Woodstock (Unabridged). Walter Scott
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is a damned spot, and on the fairest gem of all—my own dear Alice. But do not weep—we have enough to vex us. Where is it that Shakspeare hath it:—
‘Gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put you not on the temper of the times,
Nor be, like them, to Percy troublesome.’“
“I am glad,” answered the young lady, “to hear you quote your favourite again, sir. Our little jars are ever wellnigh ended when Shakspeare comes in play.”
“His book was the closet-companion of my blessed master,” said Sir Henry Lee; “after the Bible, (with reverence for naming them together,) he felt more comfort in it than in any other; and as I have shared his disease, why, it is natural I should take his medicine. Albeit, I pretend not to my master’s art in explaining the dark passages; for I am but a rude man, and rustically brought up to arms and hunting.”
“You have seen Shakspeare yourself, sir?” said the young lady.
“Silly wench,” replied the knight, “he died when I was a mere child—thou hast heard me say so twenty times; but thou wouldst lead the old man away from the tender subject. Well, though I am not blind, I can shut my eyes and follow. Ben Jonson I knew, and could tell thee many a tale of our meetings at the Mermaid, where, if there was much wine, there was much wit also. We did not sit blowing tobacco in each other’s faces, and turning up the whites of our eyes as we turned up the bottom of the winepot. Old Ben adopted me as one of his sons in the muses. I have shown you, have I not, the verses, ‘To my much beloved son, the worshipful Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, Knight and Baronet?’“
“I do not remember them at present, sir,” replied Alice.
“I fear ye lie, wench,” said her father; “but no matter—thou canst not get any more fooling out of me just now. The Evil Spirit hath left Saul for the present. We are now to think what is to be done about leaving Woodstock—or defending it?”
“My dearest father,” said Alice, “can you still nourish a moment’s hope of making good the place?”
“I know not, wench,” replied Sir Henry; “I would fain have a parting blow with them, ‘tis certain—and who knows where a blessing may alight? But then, my poor knaves that must take part with me in so hopeless a quarrel—that thought hampers me I confess.”
“Oh, let it do so, sir,” replied Alice; “there are soldiers in the town, and there are three regiments at Oxford!”
“Ah, poor Oxford!” exclaimed Sir Henry, whose vacillating state of mind was turned by a word to any new subject that was suggested,—”Seat of learning and loyalty! these rude soldiers are unfit inmates for thy learned halls and poetical bowers; but thy pure and brilliant lamp shall defy the foul breath of a thousand churls, were they to blow at it like Boreas. The burning bush shall not be consumed, even by the heat of this persecution.”
“True, sir,” said Alice, “and it may not be useless to recollect, that any stirring of the royalists at this unpropitious moment will make them deal yet more harshly with the University, which they consider as being at the bottom of every thing which moves for the King in these parts.”
“It is true, wench,” replied the knight; “and small cause would make the villains sequestrate the poor remains which the civil wars have left to the colleges. That, and the risk of my poor fellows—Well! thou hast disarmed me, girl. I will be as patient and calm as a martyr.”
“Pray God you keep your word, sir!” replied his daughter; “but you are ever so much moved at the sight of any of these men, that”—
“Would you make a child of me, Alice?” said Sir Henry. “Why, know you not that I can look upon a viper, or a toad, or a bunch of engendering adders, without any worse feeling than a little disgust? and though a roundhead, and especially a redcoat, are in my opinion more poisonous than vipers, more loathsome than toads, more hateful than knotted adders, yet can I overcome my nature so far, that should one of them appear at this moment, thyself should see how civilly I would entreat him.”
As he spoke, the military preacher abandoned his leafy screen, and stalking forward, stood unexpectedly before the old cavalier, who stared at him, as if he had thought his expressions had actually raised a devil.
“Who art thou?” at length said Sir Henry, in a raised and angry voice, while his daughter clung to his arm in terror, little confident that her father’s pacific resolutions would abide the shock of this unwelcome apparition.
“I am, one,” replied the soldier, “who neither fear nor shame to call myself a poor day-labourer in the great work of England—umph!—Ay, a simple and sincere upholder of the good old cause.”
“And what the devil do you seek here?” said the old knight, fiercely.
“The welcome due to the steward of the Lords Commissioners,” answered the soldier.
“Welcome art thou as salt would be to sore eyes,” said the cavalier; “but who be your Commissioners, man?”
The soldier with little courtesy held out a scroll, which Sir Henry took from him betwixt his finger and thumb, as if it were a letter from a pest-house; and held it at as much distance from his eyes, as his purpose of reading it would permit. He then read aloud, and as he named the parties one by one, he added a short commentary on each name, addressed, indeed, to Alice, but in such a tone that showed he cared not for its being heard by the soldier.
“Desborough—the ploughman Desborough—as grovelling a clown as is in England—a fellow that would be best at home like an ancient Scythian, under the tilt of a waggon—d—n him. Harrison—a bloody-minded, ranting enthusiast, who read the Bible to such purpose, that he never lacked a text to justify a murder—d—n him too. Bletson—a true-blue Commonwealth’s man, one of Harrison’s Rota Club, with his noddle full of new fangled notions about government, the clearest object of which is to establish the tail upon the head; a fellow who leaves you the statutes and law of old England, to prate of Rome and Greece—sees the Areopagus in Westminster-Hall, and takes old Noll for a Roman consul—Adad, he is like to prove a dictator amongst them instead. Never mind—d—n Bletson too.”
“Friend,” said the soldier, “I would willingly be civil, but it consists not with my duty to hear these godly men, in whose service I am, spoken of after this irreverent and unbecoming fashion. And albeit I know that you malignants think you have a right to make free with that damnation, which you seem to use as your own portion, yet it is superfluous to invoke it against others, who have better hopes in their thoughts, and better words in their mouths.”
“Thou art but a canting varlet,” replied the knight; “and yet thou art right in some sense—for it is superfluous to curse men who already are damned as black as the smoke of hell itself.”
“I prithee forbear,” continued the soldier, “for manners’ sake, if not for conscience—grisly oaths suit ill with grey beards.”
“Nay, that is truth, if the devil spoke it,” said the knight; “and I thank Heaven I can follow good counsel, though old Nick gives it. And so, friend, touching these same Commissioners, bear them this message; that Sir Henry Lee is keeper of Woodstock Park, with right of waif and stray, vert and venison, as complete as any of them have to their estate—that is, if they possess any estate but what they have gained by plundering honest men. Nevertheless, he will give place to those who have made their might their right, and will not expose the lives of good and true men, where the odds are so much against them. And he protests that he makes this surrender, neither as acknowledging of these so termed Commissioners, nor as for his own individual part fearing their force, but purely to avoid the loss of English blood, of which so much hath been spilt in these late times.”
“It is well spoken,” said the steward of the Commissioners; “and therefore, I pray you, let us walk together into the house, that thou may’st deliver up unto me the vessels, and gold and silver ornaments, belonging unto the Egyptian Pharaoh, who