Woodstock; or, the Cavalier by Walter Scott (best ereader manga TXT) 📕

after him for these two hours that are between night and day—Change dresses, as you proposed, in yonder sleeping apartment—something may be made of that too.”

“But, good Sir Henry,” said the King, “your zeal overlooks a principal point. I have, indeed, come from the under-keeper’s hut you mention to this place, but it was by daylight, and under guidance—I shall never find my way thither in utter darkness, and without a guide—I fear you must let the Colonel go with me; and I entreat and command, you will put yourself to no trouble or risk to defend the house—only make what delay you can in showing its secret recesses.”

“Rely on me, my royal and liege Sovereign,” said Sir Henry; “but Albert must remain here, and Alice shall guide your Majesty to Joceline’s hut in his stead.”

“Alice!” said Charles, stepping back in surprise—“why, it is dark night—and—and—and—” He glanced his eye towards Alice, who had by this time returned to the apartment, and saw doubt and apprehension in her look; an intimation, that the reserve under which he had placed his disposition for gallantry, since the morning of the proposed duel, had not altogether effaced the recollection of his previous conduct. He hastened to put a strong negative upon a proposal which appeared so much to embarrass her. “It is impossible for me, indeed, Sir Henry, to use Alice’s services—I must walk as if blood-hounds were at my heels.”

“Alice shall trip it,” said the knight, “with any wench in Oxfordshire; and what would your Majesty’s best speed avail, if you know not the way to go?”

“Nay, nay, Sir Henry,” continued the King, “the night is too dark—we stay too long—I will find it myself.”

“Lose no time in exchanging your dress with Albert,” said Sir Henry—“leave me to take care of the rest.”

Charles, still inclined to expostulate, withdrew, however, into the apartment where young Lee and he were to exchange clothes; while Sir Henry said to his daughter, “Get thee a cloak, wench, and put on thy thickest shoes. Thou might’st have ridden Pixie, but he is something spirited, and them art a timid horsewoman, and ever wert so—the only weakness I have known of thee.”

“But, my father,” said Alice, fixing her eyes earnestly on Sir Henry’s face, “must I really go along with the King? might not Phœbe, or dame Jellicot, go with us?”

“No—no—no,” answered Sir Henry; “Phœbe, the silly slut, has, as you well know, been in fits to-night, and I take it, such a walk as you must take is no charm for hysterics—Dame Jellicot hobbles as slow as a broken-winded mare—besides, her deafness, were there occasion to speak to her—No—no—you shall go alone and entitle yourself to have it written on your tomb, ‘Here lies she who saved the King!’—And, hark you, do not think of returning to-night, but stay at the verdurer’s with his niece—the Park and Chase will shortly be filled with our enemies, and whatever chances here you will learn early enough in the morning.”

“And what is it I may then learn?” said Alice—“Alas, who can tell?—O, dearest father, let me stay and share your fate! I will pull off the timorous woman, and fight for the King, if it be necessary.—But—I cannot think of becoming his only attendant in the dark night, and through a road so lonely.”

“How!” said the knight, raising his voice; “do you bring ceremonious and silly scruples forward, when the King’s safety, nay his life is at stake! By this mark of loyalty,” stroking his grey beard as he spoke, “could I think thou wert other than becomes a daughter of the house of Lee, I would”—

At this moment the King and Albert interrupted him by entering the apartment, having exchanged dresses, and, from their stature, bearing some resemblance to each other, though Charles was evidently a plain, and Lee a handsome young man. Their complexions were different; but the difference could not be immediately noticed, Albert having adopted a black peruque, and darkened his eyebrows.

Albert Lee walked out to the front of the mansion, to give one turn around the Lodge, in order to discover in what direction any enemies might be approaching, that they might judge of the road which it was safest for the royal fugitive to adopt. Meanwhile the King, who was first in entering the apartment, had heard a part of the angry answer which the old knight made to his daughter, and was at no loss to guess the subject of his resentment. He walked up to him with the dignity which he perfectly knew how to assume when he chose it.

“Sir Henry,” he said, “it is our pleasure, nay our command, that you forbear all exertion of paternal authority in this matter. Mistress Alice, I am sure, must have good and strong reasons for what she wishes; and I should never pardon myself were she placed in an unpleasant situation on my account. I am too well acquainted with woods and wildernesses to fear losing my way among my native oaks of Woodstock.”

“Your Majesty shall not incur the danger,” said Alice, her temporary hesitation entirely removed by the calm, clear, and candid manner in which Charles uttered these last words. “You shall run no risk that I can prevent; and the unhappy chances of the times in which I have lived have from experience made the forest as well known to me by night as by day. So, if you scorn not my company, let us away instantly.”

“If your company is given with good-will, I accept it with gratitude,” replied the monarch.

“Willingly,” she said, “most willingly. Let me be one of the first to show that zeal and that confidence, which I trust all England will one day emulously display in behalf of your Majesty.”

She uttered these words with an alacrity of spirit, and made the trifling change of habit with a speed and dexterity, which showed that all her fears were gone, and that her heart was entirely in the mission on which her father had dispatched her.

“All is safe around,” said Albert Lee, showing himself; “you may take which passage you will—the most private is the best.”

