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Woodstock; or, the Cavalier

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #9785 · 1,160,689 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Woodstock; or, the Cavalier

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9785]
                Most recently updated: June 26, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODSTOCK; OR, THE CAVALIER ***




Woodstock

or,
The Cavalier

by Sir Walter Scott

1855.


Contents

 INTRODUCTION—1832
 APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION
 No. I. THE WOODSTOCK SCUFFLE
 No. II. THE JUST DEVIL OF WOODSTOCK
 THE PREFACE TO THE ENSUING NARRATIVE
 PREFACE 

 CHAPTER THE FIRST.
 CHAPTER THE SECOND.
 CHAPTER THE THIRD.
 CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
 CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
 CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
 CHAPTER THE NINTH.
 CHAPTER THE TENTH.
 CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY SECOND.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.
 CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.




WOODSTOCK;
OR
THE CAVALIER

A TALE OF THE YEAR SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE

He was a very perfect gentle Knight.

CHAUCER




INTRODUCTION—(1832.)


The busy period of the great Civil War was one in which the character
and genius of different parties were most brilliantly displayed, and,
accordingly, the incidents which took place on either side were of a
striking and extraordinary character, and afforded ample foundation for
fictitious composition. The author had in some measure attempted such
in Peveril of the Peak; but the scene was in a remote part of the
kingdom, and mingled with other national differences, which left him
still at liberty to glean another harvest out of so ample a store.

In these circumstances, some wonderful adventures which happened at
Woodstock in the year 1649, occurred to him as something he had long
ago read of, although he was unable to tell where, and of which the
hint appeared sufficient, although, doubtless, it might have been much
better handled if the author had not, in the lapse of time, lost every
thing like an accurate recollection of the real story.

It was not until about this period, namely, 1831, that the author,
being called upon to write this Introduction, obtained a general
account of what really happened upon the marvellous occasion in
question, in a work termed “The Every-day Book,” published by Mr. Hone,
and full of curious antiquarian research, the object being to give a
variety of original information concerning manners, illustrated by
curious instances, rarely to be found elsewhere. Among other matter,
Mr. Hone quotes an article from the British Magazine for 1747, in the
following words, and which is probably the document which the author of
Woodstock had formerly perused, although he was unable to refer to the
source of his information. The tract is entitled, “The Genuine History
of the good Devil of Woodstock, famous in the world, in the year 1649,
and never accounted for, or at all understood to this time.”

The teller of this “genuine history” proceeds verbatim as follows:

“Some original papers having lately fallen into my hands, under the
name of ‘Authentic Memoirs of the Memorable Joseph Collins of Oxford,
commonly known by the name of Funny Joe, and now intended for the
press,’ I was extremely delighted to find in them a circumstantial and
unquestionable account of the most famous of all invisible agents, so
well known in the year 1649, under the name of the Good Devil of
Woodstock, and even adored by the people of that place, for the
vexation and distress it occasioned some people they were not much
pleased with. As this famous story, though related by a thousand
people, and attested in all its circumstances, beyond all possibility
of doubt, by people of rank, learning, and reputation, of Oxford and
the adjacent towns, has never yet been generally accounted for, or at
all understood, and is perfectly explained, in a manner that can admit
of no doubt, in these papers, I could not refuse my readers the
pleasure it gave me in reading.”

There is, therefore, no doubt that, in the year 1649, a number of
incidents, supposed to be supernatural, took place at the King’s palace
of Woodstock, which the Commissioners of Parliament were then and there
endeavouring to dilapidate and destroy. The account of this by the
Commissioners themselves, or under their authority, was repeatedly
published, and, in particular, is inserted as relation sixth of Satan’s
Invisible World Discovered, by George Sinclair, Professor of Philosophy
in Glasgow, an approved collector of such tales.

It was the object of neither of the great political parties of that day
to discredit this narrative, which gave great satisfaction both to the
cavaliers and roundheads; the former conceiving that the license given
to the demons, was in consequence of the impious desecration of the
King’s furniture and apartments, so that the citizens of Woodstock
almost adored the supposed spirits, as avengers of the cause of
royalty; while the friends of the Parliament, on the other hand,
imputed to the malice of the fiend the obstruction of the pious work,
as they judged that which they had in hand.

At the risk of prolonging a curious quotation, I include a page or two
from Mr. Hone’s Every-day Book.

“The honourable the Commissioners arrived at Woodstock manor-house,
October 13th, and took up their residence in the King’s own rooms. His
Majesty’s bedchamber they made their kitchen, the council-hall their
pantry, and the presence-chamber was the place where they sat for
despatch of business. His Majesty’s dining-room they made their
wood-yard, and stowed it with no other wood but that of the famous
Royal Oak from the High Park, which, that nothing might be left with
the name of the King about it, they had dug up by the roots, and
bundled up into fagots for their firing.

“October 16. This day they first sat for the despatch of business. In
the midst of their first debate there entered a large black dog (as
they thought), which made a terrible howling, overturned two or three
of their chairs, and doing some other damage, went under the bed, and
there gnawed the cords. The door this while continued constantly shut,
when, after some two or three hours, Giles Sharp, their secretary,
looking under the bed, perceived that the creature was vanished, and
that a plate of meat that the servants had hid there was untouched, and
showing them to their honours, they were all convinced there could be
no real dog concerned in the case; the said Giles also deposed on oath,
that, to his certain knowledge, there was not.

“October 17. As they were this day sitting at dinner in a lower room,
they heard plainly the noise of persons walking over head, though they
well knew the doors were all locked, and there could be none there.
Presently after they heard also all the wood of the King’s Oak brought
by parcels from the dining-room, and thrown with great violence into
the presence-chamber, as also the chairs, stools, tables, and other
furniture, forcibly hurled about the room, their own papers of the
minutes of their transactions torn, and the ink-glass broken. When all
this had some time ceased, the said Giles proposed to enter first into
these rooms, and, in presence of the Commissioners, of whom he received
the key, he opened the door and entered the room, their honours
following him. He there found the wood strewed about the room, the
chairs tossed about and broken, the papers torn, and the ink-glass
broken over them all as they had heard, yet no footsteps appeared of
any person whatever being there, nor had the doors ever been opened to
admit or let out any person since their honours were last there. It was
therefore voted, _nem. con_., that the person who did this mischief
could have entered no other way than at the key-hole of the said doors.

“In the night following this same day, the said Giles, and two other of
the Commissioners’ servants, as they were in bed in the same room with
their honours, had their bed’s feet lifted up so much higher than their
heads, that they expected to have their necks broken, and then they
were let fall at once with such violence as shook them up from the bed
to a good distance; and this was repeated many times, their honours
being amazed spectators of it. In the morning the bedsteads were found
cracked and broken, and the said Giles and his fellows, declared they
were sore to the bones with the tossing and jolting of the beds.

“October 19. As they were all in bed together, the candles were all
blown out together with a sulphurous smell, and instantly many
trenchers of wood were hurled about the room; and one of them putting
his head above the clothes, had not less than six thrown at him, which
wounded him very grievously. In the morning the trenchers were all
found lying about the room, and were observed to be the same they had
eaten on the day before, none being found remaining in the pantry.

“October 20. This night the candles were put out as before; the
curtains of the bed in which their honours lay, were drawn to and fro
many times with great violence: their honours received many cruel
blows, and were much bruised beside, with eight great pewter dishes,
and three dozen wooden trenchers, which were thrown on the bed, and
afterwards heard rolling about the room.

“Many times also this night they heard the forcible falling of many
fagots by their bedside, but in the morning no fagots were found there,
no dishes or trenchers were there seen either; and the aforesaid Giles
attests, that by their different arranging in the pantry, they had
assuredly been taken thence, and after put there again.

“October 21. The keeper of their ordinary and his bitch lay with them:
This night they had no disturbance.

“October 22. Candles put out as before. They had the said bitch with
them again, but were not by that protected; the bitch set up a very
piteous cry; the clothes of their beds were all pulled off, and the
bricks, without any wind, were thrown off the chimney tops into the
midst.

“October 24. The candles put out as before. They thought all the wood
of the King’s Oak was violently thrown down by their bedsides; they
counted sixty-four fagots that fell with great violence, and some hit
and shook the bed,—but in the morning none were found there, nor the
door of the room opened in which the said fagots were.

“October 25. The candles put out as before. The curtains of the bed in
the drawing-room were many times forcibly drawn; the wood thrown out as
before; a terrible crack like thunder was heard; and one of the
servants, running to see if his master was not killed, found at his
return, three dozen trenchers laid smoothly upon his bed under the
quilt.

“October 26. The beds were shaken as before; the windows seemed all
broken to pieces, and glass fell in vast quantities all about the room.
In the morning they found the windows all whole, but the floor strewed
with broken glass, which they gathered and laid by.

“October 29. At midnight candles went out as before, something walked
majestically through the room and opened and shut the window; great
stones were thrown violently into the room, some whereof fell on the
beds, others on the floor; and about a quarter after one, a noise was
heard as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at
about eight minutes’ distance. This alarmed and raised all the
neighbourhood, who, coming into their honours’ room, gathered up the
great stones, fourscore in number, many of them like common pebbles and
boulters, and laid them by, where they are to be seen to this day, at a
corner of the adjoining field. This noise, like the discharge of
cannon, was heard throughout the country for sixteen miles round.
During these noises, which were heard in both rooms together, both the
Commissioners and their servants gave one another over for lost, and
cried out for help; and Giles Sharp, snatching up a sword, had
well-nigh killed one of their honours, taking him for the spirit as he
came in his shirt into the room. While they were together, the noise
was continued, and part of the tiling of the house, and all the windows
of an upper room, were taken away with it.

“October 30. Something walked into the chamber, treading like a bear;
it walked many times about, then threw the warming-pan violently upon
the floor, and so bruised it, that it was spoiled. Vast quantities of
glass were now thrown about the room, and vast numbers of great stones
and horses’ bones were thrown in; these were all found in the morning,
and the floors, beds, and walls were all much damaged by the violence
they were thrown in.

“November 1. Candles were placed in all parts of the room, and a great
fire made. At midnight, the candles all yet burning, a noise like the
burst of a cannon was heard in the room, and the burning billets were
tossed all over the room and about the beds; and had not their honours
called in Giles and his fellows, the house had assuredly been burnt. An
hour after the candles went out, as usual, the clack of many cannon was
heard, and many pailfuls of green stinking water were thrown on their
honours in bed; great stones were also thrown in as before, the
bed-curtains and bedsteads torn and broken: the windows were now all
really broken, and the whole neighbourhood alarmed with the noises;
nay, the very rabbit-stealers that were abroad that night in the
warren, were so frightened at the dismal thundering, that they fled for
fear and left their ferrets behind them.

“One of their honours this night spoke, and in the name of God asked
what it was, and why it disturbed them so? No answer was given to this;
but the noise ceased for a while, when the spirit came again, and as
they all agreed, brought with it seven devils worse than itself. One of
the servants now lighted a large candle, and set it in the doorway
between the two chambers, to see what passed; and as he[1] watched it,
he plainly saw a hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the
middle of the room, and afterwards, making three scrapes over the snuff
of the candle, to scrape it out. Upon this, the same person was so bold
as to draw a sword; but he had scarce got it out, when he perceived
another invisible hand had hold of it too, and pulled with him for it,
and at last prevailing, struck him so violently on the head with the
pommel, that he fell down for dead with the blow. At this instant was
heard another burst like the discharge of the broadside of a ship of
war, and at about a minute or two’s distance each, no less than
nineteen more such: these shook the house so violently that they
expected every moment it would fall upon their heads. The neighbours on
this were all alarmed, and, running to the house, they all joined in
prayer and psalm-singing, during which the noise continued in the other
rooms, and the discharge of cannon without, though nobody was there.”

 [1] Probably this part was also played by Sharp, who was the regular
 ghost-seer of the party.


Dr. Plot concludes his relation of this memorable event[2] with
observing, that, though tricks have often been played in affairs of
this kind, many of these things are not reconcilable with juggling;
such as, 1st, The loud noises beyond the power of man to make, without
instruments which were not there; 2d, The tearing and breaking of the
beds; 3d, The throwing about the fire; 4th, The hoof treading out the
candle; and, 5th, The striving for the sword, and the blow the man
received from the pommel of it.

 [2] In his Natural History of Oxfordshire.


To shew how great men are sometimes deceived, we may recur to a tract,
entitled “_The Secret History of the Good Devil of Woodstock_,” in
which we find it, under the author’s own hand, that he, Joseph Collins,
commonly called Funny Joe, was himself this very devil;—that, under the
feigned name of Giles Sharp, he hired himself as a servant to the
Commissioners;—that by the help of two friends—an unknown trapdoor in
the ceiling of the bedchamber, and a pound of common gunpowder—he
played all these extraordinary tricks by himself;—that his
fellow-servants, whom he had introduced on purpose to assist him, had
lifted up their own beds; and that the candles were contrived, by a
common trick of gunpowder, to be extinguished at a certain time.

The dog who began the farce was, as Joe swore, no dog at all, but truly
a bitch, who had shortly before whelped in that room, and made all this
disturbance in seeking for her puppies; and which, when she had served
his purpose, he (Joe Sharp, or Collins) let out, and then looked for.
The story of the hoof and sword he himself bore witness to, and was
never suspected as to the truth of them, though mere fictions. By the
trapdoor his friends let down stones, fagots, glass, water, etc., which
they either left there, or drew up again, as best suited his purpose;
and by this way let themselves in and out, without opening the doors,
or going through the keyholes, and all the noises, described, he
declares he made by placing quantities of white gunpowder over pieces
of burning charcoal, on plates of tin, which, as they melted, exploded
with a violent noise.

