The embassy of Wildrake had been successful, chiefly through the
mediation of the Episcopal divine, whom we formerly found acting in the
character of a chaplain to the family, and whose voice had great
influence on many accounts with its master.
A little before high noon, Sir Henry Lee, with his small household,
were again in unchallenged possession of their old apartments at the
Lodge of Woodstock; and the combined exertions of Joceline Joliffe, of
Phœbe, and of old Joan, were employed in putting to rights what the
late intruders had left in great disorder.
Sir Henry Lee had, like all persons of quality of that period, a love
of order amounting to precision, and felt, like a fine lady whose dress
has been disordered in a crowd, insulted and humiliated by the rude
confusion into which his household goods had been thrown, and impatient
till his mansion was purified from all marks of intrusion. In his anger
he uttered more orders than the limited number of his domestics were
likely to find time or hands to execute. “The villains have left such
sulphureous steams behind them, too,” said the old knight, “as if old
Davie Leslie and the whole Scottish army had quartered among them.”
“It may be near as bad,” said Joceline, “for men say, for certain, it
was the Devil came down bodily among them, and made them troop off.”
“Then,” said the knight, “is the Prince of Darkness a gentleman, as old
Will Shakspeare says. He never interferes with those of his own coat,
for the Lees have been here, father and son, these five hundred years,
without disquiet; and no sooner came these misbegotten churls, than he
plays his own part among them.”
“Well, one thing he and they have left us,” said Joliffe, “which we may
thank them for; and that is, such a well-filled larder and buttery as
has been seldom seen in Woodstock Lodge this many a day: carcasses of
mutton, large rounds of beef, barrels of confectioners’ ware, pipes and
runlets of sack, muscadine, ale, and what not. We shall have a royal
time on’t through half the winter; and Joan must get to salting and
pickling presently.”
“Out, villain!” said the knight; “are we to feed on the fragments of
such scum of the earth as these? Cast them forth instantly! Nay,”
checking himself, “that were a sin; but give them to the poor, or see
them sent to the owners. And, hark ye, I will none of their strong
liquors. I would rather drink like a hermit all my life, than seem to
pledge such scoundrels as these in their leavings, like a miserable
drawer, who drains off the ends of the bottles after the guests have
paid their reckoning, and gone off. And, hark ye, I will taste no water
from the cistern out of which these slaves have been serving
themselves—fetch me down a pitcher from Rosamond’s spring.”
Alice heard this injunction, and well guessing there was enough for the
other members of the family to do, she quietly took a small pitcher,
and flinging a cloak around her, walked out in person to procure Sir
Henry the water which he desired. Meantime, Joceline said, with some
hesitation, “that a man still remained, belonging to the party of these
strangers, who was directing about the removal of some trunks and mails
which belonged to the Commissioners, and who could receive his honour’s
commands about the provisions.”
“Let him come hither.” (The dialogue was held in the hall.) “Why do you
hesitate and drumble in that manner?”
“Only, sir,” said Joceline, “only perhaps your honour might not wish to
see him, being the same who, not long since”—
He paused.
“Sent my rapier a-hawking through the firmament, thou wouldst say? Why,
when did I take spleen at a man for standing his ground against me?
Roundhead as he is, man, I like him the better of that, not the worse.
I hunger and thirst to have another turn with him. I have thought on
his passado ever since, and I believe, were it to try again, I know a
feat would control it. Fetch him directly.”
Trusty Tomkins was presently ushered in, bearing himself with an iron
gravity, which neither the terrors of the preceding night, nor the
dignified demeanour of the high-born personage before whom he stood,
were able for an instant to overcome.
“How now, good fellow?” said Sir Henry; “I would fain see something
more of thy fence, which baffled me the other evening; but truly, I
think the light was somewhat too faint for my old eyes. Take a foil,
man—I walk here in the hall, as Hamlet says; and ’tis the
breathing-time of day with me. Take a foil, then, in thy hand.”
“Since it is your worship’s desire,” said the steward, letting fall his
long cloak, and taking the foil in his hand.
“Now,” said the knight, “if your fitness speaks, mine is ready.
Methinks the very stepping on this same old pavement hath charmed away
the gout which threatened me. Sa—sa—I tread as firm as a game-cock.”
They began the play with great spirit; and whether the old knight
really fought more coolly with the blunt than with the sharp weapon, or
whether the steward gave him some grains of advantage in this merely
sportive encounter, it is certain Sir Henry had the better in the
assault. His success put him into excellent humour.
