The affectionate relatives were united as those who, meeting under
great adversity, feel still the happiness of sharing it in common. They
embraced again and again, and gave way to those expansions of the
heart, which at once express and relieve the pressure of mental
agitation. At length the tide of emotion began to subside; and Sir
Henry, still holding his recovered son by the hand, resumed the command
of his feelings which he usually practised.
“So you have seen the last of our battles, Albert,” he said, “and the
King’s colours have fallen for ever before the rebels.”
“It is but even so,” said the young man—“the last cast of the die was
thrown, and, alas! lost at Worcester; and Cromwell’s fortune carried it
there, as it has wherever he has shown himself.”
“Well—it can but be for a time—it can but be for a time,” answered his
father; “the devil is potent, they say, in raising and gratifying
favourites, but he can grant but short leases.—And the King—the King,
Albert—the King—in my ear—close, close!”
“Our last news were confident that he had escaped from Bristol.”
“Thank God for that—thank God for that!” said the knight. “Where didst
thou leave him?”
“Our men were almost all cut to pieces at the bridge,” Albert replied;
“but I followed his Majesty with about five hundred other officers and
gentlemen, who were resolved to die around him, until as our numbers
and appearance drew the whole pursuit after us, it pleased his Majesty
to dismiss us, with many thanks and words of comfort to us in general,
and some kind expressions to most of us in especial. He sent his royal
greeting to you, sir, in particular, and said more than becomes me to
repeat.”
“Nay, I will hear it every word, boy,” said Sir Henry; “is not the
certainty that thou hast discharged thy duty, and that King Charles
owns it, enough to console me for all we have lost and suffered, and
wouldst thou stint me of it from a false shamefacedness?—I will have it
out of thee, were it drawn from thee with cords!”
“It shall need no such compulsion,” said the young man—“It was his
Majesty’s pleasure to bid me tell Sir Henry Lee, in his name, that if
his son could not go before his father in the race of loyalty, he was
at least following him closely, and would soon move side by side.”
“Said he so?” answered the knight—“Old Victor Lee will look down with
pride on thee, Albert!—But I forget—you must be weary and hungry.”
“Even so,” said Albert; “but these are things which of late I have been
in the habit of enduring for safety’s sake.”
“Joceline!—what ho, Joceline!”
The under-keeper entered, and received orders to get supper prepared
directly.
“My son and Dr. Rochecliffe are half starving,” said the knight. “And
there is a lad, too, below,” said Joceline; “a page, he says, of
Colonel Albert’s, whose belly rings cupboard too, and that to no common
tune; for I think he could eat a horse, as the Yorkshireman says,
behind the saddle. He had better eat at the sideboard; for he has
devoured a whole loaf of bread and butter, as fast as Phœbe could cut
it, and it has not staid his stomach for a minute—and truly I think you
had better keep him under your own eyes, for the steward beneath might
ask him troublesome questions if he went below—And then he is
impatient, as all your gentlemen pages are, and is saucy among the
women.”
“Whom is it he talks of?—what page hast thou got, Albert, that bears
himself so ill?” said Sir Henry.
“The son of a dear friend, a noble lord of Scotland, who followed the
great Montrose’s banner—afterwards joined the King in Scotland, and
came with him as far as Worcester. He was wounded the day before the
battle, and conjured me to take this youth under my charge, which I
did, something unwillingly; but I could not refuse a father, perhaps on
his death-bed, pleading for the safety of an only son.”
“Thou hadst deserved an halter, hadst thou hesitated” said Sir Henry;
“the smallest tree can always give some shelter,—and it pleases me to
think the old stock of Lee is not so totally prostrate, but it may yet
be a refuge for the distressed. Fetch the youth in;—he is of noble
blood, and these are no times of ceremony—he shall sit with us at the
same table, page though he be; and if you have not schooled him
handsomely in his manners, he may not be the worse of some lessons from
me.”
“You will excuse his national drawling accent, sir?” said Albert,
“though I know you like it not.”
“I have small cause, Albert,” answered the knight—“small cause.—Who
stirred up these disunions?—the Scots. Who strengthened the hands of
Parliament, when their cause was well nigh ruined?—the Scots again. Who
delivered up the King, their countryman, who had flung himself upon.
their protection?—the Scots again. But this lad’s father, you say, has
fought on the part of the noble Montrose; and such a man as the great
Marquis may make amends for the degeneracy of a whole nation.”
