Charles (we must now give him his own name) was easily reconciled to
the circumstances which rendered his residence at Woodstock advisable.
No doubt he would much rather have secured his safety by making an
immediate escape out of England; but he had been condemned already to
many uncomfortable lurking-places, and more disagreeable disguises, as
well as to long and difficult journeys, during which, between
pragmatical officers of justice belonging to the prevailing party, and
parties of soldiers whose officers usually took on them to act on their
own warrant, risk of discovery had more than once become very imminent.
He was glad, therefore, of comparative repose, and of comparative
safety.
Then it must be considered, that Charles had been entirely reconciled
to the society at Woodstock since he had become better acquainted with
it. He had seen, that, to interest the beautiful Alice, and procure a
great deal of her company, nothing more was necessary than to submit to
the humours, and cultivate the intimacy, of the old cavalier her
father. A few bouts at fencing, in which Charles took care not to put
out his more perfect skill, and full youthful strength and activity—the
endurance of a few scenes from Shakspeare, which the knight read with
more zeal than taste—a little skill in music, in which the old man had
been a proficient—the deference paid to a few old-fashioned opinions,
at which Charles laughed in his sleeve—were all-sufficient to gain for
the disguised Prince an interest in Sir Henry Lee, and to conciliate in
an equal degree the good-will of his lovely daughter.
Never were there two young persons who could be said to commence this
species of intimacy with such unequal advantages. Charles was a
libertine, who, if he did not in cold blood resolve upon prosecuting
his passion for Alice to a dishonourable conclusion, was at every
moment liable to be provoked to attempt the strength of a virtue, in
which he was no believer. Then Alice, on her part, hardly knew even
what was implied by the word libertine or seducer. Her mother had died
early in the commencement of the Civil War, and she had been bred up
chiefly with her brother and cousin; so that she had an unfearing and
unsuspicious frankness of manner, upon which Charles was not unwilling
or unlikely to put a construction favourable to his own views. Even
Alice’s love for her cousin—the first sensation which awakens the most
innocent and simple mind to feelings of shyness and restraint towards
the male sex in general—had failed to excite such an alarm in her
bosom. They were nearly related; and Everard, though young, was several
years her elder, and had, from her infancy, been an object of her
respect as well as of her affection. When this early and childish
intimacy ripened into youthful love, confessed and returned, still it
differed in some shades from the passion existing between lovers
originally strangers to each other, until their affections have been
united in the ordinary course of courtship. Their love was fonder, more
familiar, more perfectly confidential; purer too, perhaps, and more
free from starts of passionate violence, or apprehensive jealousy.
The possibility that any one could have attempted to rival Everard in
her affection, was a circumstance which never occurred to Alice; and
that this singular Scottish lad, whom she laughed with on account of
his humour, and laughed at for his peculiarities, should be an object
of danger or of caution, never once entered her imagination. The sort
of intimacy to which she admitted Kerneguy was the same to which she
would have received a companion of her own sex, whose manners she did
not always approve, but whose society she found always amusing.
It was natural that the freedom of Alice Lee’s conduct, which arose
from the most perfect indifference, should pass for something
approaching to encouragement in the royal gallant’s apprehension, and
that any resolutions he had formed against being tempted to violate the
hospitality of Woodstock, should begin to totter, as opportunities for
doing so became more frequent.
These opportunities were favoured by Albert’s departure from Woodstock
the very day after his arrival. It had been agreed, in full council
with Charles and Rochecliffe, that he should go to visit his uncle
Everard in the county of Kent, and, by showing himself there, obviate
any cause of suspicion which might arise from his residence at
Woodstock, and remove any pretext for disturbing his father’s family on
account of their harbouring one who had been so lately in arms. He had
also undertaken, at his own great personal risk, to visit different
points on the sea-coast, and ascertain the security of different places
for providing shipping for the King’s leaving England.
