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Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

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




Dr. Rochecliffe, in the meantime, had fallen some four or five paces
behind; for, less light and active than Alice, (who had, besides, the
assistance of the King's support,) he was unable, without effort and
difficulty, to keep up with the pace of Charles, who then was, as we
have elsewhere noticed, one of the best walkers in England, and was
sometimes apt to forget (as great men will) that others were inferior to
him in activity.

"Dear Alice," said the King, but as if the epithet were entirely
fraternal, "I like your Everard much--I would to God he were of our
determination--But since that cannot be, I am sure he will prove a
generous enemy." "May it please you, sire," said Alice, modestly, but
with some firmness, "my cousin will never be your Majesty's personal
enemy--and he is one of the few on whose slightest word you may rely
more than on the oath of those who profess more strongly and formally.
He is utterly incapable of abusing your Majesty's most generous and
voluntary confidence."

"On my honour, I believe so, Alice," replied the King: "But oddsfish! my
girl, let Majesty sleep for the present--it concerns my safety, as I
told your brother lately--Call me sir, then, which belongs alike to
king, peer, knight, and gentleman--or rather let me be wild Louis
Kerneguy again." Alice looked down, and shook her head. "That cannot be,
please your Majesty."

"What! Louis was a saucy companion--a naughty presuming boy--and you
cannot abide him?--Well, perhaps you are right--But we will wait for Dr.
Rochecliffe"--he said, desirous, with good-natured delicacy, to make
Alice aware that he had no purpose of engaging her in any discussion
which could recall painful ideas. They paused accordingly, and again she
felt relieved and grateful.

"I cannot persuade our fair friend, Mistress Alice, Doctor," said the
King, "that she must, in prudence, forbear using titles of respect to
me, while there are such very slender means of sustaining them."

"It is a reproach to earth and to fortune," answered the divine, as fast
as his recovered breath would permit him, "that your most sacred
Majesty's present condition should not accord with the rendering of
those honours which are your own by birth, and which, with God's
blessing on the efforts of your loyal subjects, I hope to see rendered
to you as your hereditary right, by the universal voice of the three
kingdoms."

"True, Doctor," replied the King; "but, in the meanwhile, can you
expound to Mistress Alice Lee two lines of Horace, which I have carried
in my thick head several years, till now they have come pat to my
purpose. As my canny subjects of Scotland say, If you keep a thing seven
years you are sure to find a use for it at last--_Telephus_--ay, so it
begins--

'Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.'"

"I will explain the passage to Mistress Alice," said the Doctor, "when
she reminds me of it--or rather," (he added, recollecting that his
ordinary dilatory answer on such occasions ought not to be returned when
the order for exposition emanated from his Sovereign,) "I will repeat a
poor couplet from my own translation of the poem--

'Heroes and kings, in exile forced to roam.
Leave swelling phrase and seven-leagued words at home.'"

"A most admirable version, Doctor," said Charles; "I feel all its force,
and particularly the beautiful rendering of sesquipedalia verba into
seven-leagued boots--words I mean--it reminds me, like half the things I
meet with in this world, of the _Contes de Commère L'Oye_." [Footnote:
Tales of Mother Goose.]

Thus conversing they reached the Lodge; and as the King went to his
chamber to prepare for the breakfast summons, now impending, the idea
crossed his mind, "Wilmot, and Villiers, and Killigrew, would laugh at
me, did they hear of a campaign in which neither man nor woman had been
conquered--But, oddsfish! let them laugh as they will, there is
something at my heart which tells me, that for once in my life I have
acted well."

That day and the next were spent in tranquillity, the King waiting
impatiently for the intelligence, which was to announce to him that a
vessel was prepared somewhere on the coast. None such was yet in
readiness; but he learned that the indefatigable Albert Lee was, at
great personal risk, traversing the sea-coast from town to village, and
endeavouring to find means of embarkation among the friends of the royal
cause, and the correspondents of Dr. Rochecliffe.

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.


Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch!
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

At this time we should give some account of the other actors in our
drama, the interest due to the principal personages having for some time
engrossed our attention exclusively.

