oblique and distorted, sees nothing but the end of his nose, while the
other, instead of partaking the same defect, views strongly, sharply,
and acutely, whatever is subjected to its scrutiny."
"But we will put a patch on the better eye," said the Doctor, "and he
shall only be allowed to speculate with the imperfect optic. You must
know, this fellow has always seen the greatest number, and the most
hideous apparitions; he has not the courage of a cat in such matters,
though stout enough when he hath temporal antagonists before him. I have
placed him under the charge of Joceline Joliffe, who, betwixt plying him
with sack and ghost-stories, would make him incapable of knowing what
was done, if you were to proclaim the King in his presence."
"But why keep such a fellow here at all?"
"Oh, sir, content you; - he lies leaguer, as a sort of ambassador for his
worthy masters, and we are secure from any intrusion so long as they get
all the news of Woodstock from Trusty Tomkins."
"I know Joceline's honesty well," said Albert; "and if he can assure me
that he will keep a watch over this fellow, I will so far trust in him.
He does not know the depth of the stake, 'tis true, but that my life is
concerned will be quite enough to keep him vigilant. - Well, then, I
proceed: - What if Markham Everard comes down on us?"
"We have his word to the contrary," answered Rochecliffe - "his word of
honour, transmitted by his friend: - Do you think it likely he will break
it?"
"I hold him incapable of doing so," answered Albert; "and, besides, I
think Markham would make no bad use of any thing which might come to his
knowledge - Yet God forbid we should be under the necessity of trusting
any who ever wore the Parliament's colours in a matter of such dear
concernment!"
"Amen!" said the Doctor. - "Are your doubts silenced now?"
"I still have an objection," said Albert, "to yonder impudent rakehelly
fellow, styling himself a cavalier, who rushed himself on our company
last night, and gained my father's heart by a story of the storm of
Brentford, which I dare say the rogue never saw."
"You mistake him, dear Albert," replied Rochecliffe - "Roger Wildrake,
although till of late I only knew him by name, is a gentleman, was bred
at the Inns of Court, and spent his estate in the King's service."
"Or rather in the devil's service," said Albert. "It is such fellows as
he, who, sunk from the license of their military habits into idle
debauched ruffians, infest the land with riots and robberies, brawl in
hedge alehouses and cellars where strong waters are sold at midnight,
and, with their deep oaths, their hot loyalty, and their drunken valour,
make decent men abominate the very name of cavalier."
"Alas!" said the Doctor, "it is but too true; but what can you expect?
When the higher and more qualified classes are broken down and mingled
undistinguishably with the lower orders, they are apt to lose the most
valuable marks of their quality in the general confusion of morals and
manners - just as a handful of silver medals will become defaced and
discoloured if jumbled about among the vulgar copper coin. Even the
prime medal of all, which we royalists would so willingly wear next our
very hearts, has not, perhaps, entirely escaped some deterioration - But
let other tongues than mine speak on that subject."
Albert Lee paused deeply after having heard these communications on the
part of Rochecliffe. "Doctor," he said, "it is generally agreed, even by
some who think you may occasionally have been a little over busy in
putting men upon dangerous actions" -
"May God forgive them who entertain so false an opinion of me," said the
Doctor.
- "That, nevertheless, you have done and suffered more in the King's
behalf than any man of your function."
"They do me but justice there," said Dr. Rochecliffe - "absolute
justice."
"I am therefore disposed to abide by your opinion, if, all things
considered, you think it safe that we should remain at Woodstock."
"That is not the question," answered the divine.
"And what is the question, then?" replied the young soldier.
"Whether any safer course can be pointed out. I grieve to say, that the
question must be comparative, as to the point of option. Absolute safety
is - alas the while! - out of the question on all sides. Now, I say
Woodstock is, fenced and guarded as at present, by far the most
preferable place of concealment."
"Enough," replied Albert; "I give up to you the question, as to a person
whose knowledge of such important affairs, not to mention your age and
experience, is more intimate and extensive than mine can be."
"You do well," answered Rochecliffe; "and if others had acted with the
like distrust of their own knowledge, and confidence in competent
persons, it had been better for the age. This makes Understanding bar
himself up within his fortalice, and Wit betake himself to his high
tower." (Here he looked around his cell with an air of self-complacence.)