These circumstances were alike calculated to procure the King’s safety,
and facilitate his escape. But Alice was thereby deprived of the
presence of her brother, who would have been her most watchful
guardian, but who had set down the King’s light talk upon a former
occasion to the gaiety of his humour, and would have thought he had
done his sovereign great injustice, had he seriously suspected him of
such a breach of hospitality as a dishonourable pursuit of Alice would
have implied.
There were, however, two of the household at Woodstock, who appeared
not so entirely reconciled with Louis Kerneguy or his purposes. The one
was Bevis, who seemed, from their first unfriendly rencontre, to have
kept up a pique against their new guest, which no advances on the part
of Charles were able to soften. If the page was by chance left alone
with his young mistress, Bevis chose always to be of the party; came
close by Alice’s chair, and growled audibly when the gallant drew near
her. “It is a pity,” said the disguised Prince, “that your Bevis is not
a bull-dog, that we might dub him a roundhead at once—He is too
handsome, too noble, too aristocratic, to nourish those inhospitable
prejudices against a poor houseless cavalier. I am convinced the spirit
of Pym or Hampden has transmigrated into the rogue and continues to
demonstrate his hatred against royalty and all its adherents.”
Alice would then reply, that Bevis was loyal in word and deed, and only
partook her father’s prejudices against the Scots, which, she could not
but acknowledge, were tolerably strong.
“Nay, then,” said the supposed Louis, “I must find some other reason,
for I cannot allow Sir Bevis’s resentment to rest upon national
antipathy. So we will suppose that some gallant cavalier, who wended to
the wars and never returned, has adopted this shape to look back upon
the haunts he left so unwillingly, and is jealous at seeing even poor
Louis Kerneguy drawing near to the lady of his lost affections.”—He
approached her chair as he spoke, and Bevis gave one of his deep
growls.
“In that case, you had best keep your distance,” said Alice, laughing,
“for the bite of a dog, possessed by the ghost of a jealous lover,
cannot be very safe.” And the King carried on the dialogue in the same
strain—which, while it led Alice to apprehend nothing more serious than
the apish gallantry of a fantastic boy, certainly induced the supposed
Louis Kerneguy to think that he had made one of those conquests which
often and easily fall to the share of sovereigns. Notwithstanding the
acuteness of his apprehension, he was not sufficiently aware that the
Royal Road to female favour is only open to monarchs when they travel
in grand costume, and that when they woo incognito, their path of
courtship is liable to the same windings and obstacles which obstruct
the course of private individuals.
There was, besides Bevis, another member of the family, who kept a
look-out upon Louis Kerneguy, and with no friendly eye. Phœbe
Mayflower, though her experience extended not beyond the sphere of the
village, yet knew the world much better than her mistress, and besides
she was five years older. More knowing, she was more suspicious. She
thought that odd-looking Scotch boy made more up to her young mistress
than was proper for his condition of life; and, moreover, that Alice
gave him a little more encouragement than Parthenia would have afforded
to any such Jack-a-dandy, in the absence of Argalus—for the volume
treating of the loves of these celebrated Arcadians was then the
favourite study of swains and damsels throughout merry England.
Entertaining such suspicions, Phœbe was at a loss how to conduct
herself on the occasion, and yet resolved she would not see the
slightest chance of the course of Colonel Everard’s true love being
obstructed, without attempting a remedy. She had a peculiar favour for
Markham herself; and, moreover, he was, according to her phrase, as
handsome and personable a young man as was in Oxfordshire; and this
Scottish scarecrow was no more to be compared to him than chalk was to
cheese. And yet she allowed that Master Girnigy had a wonderfully
well-oiled tongue, and that such gallants were not to be despised. What
was to be done?—she had no facts to offer, only vague suspicion; and
was afraid to speak to her mistress, whose kindness, great as it was,
did not, nevertheless, encourage familiarity.
