The little party at the Lodge were assembled at supper, at the early
hour of eight o’clock. Sir Henry Lee, neglecting the food that was
placed on the table, stood by a lamp on the chimney-piece, and read a
letter with mournful attention.
“Does my son write to you more particularly than to me, Doctor
Rochecliffe?” said the knight. “He only says here, that he will return
probably this night; and that Master Kerneguy must be ready to set off
with him instantly. What can this haste mean? Have you heard of any new
search after our suffering party? I wish they would permit me to enjoy
my son’s company in quiet but for a day.”
“The quiet which depends on the wicked ceasing from troubling,” said
Dr. Rochecliffe, “is connected, not by days and hours, but by minutes.
Their glut of blood at Worcester had satiated them for a moment, but
their appetite, I fancy, has revived.”
“You have news, then, to that purpose?” said Sir Henry.
“Your son,” replied the Doctor, “wrote to me by the same messenger: he
seldom fails to do so, being aware of what importance it is that I
should know every thing that passes. Means of escape are provided on
the coast, and Master Kerneguy must be ready to start with your son the
instant he appears.”
“It is strange,” said the knight; “for forty years I have dwelt in this
house, man and boy, and the point only was how to make the day pass
over our heads; for if I did not scheme out some hunting match or
hawking, or the like, I might have sat here on my arm-chair, as
undisturbed as a sleeping dormouse, from one end of the year to the
other; and now I am more like a hare on her form, that dare not sleep
unless with her eyes open, and scuds off when the wind rustles among
the fern.”
“It is strange,” said Alice, looking at Dr. Rochecliffe, “that the
roundhead steward has told you nothing of this. He is usually
communicative enough of the motions of his party; and I saw you close
together this morning.”
“I must be closer with him this evening,” said the Doctor gloomily;
“but he will not blab.”
“I wish you may not trust him too much,” said Alice in reply.—“To me,
that man’s face, with all its shrewdness, evinces such a dark
expression, that methinks I read treason in his very eye.”
“Be assured, that matter is looked to,” answered the Doctor, in the
same ominous tone as before. No one replied, and there was a chilling
and anxious feeling of apprehension which seemed to sink down on the
company at once, like those sensations which make such constitutions as
are particularly subject to the electrical influence, conscious of an
approaching thunder-storm.
The disguised Monarch, apprised that day to be prepared on short notice
to quit his temporary asylum, felt his own share of the gloom which
involved the little society. But he was the first also to shake it off,
as what neither suited his character nor his situation. Gaiety was the
leading distinction of the former, and presence of mind, not depression
of spirits, was required by the latter.
“We make the hour heavier,” he said, “by being melancholy about it. Had
you not better join me, Mistress Alice, in Patrick Carey’s jovial
farewell?—Ah, you do not know Pat Carey—a younger brother of Lord
Falkland’s?”
“A brother of the immortal Lord Falkland’s, and write songs!” said the
Doctor.
“Oh, Doctor, the Muses take tithe as well as the Church,” said Charles,
“and have their share in every family of distinction. You do not know
the words, Mistress Alice, but you can aid me, notwithstanding, in the
burden at least—
‘Come, now that we’re parting, and ’tis one to ten
If the towers of sweet Woodstock I e’er see agen,
Let us e’en have a frolic, and drink like tall men,
While the goblet goes merrily round.’”
The song arose, but not with spirit. It was one of those efforts at
forced mirth, by which, above all other modes of expressing it, the
absence of real cheerfulness is most distinctly animated. Charles stopt
the song, and upbraided the choristers.
“You sing, my dear Mistress Alice, as if you were chanting one of the
seven penitential psalms; and you, good Doctor, as if you recited the
funeral service.”
The Doctor rose hastily from the table, and turned to the window; for
the expression connected singularly with the task which he was that
evening to discharge. Charles looked at him with some surprise; for the
peril in which he lived, made him watchful of the slightest motions of
those around him—then turned to Sir Henry, and said, “My honoured host,
can you tell any reason for this moody fit, which has so strangely
crept upon us all?”