"The wise man forseeth the tempest, and hideth himself."
"Doctor," said Albert, "let our foresight serve others far more precious
than either of us. Let me ask you, if you have well considered whether
our precious charge should remain in society with the family, or betake
himself to some of the more hidden corners of the house?"
"Hum!" said the Doctor, with an air of deep reflection - "I think he will
be safest as Louis Kerneguy, keeping himself close beside you" -
"I fear it will be necessary," added Albert, "that I scout abroad a
little, and show myself in some distant part of the country, lest,
coming here in quest of me, they should find higher game."
"Pray do not interrupt me - Keeping himself close beside you or your
father, in or near to Victor Lee's apartment, from which you are aware
he can make a ready escape, should danger approach. This occurs to me as
best for the present - I hope to hear of the vessel to-day - to-morrow at
farthest."
Albert Lee bid the active but opiniated man good morrow; admiring how
this species of intrigue had become a sort of element in which the
Doctor seemed to enjoy himself, notwithstanding all that the poet has
said concerning the horrors which intervene betwixt the conception and
execution of a conspiracy.
In returning from Dr. Rochecliffe's sanctuary, he met with Joceline, who
was anxiously seeking him. "The young Scotch gentleman," he said, in a
mysterious manner, "has arisen from bed, and, hearing me pass, he called
me into his apartment."
"Well," replied Albert, "I will see him presently."
"And he asked me for fresh linen and clothes. Now, sir, he is like a man
who is quite accustomed to be obeyed, so I gave him a suit which
happened to be in a wardrobe in the west tower, and some of your linen
to conform; and when he was dressed, he commanded me to show him to the
presence of Sir Henry Lee and my young lady. I would have said
something, sir, about waiting till you came back, but he pulled me
goodnaturedly by the hair, (as, indeed, he has a rare humour of his
own,) and told me, he was guest to Master Albert Lee, and not his
prisoner; so, sir, though I thought you might be displeased with me for
giving him the means of stirring abroad, and perhaps being seen by those
who should not see him, what could I say?"
"You are a sensible fellow, Joceline, and comprehend always what is
recommended to you. This youth will not be controlled, I fear, by either
of us; but we must look the closer after his safety. You keep your watch
over that prying fellow the steward?"
"Trust him to my care - on that side have no fear. But ah, sir! I would
we had the young Scot in his old clothes again, for the riding-suit of
yours which he now wears hath set him off in other-guess fashion."
From the manner in which the faithful dependent expressed himself,
Albert saw that he suspected who the Scottish page in reality was; yet
he did not think it proper to acknowledge to him a fact of such
importance, secure as he was equally of his fidelity, whether explicitly
trusted to the full extent, or left to his own conjectures. Full of
anxious thought, he went to the apartment of Victor Lee, in which
Joliffe told him he would find the party assembled. The sound of
laughter, as he laid his hand on the lock of the door, almost made him
start, so singularly did it jar with the doubtful and melancholy
reflections which engaged his own mind. He entered, and found his father
in high good-humour, laughing and conversing freely with his young
charge, whose appearance was, indeed, so much changed to the better in
externals, that it seemed scarce possible a night's rest, a toilet, and
a suit of decent clothes, could have done so much in his favour in so
short a time. It could not, however, be imputed to the mere alteration
of dress, although that, no doubt, had its effect. There was nothing
splendid in that which Louis Kerneguy (we continue to call him by his
assumed name) now wore. It was merely a riding-suit of grey cloth, with
some silver lace, in the fashion of a country gentleman of the time. But
it happened to fit him very well, and to become his very dark
complexion, especially as he now held up his head, and used the manners,
not only of a well-behaved but of a highly-accomplished gentleman. When
he moved, his clumsy and awkward limp was exchanged for a sort of
shuffle, which, as it might be the consequence of a wound in those
perilous times, had rather an interesting than an ungainly effect. At
least it was as genteel an expression that the party had been overhard
travelled, as the most polite pedestrian could propose to himself.