“Nay, father,” said Albert, “and I must add, that though this lad is
uncouth and wayward, and, as you will see, something wilful, yet the
King has not a more zealous friend in England; and, when occasion
offered, he fought stoutly, too, in his defence—I marvel he comes not.”
“He hath taken the bath” said Joceline, “and nothing less would serve
than that he should have it immediately—the supper, he said, might be
got ready in the meantime; and he commands all about him as if he were
in his father’s old castle, where he might have called long enough, I
warrant, without any one to hear him.”
“Indeed?” said Sir Henry, “this must be a forward chick of the game, to
crow so early.—What is his name?”
“His name?—it escapes me every hour, it is so hard a one,” said
Albert—“Kerneguy is his name—Louis Kerneguy; his father was Lord
Killstewers, of Kincardineshire.”
“Kerneguy, and Killstewers, and Kin—what d’ye call it?—Truly,” said the
knight, “these northern men’s names and titles smack of their
origin—they sound like a north-west wind, rumbling and roaring among
heather and rocks.”
“It is but the asperities of the Celtic and Saxon dialects,” said Dr.
Rochecliffe, “which, according to Verstegan, still linger in those
northern parts of the island.—But peace—here comes supper, and Master
Louis Kerneguy.”
Supper entered accordingly, borne in by Joceline and Phœbe, and after
it, leaning on a huge knotty stick, and having his nose in the air like
a questing hound—for his attention was apparently more fixed on the
good provisions that went before him, than any thing else—came Master
Kerneguy, and seated himself, without much ceremony, at the lower end
of the table.
He was a tall, rawboned lad, with a shock head of hair, fiery red, like
many of his country, while the harshness of his national features was
increased by the contrast of his complexion, turned almost black by the
exposure to all sorts of weather, which, in that skulking and rambling
mode of life, the fugitive royalists had been obliged to encounter. His
address was by no means prepossessing, being a mixture of awkwardness
and forwardness, and showing in a remarkable degree, how a want of easy
address may be consistent with an admirable stock of assurance. His
face intimated having received some recent scratches, and the care of
Dr. Rochecliffe had decorated it with a number of patches, which even
enhanced its natural plainness. Yet the eyes were brilliant and
expressive, and, amid his ugliness—for it amounted to that degree of
irregularity—the face was not deficient in some lines which expressed
both sagacity and resolution.
The dress of Albert himself was far beneath his quality, as the son of
Sir Henry Lee, and commander of a regiment in the royal service; but
that of his page was still more dilapidated. A disastrous green jerkin,
which had been changed to a hundred hues by sun and rain, so that the
original could scarce be discovered, huge clouterly shoes, leathern
breeches—such as were worn by hedgers—coarse grey worsted stockings,
were the attire of the honourable youth, whose limping gait, while it
added to the ungainliness of his manner, showed, at the same time, the
extent of his sufferings. His appearance bordered so much upon what is
vulgarly called the queer, that even with Alice it would have excited
some sense of ridicule, had not compassion been predominant.
The grace was said, and the young squire of Ditchley, as well as Dr.
Rochecliffe, made an excellent figure at a meal, the like of which, in
quality and abundance, did not seem to have lately fallen to their
share. But their feats were child’s-play to those of the Scottish
youth. Far from betraying any symptoms of the bread and butter with
which he had attempted to close the orifice of his stomach, his
appetite appeared to have been sharpened by a nine-days’ fast; and the
knight was disposed to think that the very genius of famine himself,
come forth from his native regions of the north, was in the act of
honouring him with a visit, while, as if afraid of losing a moment’s
exertion, Master Kerneguy never looked either to right or left, or
spoke a single word to any at table.
“I am glad to see that you have brought a good appetite for our country
fare, young gentleman,” said Sir Henry.
“Bread of gude, sir!” said the page, “an ye’ll find flesh, I’se find
appetite conforming, ony day o’ the year. But the truth is, sir, that
the appeteezement has been coming on for three days or four, and the
meat in this southland of yours has been scarce, and hard to come by;
so, sir, I’m making up for lost time, as the piper of Sligo said, when
he eat a hail side o’ mutton.”