“Not I, my dear Louis,” replied the knight; “I have no skill in these
nice quillets of philosophy. I could as soon undertake to tell you the
reason why Bevis turns round three times before he lies down. I can
only say for myself, that if age and sorrow and uncertainty be enough
to break a jovial spirit, or at least to bend it now and then, I have
my share of them all; so that I, for one, cannot say that I am sad
merely because I am not merry. I have but too good cause for sadness. I
would I saw my son, were it but for a minute.”
Fortune seemed for once disposed to gratify the old man; for Albert Lee
entered at that moment. He was dressed in a riding suit, and appeared
to have travelled hard. He cast his eye hastily around as he entered.
It rested for a second on that of the disguised Prince, and, satisfied
with the glance which he received in lieu, he hastened, after the
fashion of the olden day, to kneel down to his father, and request his
blessing.
“It is thine, my boy,” said the old man; a tear springing to his eyes
as he laid his hand on the long locks, which distinguished the young
cavalier’s rank and principles, and which, usually combed and curled
with some care, now hung wild and dishevelled about his shoulders. They
remained an instant in this posture, when the old man suddenly started
from it, as if ashamed of the emotion which he had expressed before so
many witnesses, and passing the back of his hand hastily across his
eyes, bid Albert get up and mind his supper, “since I dare say you have
ridden fast and far since you last baited—and we’ll send round a cup to
his health, if Doctor Rochecliffe and the company pleases—Joceline,
thou knave, skink about—thou look’st as if thou hadst seen a ghost.”
“Joceline,” said Alice, “is sick for sympathy—one of the stags ran at
Phœbe Mayflower to-day, and she was fain to have Joceline’s assistance
to drive the creature off—the girl has been in fits since she came
home.”
“Silly slut,” said the old knight—“She a woodman’s daughter!—But,
Joceline, if the deer gets dangerous, you must send a broad arrow
through him.”
“It will not need, Sir Henry,” said Joceline, speaking with great
difficulty of utterance—“he is quiet enough now—he will not offend in
that sort again.”
“See it be so,” replied the knight; “remember Mistress Alice often
walks in the Chase. And now, fill round, and fill too, a cup to thyself
to overred thy fear, as mad Will has it. Tush, man, Phœbe will do well
enough—she only screamed and ran, that thou might’st have the pleasure
to help her. Mind what thou dost, and do not go spilling the wine after
that fashion.—Come, here is a health to our wanderer, who has come to
us again.”
“None will pledge it more willingly than I,” said the disguised Prince,
unconsciously assuming an importance which the character he personated
scarce warranted; but Sir Henry, who had become fond of the supposed
page, with all his peculiarities, imposed only a moderate rebuke upon
his petulance. “Thou art a merry, good-humoured youth, Louis,” he said,
“but it is a world to see how the forwardness of the present generation
hath gone beyond the gravity and reverence which in my youth was so
regularly observed towards those of higher rank and station—I dared no
more have given my own tongue the rein, when there was a doctor of
divinity in company, than I would have dared to have spoken in church
in service time.”
“True, sir,” said Albert, hastily interfering; “but Master Kerneguy had
the better right to speak at present, that I have been absent on his
business as well as my own, have seen several of his friends, and bring
him important intelligence.”
Charles was about to rise and beckon Albert aside, naturally impatient
to know what news he had procured, or what scheme of safe escape was
now decreed for him. But Dr. Rochecliffe twitched his cloak, as a hint
to him to sit still, and not show any extraordinary motive for anxiety,
since, in case of a sudden discovery of his real quality, the violence
of Sir Henry Lee’s feelings might have been likely to attract too much
attention.
Charles, therefore, only replied, as to the knight’s stricture, that he
had a particular title to be sudden and unceremonious in expressing his
thanks to Colonel Lee—that gratitude was apt to be unmannerly—finally,
that he was much obliged to Sir Henry for his admonition; and that quit
Woodstock when he would, “he was sure to leave it a better man than he
came there.”