We are, therefore, to inform the reader, that the lingering longings of
the Commissioners, who had been driven forth of their proposed paradise
of Woodstock, not by a cherub indeed, but, as they thought, by spirits
of another sort, still detained them in the vicinity. They had, indeed,
left the little borough under pretence of indifferent accommodation. The
more palpable reasons were, that they entertained some resentment
against Everard, as the means of their disappointment, and had no mind
to reside where their proceedings could be overlooked by him, although
they took leave in terms of the utmost respect. They went, however, no
farther than Oxford, and remained there, as ravens, who are accustomed
to witness the chase, sit upon a tree or crag, at a little distance, and
watch the disembowelling of the deer, expecting the relics which fall to
their share. Meantime, the University and City, but especially the
former, supplied them with some means of employing their various
faculties to advantage, until the expected moment, when, as they hoped,
they should either be summoned to Windsor, or Woodstock should once more
be abandoned to their discretion.

Bletson, to pass the time, vexed the souls of such learned and pious
divines and scholars, as he could intrude his hateful presence upon, by
sophistry, atheistical discourse, and challenges to them to impugn the
most scandalous theses. Desborough, one of the most brutally ignorant
men of the period, got himself nominated the head of a college, and lost
no time in cutting down trees, and plundering plate. As for Harrison, he
preached in full uniform in Saint Mary's Church, wearing his buff-coat,
boots, and spurs, as if he were about to take the field for the fight at
Armageddon. And it was hard to say, whether the seat of Learning,
Religion, and Loyalty, as it is called by Clarendon, was more vexed by
the rapine of Desborough, the cold scepticism of Bletson, or the frantic
enthusiasm of the Fifth-Monarchy Champion.

Ever and anon, soldiers, under pretence of relieving guard, or
otherwise, went and came betwixt Woodstock and Oxford, and maintained,
it may be supposed, a correspondence with Trusty Tomkins, who, though he
chiefly resided in the town of Woodstock, visited the Lodge
occasionally, and to whom, therefore, they doubtless trusted for
information concerning the proceedings there.

Indeed, this man Tomkins seemed by some secret means to have gained the
confidence in part, if not in whole, of almost every one connected with
these intrigues. All closeted him, all conversed with him in private;
those who had the means propitiated him with gifts, those who had not
were liberal of promises. When he chanced to appear at Woodstock, which
always seemed as it were by accident--if he passed through the hall, the
knight was sure to ask him to take the foils, and was equally certain to
be, after less or more resistance, victorious in the encounter; so, in
consideration of so many triumphs, the good Sir Henry almost forgave him
the sins of rebellion and puritanism. Then, if his slow and formal step
was heard in the passages approaching the gallery, Dr. Rochecliffe,
though he never introduced him to his peculiar boudoir, was sure to meet
Master Tomkins in some neutral apartment, and to engage him in long
conversations, which apparently had great interest for both.

Neither was the Independent's reception below stairs less gracious than
above. Joceline failed not to welcome him with the most cordial
frankness; the pasty and the flagon were put in immediate requisition,
and good cheer was the general word. The means for this, it may be
observed, had grown more plenty at Woodstock since the arrival of Dr.
Rochecliffe, who, in quality of agent for several royalists, had various
sums of money at his disposal. By these funds it is likely that Trusty
Tomkins also derived his own full advantage.

In his occasional indulgence in what he called a fleshly frailty, (and
for which he said he had a privilege,) which was in truth an attachment
to strong liquors, and that in no moderate degree, his language, at
other times remarkably decorous and reserved, became wild and animated.
He sometimes talked with all the unction of an old debauchee, of former
exploits, such as deer-stealing, orchard-robbing, drunken gambols, and
desperate affrays in which he had been engaged in the earlier part of
his life, sung bacchanalian and amorous ditties, dwelt sometimes upon
adventures which drove Phoebe Mayflower from the company, and penetrated
even the deaf ears of Dame Jellicot, so as to make the buttery in which
he held his carousals no proper place for the poor old woman.