The features of the Wanderer were harsh as ever, but his red shock
peruke, for such it proved, was laid aside, his sable elf-locks were
trained, by a little of Joceline's assistance, into curls, and his fine
black eyes shone from among the shade of these curls, and corresponded
with the animated, though not handsome, character of the whole head. In
his conversation, he had laid aside all the coarseness of dialect which
he had so strongly affected on the preceding evening; and although he
continued to speak a little Scotch, for the support of his character as
a young gentleman of that nation, yet it was not in a degree which
rendered his speech either uncouth or unintelligible, but merely
afforded a certain Doric tinge essential to the personage he
represented. No person on earth could better understand the society in
which he moved; exile had made him acquainted with life in all its
shades and varieties; - his spirits, if not uniform, were elastic - he had
that species of Epicurean philosophy, which, even in the most extreme
difficulties and dangers, can, in an interval of ease, however brief,
avail itself of the enjoyments of the moment - he was, in short, in youth
and misfortune, as afterwards in his regal condition, a good-humoured
but hard-hearted voluptuary - wise, save where his passions
intervened - beneficent, save when prodigality had deprived him of the
means, or prejudice of the wish, to confer benefits - his faults such as
might often have drawn down hatred, but that they were mingled with so
much urbanity, that the injured person felt it impossible to retain the
full sense of his wrongs.
Albert Lee found the party, consisting of his father, sister, and the
supposed page, seated by the breakfast-table, at which he also took his
place. He was a pensive and anxious beholder of what passed, while the
page, who had already completely gained the heart of the good old
cavalier, by mimicking the manner in which the Scottish divines preached
in favour of Ma gude Lord Marquis of Argyle and the Solemn League and
Covenant, was now endeavouring to interest the fair Alice by such
anecdotes, partly of warlike and perilous adventure, as possessed the
same degree of interest for the female ear which they have had ever
since Desdemona's days. But it was not only of dangers by land and sea
that the disguised page spoke; but much more, and much oftener, on
foreign revels, banquets, balls, where the pride of France, of Spain, or
of the Low Countries, was exhibited in the eyes of their most eminent
beauties. Alice being a very young girl, who, in consequence of the
Civil War, had been almost entirely educated in the country, and often
in great seclusion, it was certainly no wonder that she should listen
with willing ears, and a ready smile, to what the young gentleman, their
guest, and her brother's protege, told with so much gaiety, and mingled
with such a shade of dangerous adventure, and occasionally of serious
reflection, as prevented the discourse from being regarded as merely
light and frivolous.
In a word, Sir Henry Lee laughed, Alice smiled from time to time, and
all were satisfied but Albert, who would himself, however, have been
scarce able to allege a sufficient reason for his depression of spirits.
The materials of breakfast were at last removed, under the active
superintendence of the neat-handed Phoebe, who looked over her shoulder,
and lingered more than once, to listen to the fluent discourse of their
new guest, whom, on the preceding evening, she had, while in attendance
at supper, accounted one of the most stupid inmates to whom the gates of
Woodstock had been opened since the times of Fair Rosamond.
Louis Kerneguy then, when they were left only four in the chamber,
without the interruption of domestics, and the successive bustle
occasioned by the discussion and removal of the morning meal, became
apparently sensible, that his friend and ostensible patron Albert ought
not altogether to be suffered to drop to leeward in the conversation,
while he was himself successfully engaging the attention of those
members of his family to whom he had become so recently known. He went
behind his chair, therefore, and, leaning on the back, said with a
good-humoured tone, which made his purpose entirely intelligible, -
"Either my good friend, guide, and patron, has heard worse news this
morning than he cares to tell us, or he must have stumbled over my
tattered jerkin and leathern hose, and acquired, by contact, the whole
mass of stupidity which I threw off last night with those most dolorous
garments. Cheer up, my dear Colonel Albert, if your affectionate page
may presume to say so - you are in company with those whose society, dear
to strangers, must be doubly so to you. Oddsfish, man, cheer up! I have
seen you gay on a biscuit and a mouthful of water-cresses - don't let
your heart fail you on Rhenish wine and venison."
"Dear Louis," said Albert, rousing himself into exertion, and somewhat
ashamed of his own silence, "I have slept worse, and been astir earlier
than you."