Charles went gracefully up to Sir Henry Lee ere his departure, and took him by the hand.—“I am too proud to make professions,” he said, “which I may be too poor ever to realize. But while Charles Stewart lives, he lives the obliged and indebted debtor of Sir Henry Lee.”

“Say not so, please your Majesty, say not so,” exclaimed the old man, struggling with the hysterical sobs which rose to his throat. “He who might claim all, cannot become indebted by accepting some small part.”

“Farewell, good friend, farewell!” said the King; “think of me as a son, a brother to Albert and to Alice, who are, I see, already impatient. Give me a father’s blessing, and let me be gone.”

“The God, through whom kings reign, bless your Majesty,” said Sir Henry, kneeling and turning his reverend face and clasped hands up to Heaven—“The Lord of Hosts bless you, and save your Majesty from your present dangers, and bring you in his own good time to the safe possession of the crown that is your due!”

Charles received this blessing like that of a father, and Alice and he departed on their journey.

As they left the apartment, the old knight let his hands sink gently as he concluded this fervent ejaculation, his head sinking at the same time. His son dared not disturb his meditation, yet feared the strength of his feelings might overcome that of his constitution, and that he might fall into a swoon. At length, he ventured to approach and gradually touch him. The old knight started to his feet, and was at once the same alert, active-minded, forecasting director, which he had shown himself a little before.

“You are right, boy,” he said, “we must be up and doing. They lie, the roundheaded traitors, that call him dissolute and worthless! He hath feelings worthy the son of the blessed Martyr. You saw, even in the extremity of danger, he would have perilled his safety rather than take Alice’s guidance when the silly wench seemed in doubt about going. Profligacy is intensely selfish, and thinks not of the feelings of others. But hast thou drawn bolt and bar after them? I vow I scarce saw when they left the hall.”

“I let them out at the little postern,” said the Colonel; “and when I returned, I was afraid I had found you ill.”

“Joy—joy, only joy, Albert—I cannot allow a thought of doubt to cross my breast. God will not desert the descendant of an hundred kings—the rightful heir will not be given up to the ruffians. There was a tear in his eye as he took leave of me—I am sure of it. Wouldst not die for him, boy?”

“If I lay my life down for him to-night,” said Albert, “I would only regret it, because I should not hear of his escape to-morrow.”

“Well, let us to this gear,” said the knight; “think’st thou know’st enough of his manner, clad as thou art in his dress, to induce the women to believe thee to be the page Kerneguy?”

“Umph,” replied Albert, “it is not easy to bear out a personification of the King, when women are in the case. But there is only a very little light below, and I can try.”

“Do so instantly,” said his father; “the knaves will be here presently.” Albert accordingly left the apartment, while the knight continued—“If the women be actually persuaded that Kerneguy be still here, it will add strength to my plot—the beagles will open on a false scent, and the royal stag be safe in cover ere they regain the slot of him. Then to draw them on from hiding-place to hiding-place! Why, the east will be grey before they have sought the half of them!—Yes, I will play at bob-cherry with them, hold the bait to their nose which they are never to gorge upon! I will drag a trail for them which will take them some time to puzzle out.—But at what cost do I do this?” continued the old knight, interrupting his own joyous soliloquy—“Oh, Absalom, Absalom, my son! my son!—But let him go; he can but die as his fathers have died; and in the cause for which they lived. But he comes—Hush!—Albert, hast thou succeeded? hast thou taken royalty upon thee so as to pass current?”

“I have, sir,” replied Albert; “the women will swear that Louis Kerneguy was in the house this very last minute.”

“Right, for they are good and faithful creatures,” said the knight, “and would swear what was for his Majesty’s safety at any rate; yet they will do it with more nature and effect, if they believe they are swearing truth.—How didst thou impress the deceit upon them?”

“By a trifling adoption of the royal manner, sir, not worth mentioning.”

“Out, rogue!” replied the knight. “I fear the King’s character will suffer under your mummery.”

“Umph,” said Albert, muttering what he dared not utter aloud—“were I to follow the example close up, I know whose character would be in the greatest danger.”

“Well, now we must adjust the defence of the outworks, the signals, &c. betwixt us both, and the best way to baffle the enemy for the longest time possible.” He then again had recourse to the secret drawers of his cabinet, and pulled out a piece of parchment, on which was a plan. “This,” said he, “is a scheme of the citadel, as I call it, which may hold out long enough after you have been forced to evacuate the places of retreat you are already acquainted with. The ranger was always sworn to keep this plan secret, save from one person only, in case of sudden death.—Let us sit down and study it together.”

They accordingly adjusted their measures in a manner which will better show itself from what afterwards took place, than were we to state the various schemes which they proposed, and provisions made against events that did not arrive.

At length young Lee, armed and provided with some food and liquor, took leave of his father, and went and shut himself up in Victor Lee’s apartment, from which was an opening to the labyrinth of private apartments, or hiding-places, that had served the associates so well in the fantastic tricks which they had played off at the expense of the Commissioners of the Commonwealth.

“I trust,” said Sir Henry, sitting down by his desk, after having taken a tender farewell of his son, “that Rochecliffe has not blabbed out the secret of the plot to yonder fellow Tomkins, who was not unlikely to prate of it out of school.—But here am I seated—perhaps for the last time, with my Bible on the one hand, and old Will on the other, prepared, thank God, to die as I have lived.—I marvel they come not yet,” he