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Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

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




"Thou art most fearfully rash, Wildrake," said his companion; "we are
now bound for the house--what if they should remember thee?"

"Why, it is no treason, is it? No one has paid for peeping since Tom of
Coventry's days; and if he came in for a reckoning, belike it was for a
better treat than mine. But trust me, they will no more know me, than a
man who had only seen your friend Noll at a conventicle of saints, would
know the same Oliver on horseback, and charging with his lobster-tailed
squadron; or the same Noll cracking a jest and a bottle with wicked
Waller the poet."

"Hush! not a word of Oliver, as thou dost value thyself and me. It is
ill jesting with the rock you may split on.--But here is the gate--we
will disturb these honest gentlemen's recreations."

As he spoke, he applied the large and ponderous knocker to the
hall-door. "Rat-tat-tat-too!" said Wildrake; "there is a fine alarm to
you cuckolds and round-heads." He then half-mimicked, half-sung the
march so called:--

"Cuckolds, come dig, cuckolds, come dig;
Round about cuckolds, come dance to my jig!"

"By Heaven! this passes Midsummer frenzy," said Everard, turning angrily
to him.

"Not a bit, not a bit," replied Wildrake; "it is but a slight
expectoration, just like what one makes before beginning a long speech.
I will be grave for an hour together, now I have got that point of war
out of my head."

As he spoke, steps were heard in the hall, and the wicket of the great
door was partly opened, but secured with a chain in case of accidents.
The visage of Tomkins, and that of Joceline beneath it, appeared at the
chink, illuminated by the lamp which the latter held in his hand, and
Tomkins demanded the meaning of this alarm.

"I demand instant admittance!" said Everard. "Joliffe, you know me
well?"

"I do, sir," replied Joceline, "and could admit you with all my heart;
but, alas! sir, you see I am not key-keeper--Here is the gentleman whose
warrant I must walk by--The Lord help me, seeing times are such as they
be!"

"And when that gentleman, who I think may be Master Desborough's
valet"--

"His honour's unworthy secretary, an it please you," interposed Tomkins;
while Wildrake whispered in Everard's ear; "I will be no longer
secretary. Mark, thou wert quite right--the clerk must be the more
gentlemanly calling."

"And if you are Master Desborough's secretary, I presume you know me and
my condition well enough," said Everard, addressing the Independent,
"not to hesitate to admit me and my attendant to a night's quarters in
the Lodge?"

"Surely not, surely not," said the Independent--"that is, if your
worship thinks you would be better accommodated here than up at the
house of entertainment in the town, which men unprofitably call Saint
George's Inn. There is but confined accommodation here, your honour--and
we have been frayed out of our lives already by the visitation of
Satan--albeit his fiery dart is now quenched."

"This may be all well in its place, Sir Secretary," said Everard; "and
you may find a corner for it when you are next tempted to play the
preacher. But I will take it for no apology for keeping me here in the
cold harvest wind; and if not presently received, and suitably too, I
will report you to your master for insolence in your office."

The secretary of Desborough did not dare offer farther opposition; for
it is well known that Desborough himself only held his consequence as a
kinsman of Cromwell; and the Lord-General, who was well nigh paramount
already, was known to be strongly favourable both to the elder and
younger Everard. It is true, they were Presbyterians and he an
Independent; and that though sharing those feelings of correct morality
and more devoted religious feeling, by which, with few exceptions, the
Parliamentarian party were distinguished, the Everards were not disposed
to carry these attributes to the extreme of enthusiasm, practised by so
many others at the time. Yet it was well known that whatever might be
Cromwell's own religious creed, he was not uniformly bounded by it in
the choice of his favourites, but extended his countenance to those who
could serve him, even, although, according to the phrase of the time,
they came out of the darkness of Egypt. The character of the elder
Everard stood very high for wisdom and sagacity; besides, being of a
good family and competent fortune, his adherence would lend a dignity to
any side he might espouse. Then his son had been a distinguished and
successful soldier, remarkable for the discipline he maintained among
his men, the bravery which he showed in the time of action, and the
humanity with which he was always ready to qualify the consequences of
victory. Such men were not to be neglected, when many signs combined to
show that the parties in the state, who had successfully accomplished
the deposition and death of the King, were speedily to quarrel among
themselves about the division of the spoils. The two Everards were
therefore much courted by Cromwell, and their influence with him was
supposed to be so great, that trusty Master Secretary Tomkins cared not
to expose himself to risk, by contending with Colonel Everard for such a
trifle as a night's lodging.