“There,” said he, “I found your trick—nay, you cheat me not twice the
same way. There was a very palpable hit. Why, had I had but light
enough the other night—But it skills not speaking of it—Here we leave
off. I must not fight, as we unwise cavaliers did with you roundhead
rascals, beating you so often that we taught you to beat us at last.
And good now, tell me why you are leaving your larder so full here? Do
you think I or my family can use broken victuals? What, have you no
better employment for your rounds of sequestrated beef than to leave
them behind you when you shift your quarters?”
“So please your honour,” said Tomkins, “it may be that you desire not
the flesh of beeves, of rams, or of goats. Nevertheless, when you know
that the provisions were provided and paid for out of your own rents
and stock at Ditchley, sequestrated to the use of the state more than a
year since, it may be you will have less scruple to use them for your
own behoof.”
“Rest assured that I shall,” said Sir Henry; “and glad you have helped
me to a share of mine own. Certainly I was an ass to suspect your
masters of subsisting, save at honest men’s expense.”
“And as for the rumps of beeves,” continued Tomkins, with the same
solemnity, “there is a rump at Westminster, which will stand us of the
army much hacking and hewing yet, ere it is discussed to our mind.”
Sir Henry paused, as if to consider what was the meaning of this
innuendo; for he was not a person of very quick apprehension. But
having at length caught the meaning of it, he burst into an explosion
of louder laughter than Joceline had seen him indulge in for a long
while.
“Right, knave,” he said, “I taste thy jest—It is the very moral of the
puppet-show. Faustus raised the devil, as the Parliament raised the
army, and then, as the devil flies away with Faustus, so will the army
fly away with the Parliament, or the rump, as thou call’st it, or
sitting part of the so-called Parliament. And then, look you, friend,
the very devil of all hath my willing consent to fly away with the army
in its turn, from the highest general down to the lowest drum-boy. Nay,
never look fierce for the matter; remember there is daylight enough now
for a game at sharps.”
Trusty Tomkins appeared to think it best to suppress his displeasure;
and observing that the wains were ready to transport the Commissioners’
property to the borough, took a grave leave of Sir Henry Lee.
Meantime the old man continued to pace his recovered hall, rubbing his
hands, and evincing greater signs of glee than he had shown since the
fatal 30th of January.
“Here we are again in the old frank, Joliffe; well victualled too. How
the knave solved my point of conscience!—the dullest of them is a
special casuist where the question concerns profit. Look out if there
are not some of our own ragged regiment lurking about, to whom a
bellyful would be a God-send, Joceline. Then his fence, Joceline,
though the fellow foins well, very sufficient well. But thou saw’st how
I dealt with him when I had fitting light, Joceline.”
“Ay, and so your honour did,” said Joceline. “You taught him to know
the Duke of Norfolk, from Saunders Gardner. I’ll warrant him he will
not wish to come under your honour’s thumb again.”
“Why, I am waxing old,” said Sir Henry; “but skill will not rust
through age, though sinews must stiffen. But my age is like a lusty
winter, as old Will says, frosty but kindly; and what if, old as we
are, we live to see better days yet! I promise thee, Joceline, I love
this jarring betwixt the rogues of the board and the rogues of the
sword. When thieves quarrel, true men have a chance of coming by their
own.”
Thus triumphed the old cavalier, in the treble glory of having
recovered his dwelling,—regained, as he thought, his character as a man
of fence, and finally, discovered some prospect of a change of times,
in which he was not without hopes that something might turn up for the
royal interest.
Meanwhile, Alice, with a prouder and a lighter heart than had danced in
her bosom for several days, went forth with a gaiety to which she of
late had been a stranger, to contribute her assistance to the
regulation and supply of the household, by bringing the fresh water
wanted from fair Rosamond’s well.
Perhaps she remembered, that when she was but a girl, her cousin
Markham used, among others, to make her perform that duty, as
presenting the character of some captive Trojan princess, condemned by
her situation to draw the waters from some Grecian spring, for the use
of the proud victor. At any rate, she certainly joyed to see her father
reinstated in his ancient habitation; and the joy was not the less
sincere, that she knew their return to Woodstock had been procured by
means of her cousin, and that even in her father’s prejudiced eyes,
Everard had been in some degree exculpated of the accusations the old
knight had brought against him; and that, if a reconciliation had not
yet taken place, the preliminaries had been established on which such a
desirable conclusion might easily be founded. It was like the
commencement of a bridge; when the foundation is securely laid, and the
piers raised above the influence of the torrent, the throwing of the
arches may be accomplished in a subsequent season.