“You have been country-bred, young man,” said the knight, who, like
others of his time, held the reins of discipline rather tight over the
rising generation; “at least, to judge from the youths of Scotland whom
I have seen at his late Majesty’s court in former days; they had less
appetite, and more—more”—As he sought the qualifying phrase, which
might supply the place of “good manners,” his guest closed the sentence
in his own way—“And more meat, it may be—the better luck theirs.”
Sir Henry stared and was silent. His son seemed to think it time to
interpose—“My dear father,” he said, “think how many years have run
since the Thirty-eight, when the Scottish troubles first began, and I
am sure that you will not wonder that, while the Barons of Scotland
have been, for one cause or other, perpetually in the field, the
education of their children at home must have been much neglected, and
that young men of my friend’s age know better how to use a broadsword,
or to toss a pike, than the decent ceremonials of society.”
“The reason is a sufficient one,” said the knight, “and, since thou
sayest thy follower Kernigo can fight, we’ll not let him lack victuals,
a God’s name.—See, he looks angrily still at yonder cold loin of
mutton—for God’s sake put it all on his plate!”
“I can bide the bit and the buffet,” said the honourable Master
Kerneguy—“a hungry tike ne’er minds a blaud with a rough bane.”
“Now, God ha’e mercy, Albert, but if this be the son of a Scots peer,”
said Sir Henry to his son, in a low tone of voice, “I would not be the
English ploughman who would change manners with him for his ancient
blood, and his nobility, and his estate to boot, an he has one.—He has
eaten, as I am a Christian, near four pounds of solid butcher’s meat,
and with the grace of a wolf tugging at the carcass of a dead horse.—
Oh, he is about to drink at last—Soh!—he wipes his mouth, though,—and
dips his fingers in the ewer—and dries them, I profess, with the
napkin!—there is some grace in him, after all.”
“Here is wussing all your vera gude healths!” said the youth of
quality, and took a draught in proportion to the solids which he had
sent before; he then flung his knife and fork awkwardly on the
trencher, which he pushed back towards the centre of the table,
extended his feet beneath it till they rested on their heels, folded
his arms on his well-replenished stomach, and, lolling back in his
chair, looked much as if he was about to whistle himself asleep.
“Soh!” said the knight—“the honourable Master Kernigo hath laid down
his arms.—Withdraw these things, and give us our glasses—Fill them
around, Joceline; and if the devil or the whole Parliament were within
hearing, let them hear Henry Lee of Ditchley drink a health to King
Charles, and confusion to his enemies!”
“Amen!” said a voice from behind the door.
All the company looked at each other in astonishment, at a response so
little expected. It was followed by a solemn and peculiar tap, such as
a kind of freemasonry had introduced among royalists, and by which they
were accustomed to make themselves and their principles known to each
other, when they met by accident.
“There is no danger,” said Albert, knowing the sign—“it is a
friend;—yet I wish he had been at a greater distance just now.”
“And why, my son, should you wish the absence of one true man, who may,
perhaps, wish to share our abundance, on one of those rare occasions
when we have superfluity at our disposal?—Go, Joceline, see who
knocks—and, if a safe man, admit him.”
“And if otherwise,” said Joceline, “methinks I shall be able to prevent
his troubling the good company.”
“No violence, Joceline, on your life,” said Albert Lee; and Alice
echoed, “For God’s sake, no violence!”
“No unnecessary violence at least,” said the good knight; “for if the
time demands it, I will have it seen that I am master of my own house.”
Joceline Joliffe nodded assent to all parties, and went on tiptoe to
exchange one or two other mysterious symbols and knocks, ere he opened
the door. It, may be here remarked, that this species of secret
association, with its signals of union, existed among the more
dissolute and desperate class of cavaliers, men habituated to the
dissipated life which they had been accustomed to in an ill-disciplined
army, where everything like order and regularity was too apt to be
accounted a badge of puritanism. These were the “roaring boys” who met
in hedge alehouses, and when they had by any chance obtained a little
money or a little credit, determined to create a counter-revolution by
declaring their sittings permanent, and proclaimed, in the words of one
of their choicest ditties,—
“We’ll drink till we bring
In triumph back the king.”
