a mother, or a somebody
to prevent the fox from running away with the lamb?--that carelessness,
methinks, shows small kindness."

"Content yourself, good woman, I am not far from protection and
assistance," said Alice, who liked less and less the effrontery of her
new acquaintance.

"Alas! my pretty maiden," said the stranger, patting with her large and
hard hand the head which Alice had kept bended down towards the water
which she was laving, "it would be difficult to hear such a pipe as
yours at the town of Woodstock, scream as loud as you would."

Alice shook the woman's hand angrily off, took up her pitcher, though
not above half full, and as she saw the stranger rise at the same time,
said, not without fear doubtless, but with a natural feeling of
resentment and dignity, "I have no reason to make my cries heard as far
as Woodstock; were there occasion for my crying for help at all, it is
nearer at hand."

She spoke not without a warrant; for, at the moment, broke through the
bushes, and stood by her side, the noble hound Bevis; fixing on the
stranger his eyes that glanced fire, raising every hair on his gallant
mane as upright as the bristles of a wild boar when hard pressed,
grinning till a case of teeth, which would have matched those of any
wolf in Russia, were displayed in full array, and, without either
barking or springing, seeming, by his low determined growl, to await but
the signal for dashing at the female, whom he plainly considered as a
suspicious person.

But the stranger was undaunted. "My pretty maiden," she said, "you have
indeed a formidable guardian there, where cockneys or bumpkins are
concerned; but we who have been at the wars know spells for taming such
furious dragons; and therefore let not your four-footed protector go
loose on me, for he is a noble animal, and nothing but self-defence
would induce me to do him injury." So saying, she drew a pistol from her
bosom, and cocked it--pointing it towards the dog, as if apprehensive
that he would spring upon her.

"Hold, woman, hold!" said Alice Lee; "the dog will not do you
harm.--Down, Bevis, couch down.--And ere you attempt to hurt him, know
he is the favourite hound of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, the keeper of
Woodstock Park, who would severely revenge any injury offered to him."

"And you, pretty one, are the old knight's house-keeper, doubtless? I
have often heard the Lees have good taste."

"I am his daughter, good woman."

"His daughter!--I was blind--but yet it is true, nothing less perfect
could answer the description which all the world has given of Mistress
Alice Lee. I trust that my folly has given my young mistress no offence,
and that she will allow me, in token of reconciliation, to fill her
pitcher, and carry it as far as she will permit."

"As you will, good mother; but I am about to return instantly to the
Lodge, to which, in these times, I cannot admit strangers. You can
follow me no farther than the verge of the wilderness, and I am already
too long from home: I will send some one to meet and relieve you of the
pitcher." So saying, she turned her back, with a feeling of terror which
she could hardly account for, and began to walk quickly towards the
Lodge, thinking thus to get rid of her troublesome acquaintance.

But she reckoned without her host; for in a moment her new companion was
by her side, not running, indeed, but walking with prodigious long
unwomanly strides, which soon brought her up with the hurried and timid
steps of the frightened maiden. But her manner was more respectful than
formerly, though her voice sounded remarkably harsh and disagreeable,
and her whole appearance suggested an undefined, yet irresistible
feeling of apprehension.

"Pardon a stranger, lovely Mistress Alice," said her persecutor, "that
was not capable of distinguishing between a lady of your high quality
and a peasant wench, and who spoke to you with a degree of freedom,
ill-befitting your rank, certainly, and condition, and which, I fear,
has given you offence."

"No offence whatever," replied Alice; "but, good woman, I am near home,
and can excuse your farther company.--You are unknown to me."

"But it follows not," said the stranger, "that _your_ fortunes may not
be known to _me_, fair Mistress Alice. Look on my swarthy brow--England
breeds none such--and in the lands from which I come, the sun which
blackens our complexion, pours, to make amends, rays of knowledge into
our brains, which are denied to those of your lukewarm climate. Let me
look upon your pretty hand,--(attempting to possess herself of it,)--and
I promise you, you shall hear what will please you."

