Woodstock (Unabridged). Walter Scott
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of dumb animals, which teaches them to fly from misfortune. The very deer there will butt a sick or wounded buck from the herd; hurt a dog, and the whole kennel will fall on him and worry him; fishes devour their own kind when they are wounded with a spear; cut a crow’s wing, or break its leg, the others will buffet it to death.”
“That may be true of the more irrational kinds of animals among each other,” said Alice, “for their whole life is well nigh a warfare; but the dog leaves his own race to attach himself to ours; forsakes, for his master, the company, food, and pleasure of his own kind; and surely the fidelity of such a devoted and voluntary servant as Bevis hath been in particular, ought not to be lightly suspected.”
“I am not angry with the dog, Alice; I am only sorry,” replied her father. “I have read, in faithful chronicles, that when Richard II. and Henry of Bolingbroke were at Berkeley Castle, a dog of the same kind deserted the King, whom he had always attended upon, and attached himself to Henry, whom he then saw for the first time. Richard foretold, from the desertion of his favourite, his approaching deposition. The dog was afterwards kept at Woodstock, and Bevis is said to be of his breed, which was heedfully kept up. What I might foretell of mischief from his desertion, I cannot guess, but my mind assures me it bodes no good.”
There was a distant rustling among the withered leaves, a bouncing or galloping sound on the path, and the favourite dog instantly joined his master.
“Come into court, old knave,” said Alice, cheerfully, “and defend thy character, which is wellnigh endangered by this absence.” But the dog only paid her courtesy by gamboling around them, and instantly plunged back again, as fast as he could scamper.
“How now, knave?” said the knight; “thou art too well trained, surely, to take up the chase without orders.” A minute more showed them Phoebe Mayflower approaching, her light pace so little impeded by the burden which she bore, that she joined her master and young mistress just as they arrived at the keeper’s hut, which was the boundary of their journey. Bevis, who had shot a-head to pay his compliments to Sir Henry his master, had returned again to his immediate duty, the escorting Phoebe and her cargo of provisions. The whole party stood presently assembled before the door of the keeper’s hut.
In better times, a substantial stone habitation, fit for the yeoman-keeper of a royal walk, had adorned this place. A fair spring gushed out near the spot, and once traversed yards and courts, attached to well-built and convenient kennels and mews. But in some of the skirmishes which were common during the civil wars, this little silvan dwelling had been attacked and defended, stormed and burnt. A neighbouring squire, of the Parliament side of the question, took advantage of Sir Henry Lee’s absence, who was then in Charles’s camp, and of the decay of the royal cause, and had, without scruple, carried off the hewn stones, and such building materials as the fire left unconsumed, and repaired his own manor-house with them. The yeoman-keeper, therefore, our friend Joceline, had constructed, for his own accommodation, and that of the old woman he called his dame, a wattled hut, such as his own labour, with that of a neighbour or two, had erected in the course of a few days. The walls were plastered with clay, whitewashed, and covered with vines and other creeping plants; the roof was neatly thatched, and the whole, though merely a hut, had, by the neat-handed Joliffe, been so arranged as not to disgrace the condition of the dweller.
The knight advanced to the entrance; but the ingenuity of the architect, for want of a better lock to the door, which itself was but of wattles curiously twisted, had contrived a mode of securing the latch on the inside with a pin, which prevented it from rising; and in this manner it was at present fastened. Conceiving that this was some precaution of Joliffe’s old housekeeper, of whose deafness they were all aware, Sir Henry raised his voice to demand admittance, but in vain. Irritated at this delay, he pressed the door at once with foot and hand, in a way which the frail barrier was unable to resist; it gave way accordingly, and the knight thus forcibly entered the kitchen, or outward apartment, of his servant. In the midst of the floor, and with a posture which indicated embarrassment, stood a youthful stranger, in a riding-suit.
“This may be my last act of authority here,” said the knight, seizing the stranger by the collar, “but I am still Ranger of Woodstock for this night at least—Who, or what art thou?”
The stranger dropped the riding-mantle in which his face was muffled, and at the same time fell on one knee.
“Your poor kinsman, Markham Everard,” he said, “who came hither for your sake, although he fears you will scarce make him welcome for his own.”
Sir Henry started back, but recovered himself in an instant, as one who recollected that he had a part of dignity to perform. He stood erect, therefore, and replied, with considerable assumption of stately ceremony:
“Fair kinsman, it pleases me that you are come to Woodstock upon the very first night that, for many years which have passed, is likely to promise you a worthy or a welcome reception.”
“Now God grant it be so, that I rightly hear and duly understand you,” said the young man; while Alice, though she was silent, kept her looks fixed on her father’s face, as if desirous to know whether his meaning was kind towards his nephew, which her knowledge of his character inclined her greatly to doubt.
The knight meanwhile darted a sardonic look, first on his nephew, then on his daughter, and proceeded—”I need not, I presume, inform Mr. Markham Everard, that it cannot be our purpose to entertain him, or even to offer him a seat in this poor hut.”
“I will attend you most willingly to the Lodge,” said the young gentleman. “I had, indeed, judged you were already there for the evening, and feared to intrude upon you. But if you would permit me, my dearest uncle, to escort my kinswoman and you back to the Lodge, believe me, amongst all which you have so often done of good and kind, you never conferred benefit that will be so dearly prized.”
“You mistake me greatly, Mr. Markham Everard,” replied the knight. “It is not our purpose to return to the Lodge tonight, nor, by Our Lady, tomorrow neither. I meant but to intimate to you in all courtesy, that at Woodstock Lodge you will find those for whom you are fitting society, and who, doubtless, will afford you a willing welcome; which I, sir, in this my present retreat, do not presume to offer to a person of your consequence.”
“For Heaven’s sake,” said the young man, turning to Alice, “tell me how I am to understand language so misterious.”
Alice, to prevent his increasing the restrained anger of her father, compelled herself to answer, though it was with difficulty, “We are expelled from the Lodge by soldiers.”
“Expelled—by soldiers!” exclaimed Everard, in surprise—”there is no legal warrant for this.”
“None at all,” answered the knight, in the same tone of cutting irony which he had all along used, “and yet as lawful a warrant, as for aught that has been wrought in England this twelvemonth and more. You are, I think, or were, an Inns-of-Court-man—marry, sir, your enjoyment of your profession is like that lease which a prodigal wishes to have of a wealthy widow. You have already survived the law which you studied, and its expiry doubtless has not been without a legacy—some decent pickings, some merciful increases, as the phrase goes. You have deserved it two ways—you wore buff and bandalier, as well as wielded pen and ink—I have not heard if you held forth too.”
“Think of me and speak of me as harshly as you will, sir,” said Everard, submissively. “I have but in this evil time, guided myself by my conscience, and my father’s commands.”
“O, and you talk of conscience,” said the old knight, “I must have mine eye upon you, as Hamlet says. Never yet did Puritan cheat so grossly as when he was appealing to his conscience; and as for thy father”—
He was about to proceed in a tone of the same invective, when the young man interrupted him, by saying, in a firm tone, “Sir Henry Lee, you have ever been thought noble—Say of me what you will, but speak not of my father what the ear of a son should not endure, and which yet his arm cannot resent. To do me such wrong is to insult an unarmed man, or to beat a captive.”
Sir Henry paused, as if struck