In the middle of these wild rants, Tomkins twice or thrice suddenly ran
into religious topics, and spoke mysteriously, but with great animation,
and a rich eloquence, on the happy and pre-eminent saints, who were
saints, as he termed them, indeed--Men who had stormed the inner
treasure-house of Heaven, and possessed themselves of its choicest
jewels. All other sects he treated with the utmost contempt, as merely
quarrelling, as he expressed it, like hogs over a trough about husks and
acorns; under which derogatory terms, he included alike the usual rites
and ceremonies of public devotion, the ordinances of the established
churches of Christianity, and the observances, nay, the forbearances,
enjoined by every class of Christians. Scarcely hearing, and not at all
understanding him, Joceline, who seemed his most frequent confidant on
such occasions, generally led him back into some strain of rude mirth,
or old recollection of follies before the Civil Wars, without caring
about or endeavouring to analyze the opinion of this saint of an evil
fashion, but fully sensible of the protection which his presence
afforded at Woodstock, and confident in the honest meaning of so
freespoken a fellow, to whom ale and brandy, when better liquor was not
to be come by, seemed to be principal objects of life, and who drank a
health to the King, or any one else, whenever required, provided the cup
in which he was to perform the libation were but a brimmer.

These peculiar doctrines, which were entertained by a sect sometimes
termed the Family of Love, but more commonly Ranters, had made some
progress in times when such variety of religious opinions were
prevalent, that men pushed the jarring heresies to the verge of absolute
and most impious insanity. Secrecy had been enjoined on these frantic
believers in a most blasphemous doctrine, by the fear of consequences,
should they come to be generally announced; and it was the care of
Master Tomkins to conceal the spiritual freedom which he pretended to
have acquired, from all whose resentment would have been stirred by his
public avowal of them. This was not difficult; for their profession of
faith permitted, nay, required their occasional conformity with the
sectaries or professors of any creed which chanced to be uppermost.

Tomkins had accordingly the art to pass himself on Dr. Rochecliffe as
still a zealous member of the Church of England, though serving under
the enemy's colours, as a spy in their camp; and as he had on several
times given him true and valuable intelligence, this active intriguer
was the more easily induced to believe his professions.

Nevertheless, lest this person's occasional presence at the Lodge, which
there were perhaps no means to prevent without exciting suspicion,
should infer danger to the King's person, Rochecliffe, whatever
confidence he otherwise reposed in him, recommended that, if possible,
the King should keep always out of his sight, and when accidentally
discovered, that he should only appear in the character of Louis
Kerneguy. Joseph Tomkins, he said, was, he really believed, Honest Joe;
but honesty was a horse which might be overburdened, and there was no
use in leading our neighbour into temptation.

It seemed as if Tomkins himself had acquiesced in this limitation of
confidence exercised towards him, or that he wished to seem blinder than
he really was to the presence of this stranger in the family. It
occurred to Joceline, who was a very shrewd fellow, that once or twice,
when by inevitable accident Tomkins had met Kerneguy, he seemed less
interested in the circumstance than he would have expected from the
man's disposition, which was naturally prying and inquisitive. "He asked
no questions about the young stranger," said Joceline--"God avert that
he knows or suspects too much!" But his suspicions were removed, when,
in the course of their subsequent conversation, Joseph Tomkins mentioned
the King's escape from Bristol as a thing positively certain, and named
both the vessel in which, he said, he had gone off, and the master who
commanded her, seeming so convinced of the truth of the report, that
Joceline judged it impossible he could have the slightest suspicion of
the reality.

Yet, notwithstanding this persuasion, and the comradeship which had been
established between them, the faithful under-keeper resolved to maintain
a strict watch over his gossip Tomkins, and be in readiness to give the
alarm should occasion arise. True, he thought, he had reason to believe
that his said friend, notwithstanding his drunken and enthusiastic
rants, was as trustworthy as he was esteemed by Dr. Rochecliffe; yet
still he was an adventurer, the outside and lining of whose cloak were
of different colours, and a high reward, and pardon for past acts of
malignancy, might tempt him once more to turn his tippet. For these
reasons Joceline kept a strict, though unostentatious watch over Trusty
Tomkins.

We have said, that the discreet seneschal was universally well received
at Woodstock, whether in the borough or at the Lodge, and that even
Joceline Joliffe was anxious to conceal any suspicions which he could
not altogether repress, under a great show of cordial hospitality. There
were, however, two individuals, who, for very different reasons,
nourished personal dislike against the individual so generally
acceptable.