"I hear what does _not_ please me," said Alice, with dignity; "you must
carry your tricks of fortune-telling and palmistry to the women of the
village.--We of the gentry hold them to be either imposture or unlawful
knowledge."

"Yet you would fain hear of a certain Colonel, I warrant you, whom
certain unhappy circumstances have separated from his family; you would
give better than silver if I could assure you that you would see him in
a day or two--ay, perhaps, sooner."

"I know nothing of what you speak, good woman; if you want alms, there
is a piece of silver--it is all I have in my purse."

"It were pity that I should take it," said the female; "and yet give it
me--for the princess in the fairy tale must ever deserve, by her
generosity, the bounty of the benevolent fairy, before she is rewarded
by her protection."

"Take it--take it--give me my pitcher," said Alice, "and begone,--yonder
comes one of my father's servants.--What, ho!--Joceline--Joceline!"

The old fortune-teller hastily dropped something into the pitcher as she
restored it to Alice Lee, and, plying her long limbs, disappeared
speedily under cover of the wood.

Bevis turned, and barked, and showed some inclination to harass the
retreat of this suspicious person, yet, as if uncertain, ran towards
Joliffe, and fawned on him, as to demand his advice and encouragement.
Joceline pacified the animal, and, coming up to his young lady, asked
her, with surprise, what was the matter, and whether she had been
frightened? Alice made light of her alarm, for which, indeed, she could
not have assigned any very competent reason, for the manners of the
woman, though bold and intrusive, were not menacing. She only said she
had met a fortune-teller by Rosamond's Well, and had had some difficulty
in shaking her off.

"Ah, the gipsy thief," said Joceline, "how well she scented there was
food in the pantry!--they have noses like ravens, these strollers. Look
you, Mistress Alice, you shall not see a raven or a carrion-crow in all
the blue sky for a mile round you; but let a sheep drop suddenly down on
the green-sward, and before the poor creature's dead you shall see a
dozen of such guests croaking, as if inviting each other to the
banquet.--Just so it is with these sturdy beggars. You will see few
enough of them when there's nothing to give, but when hough's in the
pot, they will have share on't."

"You are so proud of your fresh supply of provender," said Alice, "that
you suspect all of a design on't. I do not think this woman will venture
near your kitchen, Joceline."

"It will be best for her health," said Joceline, "lest I give her a
ducking for digestion.--But give me the pitcher, Mistress Alice--meeter
I bear it than you.--How now? what jingles at the bottom? have you
lifted the pebbles as well as the water?"

"I think the woman dropped something into the pitcher," said Alice.

"Nay, we must look to that, for it is like to be a charm, and we have
enough of the devil's ware about Woodstock already--we will not spare
for the water--I can run back and fill the pitcher." He poured out the
water upon the grass, and at the bottom of the pitcher was found a gold
ring, in which was set a ruby, apparently of some value.

"Nay, if this be not enchantment, I know not what is," said Joceline.
"Truly, Mistress Alice, I think you had better throw away this gimcrack.
Such gifts from such hands are a kind of press-money which the devil
uses for enlisting his regiment of witches; and if they take but so much
as a bean from him, they become his bond-slaves for life--Ay, you look
at the gew-gaw, but to-morrow you will find a lead ring, and a common
pebble in its stead."

"Nay, Joceline, I think it will be better to find out that
dark-complexioned woman, and return to her what seems of some value. So,
cause enquiry to be made, and be sure you return her ring. It seems too
valuable to be destroyed."

"Umph! that is always the way with women," murmured Joceline. "You will
never get the best of them, but she is willing to save a bit of
finery.--Well, Mistress Alice, I trust that you are too young and too
pretty to be enlisted in a regiment of witches."

"I shall not be afraid of it till you turn conjuror," said Alice; "so
hasten to the well, where you are like still to find the woman, and let
her know that Alice Lee desires none of her gifts, any more than she did
of her society."

So saying, the young lady pursued her way to the Lodge, while Joceline
went down to Rosamond's Well to execute her commission. But the
fortune-teller, or whoever she might be, was nowhere to be found;
neither, finding that to be the case, did Joceline give himself much
trouble in tracking her farther.

