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Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

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




"So, mistress!" answered the hot old cavalier, "you play lady paramount
already; and who but you!--you would dictate to our train, I warrant,
like Goneril and Regan! But I tell thee, no man shall leave my
house--and, humble as it is, _this_ is now my house--while he has aught
to say to me that is to be spoken, as this young man now speaks, with a
bent brow and a lofty tone.--Speak out, sir, and say your worst!"

"Fear not my temper, Mrs. Alice," said Everard, with equal firmness and
placidity of manner; "and you, Sir Henry, do not think that if I speak
firmly, I mean therefore to speak in anger, or officiously. You have
taxed me with much, and, were I guided by the wild spirit of romantic
chivalry, much which, even from so near a relative, I ought not, as
being by birth, and in the world's estimation, a gentleman, to pass over
without reply. Is it your pleasure to give me patient hearing?"

"If you stand on your defence," answered the stout old knight, "God
forbid that you should not challenge a patient hearing--ay, though your
pleading were two parts disloyalty and one blasphemy--Only, be brief--
this has already lasted but too long."

"I will, Sir Henry," replied the young man; "yet it is hard to crowd
into a few sentences, the defence of a life which, though short, has
been a busy one--too busy, your indignant gesture would assert. But I
deny it; I have drawn my sword neither hastily, nor without due
consideration, for a people whose rights have been trampled on, and
whose consciences have been oppressed--Frown not, sir--such is not your
view of the contest, but such is mine. For my religious principles, at
which you have scoffed, believe me, that though they depend not on set
forms, they are no less sincere than your own, and thus far
purer--excuse the word--that they are unmingled with the blood-thirsty
dictates of a barbarous age, which you and others have called the code
of chivalrous honour. Not my own natural disposition, but the better
doctrine which my creed has taught, enables me to bear your harsh
revilings without answering in a similar tone of wrath and reproach. You
may carry insult to extremity against me at your pleasure--not on
account of our relationship alone, but because I am bound in charity to
endure it. This, Sir Henry, is much from one of our house. But, with
forbearance far more than this requires, I can refuse at your hands the
gift, which, most of all things under heaven, I should desire to obtain,
because duty calls upon her to sustain and comfort you, and because it
were sin to permit you, in your blindness, to spurn your comforter from
your side.--Farewell, sir--not in anger, but in pity--We may meet in a
better time, when your heart and your principles shall master the
unhappy prejudices by which they are now overclouded.--Farewell--
farewell, Alice!"

The last words were repeated twice, and in a tone of feeling and
passionate grief, which differed utterly from the steady and almost
severe tone in which he had addressed Sir Henry Lee. He turned and left
the hut so soon as he had uttered these last words; and, as if ashamed
of the tenderness which had mingled with his accents, the young
commonwealth's-man turned and walked sternly and resolvedly forth into
the moonlight, which now was spreading its broad light and autumnal
shadows over the woodland.

So soon as he departed, Alice, who had been during the whole scene in
the utmost terror that her father might have been hurried, by his
natural heat of temper, from violence of language into violence of
action, sunk down upon a settle twisted out of willow boughs, like most
of Joceline's few moveables, and endeavoured to conceal the tears which
accompanied the thanks she rendered in broken accents to Heaven, that,
notwithstanding the near alliance and relationship of the parties, some
fatal deed had not closed an interview so perilous and so angry. Phoebe
Mayflower blubbered heartily for company, though she understood but
little of what had passed; just, indeed, enough to enable her afterwards
to report to some half-dozen particular friends, that her old master,
Sir Henry, had been perilous angry, and almost fought with young Master
Everard, because he had wellnigh carried away her young mistress.--"And
what could he have done better?" said Phoebe, "seeing the old man had
nothing left either for Mrs. Alice or himself; and as for Mr. Mark
Everard and our young lady, oh! they had spoken such loving things to
each other as are not to be found in the history of Argalus and
Parthenia, who, as the story-book tells, were the truest pair of lovers
in all Arcadia, and Oxfordshire to boot."

Old Goody Jellycot had popped her scarlet hood into the kitchen more
than once while the scene was proceeding; but, as the worthy dame was
parcel blind and more than parcel deaf, knowledge was excluded by two
principal entrances; and though she comprehended, by a sort of general
instinct, that the gentlefolk were at high words, yet why they chose
Joceline's hut for the scene of their dispute was as great a mystery as
the subject of the quarrel.