The leaders and gentry, of a higher description and more regular
morals, did not indeed partake such excesses, but they still kept their
eye upon a class of persons, who, from courage and desperation, were
capable of serving on an advantageous occasion the fallen cause of
royalty; and recorded the lodges and blind taverns at which they met,
as wholesale merchants know the houses of call of the mechanics whom
they may have occasion to employ, and can tell where they may find them
when need requires it. It is scarce necessary to add, that among the
lower class, and sometimes even among the higher, there were men found
capable of betraying the projects and conspiracies of their associates,
whether well or indifferently combined, to the governors of the state.
Cromwell, in particular, had gained some correspondents of this kind of
the highest rank, and of the most undoubted character, among the
royalists, who, if they made scruple of impeaching or betraying
individuals who confided in them, had no hesitation in giving the
government such general information as served to enable him to
disappoint the purposes of any plot or conspiracy.
To return to our story. In much shorter time than we have spent in
reminding the reader of these historical particulars, Joliffe had made
his mystic communication; and being duly answered as by one of the
initiated, he undid the door, and there entered our old friend Roger
Wildrake, round-head in dress, as his safety and dependence on Colonel
Everard compelled him to be, but that dress worn in a most
cavalier-like manner, and forming a stronger contrast than usual with
the demeanour and language of the wearer, to which it was never very
congenial.
His puritanic hat, the emblem of that of Ralpho in the prints to
Hudibras, or, as he called it, his felt umbrella, was set most
knowingly on one side of the head, as if it had been a Spanish hat and
feather; his straight square-caped sad-coloured cloak was flung gaily
upon one shoulder, as if it had been of three-plied taffeta, lined with
crimson silk; and he paraded his huge calf-skin boots, as if they had
been silken hose and Spanish leather shoes, with roses on the instep.
In short, the airs which he gave himself, of a most thorough-paced wild
gallant and cavalier, joined to a glistening of self-satisfaction in
his eye, and an inimitable swagger in his gait, which completely
announced his thoughtless, conceited, and reckless character, formed a
most ridiculous contrast to his gravity of attire.
It could not, on the other hand, be denied, that in spite of the touch
of ridicule which attached to his character, and the loose morality
which he had learned in the dissipation of town pleasures, and
afterwards in the disorderly life of a soldier, Wildrake had points
about him both to make him feared and respected. He was handsome, even
in spite of his air of debauched effrontery; a man of the most decided
courage, though his vaunting rendered it sometimes doubtful; and
entertained a sincere sense of his political principles, such as they
were, though he was often so imprudent in asserting and boasting of
them, as, joined with his dependence on Colonel Everard, induced
prudent men to doubt his sincerity.
Such as he was, however, he entered the parlour of Victor Lee, where
his presence was any thing but desirable to the parties present, with a
jaunty step, and a consciousness of deserving the best possible
reception. This assurance was greatly aided by circumstances which
rendered it obvious, that if the jocund cavalier had limited himself to
one draught of liquor that evening, in terms of his vow of temperance,
it must have been a very deep and long one.
“Save ye, gentlemen, save ye.—Save you, good Sir Henry Lee, though I
have scarce the honour to be known to you.—Save you, worthy doctor, and
a speedy resurrection to the fallen Church of England.”
“You are welcome, sir,” said Sir Henry Lee, whose feelings of
hospitality, and of the fraternal reception due to a royalist sufferer,
induced him to tolerate this intrusion more than he might have done
otherwise. “If you have fought or suffered for the King, sir, it is an
excuse for joining us, and commanding our services in any thing in our
power—although at present we are a family-party.—But I think I saw you
in waiting upon Master Markham Everard, who calls himself Colonel
Everard.—If your message is from him, you may wish to see me in
private?”
“Not at all, Sir Henry, not at all.—It is true, as my ill hap will have
it, that being on the stormy side of the hedge—like all honest men—you
understand me, Sir Henry—I am glad, as it were, to gain something from
my old friend and comrade’s countenance—not by truckling or disowning
my principles, sir—I defy such practises;—but, in short, by doing him
any kindness in my power when he is pleased to call on me. So I came
down here with a message from him to the old roundheaded son of a —— (I
beg the young lady’s pardon, from the crown of her head down to the
very toes of her slipper)—And so, sir, chancing as I was stumbling out
in the dark, I heard you give a toast, sir, which warmed my heart, sir,
and ever will, sir, till death chills it;—and so I made bold to let you
know there was an honest man within hearing.”