"Be it so," said his father; "yet I hold it no good excuse for your
sullen silence. Albert, you have met your sister and me, so long
separated from you, so anxious on your behalf, almost like mere
strangers, and yet you are returned safe to us, and you find us well."
"Returned indeed - but for safety, my dear father, that word must be a
stranger to us Worcester folk for some time. However, it is not my own
safety about which I am anxious."
"About whose, then, should you be anxious? - All accounts agree that the
King is safe out of the dogs' jaws."
"Not without some danger, though," muttered Louis, thinking of his
encounter with Bevis on the preceding evening.
"No, not without danger, indeed," echoed the knight; "but, as old Will
says, -
'There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason dares not peep at what it would.'
"No, no - thank God, that's cared for; our Hope and Fortune is escaped,
so all news affirm, escaped from Bristol - if I thought otherwise,
Albert, I should be as sad as you are. For the rest of it, I have lurked
a month in this house when discovery would have been death, and that is
no longer since than after Lord Holland and the Duke of Buckingham's
rising at Kingston; and hang me, if I thought once of twisting my brow
into such a tragic fold as yours, but cocked my hat at misfortune as a
cavalier should."
"If I might put in a word," said Louis, "it would be to assure Colonel
Albert Lee that I verily believe the King would think his own hap,
wherever he may be, much the worse that his best subjects were seized
with dejection on his account."
"You answer boldly on the King's part, young man," said Sir Henry.
"Oh, my father was meikle about the King's hand," answered Louis,
recollecting his present character.
"No wonder, then," said Sir Henry, "that you have so soon recovered your
good spirits and good breeding, when you heard of his Majesty's escape.
Why, you are no more like the lad we saw last night, than the best
hunter I ever had was like a dray-horse."
"Oh, there is much in rest, and food, and grooming," answered Louis.
"You would hardly know the tired jade you dismounted from last night,
when she is brought out prancing and neighing the next morning, rested,
refreshed, and ready to start again - especially if the brute hath some
good blood, for such pick up unco fast."
"Well, then, but since thy father was a courtier, and thou hast learned,
I think, something of the trade, tell us a little, Master Kerneguy, of
him we love most to hear about - the King; we are all safe and secret,
you need not be afraid. He was a hopeful youth; I trust his flourishing
blossom now gives promise of fruit?"
As the knight spoke, Louis bent his eyes on the ground, and seemed at
first uncertain what to answer. But, admirable at extricating himself
from such dilemmas, he replied, "that he really could not presume to
speak on such a subject in the presence of his patron, Colonel Albert
Lee, who must be a much better judge of the character of King Charles
than he could pretend to be."
Albert was accordingly next assailed by the Knight, seconded by Alice,
for some account of his Majesty's character.
"I will speak but according to facts," said Albert; "and then I must be
acquitted of partiality. If the King had not possessed enterprise and
military skill, he never would have attempted the expedition to
Worcester; - had he not had personal courage, he had not so long disputed
the battle that Cromwell almost judged it lost. That he possesses
prudence and patience, must be argued from the circumstances attending
his flight; and that he has the love of his subjects is evident, since,
necessarily known to many, he has been betrayed by none."
"For shame, Albert!" replied his sister; "is that the way a good
cavalier doles out the character of his Prince, applying an instance at
every concession, like a pedlar measuring linen with his rod? - Out upon
you! - no wonder you were beaten, if you fought as coldly for your King
as you now talk for him."
"I did my best to trace a likeness from what I have seen and known of
the original, sister Alice," replied her brother. - "If you would have a
fancy portrait, you must get an artist of more imagination than I have
to draw it for you."
"I will be that artist myself" said Alice; "and, in _my_ portrait, our
Monarch shall show all that he ought to be, having such high
pretensions - all that he must be, being so loftily descended - all that I
am sure he is, and that every loyal heart in the kingdom ought to
believe him."
"Well said, Alice," quoth the old knight - "Look thou upon this picture,
and on this! - Here is our young friend shall judge. I wager my best
nag - that is, I would wager him had I one left - that Alice proves the
better painter of the two. - My son's brain is still misty, I think,
since his defeat - he has not got the smoke of Worcester out of it.
