The reader cannot have forgotten that after his scuffle with the
commonwealth soldier, Sir Henry Lee, with his daughter Alice, had
departed to take refuge in the hut of the stout keeper Joceline
Joliffe. They walked slow, as before, for the old knight was at once
oppressed by perceiving these last vestiges of royalty fall into the
hands of republicans, and by the recollection of his recent defeat. At
times he paused, and, with his arms folded on his bosom, recalled all
the circumstances attending his expulsion from a house so long his
home. It seemed to him that, like the champions of romance of whom he
had sometimes read, he himself was retiring from the post which it was
his duty to guard, defeated by a Paynim knight, for whom the adventure
had been reserved by fate. Alice had her own painful subjects of
recollection, nor had the tenor of her last conversation with her
father been so pleasant as to make her anxious to renew it until his
temper should be more composed; for with an excellent disposition, and
much love to his daughter, age and misfortunes, which of late came
thicker and thicker, had given to the good knight’s passions a wayward
irritability unknown to his better days. His daughter, and one or two
attached servants, who still followed his decayed fortunes, soothed his
frailty as much as possible, and pitied him even while they suffered
under its effects.
It was a long time ere he spoke, and then he referred to an incident
already noticed. “It is strange,” he said, “that Bevis should have
followed Joceline and that fellow rather than me.”
“Assure yourself, sir,” replied Alice, “that his sagacity saw in this
man a stranger, whom he thought himself obliged to watch circumspectly,
and therefore he remained with Joceline.”
“Not so, Alice,” answered Sir Henry; “he leaves me because my fortunes
have fled from me. There is a feeling in nature, affecting even the
instinct, as it is called, of dumb animals, which teaches them to fly
from misfortune. The very deer there will butt a sick or wounded buck
from the herd; hurt a dog, and the whole kennel will fall on him and
worry him; fishes devour their own kind when they are wounded with a
spear; cut a crow’s wing, or break its leg, the others will buffet it
to death.”
“That may be true of the more irrational kinds of animals among each
other,” said Alice, “for their whole life is well nigh a warfare; but
the dog leaves his own race to attach himself to ours; forsakes, for
his master, the company, food, and pleasure of his own kind; and surely
the fidelity of such a devoted and voluntary servant as Bevis hath been
in particular, ought not to be lightly suspected.”
“I am not angry with the dog, Alice; I am only sorry,” replied her
father. “I have read, in faithful chronicles, that when Richard II. and
Henry of Bolingbroke were at Berkeley Castle, a dog of the same kind
deserted the King, whom he had always attended upon, and attached
himself to Henry, whom he then saw for the first time. Richard
foretold, from the desertion of his favourite, his approaching
deposition. The dog was afterwards kept at Woodstock, and Bevis is said
to be of his breed, which was heedfully kept up. What I might foretell
of mischief from his desertion, I cannot guess, but my mind assures me
it bodes no good.”
There was a distant rustling among the withered leaves, a bouncing or
galloping sound on the path, and the favourite dog instantly joined his
master.
“Come into court, old knave,” said Alice, cheerfully, “and defend thy
character, which is wellnigh endangered by this absence.” But the dog
only paid her courtesy by gamboling around them, and instantly plunged
back again, as fast as he could scamper.
“How now, knave?” said the knight; “thou art too well trained, surely,
to take up the chase without orders.” A minute more showed them Phœbe
Mayflower approaching, her light pace so little impeded by the burden
which she bore, that she joined her master and young mistress just as
they arrived at the keeper’s hut, which was the boundary of their
journey. Bevis, who had shot a-head to pay his compliments to Sir Henry
his master, had returned again to his immediate duty, the escorting
Phœbe and her cargo of provisions. The whole party stood presently
assembled before the door of the keeper’s hut.
In better times, a substantial stone habitation, fit for the
yeoman-keeper of a royal walk, had adorned this place. A fair spring
gushed out near the spot, and once traversed yards and courts, attached
to well-built and convenient kennels and mews. But in some of the
skirmishes which were common during the civil wars, this little silvan
dwelling had been attacked and defended, stormed and burnt. A
neighbouring squire, of the Parliament side of the question, took
advantage of Sir Henry Lee’s absence, who was then in Charles’s camp,
and of the decay of the royal cause, and had, without scruple, carried
off the hewn stones, and such building materials as the fire left
unconsumed, and repaired his own manor-house with them. The
yeoman-keeper, therefore, our friend Joceline, had constructed, for his
own accommodation, and that of the old woman he called his dame, a
wattled hut, such as his own labour, with that of a neighbour or two,
had erected in the course of a few days. The walls were plastered with
clay, white-washed, and covered with vines and other creeping plants;
the roof was neatly thatched, and the whole, though merely a hut, had,
by the neat-handed Joliffe, been so arranged as not to disgrace the
condition of the dweller.