One was Nehemiah Holdenough, who remembered, with great bitterness of
spirit, the Independent's violent intrusion into his pulpit, and who
ever spoke of him in private as a lying missionary, into whom Satan had
put a spirit of delusion; and preached, besides, a solemn sermon on the
subject of the false prophet, out of whose mouth came frogs. The
discourse was highly prized by the Mayor and most of the better class,
who conceived that their minister had struck a heavy blow at the very
root of Independency. On the other hand, those of the private spirit
contended, that Joseph Tomkins had made a successful and triumphant
rally, in an exhortation on the evening of the same day, in which he
proved, to the conviction of many handicraftsmen, that the passage in
Jeremiah, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bare rule by
their means," was directly applicable to the Presbyterian system of
church government. The clergyman dispatched an account of his
adversary's conduct to the Reverend Master Edwards, to be inserted in
the next edition of Gangraena, as a pestilent heretic; and Tomkins
recommended the parson to his master, Desborough, as a good subject on
whom to impose a round fine, for vexing the private spirit; assuring
him, at the same time, that though the minister might seem poor, yet if
a few troopers were quartered on him till the fine was paid, every rich
shopkeeper's wife in the borough would rob the till, rather than go
without the mammon of unrighteousness with which to redeem their priest
from sufferance; holding, according to his expression, with Laban, "You
have taken from me my gods, and what have I more?" There was, of course,
little cordiality between the polemical disputants, when religious
debate took so worldly a turn.

But Joe Tomkins was much more concerned at the evil opinion which seemed
to be entertained against him, by one whose good graces he was greatly
more desirous to obtain than those of Nehemiah Holdenough. This was no
other than pretty Mistress Phoebe Mayflower, for whose conversion he had
felt a strong vocation, ever since his lecture upon Shakspeare on their
first meeting at the Lodge. He seemed desirous, however, to carry on
this more serious work in private, and especially to conceal his labours
from his friend Joceline Joliffe, lest, perchance, he had been addicted
to jealousy. But it was in vain that he plied the faithful damsel,
sometimes with verses from the Canticles, sometimes with quotations from
Green's Arcadia, or pithy passages from Venus and Adonis, and doctrines
of a nature yet more abstruse, from the popular work entitled
Aristotle's Masterpiece. Unto no wooing of his, sacred or profane,
metaphysical or physical, would Phoebe Mayflower seriously incline.

The maiden loved Joceline Joliffe, on the one hand; and, on the other,
if she disliked Joseph Tomkins when she first saw him, as a rebellious
puritan, she had not been at all reconciled by finding reason to regard
him as a hypocritical libertine. She hated him in both capacities--never
endured his conversation when she could escape from it--and when obliged
to remain, listened to him only because she knew he had been so deeply
trusted, that to offend him might endanger the security of the family,
in the service of which she had been born and bred up, and to whose
interest she was devoted. For reasons somewhat similar, she did not
suffer her dislike of the steward to become manifest before Joceline
Joliffe, whose spirit, as a forester and a soldier, might have been
likely to bring matters to an arbitrement, in which the _couteau de
chasse_ and quarterstaff of her favourite, would have been too unequally
matched with the long rapier and pistols which his dangerous rival
always carried about his person. But it is difficult to blind jealousy--
when there is any cause of doubt; and perhaps the sharp watch maintained
by Joceline on his comrade, was prompted not only by his zeal for the
King's safety, but by some vague suspicion that Tomkins was not ill
disposed to poach upon his own fair manor.

Phoebe, in the meanwhile, like a prudent girl, sheltered herself as much
as possible by the presence of Goody Jellicot. Then, indeed, it is true
the Independent, or whatever he was, used to follow her with his
addresses to very little purpose; for Phoebe seemed as deaf, through
wilfulness, as the old matron by natural infirmity. This indifference
highly incensed her new lover, and induced him anxiously to watch for a
time and place, in which he might plead his suit with an energy that
should command attention. Fortune, that malicious goddess, who so often
ruins us by granting the very object of our vows, did at length procure
him such an opportunity as he had long coveted.

It was about sunset, or shortly after, when Phoebe, upon whose activity
much of the domestic arrangements depended, went as far as fair
Rosamond's spring to obtain water for the evening meal, or rather to
gratify the prejudice of the old knight, who believed that celebrated
fountain afforded the choicest supplies of the necessary element. Such
was the respect in which he was held by his whole family, that to
neglect any of his wishes that could be gratified, though with
inconvenience to themselves, would, in their estimation, have been
almost equal to a breach of religious duty.