Such was the self-introduction of Master Wildrake, to which the knight
replied, by asking him to sit down, and take a glass of sack to his
Majesty’s glorious restoration. Wildrake, at this hint, squeezed in
without ceremony beside the young Scotsman, and not only pledged his
landlord’s toast, but seconded its import, by volunteering a verse or
two of his favourite loyal ditty,—“The King shall enjoy his own again.”
The heartiness which he threw into his song opened still farther the
heart of the old knight, though Albert and Alice looked at each other
with looks resentful of the intrusion, and desirous to put an end to
it. The honourable Master Kerneguy either possessed that happy
indifference of temper which does not deign to notice such
circumstances, or he was able to assume the appearance of it to
perfection, as he sat sipping sack, and cracking walnuts, without
testifying the least sense that an addition had been made to the party.
Wildrake, who liked the liquor and the company, showed no unwillingness
to repay his landlord, by being at the expense of the conversation.
“You talk of fighting and suffering, Sir Henry Lee. Lord help us, we
have all had our share. All the world knows what Sir Henry Lee has done
from Edgefield downwards, wherever a loyal sword was drawn, or a loyal
flag fluttered. Ah, God help us! I have done something too. My name is
Roger Wildrake of Squattlesea-mere, Lincoln; not that you are ever like
to have heard it before, but I was captain in Lunsford’s light-horse,
and afterwards with Goring. I was a child-eater, sir—a babe-bolter.”
“I have heard of your regiment’s exploits, sir; and perhaps you may
find I have seen some of them, if we should spend ten minutes together.
And I think I have heard of your name too. I beg to drink your health,
Captain Wildrake of Squattlesea-mere, Lincolnshire.”
“Sir Henry, I drink yours in this pint bumper, and upon my knee; and I
would do as much for that young gentleman”—(looking at Albert)—“and the
squire of the green cassock too, holding it for green, as the colours
are not to my eyes altogether clear and distinguishable.”
It was a remarkable part of what is called by theatrical folk the
by-play of this scene, that Albert was conversing apart with Dr.
Rochecliffe in whispers, even more than the divine seemed desirous of
encouraging; yet, to whatever their private conversation referred, it
did not deprive the young Colonel of the power of listening to what was
going forward in the party at large, and interfering from time to time,
like a watch-dog, who can distinguish the slightest alarm, even when
employed in the engrossing process of taking his food.
“Captain Wildrake,” said Albert, “we have no objection—I mean, my
friend and I—to be communicative on proper occasions; but you, sir, who
are so old a sufferer, must needs know, that at such casual meetings as
this, men do not mention their names unless they are specially wanted.
It is a point of conscience, sir, to be able to say, if your principal,
Captain Everard or Colonel Everard, if he be a Colonel, should examine
you upon oath, I did not know who the persons were whom I heard drink
such and such toasts.”
“Faith, I have a better way of it, worthy sir,” answered Wildrake; “I
never can, for the life of me, remember that there were any such and
such toasts drunk at all. It’s a strange gift of forgetfulness I have.”
“Well, sir,” replied the younger Lee; “but we, who have unhappily more
tenacious memories, would willingly abide by the more general rule.”
“Oh, sir,” answered Wildrake, “with all my heart. I intrude on no man’s
confidence, d—n me—and I only spoke for civility’s sake, having the
purpose of drinking your health in a good fashion”—(Then he broke forth
into melody)—
“‘Then let the health go round, a-round, a-round, a-round,
Then let the health go round;
For though your stocking be of silk,
Your knee shall kiss the ground, a-ground, a-ground, a-ground,
Your knee shall kiss the ground.’”
“Urge it no farther,” said Sir Henry, addressing his son; “Master
Wildrake is one of the old school—one of the tantivy boys; and we must
bear a little, for if they drink hard they fought well. I will never
forget how a party came up and rescued us clerks of Oxford, as they
called the regiment I belonged to, out of a cursed embroglio during the
attack on Brentford. I tell you we were enclosed with the cockneys’
pikes both front and rear, and we should have come off but ill had not
Lunford’s light-horse, the babe-eaters, as they called them, charged up
to the pike’s point, and brought us off.”
“I am glad you thought on that, Sir Henry,” said Wildrake; “and do you
remember what the officer of Lunsford’s said?”
“I think I do,” said Sir Henry, smiling.
“Well, then, did not he call out, when the women were coming down,
howling like sirens as they were—‘Have none of you a plump child that
you could give us to break our fast upon?’”