I am very happy in having an opportunity of setting history right about
these remarkable events, and would not have the reader disbelieve my
author’s account of them, from his naming either white gunpowder
exploding when melted, or his making the earth about the pot take fire
of its own accord; since, however improbable these accounts may appear
to some readers, and whatever secrets they might be in Joe’s time, they
are now well known in chemistry. As to the last, there needs only to
mix an equal quantity of iron filings, finely powdered, and powder of
pure brimstone, and make them into a paste with fair water. This paste,
when it hath lain together about twenty-six hours, will of itself take
fire, and burn all the sulphur away with a blue flame and a bad smell.
For the others, what he calls white gunpowder, is plainly the
thundering powder called by our chemists _pulvis fulminans_. It is
composed of three parts of saltpetre, two parts of pearl ashes or salt
of tartar, and one part of flower of brimstone, mixed together and beat
to a fine powder; a small quantity of this held on the point of a knife
over a candle, will not go off till it melt, and then it gives a report
like that of a pistol; and this he might easily dispose of in larger
quantities, so as to make it explode of itself, while he, the said Joe,
was with his masters.

Such is the explanation of the ghostly adventures of Woodstock, as
transferred by Mr. Hone from the pages of the old tract, termed the
Authentic Memoirs of the memorable Joseph Collins of Oxford, whose
courage and loyalty were the only wizards which conjured up those
strange and surprising apparitions and works of spirits, which passed
as so unquestionable in the eyes of the Parliamentary Commissioners, of
Dr. Plot, and other authors of credit. The _pulvis fulminans_, the
secret principle he made use of, is now known to every apothecary’s
apprentice.

If my memory be not treacherous, the actor of these wonders made use of
his skill in fireworks upon the following remarkable occasion. The
Commissioners had not, in their zeal for the public service, overlooked
their own private interests, and a deed was drawn up upon parchment,
recording the share and nature of the advantages which they privately
agreed to concede to each other; at the same time they were, it seems,
loath to intrust to any one of their number the keeping of a document
in which all were equally concerned.

They hid the written agreement within a flower-pot, in which a shrub
concealed it from the eyes of any chance spectator. But the rumour of
the apparitions having gone abroad, curiosity drew many of the
neighbours to Woodstock, and some in particular, to whom the knowledge
of this agreement would have afforded matter of scandel; as the
Commissioners received these guests in the saloon where the flower-pot
was placed, a match was suddenly set to some fireworks placed there by
Sharp the secretary. The flower-pot burst to pieces with the
concussion, or was prepared so as to explode of itself, and the
contract of the Commissioners, bearing testimony to their private
roguery, was thrown into the midst of the visiters assembled. If I have
recollected this incident accurately, for it is more than forty years
since I perused the tract, it is probable, that in omitting it from the
novel, I may also have passed over, from want of memory, other matters
which might have made an essential addition to the story. Nothing,
indeed, is more certain, than that incidents which are real, preserve
an infinite advantage in works of this nature over such as are
fictitious. The tree, however, must remain where it has fallen.

Having occasion to be in London in October 1831, I made some researches
in the British Museum, and in that rich collection, with the kind
assistance of the Keepers, who manage it with so much credit to
themselves and advantage to the public, I recovered two original
pamphlets, which contain a full account of the phenomena at Woodstock
in 1649.[3] The first is a satirical poem, published in that year,
which plainly shews that the legend was current among the people in the
very shape in which it was afterwards made public. I have not found the
explanation of Joe Collins, which, as mentioned by Mr. Hone, resolves
the whole into confederacy. It might, however, be recovered by a
stricter search than I had leisure for. In the meantime, it may be
observed, that neither the name of Joe Collins, nor Sharp, occurs among
the _dramatis personæ_ given in these tracts, published when he might
have been endangered by any thing which directed suspicion towards him,
at least in 1649, and perhaps might have exposed him to danger even in
1660, from the malice of a powerful though defeated faction.

 [3] See Appendix.


1_st August_, 1832.

[Illustration]




APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

APPENDIX No. I.
THE WOODSTOCK SCUFFLE;

or, Most dreadfull apparitions that were lately seene in the
Mannor-house of Woodstock, neere Oxford, to the great terror and the
wonderful amazement of all there that did behold them.


It were a wonder if one unites,
And not of wonders and strange sights;
For ev’ry where such things affrights
          Poore people,


That men are ev’n at their wits’ end;
God judgments ev’ry where doth send,
And yet we don’t our lives amend,
          But tipple,


And sweare, and lie, and cheat, and—,
Because the world shall drown no more,
As if no judgments were in store
          But water;


But by the stories which I tell,
You’ll heare of terrors come from hell,
And fires, and shapes most terrible
          For matter.


It is not long since that a child
Spake from the ground in a large field,
And made the people almost wild
          That heard it,


Of which there is a printed book,
Wherein each man the truth may look,
If children speak, the matter’s took
          For verdict.


But this is stranger than that voice,
The wonder’s greater, and the noyse;
And things appeare to men, not boyes,
          At _Woodstock_;


Where _Rosamond_ had once a bower,
To keep her from Queen _Elinour_,
And had escap’d her poys’nous power
          By good-luck,


But fate had otherwise decreed,
And _Woodstock_ Manner saw a deed,
Which is in _Hollinshed_ or _Speed_
          Chro-nicled;


But neither _Hollinshed_ nor _Stow_,
Nor no historians such things show,
Though in them wonders we well know
          Are pickled;


For nothing else is history
But pickle of antiquity,
Where things are kept in memory
          From stinking;


Which otherwise would have lain dead,
As in oblivion buried,
Which now you may call into head
          With thinking.


The dreadfull story, which is true,
And now committed unto view,
By better pen, had it its due,
          Should see light.


But I, contented, do indite,
Not things of wit, but things of right;
You can’t expect that things that fright
          Should delight.


O hearken, therefore, hark and shake!
My very pen and hand doth quake!
While I the true relation make
          O’ th’ wonder,


Which hath long time, and still appeares
Unto the State’s Commissioners,
And puts them in their beds to feares
          From under.


They come, good men, imploi’d by th’ State
To sell the lands of Charles the late.
And there they lay, and long did waite
          For chapmen.


You may have easy pen’worths, woods,
Lands, ven’son, householdstuf, and goods,
They little thought of dogs that wou’d
          There snap-men.


But when they’d sup’d, and fully fed,
They set up remnants and to bed.
Where scarce they had laid down a head
          To slumber,


But that their beds were heav’d on high;
They thought some dog under did lie,
And meant i’ th’ chamber (fie, fie, fie)
          To scumber.


Some thought the cunning cur did mean
To eat their mutton (which was lean)
Reserv’d for breakfast, for the men
          Were thrifty.


And up one rises in his shirt,
Intending the slie cur to hurt,
And forty thrusts made at him for’t,
          Or fifty.


But empty came his sword again.
He found he thrust but all in vain;
An the mutton safe, hee went amain
          To’s fellow.


And now (assured all was well)
The bed again began to swell,
The men were frighted, and did smell
          O’ th’ yellow.


From heaving, now the cloaths it pluckt
The men, for feare, together stuck,
And in their sweat each other duck’t.
          They wished


A thousand times that it were day;
’Tis sure the divell! Let us pray.
They pray’d amain; and, as they say,
—— ——


Approach of day did cleere the doubt,
For all devotions were run out,
They now waxt strong and something stout,
          One peaked


Under the bed, but nought was there;
He view’d the chamber ev’ry where,
Nothing apear’d but what, for feare.
vThey leaked.


Their stomachs then return’d apace,
They found the mutton in the place,
And fell unto it with a grace.
          They laughed


Each at the other’s pannick feare,
And each his bed-fellow did jeere,
And having sent for ale and beere,
          They quaffed.


And then abroad the summons went,
Who’ll buy king’s-land o’ th’ Parliament?
A paper-book contein’d the rent,
          Which lay there;


That did contein the severall farmes,
Quit-rents, knight services, and armes;
But that they came not in by swarmes
          To pay there.


Night doth invite to bed again,
The grand Commissioners were lain,
But then the thing did heave amain,
          It busled,


And with great clamor fil’d their eares,
The noyse was doubled, and their feares;
Nothing was standing but their haires,
          They nuzled.


Oft were the blankets pul’d, the sheete
Was closely twin’d betwixt their feete,
It seems the spirit was discreete
          And civill.


Which makes the poore Commissioners
Feare they shall get but small arreares,
And that there’s yet for cavaliers
          One divell.


They cast about what best to doe;
Next day they would to wisemen goe,
To neighb’ring towns some cours to know;
          For schollars


Come not to Woodstock, as before,
And Allen’s dead as a nayle-doore,
And so’s old John (eclep’d the poore)
          His follower;


Rake Oxford o’re, there’s not a man
That rayse or lay a spirit can,
Or use the circle, or the wand,
          Or conjure;


Or can say (Boh!) unto a divell,
Or to a goose that is uncivill,
Nor where Keimbolton purg’d out evill,
          ’Tis sin sure.


There were two villages hard by,
With teachers of presbytery,
Who knew the house was hidiously
          Be-pestred;


But ’lasse! their new divinity
Is not so deep, or not so high;
Their witts doe (as their meanes did) lie
          Sequestred;


But Master Joffman was the wight
Which was to exorcise the spright;
Hee’ll preach and pray you day and night
          At pleasure.


And by that painfull gainfull trade,
He hath himselfe full wealthy made;
Great store of guilt he hath, ’tis said,
          And treasure.


But no intreaty of his friends
Could get him to the house of fiends,
He came not over for such ends
          From Dutch-land,


But worse divinity hee brought,
And hath us reformation taught,
And, with our money, he hath bought
          Him much land.


Had the old parsons preached still,
The div’l should nev’r have had his wil;
But those that had or art or skill
          Are outed;


And those to whom the pow’r was giv’n
Of driving spirits, are out-driv’n;
Their colledges dispos’d, and livings,
          To grout-heads.


There was a justice who did boast,
Hee had as great a gift almost,
Who did desire him to accost
          This evill.


But hee would not employ his gifts.
But found out many sleights and shifts;
Hee had no prayers, nor no snifts,
          For th’ divell.


Some other way they cast about,
These brought him in, they throw not out;
A woman, great with child, will do’t;
          They got one.


And she i’ th’ room that night must lie;
But when the thing about did flie,
And broke the windows furiously
          And hot one


Of the contractors o’re the head,
Who lay securely in his bed,
The woman, shee-affrighted, fled
—— ——


And now they lay the cause on her.
That e’re that night the thing did stir,
Because her selfe and grandfather
          Were Papists;


They must be barnes-regenerate,
(A _Hans en Kelder_ of the state,
Which was in reformation gatt,)
          They said, which


Doth make the divell stand in awe,
Pull in his hornes, his hoof, his claw;
But having none, they did in draw
—— —— ——


But in the night there was such worke,
The spirit swaggered like a Turke;
The bitch had spi’d where it did lurke,
          And howled


In such a wofull manner that
Their very hearts went pit a pat;


The stately rooms, where kings once lay
But the contractors show’d the way.
But mark what now I tell you, pray,
          ’Tis worth it.


That book I told you of before,
Wherein were tenants written store,
A register for many more
          Not forth yet,


That very book, as it did lie,
Took of a flame, no mortall eye
Seeing one jot of fire thereby,
          Or taper;


For all the candles about flew,
And those that burned, burned blew,
Never kept soldiers such a doe
          Or vaper.


The book thus burnt and none knew how
The poore contractors made a vow
To work no more; this spoil’d their plow
          In that place.


Some other part o’ th’ house they’ll find,
To which the divell hath no mind,
But hee, it seems, is not inclin’d
          With that grace;


But other pranks it plaid elsewhere.
An oake there was stood many a yeere,
Of goodly growth as any where,
          Was hewn down,


Which into fewell-wood was cut,
And some into a wood-pile put,
But it was hurled all about
          And thrown down.


In sundry formes it doth appeare;
Now like a grasping claw to teare;
Now like a dog; anon a beare
          It tumbles;


And all the windows battered are,
No man the quarter enter dare;
All men (except the glasier)
          Doe grumble.


Once in the likenesse of woman,
Of stature much above the common,
’Twas seene, but spak a word to no man,
          And vanish’d.


’Tis thought the ghost of some good wife
Whose husband was depriv’d of life,
Her children cheated, land in strife
          She banist.


No man can tell the cause of these
So wondrous dreadful outrages;
Yet if upon your sinne you please
          To discant,


You’le find our actions out-doe hell’s;
O wring your hands and cease the bells,
Repentance must, or nothing else
          Appease can’t.




No. II.
THE JUST DEVIL OF WOODSTOCK;

OR,
A TRUE NARRATIVE OF THE SEVERAL APPARITIONS, THE FRIGHTS AND
PUNISHMENTS, INFLICTED UPON THE RUMPISH COMMISSIONERS SENT THITHER TO
SURVEY THE MANNORS AND HOUSES BELONGING TO HIS MAJESTIE.

[London, printed in the year 1660. 4to.]


The names of the persons in the ensuing Narrative mentioned, with
others:—

CAPTAIN COCKAINE.
CAPTAIN HART.
CAPTAIN CROOK.
CAPTAIN CARELESSE.
CAPTAIN ROE.
Mr. CROOK, the Lawyer.
Mr. BROWNE, the Surveyor.
Their three Servants.
Their Ordinary-keeper, and others.
The Gatekeeper, with the Wife and Servants.


Besides many more, who each night heard the noise; as Sir Gerrard
Fleetwood and his lady, with his family, Mr. Hyans, with his family,
and several others, who lodged in the outer courts; and during the
three last nights, the inhabitants of Woodstock town, and other
neighbor villages.