Plague on thee! - a young man, and cast down for one beating? Had you
been banged twenty times like me, it had been time to look grave. - But
come, Alice, forward; the colours are mixed on your pallet - forward with
something that shall show like one of Vandyck's living portraits, placed
beside the dull dry presentation there of our ancestor Victor Lee."
Alice, it must be observed, had been educated by her father in the
notions of high and even exaggerated loyalty, which characterized the
cavaliers, and she was really an enthusiast in the royal cause. But,
besides, she was in good spirits at her brother's happy return, and
wished to prolong the gay humour in which her father had of late
scarcely ever indulged.
"Well, then," she said, "though I am no Apelles, I will try to paint an
Alexander, such as I hope, and am determined to believe, exists in the
person of our exiled sovereign, soon I trust to be restored. And I will
not go farther than his own family. He shall have all the chivalrous
courage, all the warlike skill, of Henry of France, his grandfather, in
order to place him on the throne; all his benevolence, love of his
people, patience even of unpleasing advice, sacrifice of his own wishes
and pleasures to the commonweal, that, seated there, he may be blest
while living, and so long remembered when dead, that for ages after it
shall be thought sacrilege to breathe an aspersion against the throne
which he had occupied! Long after he is dead, while there remains an old
man who has seen him, were the condition of that survivor no higher than
a groom or a menial, his age shall be provided for at the public charge,
and his grey hairs regarded with more distinction than an earl's
coronet, because he remembers the Second Charles, the monarch of every
heart in England!"
While Alice spoke, she was hardly conscious of the presence of any one
save her father and brother; for the page withdrew himself somewhat from
the circle, and there was nothing to remind her of him. She gave the
reins, therefore, to her enthusiasm; and as the tears glittered in her
eye, and her beautiful features became animated, she seemed like a
descended cherub proclaiming the virtues of a patriot monarch. The
person chiefly interested in her description held himself back, as we
have said, and concealed his own features, yet so as to preserve a full
view of the beautiful speaker.
Albert Lee, conscious in whose presence this eulogium was pronounced,
was much embarrassed; but his father, all whose feelings were flattered
by the panegyric, was in rapture.
"So much for the _King_, Alice," he said, "and now for the _Man_."
"For the man," replied Alice, in the same tone, "need I wish him more
than the paternal virtues of his unhappy father, of whom his worst
enemies have recorded, that if moral virtues and religious faith were to
be selected as the qualities which merited a crown, no man could plead
the possession of them in a higher or more indisputable degree.
Temperate, wise, and frugal, yet munificent in rewarding merit - a friend
to letters and the muses, but a severe discourager of the misuse of such
gifts - a worthy gentleman - a kind master - the best friend, the best
father, the best Christian" - Her voice began to falter, and her father's
handkerchief was already at his eyes.
"He was, girl, he was!" exclaimed Sir Henry; "but no more on't, I charge
ye - no more on't - enough; let his son but possess his virtues, with
better advisers, and better fortunes, and he will be all that England,
in her warmest wishes, could desire."
There was a pause after this; for Alice felt as if she had spoken too
frankly and too zealously for her sex and youth. Sir Henry was occupied
in melancholy recollections on the fate of his late sovereign, while
Kerneguy and his supposed patron felt embarrassed, perhaps from a
consciousness that the real Charles fell far short of his ideal
character, as designed in such glowing colours. In some cases,
exaggerated or unappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire.
But such reflections were not of a nature to be long willingly cherished
by the person to whom they might have been of great advantage. He
assumed a tone of raillery, which is, perhaps, the readiest mode of
escaping from the feelings of self-reproof. "Every cavalier," he said,
"should bend his knee to thank Mistress Alice Lee for having made such a
flattering portrait of the King their master, by laying under
contribution for his benefit the virtues of all his ancestors; only
there was one point he would not have expected a female painter to have
passed over in silence. When she made him, in right of his grandfather
and father, a muster of royal and individual excellences, why could she
not have endowed him at the same time with his mother's personal charms?
