A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

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




"Joceline," said Alice, "is sick for sympathy--one of the stags ran at
Phoebe Mayflower to-day, and she was fain to have Joceline's assistance
to drive the creature off--the girl has been in fits since she came
home."

"Silly slut," said the old knight--"She a woodman's daughter!--But,
Joceline, if the deer gets dangerous, you must send a broad arrow
through him."

"It will not need, Sir Henry," said Joceline, speaking with great
difficulty of utterance--"he is quiet enough now--he will not offend in
that sort again."

"See it be so," replied the knight; "remember Mistress Alice often walks
in the Chase. And now, fill round, and fill too, a cup to thyself to
overred thy fear, as mad Will has it. Tush, man, Phoebe will do well
enough--she only screamed and ran, that thou might'st have the pleasure
to help her. Mind what thou dost, and do not go spilling the wine after
that fashion.--Come, here is a health to our wanderer, who has come to
us again."

"None will pledge it more willingly than I," said the disguised Prince,
unconsciously assuming an importance which the character he personated
scarce warranted; but Sir Henry, who had become fond of the supposed
page, with all his peculiarities, imposed only a moderate rebuke upon
his petulance. "Thou art a merry, good-humoured youth, Louis," he said,
"but it is a world to see how the forwardness of the present generation
hath gone beyond the gravity and reverence which in my youth was so
regularly observed towards those of higher rank and station--I dared no
more have given my own tongue the rein, when there was a doctor of
divinity in company, than I would have dared to have spoken in church in
service time."

"True, sir," said Albert, hastily interfering; "but Master Kerneguy had
the better right to speak at present, that I have been absent on his
business as well as my own, have seen several of his friends, and bring
him important intelligence."

Charles was about to rise and beckon Albert aside, naturally impatient
to know what news he had procured, or what scheme of safe escape was now
decreed for him. But Dr. Rochecliffe twitched his cloak, as a hint to
him to sit still, and not show any extraordinary motive for anxiety,
since, in case of a sudden discovery of his real quality, the violence
of Sir Henry Lee's feelings might have been likely to attract too much
attention.

Charles, therefore, only replied, as to the knight's stricture, that he
had a particular title to be sudden and unceremonious in expressing his
thanks to Colonel Lee--that gratitude was apt to be unmannerly--finally,
that he was much obliged to Sir Henry for his admonition; and that quit
Woodstock when he would, "he was sure to leave it a better man than he
came there."

His speech was of course ostensibly directed towards the father; but a
glance at Alice assured her that she had her full share in the
compliment.

"I fear," he concluded, addressing Albert, "that you come to tell us our
stay here must be very short."

"A few hours only," said Albert--"just enough for needful rest for
ourselves and our horses. I have procured two which are good and tried.
But Doctor Rochecliffe broke faith with me. I expected to have met some
one down at Joceline's hut, where I left the horses; and finding no
person, I was delayed an hour in littering them down myself, that they
might be ready for to-morrow's work--for we must be off before day."

"I--I--intended to have sent Tomkins--but--but"--hesitated the Doctor,
"I"--

"The roundheaded rascal was drunk, or out of the way, I presume," said
Albert. "I am glad of it--you may easily trust him too far."

"Hitherto he has been faithful," said the Doctor, "and I scarce think he
will fail me now. But Joceline will go down and have the horses in
readiness in the morning."

Joceline's countenance was usually that of alacrity itself on a case
extraordinary. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate.

"You will go with me a little way, Doctor?" he said, as he edged himself
closely to Rochecliffe.

"How? puppy, fool, and blockhead," said the knight, "wouldst thou ask
Doctor Rochecliffe to bear thee company at this hour?--Out, hound!--get
down to the kennel yonder instantly, or I will break the knave's pate of
thee."

Joceline looked with an eye of agony at the divine, as if entreating him
to interfere in his behalf; but just as he was about to speak, a most
melancholy howling arose at the hall-door, and a dog was heard
scratching for admittance.

"What ails Bevis next?" said the old knight. "I think this must be
All-Fools-day, and that every thing around me is going mad!"

The same sound startled Albert and Charles from a private conference in
which they had engaged, and Albert ran to the hall-door to examine
personally into the cause of the noise.

"It is no alarm," said the old knight to Kerneguy, "for in such cases
the dog's bark is short, sharp, and furious. These long howls are said
to be ominous. It was even so that Bevis's grandsire bayed the whole
livelong night on which my poor father died. If it comes now as a
presage, God send it regard the old and useless, not the young, and
those who may yet serve King and country!"