And there were many more, both divines and others, who came out of the
country, and from Oxford, to see the glass and stones, and other
stuffe, the devil had brought, wherewith to beat out the Commissioners;
the marks upon some walls remain, and many, this to testifie.




THE PREFACE TO THE ENSUING NARRATIVE.


Since it hath pleased the Almighty God, out of his infinite mercy, so
to make us happy, by restoring of our native King to us, and us unto
our native liberty through him, that now the good may say, _magna
temporum felicitas ubi sentire quæ velis, et dicere licet quæ sentias_,
we cannot but esteem ourselves engaged in the highest of degrees, to
render unto him the highest thanks we can express. Although, surpris’d
with joy, we become as lost in the performance; when gladness and
admiration strikes us silent, as we look back upon the precipiece of
our late condition, and those miraculous deliverances beyond
expression. Freed from the slavery, and those desperate perils, we
dayly lived in fear of, during the tyrannical times of that detestable
usurper, Oliver Cromwell; he who had raked up such judges, as would
wrest the most innocent language into high treason, when he had the
cruel conscience to take away our lives, upon no other ground of
justice or reason, (the stones of London streets would rise to witness
it, if all the citizens were silent.) And with these judges had such
councillors, as could advise him unto worse, which will less want of
witness. For should the many auditors be silent, the press, (as God
would have it,) hath given it us in print, where one of them (and his
conscience-keeper, too,) speaks out. What shall we do with these men?
saith he; _Æger intemperans crudelem facit medicum, et immedicabile
vulmis ense recidendum_. Who these men are that should be brought to
such Scicilian vespers, the former page sets forth—those which conceit
_Utopias_, and have their day-dreams of the return of I know not what
golden age, with the old line. What usage, when such a privy councillor
had power, could he expect, who then had published this narrative? This
much so plainly shows the devil himself dislikt their doings, (so much
more bad were they than he would have them be,) severer sure than was
the devil to their Commissioners at Woodstock; for he warned them, with
dreadful noises, to drive them from their work. This councillor,
without more ado, would have all who retained conceits of allegiance to
their soveraign, to be absolutely cut off by the usurper’s sword. A sad
sentence for a loyal party, to a lawful King. But Heaven is always
just; the party is repriv’d, and do acknowledge the hand of God in it,
as is rightly apply’d, and as justly sensible of their deliverance in
that the foundation which the councillor saith was already so well
laid, is now turned up, and what he calls day-dreams are come to passe.
That old line which (as with him) there seemed, _aliquid divini_, to
the contrary is now restored. And that rock which, as he saith, the
prelates and all their adherents, nay, and their master and supporter,
too, with all his posterity, have split themselves upon, is nowhere to
be heard. And that posterity are safely arrived in their ports, and
masters of that mighty navy, their enemies so much encreased to keep
them out with. The eldest sits upon the throne, his place by birthright
and descent,

“Pacatumque regit Patriis virtutibus orbem;”


upon which throne long may he sit, and reign in peace. That by his just
government, the enemies of ours, the true Protestant Church, of that
glorious martyr, our late sovereign, and of his royal posterity, may be
either absolutely converted, or utterly confounded.

If any shall now ask thee why this narrative was not sooner published,
as neerer to the times wherein the things were acted, he hath the
reason for it in the former lines; which will the more clearly appear
unto his apprehension, if he shall perpend how much cruelty is
requisite to the maintenance of rebellion; and how great care is
necessary in the supporters, to obviate and divert the smallest things
that tend to the unblinding of the people; so that it needs will
follow, that they must have accounted this amongst the great
obstructions to their sales of his majestie’s lands, the devil not
joining with them in the security; and greater to the pulling down the
royal pallaces, when their chapmen should conceit the devil would haunt
them in their houses, for building with so ill got materials; as no
doubt but that he hath, so numerous and confident are the relations
made of the same, though scarce any so totally remarkeable as this, (if
it be not that others have been more concealed,) in regard of the
strange circumstances as long continuances, but especially the number
of persons together, to whom all things were so visibly both seen and
done, so that surely it exceeds any other; for the devils thus
manifesting themselves, it appears evidently that there are such things
as devils, to persecute the wicked in this world as in the next.

Now, if to these were added the diverse reall phantasms seen at
Whitehall in Cromwell’s times, which caused him to keep such mighty
guards in and about his bedchamber, and yet so oft to change his
lodgings; if those things done at St. James’, where the devil so joal’d
the centinels against the sides of the queen’s chappell doors, that
some of them fell sick upon it; and others, not, taking warning by it,
kild one outright, whom they buried in the place; and all other such
dreadful things, those that inhabited the royal houses have been
affrighted with.

And if to these were likewise added, a relation of all those regicides
and their abettors the devil hath entered into, as he did the
Gadarenes’ swine, with so many more of them who hath fallen mad, and
dyed in hideous forms of such distractions, that which hath been of
this within these 12 last years in England, (should all of this nature,
our chronicles do tell, with all the superstitious monks have writ, be
put together,) would make the greater volume, and of more strange
occurrents.

And now as to the penman of this narrative, know that he was a divine,
and at the time of those things acted, which are here related, the
minister and schoolmaster of Woodstock; a person learned and discreet,
not byassed with factious humours, his name Widows, who each day put in
writing what he heard from their mouthes, (and such things as they told
to have befallen them the night before,) therein keeping to their own
words; and, never thinking that what he had writ should happen to be
made publick, gave it no better dress to set it forth. And because to
do it now shall not be construed to change the story, the reader hath
it here accordingly exposed.

THE JUST DEVIL OF WOODSTOCK

The 16th day of _October_, in the year of our Lord 1649, the
Commissioners for surveying and valuing his majestie’s mannor-house,
parks, woods, deer, demesnes, and all things thereunto belonging, by
name Captain Crook, Captain Hart, Captain Cockaine, Captain Carelesse,
and Captain Roe, their messenger, with Mr. Browne, their secretary, and
two or three servants, went from Woodstock town, (where they had lain
some nights before,) and took up their lodgings in his majestie’s house
after this manner: The bed-chamber and withdrawing-room they both
lodged in and made their kitchen; the presence-chamber their room for
dispatch of their business with all commers; of the council-hall their
brew-house, as of the dining-room, their wood-house, where they laid in
the clefts of that antient standard in the High-Park, for many ages
beyond memory known by the name of the King’s Oak, which they had
chosen out, and caused to be dug up by the roots.

_October_ 17. About the middle of the night, these new guests were
first awaked by a knocking at the presence-chamber door, which they
also conceived did open, and something to enter, which came through the
room, and also walkt about that room with a heavy step during half an
hour, then crept under the bed where Captain Hart and Captain Carelesse
lay, where it did seem (as it were) to bite and gnaw the mat and
bed-coards, as if it would tear and rend the feather beds; which having
done a while, then would heave a while, and rest; then heave them up
again in the bed more high than it did before, sometime on the one
side, sometime on the other, as if it had tried which Captain was
heaviest. Thus having heaved some half an hour, from thence it walkt
out and went under the servants’ bed, and did the like to them; hence
it walkt into a withdrawing room, and there did the same to all who
lodged there. Thus having welcomed them for more than two hours’ space,
it walkt out as it came in, and shut the outer door again, but with the
clap of some mightie force. These guests were in a sweat all this
while, but out of it falling into a sleep again, it became morning
first before they spake their minds; then would they have it to be a
dog, yet they described it more to the likeness of a great bear; so
fell to the examining under the beds, where, finding only the mats
scracht, but the bed-coards whole, and the quarter of beef which lay on
the floor untoucht, they entertained other thoughts.

_October_ 18. They were all awaked as the night before, and now
conceived that they heard all the great clefts of the King’s Oak
brought into the presence-chamber, and there thumpt down, and after
roul about the room; they could hear their chairs and stools tost from
one side of the room unto the other, and then (as it were) altogether
josled. Thus having done an hour together, it walkt into the
withdrawing-room, where lodged the two captains, the secretary, and two
servants; here stopt the thing a while, as if it did take breath, but
raised a hideous one, then walkt into the bed-chamber, where lay those
as before, and under the bed it went, where it did heave and heave
again, that now they in bed were put to catch hold upon bed-posts, and
sometimes one of the other, to prevent their being tumbled out upon the
ground; then coming out as from under the bed, and taking hold upon the
bed-posts, it would shake the whole bed, almost as if a cradle rocked.
Thus having done here for half an hour, it went into the
withdrawing-room, where first it came and stood at the bed’s feet, and
heaving up the bed’s feet, flopt them down again a while, until at last
it heaved the feet so high that those in bed thought to have been set
upon their heads; and having thus for two hours entertained them, went
out as in the night before, but with a great noise.

_October_ 19. This night they awaked not until the midst of the night;
they perceived the room, to shake with something that walkt about the
bedchamber, which having done so a while, it walkt into a
withdrawing-room, where it took up a brasse warming-pan, and returning
with it into the bed-chamber, therein made so loud a noise, in these
captains’ own words, it was as loud and scurvy as a ring of five
untuned bells rung backward; but the captains, not to seem afraid, next
day made mirth of what had past, and jested at the devil in the pan.

_October_ 20. These captains and their company, still lodging as
before, were wakened in this night with some things flying about the
rooms, and out of one room into the other, as thrown with some great
force. Captain Hart, being in a slumber, was taken by the shoulder and
shaked until he did sit up in his bed, thinking that it had been one of
his fellows, when suddenly he was taken on the pate with a trencher,
that it made him shrink down into the bed-clothes, and all of them, in
both rooms, kept their heads at least within their sheets, so fiercely
did three dozen of trenchers fly about the rooms; yet Captain Hart
ventured again to peep out to see what was the matter, and what it was
that threw, but then the trenchers came so fast and neer about his
ears, that he was fain quickly to couch again. In the morning they
found all their trenchers, pots, and spits, upon and about their beds,
and all such things as were of common use scattered about the rooms.
This night there were also, in several parts of the room and outer
rooms, such noises of beating at doors, and on the walls, as if that
several smiths had been at work; and yet our captains shrunk not from
their work, but went on in that, and lodged as they had done before.

_October_ 21. About midnight they heard great knocking at every door;
after a while the doors flew open, and into the withdrawing-room
entered something as of a mighty proportion, the figure of it they knew
not how to describe. This walkt awhile about the room shaking the floor
at every step, then came it up close to the bed-side, where lay
Captains Crook and Carelesse; and after a little pause, as it were, the
bed-curtains, both at sides and feet, were drawn up and down slowly,
then faster again for a quarter of an hour, then from end to end as
fast as imagination can fancie the running of the rings, then shaked it
the beds, as if the joints thereof had crackt; then walkt the thing
into the bed-chamber, and so plaied with those beds there; then took up
eight peuter dishes, and bouled them about the room and over the
servants in the truckle-beds; then sometimes were the dishes taken up
and thrown crosse the high beds and against the walls, and so much
battered; but there were more dishes wherein was meat in the same room,
that were not at all removed. During this, in the presence-chamber
there was stranger noise of weightie things thrown down, and, as they
supposed, the clefts of the King’s Oak did roul about the room, yet at
the wonted hour went away, and left them to take rest, such as they
could.

_October_ 22. Hath mist of being set down, the officers imployed in
their work farther off, came not that day to Woodstock.

_October_ 23. Those that lodged in the withdrawing-room, in the midst
of the night were awakened with the cracking of fire, as if it had been
with thorns and sparks of fire burning, whereupon they supposed that
the bed-chamber had taken fire, and listning to it farther, they heard
their fellows in bed sadly groan, which gave them to suppose they might
be suffocated; wherefore they called upon their servants to make all
possible hast to help them. When the two servants were come in, they
found all asleep, and so brought back word, but that there were no
bedclothes upon them; wherefore they were sent back to cover them, and
to stir up and mend the fire. When the servants had covered them and
were come to the chimney, in the corners they found their wearing
apparrel, boots, and stockings, but they had no sooner toucht the
embers, when the firebrands flew about their ears so fast, that away
ran they into the other room for the shelter of their cover-lids; then
after them walkt something that stampt about the room as if it had been
exceeding angry, and likewise threw about the trenchers, platters, and
all such things in the room—after two hours went out, yet stampt again
over their heads.

_October_ 24. They lodged all abroad.

_October_ 25. This afternoon was come unto them Mr. Richard Crook the
lawyer, brother to Captain Crook, and now deputy-steward of the manner,
unto Captain Parsons and Major Butler, who had put out Mr. Hyans, his
majestie’s officer. To entertain this new guest the Commissioners
caused a very great fire to be made, of neer the chimneyfull of wood of
the King’s Oak, and he was lodged in the withdrawing-room with his
brother, and his servant in the same room. About the midst of the night
a wonderful knocking was heard, and into the room something did rush,
which coming to the chimney-side, dasht out the fire as with the stamp
of some prodigious foot, then threw down such weighty stuffe, what ere
it was, (they took it to be the residue of the clefts and roots of the
King’s Oak,) close by the bed-side, that the house and bed shook with
it. Captain Cockaine and his fellow arose, and took their swords to go
unto the Crooks. The noise ceased at their rising, so that they came to
the door and called. The two brothers, though fully awaked, and heard
them call, were so amazed, that they made no answer until Captain
Cockaine had recovered the boldness to call very loud, and came unto
the bed-side; then faintly first, after some more assurance, they came
to understand one another, and comforted the lawyer. Whilst this was
thus, no noise was heard, which made them think the time was past of
that night’s trouble, so that, after some little conference, they
applied themselves to take some rest. When Captain Cockaine was come to
his own bed, which he had left open, he found it closely covered, which
he much wondered at; but turning the clothes down, and opening it to
get in, he found the lower sheet strewed over with trenchers. Their
whole three dozen of trenchers were orderly disposed between the
sheets, which he and his fellow endeavoring to cast out, such noise
arose about the room, that they were glad to get into bed with some of
the trenchers. The noise lasted, a full half hour after this. This
entertainment so ill did like the lawyer, and being not so well studied
in the point as to resolve this the devil’s law case, that he next day
resolved to be gone; but having not dispatcht all that he came for,
profit and perswasions prevailed with him to stay the other hearing, so
that he lodged as he did the night before.