Joceline was active on his side--more lights were obtained--more wood
thrown on the fire--and the two newly-arrived strangers were introduced
into Victor Lee's parlour, as it was called, from the picture over the
chimney-piece, which we have already described. It was several minutes
ere Colonel Everard could recover his general stoicism of deportment, so
strongly was he impressed by finding himself in the apartment, under
whose roof he had passed so many of the happiest hours of his life.
There was the cabinet, which he had seen opened with such feelings of
delight when Sir Henry Lee deigned to give him instructions in fishing,
and to exhibit hooks and lines, together with all the materials for
making the artificial fly, then little known. There hung the ancient
family picture, which, from some odd mysterious expressions of his uncle
relating to it, had become to his boyhood, nay, his early youth, a
subject of curiosity and of fear. He remembered how, when left alone in
the apartment, the searching eye of the old warrior seemed always bent
upon his, in whatever part of the room he placed himself, and how his
childish imagination was perturbed at a phenomenon, for which he could
not account.

With these came a thousand dearer and warmer recollections of his early
attachment to his pretty cousin Alice, when he assisted her at her
lessons, brought water for her flowers, or accompanied her while she
sung; and he remembered that while her father looked at them with a
good-humoured and careless smile, he had once heard him mutter, "And if
it should turn out so--why, it might be best for both," and the theories
of happiness he had reared on these words. All these visions had been
dispelled by the trumpet of war, which called Sir Henry Lee and himself
to opposite sides; and the transactions of this very day had shown, that
even Everard's success as a soldier and a statesman seemed absolutely to
prohibit the chance of their being revived.

He was waked out of this unpleasing reverie by the approach of Joceline,
who, being possibly a seasoned toper, had made the additional
arrangements with more expedition and accuracy, than could have been
expected from a person engaged as he had been since night-fall.

He now wished to know the Colonel's directions for the night.

"Would he eat anything?"

"No."

"Did his honour choose to accept Sir Henry Lee's bed, which was ready
prepared?"

"Yes."

"That of Mistress Alice Lee should be prepared for the Secretary."

"On pain of thine ears--No," replied Everard.

"Where then was the worthy Secretary to be quartered?"

"In the dog-kennel, if you list," replied Colonel Everard; "but," added
he, stepping to the sleeping apartment of Alice, which opened from the
parlour, locking it, and taking out the key, "no one shall profane this
chamber."

"Had his honour any other commands for the night?"

"None, save to clear the apartment of yonder man. My clerk will remain
with me--I have orders which must be written out.--Yet stay--Thou gavest
my letter this morning to Mistress Alice?"

"I did."

"Tell me, good Joceline, what she said when she received it?"

"She seemed much concerned, sir; and indeed I think that she wept a
little--but indeed she seemed very much distressed."

"And what message did she send to me?"

"None, may it please your honour--She began to say, 'Tell my cousin
Everard that I will communicate my uncle's kind purpose to my father, if
I can get fitting opportunity--but that I greatly fear'--and there
checked herself, as it were, and said, 'I will write to my cousin; and
as it may be late ere I have an opportunity of speaking with my father,
do thou come for my answer after service.'--So I went to church myself,
to while away the time; but when I returned to the Chase, I found this
man had summoned my master to surrender, and, right or wrong, I must put
him in possession of the Lodge. I would fain have given your honour a
hint that the old knight and my young mistress were like to take you on
the form, but I could not mend the matter."

"Thou hast done well, good fellow, and I will remember thee.--And now,
my masters," he said, advancing to the brace of clerks or secretaries,
who had in the meanwhile sate quietly down beside the stone bottle, and
made up acquaintance over a glass of its contents--"Let me remind you,
that the night wears late."

"There is something cries tinkle, tinkle, in the bottle yet," said
Wildrake, in reply.

"Hem! hem! hem!" coughed the Colonel of the Parliament service; and if
his lips did not curse his companion's imprudence, I will not answer for
what arose in his heart,--"Well!" he said, observing that Wildrake had
filled his own glass and Tomkins's, "take that parting glass and
begone."