The dog had pushed past Colonel Lee, who stood a little while at the
hall-door to listen if there were any thing stirring without, while
Bevis advanced into the room where the company were assembled, bearing
something in his mouth, and exhibiting, in an unusual degree, that sense
of duty and interest which a dog seems to show when he thinks he has the
charge of something important. He entered therefore, drooping his long
tail, slouching his head and ears, and walking with the stately yet
melancholy dignity of a war-horse at his master's funeral. In this
manner he paced through the room, went straight up to Joceline, who had
been regarding him with astonishment, and uttering a short and
melancholy howl, laid at his feet the object which he bore in his mouth.
Joceline stooped, and took from the floor a man's glove, of the fashion
worn by the troopers, having something like the old-fashioned gauntleted
projections of thick leather arising from the wrist, which go half way
up to the elbow, and secure the arm against a cut with a sword. But
Joceline had no sooner looked at what in itself was so common an object,
than he dropped it from his hand, staggered backward, uttered a groan,
and nearly fell to the ground.

"Now, the coward's curse be upon thee for an idiot!" said the knight,
who had picked up the glove, and was looking at it--"thou shouldst be
sent back to school, and flogged till the craven's blood was switched
out of thee--What dost thou look at but a glove, thou base poltroon, and
a very dirty glove, too? Stay, here is writing--Joseph Tomkins? Why,
that is the roundheaded fellow--I wish he hath not come to some
mischief, for this is not dirt on the cheveron, but blood. Bevis may
have bit the fellow, and yet the dog seemed to love him well too, or the
stag may have hurt him. Out, Joceline, instantly, and see where he
is--wind your bugle."

"I cannot go," said Joliffe, "unless"--and again he looked piteously at
Dr. Rochecliffe, who saw no time was to be lost in appeasing the
ranger's terrors, as his ministry was most needful in the present
circumstances.--"Get spade and mattock," he whispered to him, "and a
dark lantern, and meet me in the Wilderness."

Joceline left the room; and the Doctor, before following him, had a few
words of explanation with Colonel Lee. His own spirit, far from being
dismayed on the occasion, rather rose higher, like one whose natural
element was intrigue and danger. "Here hath been wild work," he said,
"since you parted. Tomkins was rude to the wench Phoebe--Joceline and he
had a brawl together, and Tomkins is lying dead in the thicket, not far
from Rosamond's Well. It will be necessary that Joceline and I go
directly to bury the body; for besides that some one might stumble upon
it, and raise an alarm, this fellow Joceline will never be fit for any
active purpose till it is under ground. Though as stout as a lion, the
under-keeper has his own weak side, and is more afraid of a dead body
than a living one. When do you propose to start to-morrow?"

"By daybreak, or earlier," said Colonel Lee; "but we will meet again. A
vessel is provided, and I have relays in more places than one--we go off
from the coast of Sussex; and I am to get a letter at ----, acquainting
me precisely with the spot."

"Wherefore not go off instantly?" said the Doctor.

"The horses would fail us," replied Albert; "they have been hard ridden
to-day."

"Adieu," said Rochecliffe, "I must to my task--Do you take rest and
repose for yours. To conceal a slaughtered body, and convey on the same
night a king from danger and captivity, are two feats which have fallen
to few folks save myself; but let me not, while putting on my harness,
boast myself as if I were taking it off after a victory." So saying he
left the apartment, and, muffling himself in his cloak, went out into
what was called the Wilderness.

The weather was a raw frost. The mists lay in partial wreaths upon the
lower grounds; but the night, considering that the heavenly bodies were
in a great measure hidden by the haze, was not extremely dark. Dr.
Rochecliffe could not, however, distinguish the under-keeper until he
had hemmed once or twice, when Joceline answered the signal by showing a
glimpse of light from the dark lantern which he carried. Guided by this
intimation of his presence, the divine found him leaning against a
buttress which had once supported a terrace, now ruinous. He had a
pickaxe and shovel, together with a deer's hide hanging over his
shoulder.

"What do you want with the hide, Joceline," said Dr. Rochecliffe, "that
you lumber it about with you on such an errand?"