The doubtful fate of her only brother might have clouded even this
momentary gleam of sunshine; but Alice had been bred up during the
close and frequent contest of civil war, and had acquired the habit of
hoping in behalf of those dear to her, until hope was lost. In the
present case, all reports seemed to assure her of her brother’s safety.
Besides these causes for gaiety, Alice Lee had the pleasing feeling
that she was restored to the habitation and the haunts of her
childhood, from which she had not departed without much pain, the more
felt, perhaps, because suppressed, in order to avoid irritating her
father’s sense of his misfortune. Finally, she enjoyed for the instant
the gleam of self-satisfaction by which we see the young and
well-disposed so often animated, when they can be, in common phrase,
helpful to those whom they love, and perform at the moment of need some
of those little domestic tasks, which age receives with so much
pleasure from the dutiful hands of youth. So that, altogether, as she
hasted through the remains and vestiges of a wilderness already
mentioned, and from thence about a bow-shot into the Park, to bring a
pitcher of water from Rosamond’s spring, Alice Lee, her features
enlivened and her complexion a little raised by the exercise, had, for
the moment, regained the gay and brilliant vivacity of expression which
had been the characteristic of her beauty in her earlier and happier
days.
This fountain of old memory had been once adorned with architectural
ornaments in the style of the sixteenth century, chiefly relating to
ancient mythology. All these were now wasted and overthrown, and
existed only as moss-covered ruins, while the living spring continued
to furnish its daily treasures, unrivalled in purity, though the
quantity was small, gushing out amid disjointed stones, and bubbling
through fragments of ancient sculpture.
With a light step and laughing brow the young Lady of Lee was
approaching, the fountain usually so solitary, when she paused on
beholding some one seated beside it. She proceeded, however, with
confidence, though with a step something less gay, when she observed
that the person was a female; some menial perhaps from the town, whom a
fanciful mistress occasionally dispatched for the water of a spring,
supposed to be peculiarly pure, or some aged woman, who made a little
trade by carrying it to the better sort of families, and selling it for
a trifle. There was no cause, therefore, for apprehension.
Yet the terrors of the times were so great, that Alice did not see a
stranger even of her own sex without some apprehension. Denaturalized
women had as usual followed the camps of both armies during the Civil
War; who, on the one side with open profligacy and profanity, on the
other with the fraudful tone of fanaticism or hypocrisy, exercised
nearly in like degree their talents, for murder or plunder. But it was
broad daylight, the distance from the Lodge was but trifling, and
though a little alarmed at seeing a stranger where she expected deep
solitude, the daughter of the haughty old Knight had too much of the
lion about her, to fear without some determined and decided cause.
Alice walked, therefore, gravely on toward the fount, and composed her
looks as she took a hasty glance of the female who was seated there,
and addressed herself to her task of filling her pitcher.
The woman, whose presence had surprised and somewhat startled Alice
Lee, was a person of the lower rank, whose red cloak, russet kirtle,
handkerchief trimmed with Coventry blue, and a coarse steeple hat,
could not indicate at best any thing higher than the wife of a small
farmer, or, perhaps, the helpmate of a bailiff or hind. It was well if
she proved nothing worse. Her clothes, indeed, were of good materials;
but, what the female eye discerns with half a glance, they were
indifferently adjusted and put on. This looked as if they did not
belong to the person by whom they were worn, but were articles of which
she had become the mistress by some accident, if not by some successful
robbery. Her size, too, as did not escape Alice, even in the short
perusal she afforded the stranger, was unusual; her features swarthy
and singularly harsh, and her manner altogether unpropitious. The young
lady almost wished, as she stooped to fill her pitcher, that she had
rather turned back, and sent Joceline on the errand; but repentance was
too late now, and she had only to disguise as well as she could her
unpleasant feelings.
“The blessings of this bright day to one as bright as it is,” said the
stranger, with no unfriendly, though a harsh voice.
“I thank you,” said Alice in reply; and continued to fill her pitcher
busily, by assistance of an iron bowl which remained still chained to
one of the stones beside the fountain.
“Perhaps, my pretty maiden, if you would accept my help, your work
would be sooner done,” said the stranger.
“I thank you,” said Alice; “but had I needed assistance, I could have
brought those with me who had rendered it.”
“I do not doubt of that, my pretty maiden,” answered the female; “there
are too many lads in Woodstock with eyes in their heads—No doubt you
could have brought with you any one of them who looked on you, if you
had listed.”
Alice replied not a syllable, for she did not like the freedom used by
the speaker, and was desirous to break off the conversation.
“Are you offended, my pretty mistress?” said the stranger; “that was
far from my purpose.—I will put my question otherwise.—Are the good
dames of Woodstock so careless of their pretty daughters as to let the
flower of them all wander about the wild chase without a mother, or a
somebody to prevent the fox from running away with the lamb?—that
carelessness, methinks, shows small kindness.”