But what was the state of the old cavalier's mood, thus contradicted, as
his most darling principles had been, by the last words of his departing
nephew? The truth is, that he was less thoroughly moved than his
daughter expected; and in all probability his nephew's bold defence of
his religious and political opinions rather pacified than aggravated his
displeasure. Although sufficiently impatient of contradiction, still
evasion and subterfuge were more alien to the blunt old Ranger's nature
than manly vindication and direct opposition; and he was wont to say,
that he ever loved the buck best who stood boldest at bay. He graced his
nephew's departure, however, with a quotation from Shakspeare, whom, as
many others do, he was wont to quote from a sort of habit and respect,
as a favourite of his unfortunate master, without having either much
real taste for his works, or great skill in applying the passages which
he retained on his memory.

"Mark," he said, "mark this, Alice--the devil can quote Scripture for
his purpose. Why, this young fanatic cousin of thine, with no more beard
than I have seen on a clown playing Maid Marion on May-day, when the
village barber had shaved him in too great a hurry, shall match any
bearded Presbyterian or Independent of them all, in laying down his
doctrines and his uses, and bethumping us with his texts and his
homilies. I would worthy and learned Doctor Rochecliffe had been here,
with his battery ready-mounted from the Vulgate, and the Septuagint, and
what not--he would have battered the presbyterian spirit out of him with
a wanion. However, I am glad the young man is no sneaker; for, were a
man of the devil's opinion in religion, and of Old Noll's in politics,
he were better open on it full cry, than deceive you by hunting counter,
or running a false scent. Come--wipe thine eyes--the fray is over, and
not like to be stirred again soon, I trust."

Encouraged by these words, Alice rose, and, bewildered as she was,
endeavoured to superintend the arrangements for their meal and their
repose in their new habitation. But her tears fell so fast, they marred
her counterfeited diligence; and it was well for her that Phoebe, though
too ignorant and too simple to comprehend the extent of her distress,
could afford her material assistance, in lack of mere sympathy.

With great readiness and address, the damsel set about every thing that
was requisite for preparing the supper and the beds; now screaming into
Dame Jellycot's ear, now whispering into her mistress's, and artfully
managing, as if she was merely the agent, under Alice's orders. When the
cold viands were set forth, Sir Henry Lee kindly pressed his daughter to
take refreshment, as if to make up, indirectly, for his previous
harshness towards her; while he himself, like an experienced campaigner,
showed, that neither the mortifications nor brawls of the day, nor the
thoughts of what was to come to-morrow, could diminish his appetite for
supper, which was his favourite meal. He ate up two-thirds of the capon,
and, devoting the first bumper to the happy restoration of Charles,
second of the name, he finished a quart of wine; for he belonged to a
school accustomed to feed the flame of their loyalty with copious
brimmers. He even sang a verse of "The King shall enjoy his own again,"
in which Phoebe, half-sobbing, and Dame Jellycot, screaming against time
and tune, were contented to lend their aid, to cover Mistress Alice's
silence.

At length the jovial knight betook himself to his rest on the keeper's
straw pallet, in a recess adjoining to the kitchen, and, unaffected by
his change of dwelling, slept fast and deep. Alice had less quiet rest
in old Goody Jellycot's wicker couch, in the inner apartment; while the
dame and Phoebe slept on a mattress, stuffed with dry leaves, in the
same chamber, soundly as those whose daily toil gains their daily bread,
and, whom morning calls up only to renew the toils of yesterday.

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.


My tongue pads slowly under this new language,
And starts and stumbles at these uncouth phrases.
They may be great in worth and weight, but hang
Upon the native glibness of my language
Like Saul's plate-armour on the shepherd boy,
Encumbering and not arming him.
J. B.

As Markham Everard pursued his way towards the Lodge, through one of the
long sweeping glades which traversed the forest, varying in breadth,
till the trees were now so close that the boughs made darkness over his
head, then receding farther to let in glimpses of the moon, and anon
opening yet wider into little meadows, or savannahs, on which the
moonbeams lay in silvery silence; as he thus proceeded on his lonely
course, the various effects produced by that delicious light on the
oaks, whose dark leaves, gnarled branches, and massive trunks it gilded,
more or less partially, might have drawn the attention of a poet or a
painter.

But if Everard thought of anything saving the painful scene in which he
had just played his part, and of which the result seemed the destruction
of all his hopes, it was of the necessary guard to be observed in his
night-walk. The times were dangerous and unsettled; the roads full of
disbanded soldiers, and especially of royalists, who made their
political opinions a pretext for disturbing the country with marauding
parties and robberies. Deer-stealers also, who are ever a desperate
banditti, had of late infested Woodstock Chase. In short, the dangers of
the place and period were such, that Markham Everard wore his loaded
pistols at his belt, and carried his drawn sword under his arm, that he
might be prepared for whatever peril should cross his path.