"Why, look you, Doctor," he answered, "it is as well to tell you all
about it. The man and I--he there--you know whom I mean--had many years
since a quarrel about this deer. For though we were great friends, and
Philip was sometimes allowed by my master's permission to help me in
mine office, yet I knew, for all that, Philip Hazeldine was sometimes a
trespasser. The deer-stealers were very bold at that time, it being just
before the breaking out of the war, when men were becoming unsettled--
And so it chanced, that one day, in the Chase, I found two fellows, with
their faces blacked and shirts over their clothes, carrying as prime a
buck between them as any was in the park. I was upon them in the
instant--one escaped, but I got hold of the other fellow, and who should
it prove to be but trusty Phil Hazeldine! Well, I don't know whether it
was right or wrong, but he was my old friend and pot-companion, and I
took his word for amendment in future; and he helped me to hang up the
deer on a tree, and I came back with a horse to carry him to the Lodge,
and tell the knight the story, all but Phil's name. But the rogues had
been too clever for me; for they had flayed and dressed the deer, and
quartered him, and carried him off, and left the hide and horns, with a
chime, saying,--

'The haunch to thee,
The breast to me,
The hide and the horns for the keeper's fee.'

And this I knew for one of Phil's mad pranks, that he would play in
those days with any lad in the country. But I was so nettled that I made
the deer's hide be curried and dressed by a tanner, and swore that it
should be his winding-sheet or mine; and though I had long repented my
rash oath, yet now, Doctor, you see what it is come to--though I forgot
it, the devil did not."

"It was a very wrong thing to make a vow so sinful," said Rochecliffe;
"but it would have been greatly worse had you endeavoured to keep it.
Therefore, I bid you cheer up," said the good divine; "for in this
unhappy case, I could not have wished, after what I have heard from
Phoebe and yourself, that you should have kept your hand still, though I
may regret that the blow has proved fatal. Nevertheless, thou hast done
even that which was done by the great and inspired legislator, when he
beheld an Egyptian tyrannizing over a Hebrew, saving that, in the case
present, it was a female, when, says the Septuagint, _Percussum Egyptium
abscondit sabulo_; the meaning whereof I will explain to you another
time. Wherefore, I exhort you not to grieve beyond measure; for although
this circumstance is unhappy in time and place, yet, from what Phoebe
hath informed me of yonder wretch's opinions, it is much to be regretted
that his brains had not been beaten out in his cradle, rather than that
he had grown up to be one of those Grindlestonians, or Muggletonians, in
whom is the perfection of every foul and blasphemous heresy, united with
such an universal practice of hypocritical assentation as would deceive
their master, even Satan himself."

"Nevertheless, sir," said the forester, "I hope you will bestow some of
the service of the Church on this poor man, as it was his last wish,
naming you, sir, at the same time; and unless this were done, I should
scarce dare to walk out in the dark again for my whole life."

"Thou art a silly fellow; but if," continued the Doctor, "he named me as
he departed, and desired the last rites of the Church, there was, it may
be, a turning from evil and a seeking to good even in his last moments;
and if Heaven granted him grace to form a prayer so fitting, wherefore
should man refuse it? All I fear is the briefness of time."

"Nay, your reverence may cut the service somewhat short," said Joceline;
"assuredly he does not deserve the whole of it; only if something were
not to be done, I believe I should flee the country. They were his last
words; and methinks he sent Bevis with his glove to put me in mind of
them."

"Out, fool! Do you think," said the Doctor, "dead men send gauntlets to
the living, like knights in a romance; or, if so, would they choose dogs
to carry their challenges? I tell thee, fool, the cause was natural
enough. Bevis, questing about, found the body, and brought the glove to
you to intimate where it was lying, and to require assistance; for such
is the high instinct of these animals towards one in peril."

"Nay, if you think so, Doctor," said Joceline--"and, doubtless, I must
say, Bevis took an interest in the man--if indeed it was not something
worse in the shape of Bevis, for methought his eyes looked wild and
fiery, as if he would have spoken."

As he talked thus, Joceline rather hung back, and, in doing so,
displeased the Doctor, who exclaimed, "Come along, thou lazy laggard!
Art thou a soldier, and a brave one, and so much afraid of a dead man?
Thou hast killed men in battle and in chase, I warrant thee."

"Ay, but their backs were to me," said Joceline. "I never saw one of
them cast back his head, and glare at me as yonder fellow did, his eye
retaining a glance of hatred, mixed with terror and reproach, till it
became fixed like a jelly. And were you not with me, and my master's
concerns, and something else, very deeply at stake, I promise you I
would not again look at him for all Woodstock."