"Would you not be pleased to hear first," said Wildrake, "how this
honest gentleman saw the devil to-night look through a pane of yonder
window, and how he thinks he had a mighty strong resemblance to your
worship's humble slave and varlet scribbler? Would you but hear this,
sir, and just sip a glass of this very recommendable strong waters?"

"I will drink none, sir," said Colonel Everard sternly; "and I have to
tell _you_, that you have drunken a glass too much already.--Mr.
Tomkins, sir, I wish you good night."

"A word in season at parting," said Tomkins, standing up behind the long
leathern back of a chair, hemming and snuffling as if preparing for an
exhortation.

"Excuse me, sir," replied Markham Everard sternly; "you are not now
sufficiently yourself to guide the devotion of others."

"Woe be to them that reject!" said the Secretary of the Commissioners,
stalking out of the room--the rest was lost in shutting the door, or
suppressed for fear of offence.

"And now, fool Wildrake, begone to thy bed--yonder it lies," pointing to
the knight's apartment.

"What, thou hast secured the lady's for thyself? I saw thee put the key
in thy pocket."

"I would not--indeed I could not sleep in that apartment--I can sleep
nowhere--but I will watch in this arm-chair.--I have made him place wood
for repairing the fire.--Good now, go to bed thyself, and sleep off thy
liquor."

"Liquor!--I laugh thee to scorn, Mark--thou art a milksop, and the son
of a milksop, and know'st not what a good fellow can do in the way of
crushing an honest cup."

"The whole vices of his faction are in this poor fellow individually,"
said the Colonel to himself, eyeing his protegé askance, as the other
retreated into the bedroom, with no very steady pace--"He is reckless,
intemperate, dissolute;--and if I cannot get him safely shipped for
France, he will certainly be both his own ruin and mine.--Yet, withal,
he is kind, brave, and generous, and would have kept the faith with me
which he now expects from me; and in what consists the merit of our
truth, if we observe not our plighted word when we have promised, to our
hurt? I will take the liberty, however, to secure myself against farther
interruption on his part."

So saying, he locked the door of communication betwixt the
sleeping-room, to which the cavalier had retreated, and the parlour;--
and then, after pacing the floor thoughtfully, returned to his seat,
trimmed the lamp, and drew out a number of letters.--"I will read these
over once more," he said, "that, if possible, the thought of public
affairs may expel this keen sense of personal sorrow. Gracious
Providence, where is this to end! We have sacrificed the peace of our
families, the warmest wishes of our young hearts, to right the country
in which we were born, and to free her from oppression; yet it appears,
that every step we have made towards liberty, has but brought us in view
of new and more terrific perils, as he who travels in a mountainous
region, is by every step which elevates him higher, placed in a
situation of more imminent hazard."

He read long and attentively, various tedious and embarrassed letters,
in which the writers, placing before him the glory of God, and the
freedom and liberties of England, as their supreme ends, could not, by
all the ambagitory expressions they made use of, prevent the shrewd eye
of Markham Everard from seeing, that self-interest and views of
ambition, were the principal moving springs at the bottom of their
plots.

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.


Sleep steals on us even like his brother Death--
We know not when it comes--we know it must come--
We may affect to scorn and to contemn it,
For 'tis the highest pride of human misery
To say it knows not of an opiate;
Yet the reft parent, the despairing lover,
Even the poor wretch who waits for execution,
Feels this oblivion, against which he thought
His woes had arm'd his senses, steal upon him,
And through the fenceless citadel--the body--
Surprise that haughty garrison--the mind.
HERBERT.

Colonel Everard experienced the truth contained in the verses of the
quaint old bard whom we have quoted above. Amid private grief, and
anxiety for a country long a prey to civil war, and not likely to fall
soon under any fixed or well-established form of government, Everard and
his father had, like many others, turned their eyes to General Cromwell,
as the person whose valour had made him the darling of the army, whose
strong sagacity had hitherto predominated over the high talents by which
he had been assailed in Parliament, as well as over his enemies in the
field, and who was alone in the situation to _settle the nation_, as the
phrase then went; or, in other words, to dictate the mode of government.
The father and son were both reputed to stand high in the General's
favour. But Markham Everard was conscious of some particulars, which
induced him to doubt whether Cromwell actually, and at heart, bore
either to his father or to himself that good-will which was generally
believed. He knew him for a profound politician, who could veil for any
length of time his real sentiments of men and things, until they could
be displayed without prejudice to his interest. And he moreover knew
that the General was not likely to forget the opposition which the
Presbyterian party had offered to what Oliver called the Great
Matter--the trial, namely, and execution of the King. In this
opposition, his father and he had anxiously concurred, nor had the
arguments, nor even the half-expressed threats of Cromwell, induced them
to flinch from that course, far less to permit their names to be
introduced into the commission nominated to sit in judgment on that
memorable occasion.