His speech was of course ostensibly directed towards the father; but a
glance at Alice assured her that she had her full share in the
compliment.
“I fear,” he concluded, addressing Albert, “that you come to tell us
our stay here must be very short.”
“A few hours only,” said Albert—“just enough for needful rest for
ourselves and our horses. I have procured two which are good and tried.
But Doctor Rochecliffe broke faith with me. I expected to have met some
one down at Joceline’s hut, where I left the horses; and finding no
person, I was delayed an hour in littering them down myself, that they
might be ready for to-morrow’s work—for we must be off before day.”
“I—I—intended to have sent Tomkins—but—but”—hesitated the Doctor, “I”—
“The roundheaded rascal was drunk, or out of the way, I presume,” said
Albert. “I am glad of it—you may easily trust him too far.”
“Hitherto he has been faithful,” said the Doctor, “and I scarce think
he will fail me now. But Joceline will go down and have the horses in
readiness in the morning.”
Joceline’s countenance was usually that of alacrity itself on a case
extraordinary. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate.
“You will go with me a little way, Doctor?” he said, as he edged
himself closely to Rochecliffe.
“How? puppy, fool, and blockhead,” said the knight, “wouldst thou ask
Doctor Rochecliffe to bear thee company at this hour?—Out, hound!—get
down to the kennel yonder instantly, or I will break the knave’s pate
of thee.”
Joceline looked with an eye of agony at the divine, as if entreating
him to interfere in his behalf; but just as he was about to speak, a
most melancholy howling arose at the hall-door, and a dog was heard
scratching for admittance.
“What ails Bevis next?” said the old knight. “I think this must be
All-Fools-day, and that every thing around me is going mad!”
The same sound startled Albert and Charles from a private conference in
which they had engaged, and Albert ran to the hall-door to examine
personally into the cause of the noise.
“It is no alarm,” said the old knight to Kerneguy, “for in such cases
the dog’s bark is short, sharp, and furious. These long howls are said
to be ominous. It was even so that Bevis’s grandsire bayed the whole
livelong night on which my poor father died. If it comes now as a
presage, God send it regard the old and useless, not the young, and
those who may yet serve King and country!”
The dog had pushed past Colonel Lee, who stood a little while at the
hall-door to listen if there were any thing stirring without, while
Bevis advanced into the room where the company were assembled, bearing
something in his mouth, and exhibiting, in an unusual degree, that
sense of duty and interest which a dog seems to show when he thinks he
has the charge of something important. He entered therefore, drooping
his long tail, slouching his head and ears, and walking with the
stately yet melancholy dignity of a war-horse at his master’s funeral.
In this manner he paced through the room, went straight up to Joceline,
who had been regarding him with astonishment, and uttering a short and
melancholy howl, laid at his feet the object which he bore in his
mouth. Joceline stooped, and took from the floor a man’s glove, of the
fashion worn by the troopers, having something like the old-fashioned
gauntleted projections of thick leather arising from the wrist, which
go half way up to the elbow, and secure the arm against a cut with a
sword. But Joceline had no sooner looked at what in itself was so
common an object, than he dropped it from his hand, staggered backward,
uttered a groan, and nearly fell to the ground.
“Now, the coward’s curse be upon thee for an idiot!” said the knight,
who had picked up the glove, and was looking at it—“thou shouldst be
sent back to school, and flogged till the craven’s blood was switched
out of thee—What dost thou look at but a glove, thou base poltroon, and
a very dirty glove, too? Stay, here is writing—Joseph Tomkins? Why,
that is the roundheaded fellow—I wish he hath not come to some
mischief, for this is not dirt on the cheveron, but blood. Bevis may
have bit the fellow, and yet the dog seemed to love him well too, or
the stag may have hurt him. Out, Joceline, instantly, and see where he
is—wind your bugle.”