"You must, though," said the Doctor, suddenly pausing, "for here is the
place where he lies. Come hither deep into the copse; take care of
stumbling--Here is a place just fitting, and we will draw the briars
over the grave afterwards."

As the Doctor thus issued his directions, he assisted also in the
execution of them; and while his attendant laboured to dig a shallow and
mishapen grave, a task which the state of the soil, perplexed with
roots, and hardened by the influence of the frost, rendered very
difficult, the divine read a few passages out of the funeral service,
partly in order to appease the superstitious terrors of Joceline, and
partly because he held it matter of conscience not to deny the Church's
rites to one who had requested their aid in extremity.

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE THIRTY SECOND.


Case ye, case ye,--on with your vizards.
HENRY IV.

The company whom we had left in Victor Lee's parlour were about to
separate for the night, and had risen to take a formal leave of each
other, when a tap was heard at the hall-door. Albert, the vidette of the
party, hastened to open it, enjoining, as he left the room, the rest to
remain quiet, until he had ascertained the cause of the knocking. When
he gained the portal, he called to know who was there, and what they
wanted at so late an hour.

"It is only me," answered a treble voice.

"And what is your name, my little fellow?" said Albert.

"Spitfire, sir," replied the voice without.

"Spitfire?" said Albert.

"Yes, sir," replied the voice; "all the world calls me so, and Colonel
Everard himself. But my name is Spittal for all that."

"Colonel Everard? arrive you from him?" demanded young Lee.

"No, sir; I come, sir, from Roger Wildrake, esquire, of
Squattlesea-mere, if it like you," said the boy; "and I have brought a
token to Mistress Lee, which I am to give into her own hands, if you
would but open the door, sir, and let me in--but I can do nothing with a
three-inch board between us."

"It is some freak of that drunken rakehell," said Albert, in a low
voice, to his sister, who had crept out after him on tiptoe.

"Yet, let us not be hasty in concluding so," said the young lady; "at
this moment the least trifle may be of consequence.--What tokens has
Master Wildrake sent me, my little boy?"

"Nay, nothing very valuable neither," replied the boy; "but he was so
anxious you should get it, that he put me out of window as one would
chuck out a kitten, that I might not be stopped by the soldiers."

"Hear you?" said Alice to her brother; "undo the gate, for God's sake."
Her brother, to whom her feelings of suspicion were now sufficiently
communicated, opened the gate in haste, and admitted the boy, whose
appearance, not much dissimilar to that of a skinned rabbit in a livery,
or a monkey at a fair, would at another time have furnished them with
amusement. The urchin messenger entered the hall, making several odd
bows, and delivered the woodcock's feather with much ceremony to the
young lady, assuring her it was the prize she had won upon a wager about
hawking.

"I prithee, my little man," said Albert, "was your master drunk or
sober, when he sent thee all this way with a feather at this time of
night?"

"With reverence, sir," said the boy, "he was what he calls sober, and
what I would call concerned in liquor for any other person."

"Curse on the drunken coxcomb!" said Albert,--"There is a tester for
thee, boy, and tell thy master to break his jests on suitable persons,
and at fitting times."

"Stay yet a minute," exclaimed Alice; "we must not go too fast--this
craves wary walking."

"A feather," said Albert; "all this work about a feather! Why, Doctor
Rochecliffe, who can suck intelligence out of every trifle as a magpie
would suck an egg, could make nothing of this."

"Let us try what we can do without him then," said Alice. Then
addressing herself to the boy,--"So there are strangers at your
master's?"

"At Colonel Everard's, madam, which is the same thing," said Spitfire.

"And what manner of strangers," said Alice; "guests, I suppose?"

"Ay, mistress," said the boy, "a sort of guests that make themselves
welcome wherever they come, if they meet not a welcome from their
landlord--soldiers, madam."

"The men that have long been lying at Woodstock," said Albert.

"No, sir," said Spitfire, "new comers, with gallant buff-coats and steel
breastplates; and their commander--your honour and your ladyship never
saw such a man--at least I am sure Bill Spitfire never did."

"Was he tall or short?" said Albert, now much alarmed.

"Neither one nor other," said the boy; "stout made, with slouching
shoulders; a nose large, and a face one would not like to say No to. He
had several officers with him, I saw him but for a moment, but I shall
never forget him while I live."

"You are right," said Albert Lee to his sister, pulling her to one side,
"quite right--the Archfiend himself is upon us!"