Why should not the son of Henrietta Maria, the finest woman of her day,
add the recommendations of a handsome face and figure to his internal
qualities? He had the same hereditary title to good looks as to mental
qualifications; and the picture, with such an addition, would be perfect
in its way - and God send it might be a resemblance."
"I understand you, Master Kerneguy," said Alice; "but I am no fairy, to
bestow, as those do in the nursery tales, gifts which Providence has
denied. I am woman enough to have made enquiries on the subject, and I
know the general report is, that the King, to have been the son of such
handsome parents, is unusually hard-favoured."
"Good God, sister!" said Albert, starting impatiently from his seat.
"Why, you yourself told me so," said Alice, surprised at the emotion he
testified; "and you said" -
"This is intolerable," muttered Albert; "I must out to speak with
Joceline without delay - Louis," (with an imploring look to Kerneguy,)
"you will surely come with me?"
"I would with all my heart," said Kerneguy, smiling maliciously; "but
you see how I suffer still from lameness. - Nay, nay, Albert," he
whispered, resisting young Lee's attempt to prevail on him to leave the
room, "can you suppose I am fool enough to be hurt by this? - on the
contrary, I have a desire of profiting by it."
"May God grant it!" said Lee to himself, as he left the room - "it will
be the first lecture you ever profited by; and the devil confound the
plots and plotters who made me bring you to this place!" So saying, he
carried his discontent forth into the Park.
* * * * *
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
With unrestrained loose companions;
While he, young, wanton, and effeminate boy,
Takes on the point of honour, to support
So dissolute a crew.
RICHARD II.
The conversation which Albert had in vain endeavoured to interrupt,
flowed on in the same course after he had left the room. It entertained
Louis Kerneguy; for personal vanity, or an over-sensitiveness to
deserved reproof, were not among the faults of his character, and were
indeed incompatible with an understanding, which, combined with more
strength of principle, steadiness of exertion, and self-denial, might
have placed Charles high on the list of English monarchs. On the other
hand, Sir Henry listened with natural delight to the noble sentiments
uttered by a being so beloved as his daughter. His own parts were rather
steady than brilliant; and he had that species of imagination which is
not easily excited without the action of another, as the electrical
globe only scintillates when rubbed against its cushion. He was well
pleased, therefore, when Kerneguy pursued the conversation, by observing
that Mistress Alice Lee had not explained how the same good fairy that
conferred moral qualities, could not also remove corporeal blemishes.
"You mistake, sir," said Alice. "I confer nothing. I do but attempt to
paint our King such as I _hope_ he is - such as I am sure he _may_ be,
should he himself desire to be so. The same general report which speaks
of his countenance as unprepossessing, describes his talents as being of
the first order. He has, therefore, the means of arriving at excellence,
should he cultivate them sedulously and employ them usefully - should he
rule his passions and be guided by his understanding. Every good man
cannot be wise; but it is in the power of every wise man, if he pleases,
to be as eminent for virtue as for talent."
Young Kerneguy rose briskly, and took a turn through the room; and ere
the knight could make any observation on the singular vivacity in which
he had indulged, he threw himself again into his chair, and said, in
rather an altered tone of voice - "It seems, then, Mistress Alice Lee,
that the good friends who have described this poor King to you, have
been as unfavourable in their account of his morals as of his person?"
"The truth must be better known to you, sir," said Alice, "than it can
be to me. Some rumours there have been which accuse him of a license,
which, whatever allowance flatterers make for it, does not, to say the
least, become the son of the Martyr - I shall be happy to have these
contradicted on good authority."
"I am surprised at your folly," said Sir Henry Lee, "in hinting at such
things, Alice; a pack of scandal, invented by the rascals who have
usurped the government - a thing devised by the enemy."
"Nay, sir," said Kerneguy, laughing, "we must not let our zeal charge
the enemy with more scandal than they actually deserve. Mistress Alice
has put the question to me. I can only answer, that no one can be more
devotedly attached to the King than I myself, - that I am very partial to
his merits and blind to his defects; - and that, in short, I would be the
last man in the world to give up his cause where it was tenable.