_October_ 26. This night each room was better furnished with fire and
candle than before; yet about twelve at night came something in that
dasht all out, then did walk about the room, making a noise, not to be
set forth by the comparison with any other thing; sometimes came it to
the bedsides, and drew the curtains to and fro, then twerle them, then
walk about again, and return to the bed-posts, shake them with all the
bed, so that they in bed were put to hold one upon the other, then walk
about the room again, and come to the servants’ bed, and gnaw and
scratch the wainscot head, and shake altogether in that room; at the
time of this being in doing, they in the bed-chamber heard such strange
dropping down from the roof of the room, that they supposed ’twas like
the fall of money by the sound. Captain Cockaine, not frightened with
so small a noise, (and lying near the chimney) stept out, and made
shift to light a candle, by the light of which he perceived the room
strewed over with broken glass, green, and some of it as it were pieces
of broken bottles; he had not been long considering what it was, when
suddenly his candle was hit out, and glass flew about the room, that he
made haste to the protection of the coverlets; the noise of thundering
rose more hideous than at any time before; yet, at a certain time, all
vanisht into calmness. The morning after was the glass about the room,
which the maid that was to make clean the rooms swept up into a corner,
and many came to see it. But Mr. Richard Crook would stay no longer,
yet as he stopt, going through Woodstock town, he was there heard to
say, that he would not lodge amongst them another night for a fee of
500 L.

_October 27_. The Commissioners had not yet done their work, wherefore
they must stay; and being all men of the sword, they must not seem
afraid to encounter with any thing, though it be the devil; therefore,
with pistols charged, and drawn swords laied by their bedsides, they
applied themselves to take some rest, when something in the midst of
night, so opened and shut the window casements with such claps, that it
awakened all that slept; some of them peeping out to look what was the
matter with the windows, stones flew about the rooms as if hurled with
many hands; some hit the walls, and some the beds’ heads close above
the pillows, the dints of which were then, and yet (it is conceived)
are to be seen, thus sometime throwing stones, and sometime making
thundering noise for two hours space it ceast, and all was quiet till
the morn. After their rising, and the maid come in to make the fire,
they looked about the rooms; they found fourscore stones brought in
that night, and going to lay them together in the corner where the
glass (before mentioned) had been swept up, they found that every piece
of glass had been carried away that night. Many people came next day to
see the stones, and all observed that they were not of such kind of
stones as are naturall in the countrey thereabout; with these were
noise like claps of thunder, or report of cannon planted against the
rooms, heard by all that lodged in the outer courts, to their
astonishment, and at Woodstock town, taken to be thunder.

_October_ 28. This night, both strange and differing noise from the
former first wakened Captain Hart, who lodged in the bed-chamber, who,
hearing Roe and Brown to groan, called out to Cockaine and Crook to
come and help them, for Hart could not now stir himself; Cockaine would
faine have answered, but he could not, or look about; something, he
thought, stopt both his breath and held down his eye-lids. Amazed thus,
he struggles and kickt about, till he had awaked Captain Crook, who,
half asleep, grew very angry at his kicks, and multiplied words, it
grew to an appointment in the field; but this fully recovered Cockaine
to remember that Captain Hart had called for help, wherefore to them he
ran in the other room, whom he found sadly groaning, where, scraping in
the chimney, he both found a candle and fire to light it; but had not
gone two steps, when something blew the candle out, and threw him in
the chair by the bedside, when presently cried out Captain Carelesse,
with a most pitiful voice, “Come hither, O come hither, brother
Cockaine, the thing’s gone of me.” Cockaine, scarce yet himself, helpt
to set him up in his bed, and after Captain Hart, and having scarce
done that to them, and also to the other two, they heard Captain Crook
crying out, as if something had been killing him. Cockaine snacht up
the sword that lay by their bed, and ran into the room to save Crook,
but was in much more likelyhood to kill him, for at his coming, the
thing that pressed Crook went of him, at which Crook started out of his
bed, whom Cockaine thought a spirit made at him, at which Crook cried
out “Lord help, Lord save me;” Cockaine let fall his hand, and Crook,
embracing Cockaine, desired his reconcilement, giving him many thanks
for his deliverance. Then rose they all and came together, discoursed
sometimes godly and sometimes praied, for all this while was there such
stamping over the roof of the house, as if 1000 horse had there been
trotting; this night all the stones brought in the night before, and
laid up in the withdrawingroom, were all carried again away by that
which brought them in, which at the wonted time left of, and, as it
were, went out, and so away.

_October_ 29. Their businesse having now received so much forwardnesse
as to be neer dispatcht, they encouraged one the other, and resolved to
try further; therefore, they provided more lights and fires, and
further for their assistance, prevailed with their ordinary keeper to
lodge amongst them, and bring his mastive bitch; and it was so this
night with them, that they had no disturbance at all.

_October_ 30. So well they had passed the night before, that this night
they went to bed, confident and careless; untill about twelve of the
clock, something knockt at the door as with a smith’s great hammer, but
with such force as if it had cleft the door; then ent’red something
like a bear, but seem’d to swell more big, and walkt about the room,
and out of one room into the other, treading so heavily, as the floare
had not been strong enough to beare it. When it came into the
bed-chamber, it dasht against the beds’ heads some kind of glass
vessell, that broke in sundry pieces, and sometimes would take up those
pieces, and hurle them about the room, and into the other room; and
when it did not hurle the glasse at their heads, it did strike upon the
tables, as if many smiths, with their greatest hammers, had been laying
on as upon an anvil; sometimes it thumpt against the walls as if it
would beat a hole through; then upon their heads, such stamping, as if
the roof of the house were beating down upon their heads; and having
done thus, during the space (as was conjectured) of two hours, it
ceased and vanished, but with a more fierce shutting of the doors than
at any time before. In the morning they found the pieces of glass about
the room, and observed, that it was much differing from that glasse
brought in three nights before, this being of a much thicker substance,
which severall persons which came in carried away some pieces of. The
Commissioners were in debate of lodging there no more; but all their
businesse was not done, and some of them were so conceited as to
believe, and to attribute the rest they enjoyed the night before this
last, unto the mastive bitch; wherefore, they resolved to get more
company, and the mastive bitch, and try another night.

_October_ 31. This night, the fires and lights prepared, the ordinary
keeper and his bitch, with another man perswaded by him, they all took
their beds and fell asleep. But about twelve at night, such rapping was
on all sides of them, that it wakened all of them; as the doors did
seem to open, the mastive bitch fell fearfully a yelling, and presently
ran fiercely into the bed to them in the truckle-bed; as the thing came
by the table, it struck so fierce a blow on that, as that it made the
frame to crack, then took the warming-pan from off the table, and
stroke it against the walls with so much force as that it was beat flat
together, lid and bottom. Now were they hit as they lay covered over
head and ears within the bed-clothes. Captain Carelesse was taken a
sound blow on the head with the shoulder-blade bone of a dead horse,
(before they had been but thrown at, when they peept up, and mist;)
Browne had a shrewed blow on the leg with the backbone, and another on
the head, and every one of them felt severall blows of bones and stones
through the bed-clothes, for now these things were thrown as from an
angry hand that meant further mischief; the stones flew in at window as
shot out of a gun, nor was the bursts lesse (as from without) than of a
cannon, and all the windows broken down. Now as the hurling of the
things did cease, and the thing walkt up and down, Captain Cockaine and
Hart cried out, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what
are you? What would you have? What have we done that you disturb us
thus? No voice replied, (as the Captains said, yet some of their
servants have said otherwise,) and the noise ceast. Hereupon Captains
Hart and Cockaine rose, who lay in the bed-chamber, renewed the fire
and lights, and one great candle, in a candlestick, they placed in the
door, that might be seen by them in both the rooms. No sooner were they
got to bed, but the noise arose on all sides more loud and hideous than
at any time before, insomuch as (to use the Captains’ own words) it
returned and brought seven devils worse than itself; and presently they
saw the candle and candlestick in the passage of the door, dasht up to
the roof of the room, by a kick of the hinder parts of a horse, and
after with the hoof trode out the snuff, and so dasht out the fire in
the chimnies. As this was done, there fell, as from the ceiling, upon
them in the truckle-beds such quantities of water, as if it had been
poured out of buckets, which stunk worse than any earthly stink could
make; and as this was in doing, something crept under the high beds,
tost them up to the roof of the house, with the Commissioners in them,
until the testers of the beds were beaten down upon, and the
bedsted-frames broke under them; and here some pause being made, they
all, as if with one consent, started up, and ran down the stairs until
they came into the Councel Hall, where two sate up a-brewing, but now
were fallen asleep; those they scared much with the wakening of them,
having been much perplext before with the strange noise, which commonly
was taken by them abroad for thunder, sometimes for rumbling wind. Here
the Captains and their company got fire and candle, and every one
carrying something of either, they returned into the Presence-Chamber,
where some applied themselves to make the fire, whilst others fell to
prayers, and having got some clothes about them, they spent the residue
of the night in singing psalms and prayers; during which, no noise was
in that room, but most hideously round about, as at some distance.

It should have been told before, how that when Captain Hart first rose
this night, (who lay in the bed-chamber next the fire,) he found their
book of valuations crosse the embers smoaking, which he snacht up and
cast upon the table there, which the night before was left upon the
table in the presence amongst their other papers; this book was in the
morning found a handful burnt, and had burnt the table where it lay;
Browne the clerk said, he would not for a 100 and a 100 L that it had
been burnt a handful further.

This night it happened that there were six cony-stealers, who were come
with their nets and ferrets to the cony-burrows by Rosamond’s Well; but
with the noise this night from the Mannor-house, they were so
terrified, that like men distracted away they ran, and left their haies
all ready pitched, ready up, and the ferrets in the cony-burrows.

Now the Commissioners, more sensible of their danger, considered more
seriously of their safety, and agreed to go and confer with Mr.
Hoffman, the minister of Wotton, (a man not of the meanest note for
life or learning, by some esteemed more high,) to desire his advice,
together with his company and prayers. Mr. Hoffman held it too high a
point to resolve on suddenly and by himself, wherefore desired time to
consider upon it, which being agreed unto, he forthwith rode to Mr.
Jenkinson and Mr. Wheat, the two next Justices of Peace, to try what
warrant they could give him for it. They both (as ’tis said from
themselves) encouraged him to be assisting to the Commissioners,
according to his calling.

But certain it is, that when they came to fetch him to go with them,
Mr. Hoffman answered, that he would not lodge there one night for 500
L, and being asked to pray with them, he held up his hands and said,
that he would not meddle upon any terms.

Mr. Hoffman refusing to undertake the quarrel, the Commissioners held
it not safe to lodge where they had been thus entertained any longer,
but caused all things to be removed into the chambers over the
gatehouse, where they stayed but one night, and what rest they enjoyed
there, we have but an uncertain relation of, for they went away early
the next morning; but if it may be held fit to set down what hath been
delivered by the report of others, they were also the same night much
affrighted with dreadful apparitions; but observing that these passages
spread much in discourse, to be also in particulars taken notice of,
and that the nature of it made not for their cause, they agreed to the
concealing of things for the future; yet this is well-known and
certain, that the gate-keeper’s wife was in so strange an agony in her
bed, and in her bed-chamber such noise, (whilst her husband was above
with the Commissioners,) that two maids in the next room to her, durst
not venture to assist her, but affrighted ran out to call company, and
their master, and found the woman (at their coming in) gasping for
breath; and the next day said, that she saw and suffered that, which
for all the world she would not be hired to again.

From Woodstock the Commissioners removed unto Euelme, and some of them
returned to Woodstock the Sunday se’nnight after, (the book of
Valuations wanting something that was for haste left imperfect,) but
lodged not in any of those rooms where they had lain before, and yet
were not unvisited (as they confess themselves) by the devil, whom they
called their nightly guest; Captain Crook came not untill Tuesday
night, and how he sped that night the gate-keeper’s wife can tell if
she dareth, but what she hath whispered to her gossips, shall not be
made a part of this our narrative, nor many more particulars which have
fallen from the Commissioners themselves and their servants to other
persons; they are all or most of them alive, and may add to it when
they please, and surely have not a better way to be revenged of him who
troubled them, than according to the proverb, tell truth and shame the
devil.

There remains this observation to be added, that on a Wednesday morning
all these officers went away; and that since then diverse persons of
severall qualities, have lodged often and sometimes long in the same
rooms, both in the presence, withdrawing-room, and bed-chamber
belonging unto his sacred Majesty; yet none have had the least
disturbance, or heard the smallest noise, for which the cause was not
as ordinary as apparent, except the Commissioners and their company,
who came in order to the alienating and pulling down the house, which
is wellnigh performed.

A SHORT SURVEY OF WOODSTOCK, NOT TAKEN BY ANY OF THE BEFORE-MENTIONED
COMMISSIONERS.

(This Survey of Woodstock is appended to the preceding pamphlet)


The noble seat, called Woodstock, is one of the ancient honours
belonging to the crown. Severall mannors owe suite and service to the
place; but the custom of the countrey giving it but the title of a
mannor, we shall erre with them to be the better understood.