“Truth itself!” said the knight; “and a great fat woman stepped forward
with a baby, and offered it to the supposed cannibal.”
All at the table, Master Kerneguy excepted, who seemed to think that
good food of any kind required no apology, held up their hands in token
of amazement.
“Ay,” said Wildrake, “the—a-hem!—I crave the lady’s pardon again, from
tip of top-knot to hem of farthingale—but the cursed creature proved to
be a parish nurse, who had been paid for the child half a year in
advance. Gad, I took the babe out of the bitch-wolf’s hand; and I have
contrived, though God knows I have lived in a skeldering sort of way
myself, to breed up bold Breakfast, as I call him, ever since. It was
paying dear for a jest, though.”
“Sir, I honour you for your humanity,” said the old knight—“Sir, I
thank you for your courage—Sir, I am glad to see you here,” said the
good knight, his eyes watering almost to overflowing. “So you were the
wild officer who cut us out of the toils; Oh, sir, had you but stopped
when I called on you, and allowed us to clear the streets of Brentford
with our musketeers, we would have been at London Stone that day! But
your good will was the same.”
“Ay, truly was it,” said Wildrake, who now sat triumphant and glorious
in his easy-chair; “and here is to all the brave hearts, sir, that
fought and fell in that same storm of Brentford. We drove all before us
like chaff, till the shops, where they sold strong waters, and other
temptations, brought us up. Gad, sir, we, the babe-eaters, had too many
acquaintances in Brentford, and our stout Prince Rupert was ever better
at making way than drawing off. Gad, sir, for my own poor share, I did
but go into the house of a poor widow lady, who maintained a charge of
daughters, and whom I had known of old, to get my horse fed, a morsel
of meat, and so forth, when these cockney-pikes of the artillery
ground, as you very well call them, rallied, and came in with their
armed heads, as boldly as so many Cotswold rams. I sprang down stairs,
got to my horse,—but, egad, I fancy all my troop had widows and orphan
maidens to comfort as well as I, for only five of us got together. We
cut our way through successfully; and Gad, gentlemen, I carried my
little Breakfast on the pommel before me; and there was such a
hollowing and screeching, as if the whole town thought I was to kill,
roast, and eat the poor child, so soon as I got to quarters. But devil
a cockney charged up to my bonny bay, poor lass, to rescue little
cake-bread; they only cried haro, and out upon me.”
“Alas, alas!” said the knight, “we made ourselves seem worse than we
were; and we were too bad to deserve God’s blessing even in a good
cause. But it is needless to look back; we did not deserve victories
when God gave them, for we never improved them like good soldiers, or
like Christian men; and so we gave these canting scoundrels the
advantage of us, for they assumed, out of mere hypocrisy, the
discipline and orderly behaviour which we, who drew our swords in a
better cause, ought to have practised out of true principle. But here
is my hand, Captain. I have often wished to see the honest fellow who
charged up so smartly in our behalf, and I reverence you for the care
you took of the poor child. I am glad this dilapidated place has still
some hospitality to offer you, although we cannot treat you to roasted
babes or stewed sucklings—eh, Captain?”
“Truth, Sir Henry, the scandal was sore against us on that score. I
remember Lacy, who was an old play-actor, and a lieutenant in ours,
made drollery on it in a play which was sometimes acted at Oxford, when
our hearts were something up, called, I think, the Old Troop.”
So saying, and feeling more familiar as his merits were known, he
hitched his chair up against that of the Scottish lad, who was seated
next him, and who, in shifting his place, was awkward enough to
disturb, in his turn, Alice Lee, who sate opposite, and, a little
offended, or at least embarrassed, drew her chair away from the table.
“I crave pardon,” said the honourable Master Kerneguy; “but, sir,” to
Master Wildrake, “ye hae e’en garr’d me hurt the young lady’s shank.”
“I crave your pardon, sir, and much more that of the fair lady, as is
reasonable; though, rat me, sir, if it was I set your chair a-trundling
in that way. Zooks, sir, I have brought with me no plague, nor
pestilence, nor other infectious disorder, that ye should have started
away as if I had been a leper, and discomposed the lady, which I would
have prevented with my life, sir. Sir, if ye be northern born, as your
tongue bespeaks, egad, it was I ran the risk in drawing near you; so
there was small reason for you to bolt.”