“Content yourself, good woman, I am not far from protection and
assistance,” said Alice, who liked less and less the effrontery of her
new acquaintance.
“Alas! my pretty maiden,” said the stranger, patting with her large and
hard hand the head which Alice had kept bended down towards the water
which she was laving, “it would be difficult to hear such a pipe as
yours at the town of Woodstock, scream as loud as you would.”
Alice shook the woman’s hand angrily off, took up her pitcher, though
not above half full, and as she saw the stranger rise at the same time,
said, not without fear doubtless, but with a natural feeling of
resentment and dignity, “I have no reason to make my cries heard as far
as Woodstock; were there occasion for my crying for help at all, it is
nearer at hand.”
She spoke not without a warrant; for, at the moment, broke through the
bushes, and stood by her side, the noble hound Bevis; fixing on the
stranger his eyes that glanced fire, raising every hair on his gallant
mane as upright as the bristles of a wild boar when hard pressed,
grinning till a case of teeth, which would have matched those of any
wolf in Russia, were displayed in full array, and, without either
barking or springing, seeming, by his low determined growl, to await
but the signal for dashing at the female, whom he plainly considered as
a suspicious person.
But the stranger was undaunted. “My pretty maiden,” she said, “you have
indeed a formidable guardian there, where cockneys or bumpkins are
concerned; but we who have been at the wars know spells for taming such
furious dragons; and therefore let not your four-footed protector go
loose on me, for he is a noble animal, and nothing but self-defence
would induce me to do him injury.” So saying, she drew a pistol from
her bosom, and cocked it—pointing it towards the dog, as if
apprehensive that he would spring upon her.
“Hold, woman, hold!” said Alice Lee; “the dog will not do you
harm.—Down, Bevis, couch down.—And ere you attempt to hurt him, know he
is the favourite hound of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, the keeper of
Woodstock Park, who would severely revenge any injury offered to him.”
“And you, pretty one, are the old knight’s house-keeper, doubtless? I
have often heard the Lees have good taste.”
“I am his daughter, good woman.”
“His daughter!—I was blind—but yet it is true, nothing less perfect
could answer the description which all the world has given of Mistress
Alice Lee. I trust that my folly has given my young mistress no
offence, and that she will allow me, in token of reconciliation, to
fill her pitcher, and carry it as far as she will permit.”
“As you will, good mother; but I am about to return instantly to the
Lodge, to which, in these times, I cannot admit strangers. You can
follow me no farther than the verge of the wilderness, and I am already
too long from home: I will send some one to meet and relieve you of the
pitcher.” So saying, she turned her back, with a feeling of terror
which she could hardly account for, and began to walk quickly towards
the Lodge, thinking thus to get rid of her troublesome acquaintance.
But she reckoned without her host; for in a moment her new companion
was by her side, not running, indeed, but walking with prodigious long
unwomanly strides, which soon brought her up with the hurried and timid
steps of the frightened maiden. But her manner was more respectful than
formerly, though her voice sounded remarkably harsh and disagreeable,
and her whole appearance suggested an undefined, yet irresistible
feeling of apprehension.
“Pardon a stranger, lovely Mistress Alice,” said her persecutor, “that
was not capable of distinguishing between a lady of your high quality
and a peasant wench, and who spoke to you with a degree of freedom,
ill-befitting your rank, certainly, and condition, and which, I fear,
has given you offence.”
“No offence whatever,” replied Alice; “but, good woman, I am near home,
and can excuse your farther company.—You are unknown to me.”
“But it follows not,” said the stranger, “that _your_ fortunes may not
be known to _me_, fair Mistress Alice. Look on my swarthy brow—England
breeds none such—and in the lands from which I come, the sun which
blackens our complexion, pours, to make amends, rays of knowledge into
our brains, which are denied to those of your lukewarm climate. Let me
look upon your pretty hand,—(attempting to possess herself of it,)—and
I promise you, you shall hear what will please you.”
“I hear what does _not_ please me,” said Alice, with dignity; “you must
carry your tricks of fortune-telling and palmistry to the women of the
village.—We of the gentry hold them to be either imposture or unlawful
knowledge.”
“Yet you would fain hear of a certain Colonel, I warrant you, whom
certain unhappy circumstances have separated from his family; you would
give better than silver if I could assure you that you would see him in
a day or two—ay, perhaps, sooner.”
“I know nothing of what you speak, good woman; if you want alms, there
is a piece of silver—it is all I have in my purse.”