This hesitation had occasioned some temporary coldness between the
General and the Everards, father and son. But as the latter remained in
the army, and bore arms under Cromwell both in Scotland, and finally at
Worcester, his services very frequently called forth the approbation of
his commander. After the fight of Worcester, in particular, he was among
the number of those officers on whom Oliver, rather considering the
actual and practical extent of his own power, than the name under which
he exercised it, was with difficulty withheld from imposing the dignity
of Knights-Bannerets at his own will and pleasure. It therefore seemed,
that all recollection of former disagreement was obliterated, and that
the Everards had regained their former stronghold in the General's
affections. There were, indeed, several who doubted this, and who
endeavoured to bring over this distinguished young officer to some other
of the parties which divided the infant Commonwealth. But to these
proposals he turned a deaf ear. Enough of blood, he said, had been
spilled--it was time that the nation should have repose under a
firmly-established government, of strength sufficient to protect
property, and of lenity enough to encourage the return of tranquillity.
This, he thought, could only be accomplished by means of Cromwell, and
the greater part of England was of the same opinion. It is true, that,
in thus submitting to the domination of a successful soldier, those who
did so, forgot the principles upon which they had drawn the sword
against the late King. But in revolutions, stern and high principles are
often obliged to give way to the current of existing circumstances; and
in many a case, where wars have been waged for points of metaphysical
right, they have been at last gladly terminated, upon the mere hope of
obtaining general tranquillity, as, after many a long siege, a garrison
is often glad to submit on mere security for life and limb.

Colonel Everard, therefore, felt that the support which he afforded
Cromwell, was only under the idea, that, amid a choice of evils, the
least was likely to ensue from a man of the General's wisdom and valour
being placed at the head of the state; and he was sensible, that Oliver
himself was likely to consider his attachment as lukewarm and imperfect,
and measure his gratitude for it upon the same limited scale.

In the meanwhile, however, circumstances compelled him to make trial of
the General's friendship. The sequestration of Woodstock, and the
warrant to the Commissioners to dispose of it as national property, had
been long granted, but the interest of the elder Everard had for weeks
and months deferred its execution. The hour was now approaching when the
blow could be no longer parried, especially as Sir Henry Lee, on his
side, resisted every proposal of submitting himself to the existing
government, and was therefore, now that his hour of grace was passed,
enrolled in the list of stubborn and irreclaimable malignants, with whom
the Council of State was determined no longer to keep terms. The only
mode of protecting the old knight and his daughter, was to interest, if
possible, the General himself in the matter; and revolving all the
circumstances connected with their intercourse, Colonel Everard felt
that a request, which would so immediately interfere with the interests
of Desborough, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, and one of the present
Commissioners, was putting to a very severe trial the friendship of the
latter. Yet no alternative remained.

With this view, and agreeably to a request from Cromwell, who at parting
had been very urgent to have his written opinion upon public affairs,
Colonel Everard passed the earlier part of the night in arranging his
ideas upon the state of the Commonwealth, in a plan which he thought
likely to be acceptable to Cromwell, as it exhorted him, under the aid
of Providence, to become the saviour of the state, by convoking a free
Parliament, and by their aid placing himself at the head of some form of
liberal and established government, which might supersede the state of
anarchy, in which the nation was otherwise likely to be merged. Taking a
general view of the totally broken condition of the Royalists, and of
the various factions which now convulsed the state, he showed how this
might be done without bloodshed or violence. From this topic he
descended to the propriety of keeping up the becoming state of the
Executive Government, in whose hands soever it should be lodged, and
thus showed Cromwell, as the future Stadtholder, or Consul, or
Lieutenant-General of Great Britain and Ireland, a prospect of demesne
and residence becoming his dignity. Then he naturally passed to the
disparking and destroying of the royal residences of England, made a
woful picture of the demolition which impended over Woodstock, and
interceded for the preservation of that beautiful seat, as a matter of
personal favour, in which he found himself deeply interested.