“I cannot go,” said Joliffe, “unless”—and again he looked piteously at
Dr. Rochecliffe, who saw no time was to be lost in appeasing the
ranger’s terrors, as his ministry was most needful in the present
circumstances.—“Get spade and mattock,” he whispered to him, “and a
dark lantern, and meet me in the Wilderness.”
Joceline left the room; and the Doctor, before following him, had a few
words of explanation with Colonel Lee. His own spirit, far from being
dismayed on the occasion, rather rose higher, like one whose natural
element was intrigue and danger. “Here hath been wild work,” he said,
“since you parted. Tomkins was rude to the wench Phœbe—Joceline and he
had a brawl together, and Tomkins is lying dead in the thicket, not far
from Rosamond’s Well. It will be necessary that Joceline and I go
directly to bury the body; for besides that some one might stumble upon
it, and raise an alarm, this fellow Joceline will never be fit for any
active purpose till it is under ground. Though as stout as a lion, the
under-keeper has his own weak side, and is more afraid of a dead body
than a living one. When do you propose to start to-morrow?”
“By daybreak, or earlier,” said Colonel Lee; “but we will meet again. A
vessel is provided, and I have relays in more places than one—we go off
from the coast of Sussex; and I am to get a letter at ——, acquainting
me precisely with the spot.”
“Wherefore not go off instantly?” said the Doctor.
“The horses would fail us,” replied Albert; “they have been hard ridden
to-day.”
“Adieu,” said Rochecliffe, “I must to my task—Do you take rest and
repose for yours. To conceal a slaughtered body, and convey on the same
night a king from danger and captivity, are two feats which have fallen
to few folks save myself; but let me not, while putting on my harness,
boast myself as if I were taking it off after a victory.” So saying he
left the apartment, and, muffling himself in his cloak, went out into
what was called the Wilderness.
The weather was a raw frost. The mists lay in partial wreaths upon the
lower grounds; but the night, considering that the heavenly bodies were
in a great measure hidden by the haze, was not extremely dark. Dr.
Rochecliffe could not, however, distinguish the under-keeper until he
had hemmed once or twice, when Joceline answered the signal by showing
a glimpse of light from the dark lantern which he carried. Guided by
this intimation of his presence, the divine found him leaning against a
buttress which had once supported a terrace, now ruinous. He had a
pickaxe and shovel, together with a deer’s hide hanging over his
shoulder.
“What do you want with the hide, Joceline,” said Dr. Rochecliffe, “that
you lumber it about with you on such an errand?”
“Why, look you, Doctor,” he answered, “it is as well to tell you all
about it. The man and I—he there—you know whom I mean—had many years
since a quarrel about this deer. For though we were great friends, and
Philip was sometimes allowed by my master’s permission to help me in
mine office, yet I knew, for all that, Philip Hazeldine was sometimes a
trespasser. The deer-stealers were very bold at that time, it being
just before the breaking out of the war, when men were becoming
unsettled— And so it chanced, that one day, in the Chase, I found two
fellows, with their faces blacked and shirts over their clothes,
carrying as prime a buck between them as any was in the park. I was
upon them in the instant—one escaped, but I got hold of the other
fellow, and who should it prove to be but trusty Phil Hazeldine! Well,
I don’t know whether it was right or wrong, but he was my old friend
and pot-companion, and I took his word for amendment in future; and he
helped me to hang up the deer on a tree, and I came back with a horse
to carry him to the Lodge, and tell the knight the story, all but
Phil’s name. But the rogues had been too clever for me; for they had
flayed and dressed the deer, and quartered him, and carried him off,
and left the hide and horns, with a chime, saying,—
‘The haunch to thee,
The breast to me,
The hide and the horns for the keeper’s fee.’
And this I knew for one of Phil’s mad pranks, that he would play in
those days with any lad in the country. But I was so nettled that I
made the deer’s hide be curried and dressed by a tanner, and swore that
it should be his winding-sheet or mine; and though I had long repented
my rash oath, yet now, Doctor, you see what it is come to—though I
forgot it, the devil did not.”