The mannor-house hath been a large fabrick, and accounted amongst his
majestie’s standing houses, because there was alwaies kept a standing
furniture. This great house was built by King Henry the First, but
ampleyfied with the gate-house and outsides of the outer-court, by King
Henry the Seventh, the stables by King James.

About a bow-shot from the gate south-west, remain foundation signs of
that structure, erected by King Henry the Second, for the security of
Lady Rosamond, daughter of Walter Lord Clifford, which some poets have
compared to the Dedalian labyrinth, but the form and circuit both of
the place and ruins show it to have been a house and of one pile,
perhaps of strength, according to the fashion of those times, and
probably was fitted with secret places of recess, and avenues to hide
or convey away such persons as were not willing to be found if narrowly
sought after. About the midst of the place ariseth a spring, called at
present Rosamond’s Well; it is but shallow, and shows to have been
paved and walled about, likely contrived for the use of them within the
house, when it should be of danger to go out.

A quarter of a mile distant from the King’s house, is seated Woodstook
town, new and old. This new Woodstock did arise by some buildings which
Henry the Second gave leave to be erected, (as received by tradition,)
at the suite of the Lady Rosamond, for the use of out-servants upon the
wastes of the manner of Bladon, where is the mother church; this is a
hamlet belonging to it, though encreased to a market town by the
advantage of the Court residing sometime near, which of late years they
have been sensible of the want of; this town was made a corporation in
the 11th year of Henry the Sixth, by charter, with power to send two
burgesses to parliament or not, as they will themselves.

Old Woodstock is seated on the west side of the brook, named Glyme,
which also runneth through the park; the town consists not of above
four or five houses, but it is to be conceived that it hath been much
larger, (but very anciently so,) for in some old law historians there
is mention of the assize at Woodstock, for a law made in a Micelgemote
(the name of Parliaments before the coming of the Norman) in the days
of King Ethelred.

And in like manner, that thereabout was a king’s house, if not in the
same place where Henry the First built the late standing pile before
his; for in such days those great councils were commonly held in the
King’s palaces. Some of those lands have belonged to the orders of the
Knights Templers, there being records which call them, _Terras quas Rex
excambiavit cum Templariis_.

But now this late large mannor-house is in a manner almost turned into
heaps of rubbish; some seven or eight rooms left for the accommodation
of a tenant that should rent the King’s medows, (of those who had no
power to let them,) with several high uncovered walls standing, the
prodigious spectacles of malice unto monarchy, which ruines still bear
semblance of their state, and yet aspire in spight of envy, or of
weather, to show, What kings do build, subjects may sometimes shake,
but utterly can never overthrow.

That part of the park called the High-park, hath been lately subdivided
by Sir Arthur Haselrig, to make pastures for his breed of colts, and
other parts plowed up. Of the whole saith Roffus Warwicensis, in MS.
Hen. I. p. 122. _Fecit iste Rex Parcum de Woodstock, cum Palatio, infra
prædictum Parcum, qui Parcus erat primus Parcus Angliæ, et continet in
circuitu septem Miliaria; constructus erat. Anno 14 hujus Regis, aut
parum post_. Without the Park the King’s demesne woods were, it cannot
well be said now are, the timber being all sold off, and underwoods so
cropt and spoiled by that beast the Lord Munson, and other greedy
cattle, that they are hardly recoverable. Beyond which lieth
Stonefield, and other mannors that hold of Woodstock, with other woods,
that have been aliened by former kings, but with reservation of liberty
for his majestie’s deer, and other beasts of forrest, to harbour in at
pleasure, as in due place is to be shewed.




PREFACE.


It is not my purpose to inform my readers how the manuscripts of that
eminent antiquary, the Rev. J. A. ROCHECLIFFE, D.D., came into my
possession. There are many ways in which such things happen, and it is
enough to say they were rescued from an unworthy fate, and that they
were honestly come by. As for the authenticity of the anecdotes which I
have gleaned from the writings of this excellent person, and put
together with my own unrivalled facility, the name of Doctor
Rochecliffe will warrant accuracy, wherever that name happens to be
known.

With his history the reading part of the world are well acquainted; and
we might refer the tyro to honest Anthony a Wood, who looked up to him
as one of the pillars of High Church, and bestows on him an exemplary
character in the _Athenæ Oxonienses_, although the Doctor was educated
at Cambridge, England’s other eye.

It is well known that Doctor Rochecliffe early obtained preferment in
the Church, on account of the spirited share which he took in the
controversy with the Puritans; and that his work, entitled _Malleus
Hæresis_, was considered as a knock-down blow by all except those who
received it. It was that work which made him, at the early age of
thirty, Rector of Woodstock, and which afterwards secured him a place
in the Catalogue of the celebrated Century White;—and worse than being
shown up by that fanatic, among the catalogues of scandalous and
malignant priests admitted into benefices by the prelates, his opinions
occasioned the loss of his living of Woodstock by the ascendency of
Presbytery. He was Chaplain, during most part of the Civil War, to Sir
Henry Lee’s regiment, levied for the service of King Charles; and it
was said he engaged more than once personally in the field. At least it
is certain that Doctor Rochecliffe was repeatedly in great danger, as
will appear from more passages than one in the following history, which
speaks of his own exploits, like Caesar, in the third person. I
suspect, however, some Presbyterian commentator has been guilty of
interpolating two or three passages. The manuscript was long in
possession of the Everards, a distinguished family of that
persuasion.[4]

 [4] It is hardly necessary to say, unless to some readers of very
 literal capacity, that Dr. Rochecliffe and his manuscripts are alike
 apocryphal.


During the Usurpation, Doctor Rochecliffe was constantly engaged in one
or other of the premature attempts at a restoration of monarchy; and
was accounted, for his audacity, presence of mind, and depth of
judgment, one of the greatest undertakers for the King in that busy
time; with this trifling drawback, that the plots in which he busied
himself were almost constantly detected. Nay, it was suspected that
Cromwell himself sometimes contrived to suggest to him the intrigues in
which he engaged, by which means the wily Protector made experiments on
the fidelity of doubtful friends, and became well acquainted with the
plots of declared enemies, which he thought it more easy to disconcert
and disappoint than to punish severely.

Upon the Restoration, Doctor Rochecliffe regained his living of
Woodstock, with other Church preferment, and gave up polemics and
political intrigues for philosophy. He was one of the constituent
members of the Royal Society, and was the person through whom Charles
required of that learned body solution of their curious problem, “Why,
if a vessel is filled brimful of water, and a large live fish plunged
into the water, nevertheless it shall not overflow the pitcher?” Doctor
Rochecliffe’s exposition of this phenomenon was the most ingenious and
instructive of four that were given in; and it is certain the Doctor
must have gained the honour of the day, but for the obstinacy of a
plain, dull, country gentleman, who insisted that the experiment should
be, in the first place, publicly tried. When this was done, the event
showed it would have been rather rash to have adopted the facts
exclusively on the royal authority; as the fish, however curiously
inserted into his native element, splashed the water over the hall, and
destroyed the credit of four ingenious essayists, besides a large
Turkey carpet.

Doctor Rochecliffe, it would seem, died about 1685, leaving many papers
behind him of various kinds, and, above all, many valuable anecdotes of
secret history, from which the following Memoirs have been extracted,
on which we intend to say only a few words by way of illustration.

The existence of Rosamond’s Labyrinth, mentioned in these pages, is
attested by Drayton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Rosamond’s Labyrinth, whose ruins, together with her Well, being paved
with square stones in the bottom, and also her Tower, from which the
Labyrinth did run, are yet remaining, being vaults arched and walled
with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by
which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the Queen, she
might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues
take the air abroad, many furlongs about Woodstock in Oxfordshire.[5]

 [5] Drayton’s England’s Heroical Epistles, Note A, on the Epistle,
 Rosamond to King Henry.


It is highly probable, that a singular piece of phantasmagoria, which
was certainly played off upon the Commissioners of the Long Parliament,
who were sent down to dispark and destroy Woodstock, after the death of
Charles I., was conducted by means of the secret passages and recesses
in the ancient Labyrinth of Rosamond, round which successive Monarchs
had erected a Hunting-seat or Lodge.

There is a curious account of the disturbance given to those Honourable
Commissioners, inserted by Doctor Plot, in his Natural History of
Oxfordshire. But as I have not the book at hand, I can only allude to
the work of the celebrated Glanville upon Witches, who has extracted it
as an highly accredited narrative of supernatural dealings. The beds of
the Commissioners, and their servants, were hoisted up till they were
almost inverted, and then let down again so suddenly, as to menace them
with broken bones. Unusual and horrible noises disturbed those
sacrilegious intromitters with royal property. The devil, on one
occasion, brought them a warming-pan; on another, pelted them with
stones and horses’ bones. Tubs of water were emptied on them in their
sleep; and so many other pranks of the same nature played at their
expense, that they broke up housekeeping, and left their intended
spoliation only half completed. The good sense of Doctor Plot
suspected, that these feats were wrought by conspiracy and
confederation, which Glanville of course endeavours to refute with all
his might; for it could scarce be expected, that he who believed in so
convenient a solution as that of supernatural agency, would consent to
relinquish the service of a key, which will answer any lock, however
intricate.

Nevertheless, it was afterwards discovered, that Doctor Plot was
perfectly right; and that the only demon who wrought all these marvels,
was a disguised royalist—a fellow called Trusty Joe, or some such name,
formerly in the service of the Keeper of the Park, but who engaged in
that of the Commissioners, on purpose to subject them to his
persecution. I think I have seen some account of the real state of the
transaction, and of the machinery by which the wizard worked his
wonders; but whether in a book, or a pamphlet, I am uncertain. I
remember one passage particularly to this purpose. The Commissioners
having agreed to retain some articles out of the public account, in
order to be divided among themselves, had entered into an indenture for
ascertaining their share in the peculation, which they hid in a bow-pot
for security. Now, when an assembly of divines, aided by the most
strict religious characters in the neighbourhood of Woodstock, were
assembled to conjure down the supposed demon, Trusty Joe had contrived
a firework, which he let off in the midst of the exorcism, and which
destroyed the bow-pot; and, to the shame and confusion of the
Commissioners, threw their secret indenture into the midst of the
assembled ghost-seers, who became thus acquainted with their secret
schemes of peculation.

It is, however, to little purpose for me to strain my memory about
ancient and imperfect recollections concerning the particulars of these
fantastic disturbances at Woodstock, since Doctor Rochecliffe’s papers
give such a much more accurate narrative than could be obtained from
any account in existence before their publication. Indeed, I might have
gone much more fully into this part of my subject, for the materials
are ample;—but, to tell the reader a secret, some friendly critics were
of opinion they made the story hang on hand; and thus I was prevailed
on to be more concise on the subject than I might otherwise have been.

The impatient reader, perhaps, is by this time accusing me of keeping
the sun from him with a candle. Were the sunshine as bright, however,
as it is likely to prove; and the flambeau, or link, a dozen of times
as smoky, my friend must remain in the inferior atmosphere a minute
longer, while I disclaim the idea of poaching on another’s manor.
Hawks, we say in Scotland, ought not to pick out hawks’ eyes, or tire
upon each other’s quarry; and therefore, if I had known that, in its
date and its characters this tale was likely to interfere with that
recently published by a distinguished contemporary, I should
unquestionably have left Doctor Rochecliffe’s manuscript in peace for
the present season. But before I was aware of this circumstance, this
little book was half through the press; and I had only the alternative
of avoiding any intentional imitation, by delaying a perusal of the
contemporary work in question. Some accidental collision there must be,
when works of a similar character are finished on the same general
system of historical manners, and the same historical personages are
introduced. Of course, if such have occurred, I shall be probably the
sufferer. But my intentions have been at least innocent, since I look
on it as one of the advantages attending the conclusion of WOODSTOCK,
that the finishing of my own task will permit me to have the pleasure
of reading BRAMBLETYE-HOUSE, from which I have hitherto conscientiously
abstained.




WOODSTOCK.



CHAPTER THE FIRST.


Some were for gospel ministers,
And some for red-coat seculars,
As men most fit t’ hold forth the word,
And wield the one and th’ other sword.
                         Butler’s _Hudibras_.


There is a handsome parish church in the town of Woodstock,—I am told
so, at least, for I never saw it, having scarce time, when at the
place, to view the magnificence of Blenheim, its painted halls, and
tapestried bowers, and then return in due season to dine in hall with
my learned friend, the provost of ——; being one of those occasions on
which a man wrongs himself extremely, if he lets his curiosity
interfere with his punctuality. I had the church accurately described
to me, with a view to this work; but, as I have some reason to doubt
whether my informant had ever seen the inside of it himself, I shall be
content to say that it is now a handsome edifice, most part of which
was rebuilt forty or fifty years since, although it still contains some
arches of the old chantry, founded, it is said, by King John. It is to
this more ancient part of the building that my story refers. On a
morning in the end of September, or beginning of October, in the year
1652, being a day appointed for a solemn thanksgiving for the decisive
victory at Worcester, a respectable audience was assembled in the old
chantry, or chapel of King John. The condition of the church and
character of the audience both bore witness to the rage of civil war,
and the peculiar spirit of the times. The sacred edifice showed many
marks of dilapidation. The windows, once filled with stained glass, had
been dashed to pieces with pikes and muskets, as matters of and
pertaining to idolatry. The carving on the reading-desk was damaged,
and two fair screens of beautiful sculptured oak had been destroyed,
for the same pithy and conclusive reason. The high altar had been
removed, and the gilded railing, which was once around it, was broken
down and carried off. The effigies of several tombs were mutilated, and
now lay scattered about the church,

Torn from their destined niche—unworthy meed
Of knightly counsel or heroic deed!