Nevertheless, I must confess, that if all his grandfather of Navarre's
morals have not descended to him, this poor King has somehow inherited a
share of the specks that were thought to dim the lustre of that great
Prince - that Charles is a little soft-hearted, or so, where beauty is
concerned. - Do not blame him too severely, pretty Mistress Alice; when a
man's hard fate has driven him among thorns, it were surely hard to
prevent him from trifling with the few roses he may find among them?"
Alice, who probably thought the conversation had gone far enough, rose
while Master Kerneguy was speaking, and was leaving the room before he
had finished, without apparently hearing the interrogation with which he
concluded. Her father approved of her departure, not thinking the turn
which Kerneguy had given to the discourse altogether fit for her
presence; and, desirous civilly to break off the conversation, "I see,"
he said, "this is about the time, when, as Will says, the household
affairs will call my daughter hence; I will therefore challenge you,
young gentleman, to stretch your limbs in a little exercise with me,
either at single rapier, or rapier and poniard, back-sword, spadroon, or
your national weapons of broad-sword and target; for all or any of which
I think we shall find implements in the hall."
It would be too high a distinction, Master Kerneguy said, for a poor
page to be permitted to try a passage of arms with a knight so renowned
as Sir Henry Lee, and he hoped to enjoy so great an honour before he
left Woodstock; but at the present moment his lameness continued to
give him so much pain, that he should shame himself in the attempt.
Sir Henry then offered to read him a play of Shakspeare, and for this
purpose turned up King Richard II. But hardly had he commenced with
"Old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster,"
when the young gentleman was seized with such an incontrollable fit of
the cramp as could only be relieved by immediate exercise. He therefore
begged permission to be allowed to saunter abroad for a little while, if
Sir Henry Lee considered he might venture without danger.
"I can answer for the two or three of our people that are still left
about the place," said Sir Henry; "and I know my son has disposed them
so as to be constantly on the watch. If you hear the bell toll at the
Lodge, I advise you to come straight home by the way of the King's Oak,
which you see in yonder glade towering above the rest of the trees. We
will have some one stationed there to introduce you secretly into the
house."
The page listened to these cautions with the impatience of a schoolboy,
who, desirous of enjoying his holiday, hears without marking the advice
of tutor or parent, about taking care not to catch cold, and so forth.
The absence of Alice Lee had removed all which had rendered the interior
of the Lodge agreeable, and the mercurial young page fled with
precipitation from the exercise and amusement which Sir Henry had
proposed. He girded on his rapier, and threw his cloak, or rather that
which belonged to his borrowed suit, about him, bringing up the lower
part so as to muffle the face and show only the eyes over it, which was
a common way of wearing them in those days, both in streets, in the
country, and in public places, when men had a mind to be private, and to
avoid interruption from salutations and greetings in the market-place.
He hurried across the open space which divided the front of the Lodge
from the wood, with the haste of a bird, escaped from the cage, which,
though joyful at its liberation, is at the same time sensible of its
need of protection and shelter. The wood seemed to afford these to the
human fugitive, as it might have done to the bird in question.
When under the shadow of the branches, and within the verge of the
forest, covered from observation, yet with the power of surveying the
front of the Lodge, and all the open ground before it, the supposed
Louis Kerneguy meditated on his escape.
"What an infliction - to fence with a gouty old man, who knows not, I
dare say, a trick of the sword which was not familiar in the days of old
Vincent Saviolo! or, as a change of misery, to hear him read one of
those wildernesses of scenes which the English call a play, from
prologue to epilogue - from Enter the first to the final _Exeunt
omnes_ - an unparalleled horror - a penance which would have made a
dungeon darker, and added dullness even to Woodstock!"
