Woodstock (Unabridged). Walter Scott
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“but let me not leave you to the shelter of this wretched hovel. The night is drawing to storm—let me but conduct you to the Lodge, and expel those intruders, who can, as yet at least, have no warrant for what they do. I will not linger a moment behind them, save just to deliver my father’s message.—Grant me but this much, for the love you once bore me!”
“Yes, Mark,” answered his uncle, firmly, but sorrowfully, “thou speakest truth—I did love thee once. The bright-haired boy whom I taught to ride, to shoot, to hunt—whose hours of happiness were spent with me, wherever those of graver labours were employed—I did love that boy—ay, and I am weak enough to love even the memory of what he was.—But he is gone, Mark—he is gone; and in his room I only behold an avowed and determined rebel to his religion and to his king—a rebel more detestable on account of his success, the more infamous through the plundered wealth with which he hopes to gild his villany.—But I am poor, thou think’st, and should hold my peace, lest men say, ‘Speak, sirrah, when you should.’—Know, however, that, indigent and plundered as I am, I feel myself dishonoured in holding even but this much talk with the tool of usurping rebels.—Go to the Lodge, if thou wilt—yonder lies the way—but think not that, to regain my dwelling there, or all the wealth I ever possessed in my wealthiest days, I would accompany thee three steps on the greensward. If I must be thy companion, it shall be only when thy redcoats have tied my hands behind me, and bound my legs beneath my horse’s belly. Thou mayst be my fellow traveller then, I grant thee, if thou wilt, but not sooner.”
Alice, who suffered cruelly during this dialogue, and was well aware that farther argument would only kindle the knight’s resentment still more highly, ventured at last, in her anxiety, to make a sign to her cousin to break off the interview, and to retire, since her father commanded his absence in a manner so peremptory. Unhappily, she was observed by Sir Henry, who, concluding that what he saw was evidence of a private understanding betwixt the cousins, his wrath acquired new fuel, and it required the utmost exertion of selfcommand, and recollection of all that was due to his own dignity, to enable him to veil his real fury under the same ironical manner which he had adopted at the beginning of this angry interview.
“If thou art afraid,” he said, “to trace our forest glades by night, respected stranger, to whom I am perhaps bound to do honour as my successor in the charge of these walks, here seems to be a modest damsel, who will be most willing to wait on thee, and be thy bow-bearer.—Only, for her mother’s sake, let there pass some slight form of marriage between you—Ye need no license or priest in these happy days, but may be buckled like beggars in a ditch, with a hedge for a church-roof, and a tinker for a priest. I crave pardon of you for making such an officious and simple request—perhaps you are a ranter—or one of the family of Love, or hold marriage rites as unnecessary, as Knipperdoling, or Jack of Leyden?”
“For mercy’s sake, forbear such dreadful jesting, my father! and do you, Markham, begone, in God’s name, and leave us to our fate—your presence makes my father rave.”
“Jesting!” said Sir Henry, “I was never more serious—Raving!—I was never more composed—I could never brook that falsehood should approach me—I would no more bear by my side a dishonoured daughter than a dishonoured sword; and this unhappy day hath shown that both can fail.”
“Sir Henry,” said young Everard, “load not your soul with a heavy crime, which be assured you do, in treating your daughter thus unjustly. It is long now since you denied her to me, when we were poor and you were powerful. I acquiesced in your prohibition of all suit and intercourse. God knoweth what I suffered—but I acquiesced. Neither is it to renew my suit that I now come hither, and have, I do acknowledge, sought speech of her—not for her own sake only, but for yours also. Destruction hovers over you, ready to close her pinions to stoop, and her talons to clutch—Yes, sir, look contemptuous as you will, such is the case; and it is to protect both you and her that I am here.”
“You refuse then my free gift,” said Sir Henry Lee; “or perhaps you think it loaded with too hard conditions?”
“Shame, shame on you, Sir Henry;” said Everard, waxing warm in his turn; “have your political prejudices so utterly warped every feeling of a father, that you can speak with bitter mockery and scorn of what concerns your own daughter’s honour?—Hold up your head, fair Alice, and tell your father he has forgotten nature in his fantastic spirit of loyalty.—Know, Sir Henry, that though I would prefer your daughter’s hand to every blessing which Heaven could bestow on me, I would not accept it—my conscience would not permit me to do so, when I knew it must withdraw her from her duty to you.”
“Your conscience is over-scrupulous, young man;—carry it to some dissenting rabbi, and he who takes all that comes to net, will teach thee it is sinning against our mercies to refuse any good thing that is freely offered to us.”
“When it is freely offered, and kindly offered—not when the offer is made in irony and insult—Fare thee well, Alice—if aught could make me desire to profit by thy father’s wild wish to cast thee from him in a moment of unworthy suspicion, it would be that while indulging in such sentiments, Sir Henry Lee is tyrannically oppressing the creature, who of all others is most dependent on his kindness—who of all others will most feel his severity, and whom, of all others, he is most bound to cherish and support.”
“Do not fear for me, Mr. Everard,” exclaimed Alice, aroused from her timidity by a dread of the consequences not unlikely to ensue, where civil war sets relations, as well as fellowcitizens, in opposition to each other.—”Oh, begone, I conjure you, begone! Nothing stands betwixt me and my father’s kindness, but these unhappy family divisions—but your ill-timed presence here—for Heaven’s sake, leave us!”
“So, mistress!” answered the hot old cavalier, “you play lady paramount already; and who but you!—you would dictate to our train, I warrant, like Goneril and Regan! But I tell thee, no man shall leave my house—and, humble as it is, this is now my house—while he has aught to say to me that is to be spoken, as this young man now speaks, with a bent brow and a lofty tone.—Speak out, sir, and say your worst!”
“Fear not my temper, Mrs. Alice,” said Everard, with equal firmness and placidity of manner; “and you, Sir Henry, do not think that if I speak firmly, I mean therefore to speak in anger, or officiously. You have taxed me with much, and, were I guided by the wild spirit of romantic chivalry, much which, even from so near a relative, I ought not, as being by birth, and in the world’s estimation, a gentleman, to pass over without reply. Is it your pleasure to give me patient hearing?”
“If you stand on your defence,” answered the stout old knight, “God forbid that you should not challenge a patient hearing—ay, though your pleading were two parts disloyalty and one blasphemy—Only, be brief— this has already lasted but too long.”
“I will, Sir Henry,” replied the young man; “yet it is hard to crowd into a few sentences, the defence of a life which, though short, has been a busy one—too busy, your indignant gesture would assert. But I deny it; I have drawn my sword neither hastily, nor without due consideration, for a people whose rights have been trampled on, and whose consciences have been oppressed—Frown not, sir—such is not your view of the contest, but such is mine. For my religious principles, at which you have scoffed, believe me, that though they depend not on set forms, they are no less sincere than your own, and thus far purer—excuse the word—that they are unmingled with the bloodthirsty dictates of a barbarous age, which you and others have called the code of chivalrous honour. Not my own natural disposition, but the better doctrine which my creed has taught, enables me to bear your harsh revilings without answering in a similar tone of wrath and reproach. You may carry insult to extremity against me at your pleasure—not on account of our relationship alone, but because I am bound in charity to endure it. This, Sir Henry, is much from one of our house. But, with forbearance far more than this requires, I can refuse at your hands the gift, which, most of all things under heaven, I should desire to obtain, because duty calls upon her to sustain and comfort you, and because it were sin to permit you, in your blindness, to spurn your comforter from your side.—Farewell, sir—not in anger, but in pity—We may meet in a better time, when your heart and your principles shall master the unhappy