The autumn wind piped through empty aisles, in which the remains of
stakes and trevisses of rough-hewn timber, as well as a quantity of
scattered hay and trampled straw, seemed to intimate that the hallowed
precincts had been, upon some late emergency, made the quarters of a
troop of horse.

The audience, like the building, was abated in splendour. None of the
ancient and habitual worshippers during peaceful times, were now to be
seen in their carved galleries, with hands shadowing their brows, while
composing their minds to pray where their fathers had prayed, and after
the same mode of worship. The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in
vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, as, wrapped in
his lace cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved
slowly through the aisles, followed by the faithful mastiff, or
bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and
which regularly followed him to church. Bevis, indeed, fell under the
proverb which avers, “He is a good dog which goes to church;” for,
bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he
behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned
as much edified, perhaps, as most of them. The damsels of Woodstock
looked as vainly for the laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed boots,
and tall plumes, of the young cavaliers of this and other high-born
houses, moving through the streets and the church-yard with the
careless ease, which indicates perhaps rather an overweening degree of
self-confidence, yet shows graceful when mingled with good-humour and
courtesy. The good old dames, too, in their white hoods and black
velvet gowns—their daughters, “the cynosure of neighbouring
eyes,”—where were they all now, who, when they entered the church, used
to divide men’s thoughts between them and Heaven? “But, ah! Alice
Lee—so sweet, so gentle, so condescending in thy loveliness—[thus
proceeds a contemporary annalist, whose manuscript we have
deciphered]—why is my story to turn upon thy fallen fortunes? and why
not rather to the period when, in the very dismounting from your
palfrey, you attracted as many eyes as if an angel had descended,—as
many blessings as if the benignant being had come fraught with good
tidings? No creature wert thou of an idle romancer’s imagination—no
being fantastically bedizened with inconsistent perfections;—thy merits
made me love thee well—and for thy faults—so well did they show amid
thy good qualities, that I think they made me love thee better.”

With the house of Lee had disappeared from the chantry of King John
others of gentle blood and honoured lineage—Freemantles, Winklecombes,
Drycotts, &c.; for the air that blew over the towers of Oxford was
unfavourable to the growth of Puritanism, which was more general in the
neighbouring counties. There were among the congregation, however, one
or two that, by their habits and demeanour, seemed country gentlemen of
consideration, and there were also present some of the notables of the
town of Woodstock, cutlers or glovers chiefly, whose skill in steel or
leather had raised them to a comfortable livelihood. These dignitaries
wore long black cloaks, plaited close at the neck, and, like peaceful
citizens, carried their Bibles and memorandum-books at their girdles,
instead of knife or sword.[1] This respectable, but least numerous part
of the audience, were such decent persons as had adopted the
Presbyterian form of faith, renouncing the liturgy and hierarchy of the
Church of England, and living under the tuition of the Rev. Nehemiah
Holdenough, much famed for the length and strength of his powers of
predication. With these grave seniors sate their goodly dames in ruff
and gorget, like the portraits which in catalogues of paintings are
designed “wife of a burgomaster;” and their pretty daughters, whose
study, like that of Chaucer’s physician, was not always in the Bible,
but who were, on the contrary, when a glance could escape the vigilance
of their honoured mothers, inattentive themselves, and the cause of
inattention in others.

 [1] This custom among the Puritans is mentioned often in old plays,
 and among others in the Widow of Watling Street.


But, besides these dignified persons, there were in the church a
numerous collection of the lower orders, some brought thither by
curiosity, but many of them unwashed artificers, bewildered in the
theological discussions of the time, and of as many various sects as
there are colours in the rainbow. The presumption of these learned
Thebans being in exact proportion to their ignorance, the last was
total and the first boundless. Their behaviour in the church was any
thing but reverential or edifying. Most of them affected a cynical
contempt for all that was only held sacred by human sanction—the church
was to these men but a steeple-house, the clergyman, an ordinary
person; her ordinances, dry bran and sapless pottage unfitted for the
spiritualized palates of the saints, and the prayer, an address to
Heaven, to which each acceded or not as in his too critical judgment he
conceived fit.

The elder amongst them sate or lay on the benches, with their high
steeple-crowned hats pulled over their severe and knitted brows,
waiting for the Presbyterian parson, as mastiffs sit in dumb
expectation of the bull that is to be brought to the stake. The younger
mixed, some of them, a bolder license of manners with their heresies;
they gazed round on the women, yawned, coughed, and whispered, eat
apples, and cracked nuts, as if in the gallery of a theatre ere the
piece commences.

Besides all these, the congregation contained a few soldiers, some in
corslets and steel caps, some in buff, and others in red coats. These
men of war had their bandeliers, with ammunition, slung around them,
and rested on their pikes and muskets. They, too, had their peculiar
doctrines on the most difficult points of religion, and united the
extravagances of enthusiasm with the most determined courage and
resolution in the field. The burghers of Woodstock looked on these
military saints with no small degree of awe; for though not often
sullied with deeds of plunder or cruelty, they had the power of both
absolutely in their hands, and the peaceful citizen had no alternative,
save submission to whatever the ill-regulated and enthusiastic
imaginations of their martial guides might suggest.

After some time spent in waiting for him, Mr. Holdenough began to walk
up the aisles of the chapel, not with the slow and dignified carriage
with which the old Rector was of yore wont to maintain the dignity of
the surplice, but with a hasty step, like one who arrives too late at
an appointment, and bustles forward to make the best use of his time.
He was a tall thin man, with an adust complexion, and the vivacity of
his eye indicated some irascibility of temperament. His dress was
brown, not black, and over his other vestments he wore, in honour of
Calvin, a Geneva cloak of a blue colour, which fell backwards from his
shoulders as he posted on to the pulpit. His grizzled hair was cut as
short as shears could perform the feat, and covered with a black silk
scull-cap, which stuck so close to his head, that the two ears expanded
from under it as if they had been intended as handles by which to lift
the whole person. Moreover, the worthy divine wore spectacles, and a
long grizzled peaked beard, and he carried in his hand a small
pocket-bible with silver clasps. Upon arriving at the pulpit, he paused
a moment to take breath, then began to ascend the steps by two at a
time.

But his course was arrested by a strong hand, which seized his cloak.
It was that of one who had detached himself from the group of soldiery.
He was a stout man of middle stature, with a quick eye, and a
countenance, which, though plain, had yet an expression that fixed the
attention. His dress, though not strictly military, partook of that
character. He wore large hose made of calves-leather, and a tuck, as it
was then called, or rapier, of tremendous length, balanced on the other
side by a dagger. The belt was morocco, garnished with pistols.

The minister, thus intercepted in his duty, faced round upon the party
who had seized him, and demanded, in no gentle tone, the meaning of the
interruption.

“Friend,” quoth the intruder, “is it thy purpose to hold forth to these
good people?”

“Ay, marry is it,” said the clergyman, “and such is my bounden duty.
Woe to me if I preach not the gospel—Prithee, friend, let me not in my
labour”—

“Nay,” said the man of warlike mien, “I am myself minded to hold forth;
therefore, do thou desist, or if thou wilt do by my advice, remain and
fructify with those poor goslings, to whom I am presently about to
shake forth the crumbs of comfortable doctrine.”

“Give place, thou man of Satan,” said the priest, waxing wroth,
“respect mine order—my cloth.”

“I see no more to respect in the cut of thy cloak, or in the cloth of
which it is fashioned,” said the other, “than thou didst in the
Bishop’s rochets—they were black and white, thou art blue and brown.
Sleeping dogs every one of you, lying down, loving to slumber—shepherds
that starve the flock but will not watch it, each looking to his own
gain—hum.”

Scenes of this indecent kind were so common at the time, that no one
thought of interfering; the congregation looked on in silence, the
better class scandalized, and the lower orders, some laughing, and
others backing the soldier or minister as their fancy dictated.
Meantime the struggle waxed fiercer; Mr. Holdenough clamoured for
assistance.

“Master Mayor of Woodstock,” he exclaimed, “wilt thou be among those
wicked magistrates, who bear the sword in vain?—Citizens, will you not
help your pastor?—Worthy Alderman, will you see me strangled on the
pulpit stairs by this man of buff and Belial?—But lo, I will overcome
him, and cast his cords from me.”

As Holdenough spoke, he struggled to ascend the pulpit stairs, holding
hard on the banisters. His tormentor held fast by the skirts of the
cloak, which went nigh to the choking of the wearer, until, as he spoke
the words last mentioned, in a half-strangled voice, Mr. Holdenough
dexterously slipped the string which tied it round his neck, so that
the garment suddenly gave way; the soldier fell backwards down the
steps, and the liberated divine skipped into the pulpit, and began to
give forth a psalm of triumph over his prostrate adversary. But a great
hubbub in the church marred his exultation, and although he and his
faithful clerk continued to sing the hymn of victory, their notes were
only heard by fits, like the whistle of a curlew during a gale of wind.

The cause of the tumult was as follows:—The Mayor was a zealous
Presbyterian, and witnessed the intrusion of the soldier with great
indignation from the very beginning, though he hesitated to interfere
with an armed man while on his legs and capable of resistance. But no
sooner did he behold the champion of independency sprawling on his
back, with the divine’s Geneva cloak fluttering in his hands, than the
magistrate rushed forward, exclaiming that such insolence was not to be
endured, and ordered his constables to seize the prostrate champion,
proclaiming, in the magnanimity of wrath, “I will commit every red-coat
of them all—I will commit him were he Noll Cromwell himself!”

The worthy Mayor’s indignation had overmastered his reason when he made
this mistimed vaunt; for three soldiers, who had hitherto stood
motionless like statues, made each a stride in advance, which placed
them betwixt the municipal officers and the soldier, who was in the act
of rising; then making at once the movement of resting arms according
to the manual as then practised, their musket-buts rang on the church
pavement, within an inch of the gouty toes of Master Mayor. The
energetic magistrate, whose efforts in favour of order were thus
checked, cast one glance on his supporters, but that was enough to show
him that force was not on his side. All had shrunk back on hearing that
ominous clatter of stone and iron. He was obliged to descend to
expostulation.

“What do you mean, my masters?” said he; “is it like a decent and
God-fearing soldiery, who have wrought such things for the land as have
never before been heard of, to brawl and riot in the church, or to aid,
abet, and comfort a profane fellow, who hath, upon a solemn
thanksgiving excluded the minister from his own pulpit?”

“We have nought to do with thy church, as thou call’st it,” said he
who, by a small feather in front of his morion, appeared to be the
corporal of the party;—“we see not why men of gifts should not be heard
within these citadels of superstition, as well as the voice of the men
of crape of old, and the men of cloak now. Wherefore, we will pluck yon
Jack Presbyter out of his wooden sentinel-box, and our own watchman
shall relieve the guard, and mount thereon, and cry aloud and spare
not.”

“Nay, gentlemen,” said the Mayor, “if such be your purpose, we have not
the means to withstand you, being, as you see, peaceful and quiet
men—But let me first speak with this worthy minister, Nehemiah
Holdenough, to persuade him to yield up his place for the time without
farther scandal.”

The peace-making Mayor then interrupted the quavering Holdenough and
the clerk, and prayed both to retire, else there would, he said, be
certainly strife.

“Strife!” replied the Presbyterian divine, with scorn; “no fear of
strife among men that dare not testify against this open profanation of
the Church, and daring display of heresy. Would your neighbours of
Banbury have brooked such an insult?”

“Come, come, Master Holdenough,” said the Mayor, “put us not to mutiny
and cry Clubs. I tell you once more, we are not men of war or blood.”

“Not more than may be drawn by the point of a needle,” said the
preacher, scornfully.—“Ye tailors of Woodstock!—for what is a glover
but a tailor working on kidskin?—I forsake you, in scorn of your faint
hearts and feeble hands, and will seek me elsewhere a flock which will
not fly from their shepherd at the braying of the first wild ass which
cometh from out the great desert.”

So saying, the aggrieved divine departed from his pulpit, and shaking
the dust from his shoes, left the church as hastily as he had entered
it, though with a different reason for his speed. The citizens saw his
retreat with sorrow, and not without a compunctious feeling, as if
conscious that they were not playing the most courageous part in the
world. The Mayor himself and several others left the church, to follow
and appease him.

The Independent orator, late prostrate, was now triumphant, and
inducting himself into the pulpit without farther ceremony, he pulled a
Bible from his pocket, and selected his text from the forty-fifth
psalm,—“Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory
and thy majesty: and in thy majesty ride prosperously.”—Upon this
theme, he commenced one of those wild declamations common at the
period, in which men were accustomed to wrest and pervert the language
of Scripture, by adapting to it modern events.[2] The language which,
in its literal sense, was applied to King David, and typically referred
to the coming of the Messiah, was, in the opinion of the military
orator, most properly to be interpreted of Oliver Cromwell, the
victorious general of the infant Commonwealth, which was never destined
to come of age. “Gird on thy sword!” exclaimed the preacher
emphatically; “and was not that a pretty bit of steel as ever dangled
from a corslet, or rung against a steel saddle? Ay, ye prick up your
ears now, ye cutlers of Woodstock, as if ye should know something of a
good fox broad sword—Did you forge it, I trow?—was the steel quenched
with water from Rosamond’s well, or the blade blessed by the old
cuckoldy priest of Godstow? You would have us think, I warrant me, that
you wrought it and welded it, grinded and polished it, and all the
while it never came on a Woodstock stithy! You were all too busy making
whittles for the lazy crape-men of Oxford, bouncing priests, whose eyes
were so closed up with fat, that they could not see Destruction till
she had them by the throat. But I can tell you where the sword was
forged, and tempered, and welded, and grinded, and polished. When you
were, as I said before, making whittles for false priests, and daggers
for dissolute G—d d—n-me cavaliers, to cut the people of England’s
throats with—it was forged at Long Marston Moor, where blows went
faster than ever rung hammer on anvil—and it was tempered at Naseby, in
the best blood of the cavaliers—and it was welded in Ireland against
the walls of Drogheda—and it was grinded on Scottish lives at
Dunbar—and now of late it was polished in Worcester, till it shines as
bright as the sun in the middle heaven, and there is no light in
England that shall come nigh unto it.”