He heard the bells of Woodstock Church ring curfew, just as he was
crossing one of the little meadows we have described, and they ceased as
he entered an overshadowed and twilight part of the path beyond. It was
there that he heard some one whistling; and, as the sound became
clearer, it was plain the person was advancing towards him. This could
hardly be a friend; for the party to which he belonged rejected,
generally speaking, all music, unless psalmody. "If a man is merry, let
him sing psalms," was a text which they were pleased to interpret as
literally and to as little purpose as they did some others; yet it was
too continued a sound to be a signal amongst night-walkers, and too
light and cheerful to argue any purpose of concealment on the part of
the traveller, who presently exchanged his whistling for singing, and
trolled forth the following stanza to a jolly tune, with which the old
cavaliers were wont to wake the night owl:

Hey for cavaliers! Ho for cavaliers!
Pray for cavaliers!
Rub a dub--rub a dub!
Have at old Beelzebub--
Oliver smokes for fear.

"I should know that voice," said Everard, uncocking the pistol which he
had drawn from his belt, but continuing to hold it in his hand. Then
came another fragment:

Hash them--slash them--
All to pieces dash them.

"So ho!" cried Markham, "who goes there, and for whom?"

"For Church and King," answered a voice, which presently added, "No,
d--n me--I mean _against_ Church and King, and for the people that are
uppermost--I forget which they are."

"Roger Wildrake, as I guess?" said Everard.

"The same--Gentleman; of Squattlesea-mere, in the moist county of
Lincoln."

"Wildrake!" said Markham--"Wildgoose you should be called. You have been
moistening your own throat to some purpose, and using it to gabble tunes
very suitable to the times, to be sure!"

"Faith, the tune's a pretty tune enough, Mark, only out of fashion a
little--the more's the pity."

"What could I expect," said Everard, "but to meet some ranting, drunken
cavalier, as desperate and dangerous as night and sack usually make
them? What if I had rewarded your melody by a ball in the gullet?"

"Why, there would have been a piper paid--that's all," said Wildrake.
"But wherefore come you this way now? I was about to seek you at the
hut."

"I have been obliged to leave it--I will tell you the cause hereafter,"
replied Markham.

"What! the old play-hunting cavalier was cross, or Chloe was unkind?"

"Jest not, Wildrake--it is all over with me," said Everard.

"The devil it is," exclaimed Wildrake, "and you take it thus quietly!--
Zounds! let us back together--I'll plead your cause for you--I know how
to tickle up an old knight and a pretty maiden--Let me alone for putting
you _rectus in curia_, you canting rogue.--D--n me, Sir Henry Lee, says
I, your nephew is a piece of a Puritan--it won't deny--but I'll uphold
him a gentleman and a pretty fellow, for all that.--Madam, says I, you
may think your cousin looks like a psalm-singing weaver, in that bare
felt, and with that rascally brown cloak; that band, which looks like a
baby's clout, and those loose boots, which have a whole calf-skin in
each of them,--but let him wear on the one side of his head a castor,
with a plume befitting his quality; give him a good Toledo by his side,
with a broidered belt and an inlaid hilt, instead of the ton of iron
contained in that basket-hilted black Andrew Ferrara; put a few smart
words in his mouth--and, blood and wounds! madam, says I--"

"Prithee, truce with this nonsense, Wildrake," said Everard, "and tell
me if you are sober enough to hear a few words of sober reason?"

"Pshaw! man, I did but crack a brace of quarts with yonder puritanic,
roundheaded soldiers, up yonder at the town; and rat me but I passed
myself for the best man of the party; twanged my nose, and turned up my
eyes, as I took my can--Pah! the very wine tasted of hypocrisy. I think
the rogue corporal smoked something at last--as for the common fellows,
never stir, but _they_ asked me to say grace over another quart."

"This is just what I wished to speak with you about, Wildrake," said
Markham--"You hold me, I am sure, for your friend?"

"True as steel.--Chums at College and at Lincoln's Inn--we have been
Nisus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Orestes and Pylades; and, to
sum up the whole with a puritanic touch, David and Jonathan, all in one
breath. Not even politics, the wedge that rends families and friendships
asunder, as iron rives oak, have been able to split us."