"And the feather," said Alice, whom fear had rendered apprehensive of
slight tokens, "means flight--and a woodcock is a bird of passage."

"You have hit it," said her brother; "but the time has taken us cruelly
short. Give the boy a trifle more--nothing that can excite suspicion,
and dismiss him. I must summon Rochecliffe and Joceline."

He went accordingly, but, unable to find those he sought, he returned
with hasty steps to the parlour, where, in his character of Louis, the
page was exerting himself to detain the old knight, who, while laughing
at the tales he told him, was anxious to go to see what was passing in
the hall.

"What is the matter, Albert?" said the old man; "who calls at the Lodge
at so undue an hour, and wherefore is the hall-door opened to them? I
will not have my rules, and the regulations laid down for keeping this
house, broken through, because I am old and poor. Why answer you not?
why keep a chattering with Louis Kerneguy, and neither of you all the
while minding what I say?--Daughter Alice, have you sense and civility
enough to tell me, what or who it is that is admitted here contrary to
my general orders?"

"No one, sir," replied Alice; "a boy brought a message, which I fear is
an alarming one."

"There is only fear, sir," said Albert, stepping forward, "that whereas
we thought to have stayed with you till to-morrow, we must now take
farewell of you to-night."

"Not so, brother," said Alice, "you must stay and aid the defence
here--if you and Master Kerneguy are both missed, the pursuit will be
instant, and probably successful; but if you stay, the hiding-places
about this house will take some time to search. You can change coats
with Kerneguy too."

"Right, noble wench," said Albert; "most excellent--yes--Louis, I remain
as Kerneguy, you fly as young Master Lee."

"I cannot see the justice of that," said Charles.

"Nor I neither," said the knight, interfering. "Men come and go, lay
schemes, and alter them, in my house, without deigning to consult me!
And who is Master Kerneguy, or what is he to me, that my son must stay
and take the chance of mischief, and this your Scotch page is to escape
in his dress? I will have no such contrivance carried into effect,
though it were the finest cobweb that was ever woven in Doctor
Rochecliffe's brains.--I wish you no ill, Louis; thou art a lively boy;
but I have been somewhat too lightly treated in this, man."

"I am fully of your opinion, Sir Henry," replied the person whom he
addressed. "You have been, indeed, repaid for your hospitality by want
of that confidence, which could never have been so justly reposed. But
the moment is come, when I must say, in a word, I am that unfortunate
Charles Stewart, whose lot it has been to become the cause of ruin to
his best friends, and whose present residence in your family threatens
to bring destruction to you, and all around you."

"Master Louis Kerneguy," said the knight very angrily, "I will teach you
to choose the subjects of your mirth better when you address them to me;
and, moreover, very little provocation would make me desire to have an
ounce or two of that malapert blood from you."

"Be still, sir, for God's sake!" said Albert to his father. "This is
indeed THE KING; and such is the danger of his person, that every moment
we waste may bring round a fatal catastrophe."

"Good God!" said the father, clasping his hands together, and about to
drop on his knees, "has my earnest wish been accomplished! and is it in
such a manner as to make me pray it had never taken place!"

He then attempted to bend his knee to the King--kissed his hand, while
large tears trickled from his eyes--then said, "Pardon, my Lord--your
Majesty, I mean--permit me to sit in your presence but one instant till
my blood beats more freely, and then"--

Charles raised his ancient and faithful subject from the ground; and
even in that moment of fear, and anxiety, and danger, insisted on
leading him to his seat, upon which he sunk in apparent exhaustion, his
head drooping upon his long white beard, and big unconscious tears
mingling with its silver hairs. Alice and Albert remained with the King,
arguing and urging his instant departure.

"The horses are at the under-keeper's hut," said Albert, "and the relays
only eighteen or twenty miles off. If the horses can but carry you so
far"--

"Will you not rather," interrupted Alice, "trust to the concealments of
this place, so numerous and so well tried--Rochecliffe's apartments, and
the yet farther places of secrecy?"

"Alas!" said Albert, "I know them only by name. My father was sworn to
confide them to but one man, and he had chosen Rochecliffe."

"I prefer taking the field to any hiding-hole in England," said the
King. "Could I but find my way to this hut where the horses are, I would
try what arguments whip and spur could use to get them to the
rendezvous, where I am to meet Sir Thomas Acland and fresh cattle. Come
with me, Colonel Lee, and let us run for it. The roundheads have beat us
in battle; but if it come to a walk or a race, I think I can show which
has the best mettle."

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