 [2] See “Vindication of the Book of Common Prayer, against the
 contumelious Slanders of the Fanatic Party terming it Porridge.”
    The author of this singular and rare tract indulges in the
    allegorical style, till he fairly hunts down the allegory.
    “But as for what you call porridge, who hatched the name I know
    not, neither is it worth the enquiring after, for I hold porridge
    good food. It is better to a sick man than meat, for a sick man
    will sooner eat pottage than meat. Pottage will digest with him
    when meat will not: pottage will nourish the blood, fill the veins,
    run into every part of a man, make him warmer; so will these
    prayers do, set our soul and body in a heat, warm our devotion,
    work fervency in us, lift up our soul to God. For there be herbs of
    God’s own planting in our pottage as ye call it—the Ten
    Commandments, dainty herbs to season any pottage in the world;
    there is the Lord’s Prayer, and that is a most sweet pot-herb,
    cannot be denied; then there is also David’s herbs, his prayers and
    psalms, helps to make our pottage relish well; the psalm of the
    blessed Virgin, a good pot-herb. Though they be, as some term them,
    _cock-crowed_ pottage, yet they are as sweet, as good, as dainty,
    and as fresh, as they were at first. The sun hath not made them
    sour with its heat, neither hath the cold water taken away their
    vigour and strength. Compare them with the Scriptures, and see if
    they be not as well seasoned and crumbed. If you find any thing in
    them that is either too salt, too fresh, or too bitter, that herb
    shall be taken out and better put in, if it can be got, or none.
    And as in kitchen pottage there are many good herbs, so there is
    likewise in this church pottage, as ye call it. For first, there is
    in kitchen pottage good water to make them so; on the contrary, in
    the other pottage there is the water of life. 2. There is salt, to
    season them; so in the other is a prayer of grace to season their
    hearts. 3. There is oatmeal to nourish the body, in the other is
    the bread of life. 4. There is thyme in them to relish them, and it
    is very wholesome—in the other is the wholesome exhortation not to
    harden our heart while it is called to-day. This relisheth well. 5.
    There is a small onion to give a taste—in the other is a good herb,
    called Lord have mercy on us. These, and many other holy herbs are
    contained in it, all boiling in the heart of man, will make as good
    pottage as the world can afford, especially if you use these herbs
    for digestion. The herb repentance, the herb grace, the herb faith,
    the herb love, the herb hope, the herb good works, the herb
    feeling, the herb zeal, the herb fervency, the herb ardency, the
    herb constancy, with many more of this nature, most excellent for
    digestion.” _Ohe! jam satis._ In this manner the learned divine
    hunts his metaphor at a very cold scent, through a pamphlet of six
    mortal quarto pages.)


Here the military part of the congregation raised a hum of approbation,
which, being a sound like the “hear, hear,” of the British House of
Commons, was calculated to heighten the enthusiasm of the orator, by
intimating the sympathy of the audience. “And then,” resumed the
preacher, rising in energy as he found that his audience partook in
these feelings, “what saith the text?—Ride on prosperously—do not
stop—do not call a halt—do not quit the saddle—pursue the scattered
fliers—sound the trumpet—not a levant or a flourish, but a point of
war—sound, boot and saddle—to horse and away—a charge!—follow after the
young Man!—what part have we in him?—Slay, take, destroy, divide the
spoil! Blessed art thou, Oliver, on account of thine honour—thy cause
is clear, thy call is undoubted—never has defeat come near thy
leading-staff, nor disaster attended thy banner. Ride on, flower of
England’s soldiers! ride on, chosen leader of God’s champions! gird up
the loins of thy resolution, and be steadfast to the mark of thy high
calling.”

Another deep and stern hum, echoed by the ancient embow’d arches of the
old chantry, gave him an opportunity of an instant’s repose; when the
people of Woodstock heard him, and not without anxiety, turn the stream
of his oratory into another channel.

“But wherefore, ye people of Woodstock, do I say these things to you,
who claim no portion in our David, no interest in England’s son of
Jesse?—You, who were fighting as well as your might could (and it was
not very formidable) for the late Man, under that old blood-thirsty
papist Sir Jacob Aston—are you not now plotting, or ready to plot, for
the restoring, as ye call it, of the young Man, the unclean son of the
slaughtered tyrant—the fugitive after whom the true hearts of England
are now following, that they may take and slay him?—‘Why should your
rider turn his bridle our way?’ say you in your hearts; ‘we will none
of him; if we may help ourselves, we will rather turn us to wallow in
the mire of monarchy, with the sow that was washed but newly.’ Come,
men of Woodstock, I will ask, and do you answer me. Hunger ye still
after the flesh-pots of the monks of Godstow? and ye will say, Nay;—but
wherefore, except that the pots are cracked and broken, and the fire is
extinguished wherewith thy oven used to boil? And again, I ask, drink
ye still of the well of fornications of the fair Rosamond?—ye will say,
Nay;—but wherefore?”—

Here the orator, ere he could answer the question in his own way, was
surprised by the following reply, very pithily pronounced by one of the
congregation:—“Because you, and the like of you, have left us no brandy
to mix with it.”

All eyes turned to the audacious speaker, who stood beside one of the
thick sturdy Saxon pillars, which he himself somewhat resembled, being
short of stature, but very strongly made, a squat broad Little John
sort of figure, leaning on a quarterstaff, and wearing a jerkin, which,
though now sorely stained and discoloured, had once been of the Lincoln
green, and showed remnants of having been laced. There was an air of
careless, good humoured audacity about the fellow; and, though under
military restraint, there were some of the citizens who could not help
crying out,—“Well said, Joceline Joliffe!”

“Jolly Joceline, call ye him?” proceeded the preacher, without showing
either confusion or displeasure at the interruption,—“I will make him
Joceline of the jail, if he interrupts me again. One of your
park-keepers, I warrant, that can never forget they have borne C. R.
upon their badges and bugle-horns, even as a dog bears his owner’s name
on his collar—a pretty emblem for Christian men! But the brute beast
hath the better of him,—the brute weareth his own coat, and the caitiff
thrall wears his master’s. I have seen such a wag make a rope’s end wag
ere now.—Where was I?—Oh, rebuking you for your backslidings, men of
Woodstock.—Yes, then ye will say ye have renounced Popery, and ye have
renounced Prelacy, and then ye wipe your mouth like Pharisees, as ye
are; and who but you for purity of religion! But I tell you, ye are but
like Jehu the son of Nimshi, who broke down the house of Baal, yet
departed not from the sins of Jeroboam. Even so ye eat not fish on
Friday with the blinded Papists, nor minced-pies on the 25th day of
December, like the slothful Prelatists; but ye will gorge on
sack-posset each night in the year with your blind Presbyterian guide,
and ye will speak evil of dignities, and revile the Commonwealth; and
ye will glorify yourselves in your park of Woodstock, and say, ‘Was it
not walled in first of any other in England, and that by Henry, son of
William called the Conqueror?’ And ye have a princely Lodge therein,
and call the same a Royal Lodge; and ye have an oak which ye call the
King’s Oak; and ye steal and eat the venison of the park, and ye say,
‘This is the king’s venison, we will wash it down with a cup to the
king’s health—better we eat it than those round-headed commonwealth
knaves.’ But listen unto me and take warning. For these things come we
to controversy with you. And our name shall be a cannon-shot, before
which your Lodge, in the pleasantness whereof ye take pastime, shall be
blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King’s
Oak into billets to heat a brown baker’s oven; and we will dispark your
park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you
have any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft
a ten-penny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair
of breeches out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye
shall have no comfort or support neither from the sequestered traitor
Henry Lee, who called himself Ranger of Woodstock, nor from any on his
behalf; for they are coming hither who shall be called
Mahershalal-hash-baz, because he maketh haste to the spoil.”

Here ended the wild effusion, the latter part of which fell heavy on
the souls of the poor citizens of Woodstock, as tending to confirm a
report of an unpleasing nature which had been lately circulated. The
communication with London was indeed slow, and the news which it
transmitted were uncertain; no less uncertain were the times
themselves, and the rumours which were circulated, exaggerated by the
hopes and fears of so many various factions. But the general stream of
report, so far as Woodstock was concerned, had of late run uniformly in
one direction. Day after day they had been informed, that the fatal
fiat of Parliament had gone out, for selling the park of Woodstock,
destroying its lodge, disparking its forest, and erasing, as far as
they could be erased, all traces of its ancient fame. Many of the
citizens were likely to be sufferers on this occasion, as several of
them enjoyed, either by sufferance or right, various convenient
privileges of pasturage, cutting firewood, and the like, in the royal
chase; and all the inhabitants of the little borough were hurt to
think, that the scenery of the place was to be destroyed, its edifices
ruined, and its honours rent away. This is a patriotic sensation often
found in such places, which ancient distinctions and long-cherished
recollections of former days, render so different from towns of recent
date. The natives of Woodstock felt it in the fullest force. They had
trembled at the anticipated calamity; but now, when it was announced by
the appearance of those dark, stern, and at the same time omnipotent
soldiers—now that they heard it proclaimed by the mouth of one of their
military preachers—they considered their fate as inevitable. The causes
of disagreement among themselves were for the time forgotten, as the
congregation, dismissed without psalmody or benediction, went slowly
and mournfully homeward, each to his own place of abode.




CHAPTER THE SECOND.


Come forth, old man—Thy daughter’s side
    Is now the fitting place for thee:
When time hath quell’d the oak’s bold pride,
    The youthful tendril yet may hide
      The ruins of the parent tree.


When the sermon was ended, the military orator wiped his brow; for,
notwithstanding the coolness of the weather, he was heated with the
vehemence of his speech and action. He then descended from the pulpit,
and spoke a word or two to the corporal who commanded the party of
soldiers, who, replying by a sober nod of intelligence, drew his men
together, and marched them in order to their quarters in the town.

The preacher himself, as if nothing extraordinary had happened, left
the church and sauntered through the streets of Woodstock, with the air
of a stranger who was viewing the town, without seeming to observe that
he was himself in his turn anxiously surveyed by the citizens, whose
furtive yet frequent glances seemed to regard him as something alike
suspected and dreadful, yet on no account to be provoked. He heeded
them not, but stalked on in the manner affected by the distinguished
fanatics of the day; a stiff solemn pace, a severe and at the same time
a contemplative look, like that of a man discomposed at the
interruptions which earthly objects forced upon him, obliging him by
their intrusion to withdraw his thoughts for an instant from celestial
things. Innocent pleasures of what kind soever they held in suspicion
and contempt, and innocent mirth they abominated. It was, however, a
cast of mind that formed men for great and manly actions, as it adopted
principle, and that of an unselfish character, for the ruling motive,
instead of the gratification of passion. Some of these men were indeed
hypocrites, using the cloak of religion only as a covering for their
ambition; but many really possessed the devotional character, and the
severe republican virtue, which others only affected. By far the
greater number hovered between these extremes, felt to a certain extent
the power of religion, and complied with the times in affecting a great
deal.

The individual, whose pretensions to sanctity, written as they were
upon his brow and gait, have given rise to the above digression,
reached at length the extremity of the principal street, which
terminates upon the park of Woodstock. A battlemented portal of Gothic
appearance defended the entrance to the avenue. It was of mixed
architecture, but on the whole, though composed of the styles of the
different ages when it had received additions, had a striking and
imposing effect. An immense gate, composed of rails of hammered iron,
with many a flourish and scroll, displaying as its uppermost ornament
the ill-fated cipher of C. R., was now decayed, being partly wasted
with rust, partly by violence.

The stranger paused, as if uncertain whether he should demand or assay
entrance. He looked through the grating down an avenue skirted by
majestic oaks, which led onward with a gentle curve, as if into the
depths of some ample and ancient forest. The wicket of the large iron
gate being left unwittingly open, the soldier was tempted to enter, yet
with some hesitation, as he that intrudes upon ground which he
conjectures may be prohibited—indeed his manner showed more reverence
for the scene than could have been expected from his condition and
character. He slackened his stately and consequential pace, and at
length stood still, and looked around him.

Not far from the gate, he saw rising from the trees one or two ancient
and venerable turrets, bearing each its own vane of rare device
glittering in the autumn sun. These indicated the ancient hunting seat,
or Lodge, as it was called, which had, since the time of Henry II.,
been occasionally the residence of the English monarchs, when it
pleased them to visit the woods of Oxford, which then so abounded with
game, that, according to old Fuller, huntsmen and falconers were
nowhere better pleased. The situation which the Lodge occupied was a
piece of flat ground, now planted with sycamores, not far from the
entrance to that magnificent spot where the spectator first stops to
gaze upon Blenheim, to think of Marlborough’s victories, and to applaud
or criticise the cumbrous magnificence of Vanburgh’s style.

There, too, paused our military preacher, but with other thoughts, and
for other purpose, than to admire the scene around him. It was not long
afterwards when he beheld two persons, a male and a female, approaching
slowly, and so deeply engaged in their own conversation that they did
not raise their eyes to observe that there stood a stranger in the path
before them. The soldier took advantage of their state of abstraction,
and, desirous at once to watch their motions and avoid their
observation, he glided beneath one of the huge trees which skirted the
path, and whose boughs, sweeping the ground on every side, ensured him
against discovery, unless in case of an actual search.