"If this ring, which I dare say the jade stole somewhere," said the
underkeeper to himself, "be worth a few nobles, it is better in honest
hands than in that of vagabonds. My master has a right to all waifs and
strays, and certainly such a ring, in possession of a gipsy, must be a
waif. So I shall confiscate it without scruple, and apply the produce to
the support of Sir Henry's household, which is like to be poor enough.
Thank Heaven, my military experience has taught me how to carry hooks at
my finger-ends--that is trooper's law. Yet, hang it, after all, I had
best take it to Mark Everard and ask his advice--I hold him now to be
your learned counsellor in law where Mistress Alice's affairs are
concerned, and my learned Doctor, who shall be nameless, for such as
concern Church and State and Sir Henry Lee.--And I'll give them leave to
give mine umbles to the kites and ravens if they find me conferring my
confidence where it is not safe."

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.


Being skilless in these parts, which, to a stranger,
Unguided and unfriended, often prove
Rough and inhospitable.
TWELFTH NIGHT.

There was a little attempt at preparation, now that the dinner hour was
arrived, which showed that, in the opinion of his few but faithful
domestics, the good knight had returned in triumph to his home.

The great tankard, exhibiting in bas-relief the figure of Michael
subduing the Arch-enemy, was placed on the table, and Joceline and
Phoebe dutifully attended; the one behind the chair of Sir Henry, the
other to wait upon her young mistress, and both to make out, by formal
and regular observance, the want of a more numerous train.

"A health to King Charles!" said the old knight, handing the massive
tankard to his daughter; "drink it, my love, though it be rebel ale
which they have left us. I will pledge thee; for the toast will excuse
the liquor, had Noll himself brewed it."

The young lady touched the goblet with her lip, and returned it to her
father, who took a copious draught.

"I will not say blessing on their hearts," said he; "though I must own
they drank good ale."

"No wonder, sir; they come lightly by the malt, and need not spare it,"
said Joceline.

"Say'st thou?" said the knight; "thou shalt finish the tankard thyself
for that very jest's sake."

Nor was his follower slow in doing reason to the royal pledge. He bowed,
and replaced the tankard, saying, after a triumphant glance at the
sculpture, "I had a gibe with that same red-coat about the Saint Michael
just now."

"Red-coat--ha! what red-coat?" said the hasty old man. "Do any of these
knaves still lurk about Woodstock?--Quoit him down stairs instantly,
Joceline.--Know we not Galloway nags?"

"So please you, he is in some charge here, and will speedily be
gone.--It is he--he who had a rencontre with your honour in the wood."

"Ay, but I paid him off for it in the hall, as you yourself saw.--I was
never in better fence in my life, Joceline. That same steward fellow is
not so utterly black-hearted a rogue as the most of them, Joceline. He
fences well--excellent well. I will have thee try a bout in the hall
with him to-morrow, though I think he will be too hard for thee. I know
thy strength to an inch."

He might say this with some truth; for it was Joceline's fashion, when
called on, as sometimes happened, to fence with his patron, just to put
forth as much of his strength and skill as obliged the Knight to contend
hard for the victory, which, in the long run, he always contrived to
yield up to him, like a discreet serving-man.

"And what said this roundheaded steward of our great Saint Michael's
standing cup?"

"Marry, he scoffed at our good saint, and said he was little better than
one of the golden calves of Bethel. But I told him he should not talk
so, until one of their own roundheaded saints had given the devil as
complete a cross-buttock as Saint Michael had given him, as 'tis carved
upon the cup there. I trow that made him silent enough. And then he
would know whether your honour and Mistress Alice, not to mention old
Joan and myself, since it is your honour's pleasure I should take my bed
here, were not afraid to sleep in a house that had been so much
disturbed. But I told him we feared no fiends or goblins, having the
prayers of the Church read every evening."

"Joceline," said Alice, interrupting him, "wert thou mad? You know at
what risk to ourselves and the good doctor the performance of that duty
takes place."