"True," answered Markham: "and when you followed the King to Nottingham,
and I enrolled under Essex, we swore, at our parting, that whichever
side was victorious, he of us who adhered to it, should protect his less
fortunate comrade."

"Surely, man, surely; and have you not protected me accordingly? Did you
not save me from hanging? and am I not indebted to you for the bread I
eat?"

"I have but done that which, had the times been otherwise, you, my dear
Wildrake, would, I am sure, have done for me. But, as I said, that is
just what I wished to speak to you about. Why render the task of
protecting you more difficult than it must necessarily be at any rate?
Why thrust thyself into the company of soldiers, or such like, where
thou art sure to be warmed into betraying thyself? Why come hollowing
and whooping out cavalier ditties, like a drunken trooper of Prince
Rupert, or one of Wilmot's swaggering body-guards?"

"Because I may have been both one and t'other in my day, for aught that
you know," replied Wildrake. "But, oddsfish! is it necessary I should
always be reminding you, that our obligation of mutual protection, our
league of offensive and defensive, as I may call it, was to be carried
into effect without reference to the politics or religion of the party
protected, or the least obligation on him to conform to those of his
friend?"

"True," said Everard; "but with this most necessary qualification, that
the party should submit to such outward conformity to the times as
should make it more easy and safe for his friend to be of service to
him. Now, you are perpetually breaking forth, to the hazard of your own
safety and my credit."

"I tell you, Mark, and I would tell your namesake the apostle, that you
are hard on me. You have practised sobriety and hypocrisy from your
hanging sleeves till your Geneva cassock--from the cradle to this
day,--and it is a thing of nature to you; and you are surprised that a
rough, rattling, honest fellow, accustomed to speak truth all his life,
and especially when he found it at the bottom of a flask, cannot be so
perfect a prig as thyself--Zooks! there is no equality betwixt us--A
trained diver might as well, because he can retain his breath for ten
minutes without inconvenience, upbraid a poor devil for being like to
burst in twenty seconds, at the bottom of ten fathoms water--And, after
all, considering the guise is so new to me, I think I bear myself
indifferently well--try me!"

"Are there any more news from Worcester fight?" asked Everard, in a tone
so serious that it imposed on his companion, who replied in his genuine
character--

"Worse!--d--n me, worse an hundred times than reported--totally broken.
Noll hath certainly sold himself to the devil, and his lease will have
an end one day--that is all our present comfort."

"What! and would this be your answer to the first red-coat who asked the
question?" said Everard. "Methinks you would find a speedy passport to
the next corps de garde."

"Nay, nay," answered Wildrake, "I thought you asked me in your own
person.--Lack-a-day! a great mercy--a glorifying mercy--a crowning
mercy--a vouchsafing--an uplifting--I profess the malignants are
scattered from Dan to Beersheba--smitten, hip and thigh, even until the
going down of the sun!"

"Hear you aught of Colonel Thornhaugh's wounds?"

"He is dead," answered Wildrake, "that's one comfort--the roundheaded
rascal!--Nay, hold! it was but a trip of the tongue--I meant, the sweet
godly youth."

"And hear you aught of the young man, King of Scotland, as they call
him?" said Everard.

"Nothing but that he is hunted like a partridge on the mountains. May
God deliver him, and confound his enemies!--Zoons, Mark Everard, I can
fool it no longer. Do you not remember, that at the Lincoln's-Inn
gambols--though you did not mingle much in them, I think--I used always
to play as well as any of them when it came to the action, but they
could never get me to rehearse conformably. It's the same at this day. I
hear your voice, and I answer to it in the true tone of my heart; but
when I am in the company of your snuffling friends, you have seen me act
my part indifferent well."

"But indifferent, indeed," replied Everard; "however, there is little
call on you to do aught, save to be modest and silent. Speak little, and
lay aside, if you can, your big oaths and swaggering looks--set your hat
even on your brows."

"Ay, that is the curse! I have been always noted for the jaunty manner
in which I wear my castor--Hard when a man's merits become his enemies!"

"You must remember you are my clerk."

"Secretary," answered Wildrake: "let it be secretary, if you love me."

"It must be clerk, and nothing else--plain clerk--and remember to be
civil and obedient," replied Everard.

"But you should not lay on your commands with so much ostentatious
superiority, Master Markham Everard. Remember, I am your senior of three
years' standing. Confound me, if I know how to take it!"

"Was ever such a fantastic wrong-head!--For my sake, if not for thine
own, bend thy freakish folly to listen to reason. Think that I have
incurred both risk and shame on thy account."