To fill the pitcher had, we know, been of late a troublesome task; but
Joceline's ingenuity had so far rendered it easy, by repairing rudely a
part of the ruined front of the ancient fountain, that the water was
collected, and trickling along a wooden spout, dropped from a height of
about two feet. A damsel was thereby enabled to place her pitcher under
the slowly dropping supply, and, without toil to herself, might wait
till her vessel was filled.

Phoebe Mayflower, on the evening we allude to, saw, for the first time,
this little improvement; and, justly considering it as a piece of
gallantry of her silvan admirer, designed to save her the trouble of
performing her task in a more inconvenient manner, she gratefully
employed the minutes of ease which the contrivance procured her, in
reflecting on the good-nature and ingenuity of the obliging engineer,
and perhaps in thinking he might have done as wisely to have waited till
she came to the fountain, that he might have secured personal thanks for
the trouble he had taken. But then she knew he was detained in the
buttery with that odious Tomkins, and rather than have seen the
Independent along with him, she would have renounced the thought of
meeting Joceline.

As she was thus reflecting, Fortune was malicious enough to send Tomkins
to the fountain, and without Joceline. When she saw his figure darken
the path up which he came, an anxious reflection came over the poor
maiden's breast, that she was alone, and within the verge of the forest,
where in general persons were prohibited to come during the twilight,
for fear of disturbing the deer settling to their repose. She encouraged
herself, however, and resolved to show no sense of fear, although, as
the steward approached, there was something in the man's look and eye no
way calculated to allay her apprehensions.

"The blessings of the evening upon you, my pretty maiden," he said. "I
meet you even as the chief servant of Abraham, who was a steward like
myself, met Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, at the
well of the city of Nahor, in Mesopotamia. Shall I not, therefore, say
to you, set down thy pitcher that I may drink?"

"The pitcher is at your service, Master Tomkins," she replied, "and you
may drink as much as you will; but you have, I warrant, drank better
liquor, and that not long since."

It was, indeed, obvious that the steward had arisen from a revel, for
his features were somewhat flushed, though he had stopped far short of
intoxication. But Phoebe's alarm at his first appearance was rather
increased when she observed how he had been lately employed.

"I do but use my privilege, my pretty Rebecca; the earth is given to the
saints, and the fulness thereof. They shall occupy and enjoy it, both
the riches of the mine, and the treasures of the vine; and they shall
rejoice, and their hearts be merry within them. Thou hast yet to learn
the privileges of the saints, my Rebecca."

"My name is Phoebe," said the maiden, in order to sober the enthusiastic
rapture which he either felt or affected.

"Phoebe after the flesh," he said, "but Rebecca being spiritualised; for
art thou not a wandering and stray sheep?--and am I not sent to fetch
thee within the fold?--Wherefore else was it said, Thou shalt find her
seated by the well, in the wood which is called after the ancient
harlot, Rosamond?"

"You have found me sitting here sure enough," said Phoebe; "but if you
wish to keep me company, you must walk to the Lodge with me; and you
shall carry my pitcher for me, if you will be so kind. I will hear all
the good things you have to say to me as we go along. But Sir Henry
calls for his glass of water regularly before prayers."

"What!" exclaimed Tomkins, "hath the old man of bloody hand and perverse
heart sent thee hither to do the work of a bondswoman? Verily thou shalt
return enfranchised; and for the water thou hast drawn for him, it shall
be poured forth, even as David caused to be poured forth the water of
the well of Bethlehem."

So saying, he emptied the water pitcher, in spite of Phoebe's
exclamations and entreaties. He then replaced the vessel beneath the
little conduit, and continued:--"Know that this shall be a token to
thee. The filling of that pitcher shall be like the running of a
sand-glass; and if within the time which shall pass ere it rises to the
brim, thou shalt listen to the words which I shall say to thee, then it
shall be well with thee, and thy place shall be high among those who,
forsaking the instruction which is as milk for babes and sucklings, eat
the strong food which nourishes manhood. But if the pitcher shall
overbrim with water ere thy ear shall hear and understand, thou shalt
then be given as a prey, and as a bondsmaiden, unto those who shall
possess the fat and the fair of the earth."

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