The knight advanced to the entrance; but the ingenuity of the
architect, for want of a better lock to the door, which itself was but
of wattles curiously twisted, had contrived a mode of securing the
latch on the inside with a pin, which prevented it from rising; and in
this manner it was at present fastened. Conceiving that this was some
precaution of Joliffe’s old housekeeper, of whose deafness they were
all aware, Sir Henry raised his voice to demand admittance, but in
vain. Irritated at this delay, he pressed the door at once with foot
and hand, in a way which the frail barrier was unable to resist; it
gave way accordingly, and the knight thus forcibly entered the kitchen,
or outward apartment, of his servant. In the midst of the floor, and
with a posture which indicated embarrassment, stood a youthful
stranger, in a riding-suit.
“This may be my last act of authority here,” said the knight, seizing
the stranger by the collar, “but I am still Ranger of Woodstock for
this night at least—Who, or what art thou?”
The stranger dropped the riding-mantle in which his face was muffled,
and at the same time fell on one knee.
“Your poor kinsman, Markham Everard,” he said, “who came hither for
your sake, although he fears you will scarce make him welcome for his
own.”
Sir Henry started back, but recovered himself in an instant, as one who
recollected that he had a part of dignity to perform. He stood erect,
therefore, and replied, with considerable assumption of stately
ceremony:
“Fair kinsman, it pleases me that you are come to Woodstock upon the
very first night that, for many years which have passed, is likely to
promise you a worthy or a welcome reception.”
“Now God grant it be so, that I rightly hear and duly understand you,”
said the young man; while Alice, though she was silent, kept her looks
fixed on her father’s face, as if desirous to know whether his meaning
was kind towards his nephew, which her knowledge of his character
inclined her greatly to doubt.
The knight meanwhile darted a sardonic look, first on his nephew, then
on his daughter, and proceeded—“I need not, I presume, inform Mr.
Markham Everard, that it cannot be our purpose to entertain him, or
even to offer him a seat in this poor hut.”
“I will attend you most willingly to the Lodge,” said the young
gentleman. “I had, indeed, judged you were already there for the
evening, and feared to intrude upon you. But if you would permit me, my
dearest uncle, to escort my kinswoman and you back to the Lodge,
believe me, amongst all which you have so often done of good and kind,
you never conferred benefit that will be so dearly prized.”
“You mistake me greatly, Mr. Markham Everard,” replied the knight. “It
is not our purpose to return to the Lodge to-night, nor, by Our Lady,
to-morrow neither. I meant but to intimate to you in all courtesy, that
at Woodstock Lodge you will find those for whom you are fitting
society, and who, doubtless, will afford you a willing welcome; which
I, sir, in this my present retreat, do not presume to offer to a person
of your consequence.”
“For Heaven’s sake,” said the young man, turning to Alice, “tell me how
I am to understand language so misterious.”
Alice, to prevent his increasing the restrained anger of her father,
compelled herself to answer, though it was with difficulty, “We are
expelled from the Lodge by soldiers.”
“Expelled—by soldiers!” exclaimed Everard, in surprise—“there is no
legal warrant for this.”
“None at all,” answered the knight, in the same tone of cutting irony
which he had all along used, “and yet as lawful a warrant, as for aught
that has been wrought in England this twelvemonth and more. You are, I
think, or were, an Inns-of-Court-man—marry, sir, your enjoyment of your
profession is like that lease which a prodigal wishes to have of a
wealthy widow. You have already survived the law which you studied, and
its expiry doubtless has not been without a legacy—some decent
pickings, some merciful increases, as the phrase goes. You have
deserved it two ways—you wore buff and bandalier, as well as wielded
pen and ink—I have not heard if you held forth too.”
“Think of me and speak of me as harshly as you will, sir,” said
Everard, submissively. “I have but in this evil time, guided myself by
my conscience, and my father’s commands.”
“O, and you talk of conscience,” said the old knight, “I must have mine
eye upon you, as Hamlet says. Never yet did Puritan cheat so grossly as
when he was appealing to his conscience; and as for thy _father_”—
He was about to proceed in a tone of the same invective, when the young
man interrupted him, by saying, in a firm tone, “Sir Henry Lee, you
have ever been thought noble—Say of me what you will, but speak not of
my father what the ear of a son should not endure, and which yet his
arm cannot resent. To do me such wrong is to insult an unarmed man, or
to beat a captive.”
Sir Henry paused, as if struck by the remark. “Thou hast spoken truth
in that, Mark, wert thou the blackest Puritan whom hell ever vomited,
to distract an unhappy country.”
“Be that as you will to think it,” replied Everard; “but let me not
leave you to the shelter of this wretched hovel. The night is drawing
to storm—let me but conduct you to the Lodge, and expel those
intruders, who can, as yet at least, have no warrant for what they do.
I will not linger a moment behind them, save just to deliver my
father’s message.—Grant me but this much, for the love you once bore
me!”