Here he stopped and looked around, then continued his meditations - "So,
then, it was here that the gay old Norman secluded his pretty
mistress - I warrant, without having seen her, that Rosamond Clifford was
never half so handsome as that lovely Alice Lee. And what a soul there
is in the girl's eye! - with what abandonment of all respects, save that
expressing the interest of the moment, she poured forth her tide of
enthusiasm! Were I to be long here, in spite of prudence, and
half-a-dozen very venerable obstacles beside, I should be tempted to try
to reconcile her to the indifferent visage of this same hard-favoured
Prince. - Hard favoured? - it is a kind of treason for one who pretends to
so much loyalty, to say so of the King's features, and in my mind
deserves punishment. - Ah, pretty Mistress Alice! many a Mistress Alice
before you has made dreadful exclamations on the irregularities of
mankind, and the wickedness of the age, and ended by being glad to look
out for apologies for their own share in them. But then her father - the
stout old cavalier - my father's old friend - should such a thing befall,
it would break his heart. - Break a pudding's-end - he has more sense. If
I give his grandson a title to quarter the arms of England, what matter
if a bar sinister is drawn across them? - Pshaw! far from an abatement,
it is a point of addition - the heralds in their next visitation will
place him higher in the roll for it. Then, if he did wince a little at
first, does not the old traitor deserve it; - first, for his disloyal
intention of punching mine anointed body black and blue with his vile
foils - and secondly, his atrocious complot with Will Shakspeare, a
fellow as much out of date as himself, to read me to death with five
acts of a historical play, or chronicle, 'being the piteous Life and
Death of Richard the Second?' Odds-fish, my own life is piteous enough,
as I think; and my death may match it, for aught I see coming yet. Ah,
but then the brother - my friend - my guide - my guard - So far as this
little proposed intrigue concerns him, such practising would be thought
not quite fair. But your bouncing, swaggering, revengeful brothers exist
only on the theatre. Your dire revenge, with which a brother persecuted
a poor fellow who had seduced his sister, or been seduced by her, as the
case might be, as relentlessly as if he had trodden on his toes without
making an apology, is entirely out of fashion, since Dorset killed the
Lord Bruce many a long year since. Pshaw! when a King is the offender,
the bravest man sacrifices nothing by pocketing a little wrong which he
cannot personally resent. And in France, there is not a noble house,
where each individual would not cock his hat an inch higher, if they
could boast of such a left-handed alliance with the Grand Monarque."
Such were the thoughts which rushed through the mind of Charles, at his
first quitting the Lodge of Woodstock, and plunging into the forest that
surrounded it. His profligate logic, however, was not the result of his
natural disposition, nor received without scruple by his sound
understanding. It was a train of reasoning which he had been led to
adopt from his too close intimacy with the witty and profligate youth of
quality by whom he had been surrounded. It arose from the evil
communication with Villiers, Wilmot, Sedley, and others, whose genius
was destined to corrupt that age, and the Monarch on whom its character
afterwards came so much to depend. Such men, bred amidst the license of
civil war, and without experiencing that curb which in ordinary times
the authority of parents and relations imposes upon the headlong
passions of youth, were practised in every species of vice, and could
recommend it as well by precept as by example, turning into pitiless
ridicule all those nobler feelings which withhold men from gratifying
lawless passion. The events of the King's life had also favoured his
reception of this Epicurean doctrine. He saw himself, with the highest
claims to sympathy and assistance, coldly treated by the Courts which he
visited, rather as a permitted supplicant, than an exiled Monarch. He
beheld his own rights and claims treated with scorn and indifference;
and, in the same proportion, he was reconciled to the hard-hearted and
selfish course of dissipation, which promised him immediate indulgence.
If this was obtained at the expense of the happiness of others, should
he of all men be scrupulous upon the subject, since he treated others
only as the world treated him?
But although the foundations of this unhappy system had been laid, the
Prince was not at this early period so fully devoted to it as he was
found to have become, when a door was unexpectedly opened for his
restoration. On the contrary, though the train of gay reasoning which we
have above stated, as if it had found vent in uttered language, did
certainly arise in his mind, as that which would have been suggested by
his favourite counsellors on such occasions, he recollected that what
might be passed over as a peccadillo in France or the Netherlands, or
turned into a diverting novel or pasquinade by the wits of his own
wandering Court, was likely to have the aspect of horrid ingratitude and
infamous treachery among the English gentry, and would inflict a deep,
perhaps an incurable wound upon his interests, among the more aged and
respectable part of his adherents. Then it occurred to him - for his own
interest did not escape him, even in this mode of considering the
subject - that he was in the power of the Lees, father and son, who were
always understood to be at least sufficiently punctilious on the score