“It were pity that I should take it,” said the female; “and yet give it
me—for the princess in the fairy tale must ever deserve, by her
generosity, the bounty of the benevolent fairy, before she is rewarded
by her protection.”
“Take it—take it—give me my pitcher,” said Alice, “and begone,—yonder
comes one of my father’s servants.—What, ho!—Joceline—Joceline!”
The old fortune-teller hastily dropped something into the pitcher as
she restored it to Alice Lee, and, plying her long limbs, disappeared
speedily under cover of the wood.
Bevis turned, and barked, and showed some inclination to harass the
retreat of this suspicious person, yet, as if uncertain, ran towards
Joliffe, and fawned on him, as to demand his advice and encouragement.
Joceline pacified the animal, and, coming up to his young lady, asked
her, with surprise, what was the matter, and whether she had been
frightened? Alice made light of her alarm, for which, indeed, she could
not have assigned any very competent reason, for the manners of the
woman, though bold and intrusive, were not menacing. She only said she
had met a fortune-teller by Rosamond’s Well, and had had some
difficulty in shaking her off.
“Ah, the gipsy thief,” said Joceline, “how well she scented there was
food in the pantry!—they have noses like ravens, these strollers. Look
you, Mistress Alice, you shall not see a raven or a carrion-crow in all
the blue sky for a mile round you; but let a sheep drop suddenly down
on the green-sward, and before the poor creature’s dead you shall see a
dozen of such guests croaking, as if inviting each other to the
banquet.—Just so it is with these sturdy beggars. You will see few
enough of them when there’s nothing to give, but when hough’s in the
pot, they will have share on’t.”
“You are so proud of your fresh supply of provender,” said Alice, “that
you suspect all of a design on’t. I do not think this woman will
venture near your kitchen, Joceline.”
“It will be best for her health,” said Joceline, “lest I give her a
ducking for digestion.—But give me the pitcher, Mistress Alice—meeter I
bear it than you.—How now? what jingles at the bottom? have you lifted
the pebbles as well as the water?”
“I think the woman dropped something into the pitcher,” said Alice.
“Nay, we must look to that, for it is like to be a charm, and we have
enough of the devil’s ware about Woodstock already—we will not spare
for the water—I can run back and fill the pitcher.” He poured out the
water upon the grass, and at the bottom of the pitcher was found a gold
ring, in which was set a ruby, apparently of some value.
“Nay, if this be not enchantment, I know not what is,” said Joceline.
“Truly, Mistress Alice, I think you had better throw away this
gimcrack. Such gifts from such hands are a kind of press-money which
the devil uses for enlisting his regiment of witches; and if they take
but so much as a bean from him, they become his bond-slaves for
life—Ay, you look at the gew-gaw, but to-morrow you will find a lead
ring, and a common pebble in its stead.”
“Nay, Joceline, I think it will be better to find out that
dark-complexioned woman, and return to her what seems of some value.
So, cause enquiry to be made, and be sure you return her ring. It seems
too valuable to be destroyed.”
“Umph! that is always the way with women,” murmured Joceline. “You will
never get the best of them, but she is willing to save a bit of
finery.—Well, Mistress Alice, I trust that you are too young and too
pretty to be enlisted in a regiment of witches.”
“I shall not be afraid of it till you turn conjuror,” said Alice; “so
hasten to the well, where you are like still to find the woman, and let
her know that Alice Lee desires none of her gifts, any more than she
did of her society.”
So saying, the young lady pursued her way to the Lodge, while Joceline
went down to Rosamond’s Well to execute her commission. But the
fortune-teller, or whoever she might be, was nowhere to be found;
neither, finding that to be the case, did Joceline give himself much
trouble in tracking her farther.
“If this ring, which I dare say the jade stole somewhere,” said the
underkeeper to himself, “be worth a few nobles, it is better in honest
hands than in that of vagabonds. My master has a right to all waifs and
strays, and certainly such a ring, in possession of a gipsy, must be a
waif. So I shall confiscate it without scruple, and apply the produce
to the support of Sir Henry’s household, which is like to be poor
enough. Thank Heaven, my military experience has taught me how to carry
hooks at my finger-ends—that is trooper’s law. Yet, hang it, after all,
I had best take it to Mark Everard and ask his advice—I hold him now to
be your learned counsellor in law where Mistress Alice’s affairs are
concerned, and my learned Doctor, who shall be nameless, for such as
concern Church and State and Sir Henry Lee.—And I’ll give them leave to
give mine umbles to the kites and ravens if they find me conferring my
confidence where it is not safe.”