She sounded Joceline; but he was, she knew not why, so deeply
interested about this unlucky lad, and held his importance so high,
that she could make no impression on him. To speak to the old knight
would have been to raise a general tempest. The worthy chaplain, who
was, at Woodstock, grand referee on all disputed matters, would have
been the damsel’s most natural resource, for he was peaceful as well as
moral by profession, and politic by practice. But it happened he had
given Phœbe unintentional offence by speaking of her under the
classical epithet of _Rustica Fidele_, the which epithet, as she
understood it not, she held herself bound to resent as contumelious,
and declaring she was not fonder of a _fiddle_ than other folk, had
ever since shunned all intercourse with Dr. Rochecliffe which she could
easily avoid.
Master Tomkins was always coming and going about the house under
various pretexts; but he was a roundhead, and she was too true to the
cavaliers to introduce any of the enemy as parties to their internal
discords; besides, he had talked to Phœbe herself in a manner which
induced her to decline everything in the shape of familiarity with him.
Lastly, Cavaliero Wildrake might have been consulted; but Phœbe had her
own reasons for saying, as she did with some emphasis, that Cavaliero
Wildrake was an impudent London rake. At length she resolved to
communicate her suspicions to the party having most interest in
verifying or confuting them.
“I’ll let Master Markham Everard know, that there is a wasp buzzing
about his honey-comb,” said Phœbe; “and, moreover, that I know that
this young Scotch Scapegrace shifted himself out of a woman’s into a
man’s dress at Goody Green’s, and gave Goody Green’s Dolly a gold-piece
to say nothing about it; and no more she did to any one but me, and she
knows best herself whether she gave change for the gold or not—but
Master Louis is a saucy jackanapes, and like enough to ask it.”
Three or four days elapsed while matters continued in this
condition—the disguised Prince sometimes thinking on the intrigue which
Fortune seemed to have thrown in his way for his amusement, and taking
advantage of such opportunities as occurred to increase his intimacy
with Alice Lee; but much oftener harassing Dr. Rochecliffe with
questions about the possibility of escape, which the good man finding
himself unable to answer, secured his leisure against royal
importunity, by retreating into the various unexplored recesses of the
Lodge, known perhaps only to himself, who had been for nearly a score
of years employed in writing the Wonders of Woodstock.
It chanced on the fourth day, that some trifling circumstance had
called the knight abroad; and he had left the young Scotsman, now
familiar in the family, along with Alice, in the parlour of Victor Lee.
Thus situated, he thought the time not unpropitious for entering upon a
strain of gallantry, of a kind which might be called experimental, such
as is practised by the Croats in skirmishing, when they keep bridle in
hand, ready to attack the enemy, or canter off without coming to close
quarters, as circumstances may recommend. After using for nearly ten
minutes a sort of metaphysical jargon, which might, according to
Alice’s pleasure, have been interpreted either into gallantry, or the
language of serious pretension, and when he supposed her engaged in
fathoming his meaning, he had the mortification to find, by a single
and brief question, that he had been totally unattended to, and that
Alice was thinking on anything at the moment rather than the sense of
what he had been saying. She asked him if he could tell what it was
o’clock, and this with an air of real curiosity concerning the lapse of
time, which put coquetry wholly out of the question.
“I will go look at the sundial, Mistress Alice,” said the gallant,
rising and colouring, through a sense of the contempt with which he
thought himself treated.
“You will do me a pleasure, Master Kerneguy,” said Alice, without the
least consciousness of the indignation she had excited.
Master Louis Kerneguy left the room accordingly, not, however, to
procure the information required, but to vent his anger and
mortification, and to swear, with more serious purpose than he had
dared to do before, that Alice should rue her insolence. Good-natured
as he was, he was still a prince, unaccustomed to contradiction, far
less to contempt, and his self pride felt, for the moment, wounded to
the quick. With a hasty step he plunged into the Chase, only
remembering his own safety so far as to choose the deeper and
sequestered avenues, where, walking on with the speedy and active step,
which his recovery from fatigue now permitted him to exercise according
to his wont, he solaced his angry purposes, by devising schemes of
revenge on the insolent country coquette, from which no consideration
of hospitality was in future to have weight enough to save her.