"Oh, Mistress Alice," said Joceline, a little abashed, "you may be sure
I spoke not a word of the doctor--No, no--I did not let him into the
secret that we had such a reverend chaplain.--I think I know the length
of this man's foot. We have had a jollification or so together. He is
hand and glove with me, for as great a fanatic as he is."

"Trust him not too far," said the knight. "Nay, I fear thou hast been
imprudent already, and that it will be unsafe for the good man to come
here after nightfall, as is proposed. These Independents have noses like
bloodhounds, and can smell out a loyalist under any disguise."

"If your honour thinks so," said Joceline, "I'll watch for the doctor
with good will, and bring him into the Lodge by the old condemned
postern, and so up to this apartment; and sure this man Tomkins would
never presume to come hither; and the doctor may have a bed in Woodstock
Lodge, and he never the wiser; or, if your honour does not think that
safe, I can cut his throat for you, and I would not mind it a pin."

"God forbid!" said the knight. "He is under our roof, and a guest,
though not an invited one.--Go, Joceline; it shall be thy penance, for
having given thy tongue too much license, to watch for the good doctor,
and to take care of his safety while he continues with us. An October
night or two in the forest would finish the good man."

"He's more like to finish our October than our October is to finish
him," said the keeper; and withdrew under the encouraging smile of his
patron.

He whistled Bevis along with him to share in his watch; and having
received exact information where the clergyman was most likely to be
found, assured his master that he would give the most pointed attention
to his safety. When the attendants had withdrawn, having previously
removed the remains of the meal, the old knight, leaning back in his
chair, encouraged pleasanter visions than had of late passed through his
imagination, until by degrees he was surprised by actual slumber; while
his daughter, not venturing to move but on tiptoe, took some
needle-work, and bringing it close by the old man's side, employed her
fingers on this task, bending her eyes from time to time on her parent,
with the affectionate zeal, if not the effective power, of a guardian
angel. At length, as the light faded away, and night came on, she was
about to order candles to be brought. But, remembering how indifferent a
couch Joceline's cottage had afforded, she could not think of
interrupting the first sound and refreshing sleep which her father had
enjoyed, in all probability, for the last two nights and days.

She herself had no other amusement, as she sat facing one of the great
oriel windows, the same by which Wildrake had on a former occasion
looked in upon Tomkins and Joceline while at their compotations, than
watching the clouds, which a lazy wind sometimes chased from the broad
disk of the harvest-moon, sometimes permitted to accumulate, and exclude
her brightness. There is, I know not why, something peculiarly pleasing
to the imagination, in contemplating the Queen of Night, when she is
_wading_, as the expression is, among the vapours which she has not
power to dispel, and which on their side are unable entirely to quench
her lustre. It is the striking image of patient virtue, calmly pursuing
her path through good report and bad report, having that excellence in
herself which ought to command all admiration, but bedimmed in the eyes
of the world, by suffering, by misfortune, by calumny.

As some such reflections, perhaps, were passing through Alice's
imagination, she became sensible, to her surprise and alarm, that some
one had clambered up upon the window, and was looking into the room. The
idea of supernatural fear did not in the slightest degree agitate Alice.
She was too much accustomed to the place and situation; for folk do not
see spectres in the scenes with which they have been familiar from
infancy. But danger from maurauders in a disturbed country was a more
formidable subject of apprehension, and the thought armed Alice, who was
naturally high spirited, with such desperate courage, that she snatched
a pistol from the wall, on which some fire-arms hung, and while she
screamed to her father to awake, had the presence of mind to present it
at the intruder. She did so the more readily, because she imagined she
recognised in the visage, which she partially saw, the features of the
woman whom she had met with at Rosamond's Well, and which had appeared
to her peculiarly harsh and suspicious. Her father at the same time
seized his sword and came forward, while the person at the window,
alarmed at these demonstrations, and endeavouring to descend, missed
footing, as had Cavaliero Wildrake before, and went down to the earth
with no small noise. Nor was the reception on the bosom of our common
mother either soft or safe; for, by a most terrific bark and growl, they
heard that Bevis had come up and seized on the party, ere he or she
could gain their feet.

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