Colonel Everard, when he had finished his letter, did not find himself
greatly risen in his own opinion. In the course of his political
conduct, he had till this hour avoided mixing up personal motives with
his public grounds of action, and yet he now felt himself making such a
composition. But he comforted himself, or at least silenced this
unpleasing recollection, with the consideration, that the weal of
Britain, studied under the aspect of the times, absolutely required that
Cromwell should be at the head of the government; and that the interest
of Sir Henry Lee, or rather his safety and his existence, no less
emphatically demanded the preservation of Woodstock, and his residence
there. Was it a fault of his, that the same road should lead to both
these ends, or that his private interest, and that of the country,
should happen to mix in the same letter? He hardened himself, therefore,
to the act, made up and addressed his packet to the Lord-General, and
then sealed it with his seal of arms. This done, he lay back in the
chair; and, in spite of his expectations to the contrary, fell asleep in
the course of his reflections, anxious and harassing as they were, and
did not awaken until the cold grey light of dawn was peeping through the
eastern oriel.

He started at first, rousing himself with the sensation of one who
awakes in a place unknown to him; but the localities instantly forced
themselves on his recollection. The lamp burning dimly in the socket,
the wood fire almost extinguished in its own white embers, the gloomy
picture over the chimney-piece, the sealed packet on the table--all
reminded him of the events of yesterday, and his deliberations of the
succeeding night. "There is no help for it," he said; "it must be
Cromwell or anarchy. And probably the sense that his title, as head of
the Executive Government, is derived merely from popular consent, may
check the too natural proneness of power to render itself arbitrary. If
he govern by Parliaments, and with regard to the privileges of the
subject, wherefore not Oliver as well as Charles? But I must take
measures for having this conveyed safely to the hands of this future
sovereign prince. It will be well to take the first word of influence
with him, since there must be many who will not hesitate to recommend
counsels more violent and precipitate."

He determined to intrust the important packet to the charge of Wildrake,
whose rashness was never so distinguished, as when by any chance he was
left idle and unemployed; besides, even if his faith had not been
otherwise unimpeachable, the obligations which he owed to his friend
Everard must have rendered it such.

These conclusions passed through Colonel Everard's mind, as, collecting
the remains of wood in the chimney, he gathered them into a hearty
blaze, to remove the uncomfortable feeling of dullness which pervaded
his limbs; and by the time he was a little more warm, again sunk into a
slumber, which was only dispelled by the beams of morning peeping into
his apartment.

He arose, roused himself, walked up and down the room, and looked from
the large oriel window on the nearest objects, which were the untrimmed
hedges and neglected walks of a certain wilderness, as it is called in
ancient treatises on gardening, which, kept of yore well ordered, and in
all the pride of the topiary art, presented a succession of yew-trees
cut into fantastic forms, of close alleys, and of open walks, filling
about two or three acres of ground on that side of the Lodge, and
forming a boundary between its immediate precincts and the open Park.
Its enclosure was now broken down in many places, and the hinds with
their fawns fed free and unstartled up to the very windows of the silvan
palace.

This had been a favourite scene of Markham's sports when a boy. He could
still distinguish, though now grown out of shape, the verdant
battlements of a Gothic castle, all created by the gardener's shears, at
which he was accustomed to shoot his arrows; or, stalking before it like
the Knight-errants of whom he read, was wont to blow his horn, and bid
defiance to the supposed giant or Paynim knight, by whom it was
garrisoned. He remembered how he used to train his cousin, though
several years younger than himself, to bear a part in those revels of
his boyish fancy, and to play the character of an elfin page, or a
fairy, or an enchanted princess. He remembered, too, many particulars of
their later acquaintance, from which he had been almost necessarily led
to the conclusion, that from an early period their parents had
entertained some idea, that there might be a well-fitted match betwixt
his fair cousin and himself. A thousand visions, formed in so bright a
prospect, had vanished along with it, but now returned like shadows, to
remind him of all he had lost--and for what?--"For the sake of England,"
his proud consciousness replied,--"Of England, in danger of becoming the
prey at once of bigotry and tyranny." And he strengthened himself with
the recollection, "If I have sacrificed my private happiness, it is that
my country may enjoy liberty of conscience, and personal freedom; which,
under a weak prince and usurping statesman, she was but too likely to
have lost."

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