“Yes, Mark,” answered his uncle, firmly, but sorrowfully, “thou
speakest truth—I did love thee once. The bright-haired boy whom I
taught to ride, to shoot, to hunt—whose hours of happiness were spent
with me, wherever those of graver labours were employed—I did love that
boy—ay, and I am weak enough to love even the memory of what he
was.—But he is gone, Mark—he is gone; and in his room I only behold an
avowed and determined rebel to his religion and to his king—a rebel
more detestable on account of his success, the more infamous through
the plundered wealth with which he hopes to gild his villany.—But I am
poor, thou think’st, and should hold my peace, lest men say, ‘Speak,
sirrah, when you should.’—Know, however, that, indigent and plundered
as I am, I feel myself dishonoured in holding even but this much talk
with the tool of usurping rebels.—Go to the Lodge, if thou wilt—yonder
lies the way—but think not that, to regain my dwelling there, or all
the wealth I ever possessed in my wealthiest days, I would accompany
thee three steps on the greensward. If I must be thy companion, it
shall be only when thy red-coats have tied my hands behind me, and
bound my legs beneath my horse’s belly. Thou mayst be my fellow
traveller then, I grant thee, if thou wilt, but not sooner.”
Alice, who suffered cruelly during this dialogue, and was well aware
that farther argument would only kindle the knight’s resentment still
more highly, ventured at last, in her anxiety, to make a sign to her
cousin to break off the interview, and to retire, since her father
commanded his absence in a manner so peremptory. Unhappily, she was
observed by Sir Henry, who, concluding that what he saw was evidence of
a private understanding betwixt the cousins, his wrath acquired new
fuel, and it required the utmost exertion of self-command, and
recollection of all that was due to his own dignity, to enable him to
veil his real fury under the same ironical manner which he had adopted
at the beginning of this angry interview.
“If thou art afraid,” he said, “to trace our forest glades by night,
respected stranger, to whom I am perhaps bound to do honour as my
successor in the charge of these walks, here seems to be a modest
damsel, who will be most willing to wait on thee, and be thy
bow-bearer.—Only, for her mother’s sake, let there pass some slight
form of marriage between you—Ye need no license or priest in these
happy days, but may be buckled like beggars in a ditch, with a hedge
for a church-roof, and a tinker for a priest. I crave pardon of you for
making such an officious and simple request—perhaps you are a ranter—or
one of the family of Love, or hold marriage rites as unnecessary, as
Knipperdoling, or Jack of Leyden?”
“For mercy’s sake, forbear such dreadful jesting, my father! and do
you, Markham, begone, in God’s name, and leave us to our fate—your
presence makes my father rave.”
“Jesting!” said Sir Henry, “I was never more serious—Raving!—I was
never more composed—I could never brook that falsehood should approach
me—I would no more bear by my side a dishonoured daughter than a
dishonoured sword; and this unhappy day hath shown that both can fail.”
“Sir Henry,” said young Everard, “load not your soul with a heavy
crime, which be assured you do, in treating your daughter thus
unjustly. It is long now since you denied her to me, when we were poor
and you were powerful. I acquiesced in your prohibition of all suit and
intercourse. God knoweth what I suffered—but I acquiesced. Neither is
it to renew my suit that I now come hither, and have, I do acknowledge,
sought speech of her—not for her own sake only, but for yours also.
Destruction hovers over you, ready to close her pinions to stoop, and
her talons to clutch—Yes, sir, look contemptuous as you will, such is
the case; and it is to protect both you and her that I am here.”
“You refuse then my free gift,” said Sir Henry Lee; “or perhaps you
think it loaded with too hard conditions?”
“Shame, shame on you, Sir Henry;” said Everard, waxing warm in his
turn; “have your political prejudices so utterly warped every feeling
of a father, that you can speak with bitter mockery and scorn of what
concerns your own daughter’s honour?—Hold up your head, fair Alice, and
tell your father he has forgotten nature in his fantastic spirit of
loyalty.—Know, Sir Henry, that though I would prefer your daughter’s
hand to every blessing which Heaven could bestow on me, I would not
accept it—my conscience would not permit me to do so, when I knew it
must withdraw her from her duty to you.”
“Your conscience is over-scrupulous, young man;—carry it to some
dissenting rabbi, and he who takes all that comes to net, will teach
thee it is sinning against our mercies to refuse any good thing that is
freely offered to us.”
“When it is freely offered, and kindly offered—not when the offer is
made in irony and insult—Fare thee well, Alice—if aught could make me
desire to profit by thy father’s wild wish to cast thee from him in a
moment of unworthy suspicion, it would be that while indulging in such
sentiments, Sir Henry Lee is tyrannically oppressing the creature, who
of all others is most dependent on his kindness—who of all others will
most feel his severity, and whom, of all others, he is most bound to
cherish and support.”
“Do not fear for me, Mr. Everard,” exclaimed Alice, aroused from her
timidity by a dread of the consequences not unlikely to ensue, where
civil war sets relations, as well as fellow-citizens, in opposition to
each other.—“Oh, begone, I conjure you, begone! Nothing stands betwixt
me and my father’s kindness, but these unhappy family divisions—but
your ill-timed presence here—for Heaven’s sake, leave us!”
“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. Phœbe
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 Phœbe, “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 Phœbe, 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 Phœbe, 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 Phœbe 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.