"Nay, thou art a right good fellow, Mark," replied the cavalier; "and
for thy sake I will do much--but remember to cough, and cry hem! when
thou seest me like to break bounds. And now, tell me whither we are
bound for the night."

"To Woodstock Lodge, to look after my uncle's property," answered
Markham Everard: "I am informed that soldiers have taken possession--Yet
how could that be if thou foundest the party drinking in Woodstock?"

"There was a kind of commissary or steward, or some such rogue, had gone
down to the Lodge," replied Wildrake; "I had a peep at him."

"Indeed!" replied Everard.

"Ay, verily," said Wildrake, "to speak your own language. Why, as I
passed through the park in quest of you, scarce half an hour since, I
saw a light in the Lodge--Step this way, you will see it yourself."

"In the north-west angle?" returned Everard. "It is from a window in
what they call Victor Lee's apartment."

"Well," resumed Wildrake, "I had been long one of Lundsford's lads, and
well used to patrolling duty--So, rat me, says I, if I leave a light in
my rear, without knowing what it means. Besides, Mark, thou hadst said
so much to me of thy pretty cousin, I thought I might as well have a
peep, if I could."

"Thoughtless, incorrigible man! to what dangers do you expose yourself
and your friends, in mere wantonness!--But go on."

"By this fair moonshine, I believe thou art jealous, Mark Everard!"
replied his gay companion; "there is no occasion; for, in any case, I,
who was to see the lady, was steeled by honour against the charms of my
friend's Chloe--Then the lady was not to see me, so could make no
comparisons to thy disadvantage, thou knowest--Lastly, as it fell out,
neither of us saw the other at all."

"Of that I am well aware. Mrs. Alice left the Lodge long before sunset,
and never returned. What didst thou see to introduce with such preface?"

"Nay, no great matter," replied Wildrake; "only getting upon a sort of
buttress, (for I can climb like any cat that ever mewed in any gutter,)
and holding on by the vines and creepers which grew around, I obtained a
station where I could see into the inside of that same parlour thou
spokest of just now."

"And what saw'st thou there?" once more demanded Everard.

"Nay, no great matter, as I said before," replied the cavalier; "for in
these times it is no new thing to see churls carousing in royal or noble
chambers. I saw two rascallions engaged in emptying a solemn stoup of
strong waters, and dispatching a huge venison pasty, which greasy mess,
for their convenience, they had placed on a lady's work-table--One of
them was trying an air on a lute."

"The profane villains!" exclaimed Everard, "it was Alice's."

"Well said, comrade--I am glad your phlegm can be moved. I did but throw
in these incidents of the lute and the table, to try if it was possible
to get a spark of human spirit out of you, besanctified as you are."

"What like were the men?" said young Everard.

"The one a slouch-hatted, long-cloaked, sour-faced fanatic, like the
rest of you, whom I took to be the steward or commissary I heard spoken
of in the town; the other was a short sturdy fellow, with a wood-knife
at his girdle, and a long quarterstaff lying beside him--a black-haired
knave, with white teeth and a merry countenance--one of the
under-rangers or bow-bearers of these walks, I fancy."

"They must have been Desborough's favourite, trusty Tomkins," said
Everard, "and Joceline Joliffe, the keeper. Tomkins is Desborough's
right hand--an Independent, and hath pourings forth, as he calls them.
Some think that his gifts have the better of his grace. I have heard of
his abusing opportunities."

"They were improving them when I saw them," replied Wildrake, "and made
the bottle smoke for it--when, as the devil would have it, a stone,
which had been dislodged from the crumbling buttress, gave way under my
weight. A clumsy fellow like thee would have been so long thinking what
was to be done, that he must needs have followed it before he could make
up his mind; but I, Mark, I hopped like a squirrel to an ivy twig, and
stood fast--was wellnigh shot, though, for the noise alarmed them both.
They looked to the oriel, and saw me on the outside; the fanatic fellow
took out a pistol--as they have always such texts in readiness hanging
beside the little clasped Bible, thou know'st--the keeper seized his
hunting-pole--I treated them both to a roar and a grin--thou must know I
can grimace like a baboon--I learned the trick from a French player, who
could twist his jaws into a pair of nut-crackers--and therewithal I
dropped myself sweetly on the grass, and ran off so trippingly, keeping
the dark side of the wall as long as I could, that I am wellnigh
persuaded they thought I was their kinsman, the devil, come among them
uncalled. They were abominably startled."

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