“Master Wildrake,” said Albert, interfering, “this young gentleman is a
stranger as well as you, under protection of Sir Henry’s hospitality,
and it cannot be agreeable for my father to see disputes arise among
his guests. You may mistake the young gentleman’s quality from his
present appearance—this is the Honourable Master Louis Kerneguy, sir,
son of my Lord Killstewers of Kincardineshire, one who has fought for
the King, young as he is.”
“No dispute shall rise through me, sir—none through me,” said Wildrake;
“your exposition sufficeth, sir.—Master Louis Girnigo, son of my Lord
Kilsteer, in Gringardenshire, I am your humble slave, sir, and drink
your health, in token that I honour you, and all true Scots who draw
their Andrew Ferraras on the right side, sir.”
“I’se beholden to you, and thank you, sir,” said the young man, with
some haughtiness of manner, which hardly corresponded with his
rusticity; “and I wuss your health in a ceevil way.”
Most judicious persons would have here dropped the conversation; but it
was one of Wildrake’s marked peculiarities, that he could never let
matters stand when they were well. He continued to plague the shy,
proud, and awkward lad with his observations. “You speak your national
dialect pretty strongly, Master Girnigo,” said he, “but I think not
quite the language of the gallants that I have known among the Scottish
cavaliers—I knew, for example, some of the Gordons, and others of good
repute, who always put an _f_ for _wh_, as _faat_ for _what_, _fan_ for
_when_, and the like.”
Albert Lee here interposed, and said that the provinces of Scotland,
like those of England, had their different modes of pronunciation.
“You are very right, sir,” said Wildrake. “I reckon myself, now, a
pretty good speaker of their cursed jargon—no offence, young gentleman;
and yet, when I took a turn with some of Montrose’s folk, in the South
Highlands, as they call their beastly wildernesses, (no offence again,)
I chanced to be by myself, and to lose my way, when I said to a
shepherd-fellow, making my mouth as wide, and my voice as broad as I
could, _whore am I ganging till?_—confound me if the fellow could
answer me, unless, indeed, he was sulky, as the bumpkins will be now
and then to the gentlemen of the sword.”
This was familiarly spoken, and though partly addressed to Albert, was
still more directed to his immediate neighbour, the young Scotsman, who
seemed, from bashfulness, or some other reason, rather shy of his
intimacy. To one or two personal touches from Wildrake’s elbow,
administered during his last speech, by way of a practical appeal to
him in particular, he only answered, “Misunderstandings were to be
expected when men converse in national deealects.”
Wildrake, now considerably drunker than he ought to have been in civil
company, caught up the phrase and repeated it:—“Misunderstanding,
sir—Misunderstanding, sir?—I do not know how I am to construe that,
sir; but to judge from the information of these scratches on your
honourable visnomy, I should augur that you had been of late at
misunderstanding with the cat, sir.”
“You are mistaken, then, friend, for it was with the dowg,” answered
the Scotsman, dryly, and cast a look towards Albert.
“We had some trouble with the watch-dogs in entering so late in the
evening,” said Albert, in explanation, “and this youth had a fall among
some rubbish, by which he came by these scratches.”
“And now, dear Sir Henry,” said Dr. Rochecliffe, “allow us to remind
you of your gout, and our long journey. I do it the rather that my good
friend your son has been, during the whole time of supper, putting
questions to me aside, which had much better be reserved till
to-morrow—May we therefore ask permission to retire to our night’s
rest?”
“These private committees in a merry meeting,” said Wildrake, “are a
solecism in breeding. They always put me in mind of the cursed
committees at Westminster.—But shall we roost before we rouse the
night-owl with a catch?”
“Aha, canst thou quote Shakspeare?” said Sir Henry, pleased at
discovering a new good quality in his acquaintance, whose military
services were otherwise but just able to counterbalance the intrusive
freedom of his conversation. “In the name of merry Will,” he
continued,—“whom I never saw, though I have seen many of his comrades,
as Alleyn, Hemmings, and so on,—we will have a single catch, and one
rouse about, and then to bed.”
After the usual discussion about the choice of the song, and the parts
which each was to bear, they united their voices in trolling a loyal
glee, which was popular among the party at the time, and in fact
believed to be composed by no less a person than Dr. Rochecliffe
himself.