“It was a very wrong thing to make a vow so sinful,” said Rochecliffe;
“but it would have been greatly worse had you endeavoured to keep it.
Therefore, I bid you cheer up,” said the good divine; “for in this
unhappy case, I could not have wished, after what I have heard from
Phœbe and yourself, that you should have kept your hand still, though I
may regret that the blow has proved fatal. Nevertheless, thou hast done
even that which was done by the great and inspired legislator, when he
beheld an Egyptian tyrannizing over a Hebrew, saving that, in the case
present, it was a female, when, says the Septuagint, _Percussum
Egyptium abscondit sabulo_; the meaning whereof I will explain to you
another time. Wherefore, I exhort you not to grieve beyond measure; for
although this circumstance is unhappy in time and place, yet, from what
Phœbe hath informed me of yonder wretch’s opinions, it is much to be
regretted that his brains had not been beaten out in his cradle, rather
than that he had grown up to be one of those Grindlestonians, or
Muggletonians, in whom is the perfection of every foul and blasphemous
heresy, united with such an universal practice of hypocritical
assentation as would deceive their master, even Satan himself.”
“Nevertheless, sir,” said the forester, “I hope you will bestow some of
the service of the Church on this poor man, as it was his last wish,
naming you, sir, at the same time; and unless this were done, I should
scarce dare to walk out in the dark again for my whole life.”
“Thou art a silly fellow; but if,” continued the Doctor, “he named me
as he departed, and desired the last rites of the Church, there was, it
may be, a turning from evil and a seeking to good even in his last
moments; and if Heaven granted him grace to form a prayer so fitting,
wherefore should man refuse it? All I fear is the briefness of time.”
“Nay, your reverence may cut the service somewhat short,” said
Joceline; “assuredly he does not deserve the whole of it; only if
something were not to be done, I believe I should flee the country.
They were his last words; and methinks he sent Bevis with his glove to
put me in mind of them.”
“Out, fool! Do you think,” said the Doctor, “dead men send gauntlets to
the living, like knights in a romance; or, if so, would they choose
dogs to carry their challenges? I tell thee, fool, the cause was
natural enough. Bevis, questing about, found the body, and brought the
glove to you to intimate where it was lying, and to require assistance;
for such is the high instinct of these animals towards one in peril.”
“Nay, if you think so, Doctor,” said Joceline—“and, doubtless, I must
say, Bevis took an interest in the man—if indeed it was not something
worse in the shape of Bevis, for methought his eyes looked wild and
fiery, as if he would have spoken.”
As he talked thus, Joceline rather hung back, and, in doing so,
displeased the Doctor, who exclaimed, “Come along, thou lazy laggard!
Art thou a soldier, and a brave one, and so much afraid of a dead man?
Thou hast killed men in battle and in chase, I warrant thee.”
“Ay, but their backs were to me,” said Joceline. “I never saw one of
them cast back his head, and glare at me as yonder fellow did, his eye
retaining a glance of hatred, mixed with terror and reproach, till it
became fixed like a jelly. And were you not with me, and my master’s
concerns, and something else, very deeply at stake, I promise you I
would not again look at him for all Woodstock.”
“You must, though,” said the Doctor, suddenly pausing, “for here is the
place where he lies. Come hither deep into the copse; take care of
stumbling—Here is a place just fitting, and we will draw the briars
over the grave afterwards.”
As the Doctor thus issued his directions, he assisted also in the
execution of them; and while his attendant laboured to dig a shallow
and mishapen grave, a task which the state of the soil, perplexed with
roots, and hardened by the influence of the frost, rendered very
difficult, the divine read a few passages out of the funeral service,
partly in order to appease the superstitious terrors of Joceline, and
partly because he held it matter of conscience not to deny the Church’s
rites to one who had requested their aid in extremity.