In the meantime, the gentleman and lady continued to advance, directing
their course to a rustic seat, which still enjoyed the sunbeams, and
was placed adjacent to the tree where the stranger was concealed.

The man was elderly, yet seemed bent more by sorrow and infirmity than
by the weight of years. He wore a mourning cloak, over a dress of the
same melancholy colour, cut in that picturesque form which Vandyck has
rendered immortal. But although the dress was handsome, it was put on
with a carelessness which showed the mind of the wearer ill at ease.
His aged, yet still handsome countenance, had the same air of
consequence which distinguished his dress and his gait. A striking part
of his appearance was a long white beard, which descended far over the
breast of his slashed doublet, and looked singular from its contrast in
colour with his habit.

The young lady, by whom this venerable gentleman seemed to be in some
degree supported as they walked arm in arm, was a slight and sylphlike
form, with a person so delicately made, and so beautiful in
countenance, that it seemed the earth on which she walked was too
grossly massive a support for a creature so aerial. But mortal beauty
must share human sorrows. The eyes of the beautiful being showed tokens
of tears; her colour was heightened as she listened to her aged
companion; and it was plain, from his melancholy yet displeased look,
that the conversation was as distressing to himself as to her. When
they sate down on the bench we have mentioned, the gentleman’s
discourse could be distinctly overheard by the eavesdropping soldier,
but the answers of the young lady reached his ear rather less
distinctly.

“It is not to be endured!” said the old man, passionately; “it would
stir up a paralytic wretch to start up a soldier. My people have been
thinned, I grant you, or have fallen off from me in these times—I owe
them no grudge for it, poor knaves; what should they do waiting on me
when the pantry has no bread and the buttery no ale? But we have still
about us some rugged foresters of the old Woodstock breed—old as myself
most of them—what of that? old wood seldom warps in the wetting;—I will
hold out the old house, and it will not be the first time that I have
held it against ten times the strength that we hear of now.”

“Alas! my dear father!”—said the young lady, in a tone which seemed to
intimate his proposal of defence to be altogether desperate.

“And why, alas?” said the gentleman, angrily; “is it because I shut my
door against a score or two of these blood-thirsty hypocrites?”

“But their masters can as easily send a regiment or an army, if they
will,” replied the lady; “and what good would your present defence do,
excepting to exasperate them to your utter destruction?”

“Be it so, Alice,” replied her father; “I have lived my time, and
beyond it. I have outlived the kindest and most princelike of masters.
What do I do on the earth since the dismal thirtieth of January? The
parricide of that day was a signal to all true servants of Charles
Stewart to avenge his death, or die as soon after as they could find a
worthy opportunity.”

“Do not speak thus, sir,” said Alice Lee; “it does not become your
gravity and your worth to throw away that life which may yet be of
service to your king and country,—it will not and cannot always be
thus. England will not long endure the rulers which these bad times
have assigned her. In the meanwhile—[here a few words escaped the
listener’s ears]—and beware of that impatience, which makes bad worse.”

“Worse?” exclaimed the impatient old man, “_What_ can be worse? Is it
not at the worst already? Will not these people expel us from the only
shelter we have left—dilapidate what remains of royal property under my
charge—make the palace of princes into a den of thieves, and then wipe
their mouths and thank God, as if they had done an alms-deed?”

“Still,” said his daughter, “there is hope behind, and I trust the King
is ere this out of their reach—We have reason to think well of my
brother Albert’s safety.”

“Ay, Albert! there again,” said the old man, in a tone of reproach;
“had it not been for thy entreaties I had gone to Worcester myself; but
I must needs lie here like a worthless hound when the hunt is up, when
who knows what service I might have shown? An old man’s head is
sometimes useful when his arm is but little worth. But you and Albert
were so desirous that he should go alone—and now, who can say what has
become of him?”

“Nay, nay, father,” said Alice, “we have good hope that Albert escaped
from that fatal day; young Abney saw him a mile from the field.”

“Young Abney lied, I believe,” said the father, in the same humour of
contradiction—“Young Abney’s tongue seems quicker than his hands, but
far slower than his horse’s heels when he leaves the roundheads behind
him. I would rather Albert’s dead body were laid between Charles and
Cromwell, than hear he fled as early as young Abney.”

“My dearest father,” said the young lady, weeping as she spoke, “what
can I say to comfort you?”

“Comfort me, say’st thou, girl? I am sick of comfort—an honourable
death, with the ruins of Woodstock for my monument, were the only
comfort to old Henry Lee. Yes, by the memory of my fathers! I will make
good the Lodge against these rebellious robbers.”

“Yet be ruled, dearest father,” said the maiden, “and submit to that
which we cannot gainsay. My uncle Everard”—

Here the old man caught at her unfinished words. “Thy uncle Everard,
wench!—Well, get on.—What of thy precious and loving uncle Everard?”

“Nothing, sir,” she said, “if the subject displeases you.”

“Displeases me?” he replied, “why should it displease me? or if it did,
why shouldst thou, or any one, affect to care about it? What is it that
hath happened of late years—what is it can be thought to happen that
astrologer can guess at, which can give pleasure to us?”

“Fate,” she replied, “may have in store the joyful restoration of our
banished Prince.”

“Too late for my time, Alice,” said the knight; “if there be such a
white page in the heavenly book, it will not be turned until long after
my day.—But I see thou wouldst escape me.—In a word, what of thy uncle
Everard?”

“Nay, sir,” said Alice, “God knows I would rather be silent for ever,
than speak what might, as you would take it, add to your present
distemperature.”

“Distemperature!” said her father; “Oh, thou art a sweet lipped
physician, and wouldst, I warrant me, drop nought but sweet balm, and
honey, and oil, on my distemperature—if that is the phrase for an old
man’s ailment, when he is wellnigh heart-broken.—Once more, what of thy
uncle Everard?”

His last words were uttered in a high and peevish tone of voice; and
Alice Lee answered her father in a trembling and submissive tone.

“I only meant to say, sir, that I am well assured that my uncle
Everard, when we quit this place”—

“That is to say, when we are kicked out of it by crop-eared canting
villains like himself.—But on with thy bountiful uncle—what will he
do?—will he give us the remains of his worshipful and economical
housekeeping, the fragments of a thrice-sacked capon twice a-week, and
a plentiful fast on the other five days?—Will he give us beds beside
his half-starved nags, and put them under a short allowance of straw,
that his sister’s husband—that I should have called my deceased angel
by such a name!—and his sister’s daughter, may not sleep on the stones?
Or will he send us a noble each, with a warning to make it last, for he
had never known the ready-penny so hard to come by? Or what else will
your uncle Everard do for us? Get us a furlough to beg? Why, I can do
that without him.”

“You misconstrue him much,” answered Alice, with more spirit than she
had hitherto displayed; “and would you but question your own heart, you
would acknowledge—I speak with reverence—that your tongue utters what
your better judgment would disown. My uncle Everard is neither a miser
nor a hypocrite—neither so fond of the goods of this world that he
would not supply our distresses amply, nor so wedded to fanatical
opinions as to exclude charity for other sects beside his own.”

“Ay, ay, the Church of England is a _sect_ with him, I doubt not, and
perhaps with thee too, Alice,” said the knight. “What is a
Muggletonian, or a Ranter, or a Brownist, but a sectary? and thy phrase
places them all, with Jack Presbyter himself, on the same footing with
our learned prelates and religious clergy! Such is the cant of the day
thou livest in, and why shouldst thou not talk like one of the wise
virgins and psalm-singing sisters, since, though thou hast a profane
old cavalier for a father, thou art own niece to pious uncle Everard?”

“If you speak thus, my dear father,” said Alice, “what can I answer
you? Hear me but one patient word, and I shall have discharged my uncle
Everard’s commission.”

“Oh, it is a commission, then? Surely, I suspected so much from the
beginning—nay, have some sharp guess touching the ambassador also.—
Come, madam, the mediator, do your errand, and you shall have no reason
to complain of my patience.”

“Then, sir,” replied his daughter, “my uncle Everard desires you would
be courteous to the commissioners, who come here to sequestrate the
parks and the property; or, at least, heedfully to abstain from giving
them obstacle or opposition: it can, he says, do no good, even on your
own principles, and it will give a pretext for proceeding against you
as one in the worst degree of malignity, which he thinks may otherwise
be prevented. Nay, he has good hope, that if you follow his counsel,
the committee may, through the interest he possesses, be inclined to
remove the sequestration of your estate on a moderate line. Thus says
my uncle; and having communicated his advice, I have no occasion to
urge your patience with farther argument.”

“It is well thou dost not, Alice,” answered Sir Henry Lee, in a tone of
suppressed anger; “for, by the blessed Rood, thou hast well nigh led me
into the heresy of thinking thee no daughter of mine.—Ah! my beloved
companion, who art now far from the sorrows and cares of this weary
world, couldst thou have thought that the daughter thou didst clasp to
thy bosom, would, like the wicked wife of Job, become a temptress to
her father in the hour of affliction, and recommend to him to make his
conscience truckle to his interest, and to beg back at the bloody hands
of his master’s and perhaps his son’s murderers, a wretched remnant of
the royal property he has been robbed of!—Why, wench, if I must beg,
think’st thou I will sue to those who have made me a mendicant? No. I
will never show my grey beard, worn in sorrow for my sovereign’s death,
to move the compassion of some proud sequestrator, who perhaps was one
of the parricides. No. If Henry Lee must sue for food, it shall be of
some sound loyalist like himself, who, having but half a loaf
remaining, will not nevertheless refuse to share it with him. For his
daughter, she may wander her own way, which leads her to a refuge with
her wealthy roundhead kinsfolk; but let her no more call him father,
whose honest indigence she has refused to share!”

“You do me injustice, sir,” answered the young lady, with a voice
animated yet faltering, “cruel injustice. God knows, your way is my
way, though it lead to ruin and beggary; and while you tread it, my arm
shall support you while you will accept an aid so feeble.”

“Thou word’st me, girl,” answered the old cavalier, “thou word’st me,
as Will Shakspeare says—thou speakest of lending me thy arm; but thy
secret thought is thyself to hang upon Markham Everard’s.”

“My father, my father,” answered Alice, in a tone of deep grief, “what
can thus have altered your clear judgment and kindly heart!—Accursed be
these civil commotions; not only do they destroy men’s bodies, but they
pervert their souls; and the brave, the noble, the generous, become
suspicious, harsh, and mean! Why upbraid me with Markham Everard? Have
I seen or spoke to him since you forbid him my company, with terms less
kind—I will speak it truly—than was due even to the relationship
betwixt you? Why think I would sacrifice to that young man my duty to
you? Know, that were I capable of such criminal weakness, Markham
Everard were the first to despise me for it.”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, but she could not hide her sobs,
nor conceal the distress they intimated. The old man was moved.

“I cannot tell,” he said, “what to think of it. Thou seem’st sincere,
and wert ever a good and kindly daughter—how thou hast let that rebel
youth creep into thy heart I wot not; perhaps it is a punishment on me,
who thought the loyalty of my house was like undefiled ermine. Yet here
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 wine-pot. 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 red-coat, 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 committed them to thy
keeping.”

“What vessels?” exclaimed the fiery old knight; “and belonging to whom?
Unbaptized dog, speak civil of the Martyr in my presence, or I will do
a deed misbecoming of me on that caitiff corpse of thine!”—And shaking
his daughter from his right arm, the old man laid his hand on his
rapier.

His antagonist, on the contrary, kept his temper completely, and waving
his hand to add impression to his speech, he said, with a calmness
which aggravated Sir Henry’s wrath, “Nay, good friend, I prithee be
still, and brawl not—it becomes not grey hairs and feeble arms to rail
and rant like drunkards. Put me not to use the carnal weapon in mine
own defence, but listen to the voice of reason. See’st thou not that
the Lord hath decided this great controversy in favour of us and ours,
against thee and thine? Wherefore, render up thy stewardship
peacefully, and deliver up to me the chattels of the Man, Charles
Stewart.”

“Patience is a good nag, but she will bolt,” said the knight, unable
longer to rein in his wrath. He plucked his sheathed rapier from his
side, struck the soldier a severe blow with it, and instantly drawing
it, and throwing the scabbard over the trees, placed himself in a
posture of defence, with his sword’s point within half a yard of the
steward’s body. The latter stepped back with activity, threw his long
cloak from his shoulders, and drawing his long tuck, stood upon his
guard. The swords clashed smartly together, while Alice, in her terror,
screamed wildly for assistance. But the combat was of short duration.
The old cavalier had attacked a man as cunning of fence as he himself,
or a little more so, and possessing all the strength and activity of
which time had deprived Sir Henry, and the calmness which the other had
lost in his passion. They had scarce exchanged three passes ere the
sword of the knight flew up in the air, as if it had gone in search of
the scabbard; and burning with shame and anger, Sir Henry stood
disarmed, at the mercy of his antagonist. The republican showed no
purpose of abusing his victory; nor did he, either during the combat,
or after the victory was won, in any respect alter the sour and grave
composure which reigned upon his countenance—a combat of life and death
seemed to him a thing as familiar, and as little to be feared, as an
ordinary bout with foils.

“Thou art delivered into my hands,” he said, “and by the law of arms I
might smite thee under the fifth rib, even as Asahel was struck dead by
Abner, the son of Ner, as he followed the chase on the hill of Ammah,
that lieth before Giah, in the way of the wilderness of Gibeon; but far
be it from me to spill thy remaining drops of blood. True it is, thou
art the captive of my sword and of my spear; nevertheless, seeing that
there may be a turning from thy evil ways, and a returning to those
which are good, if the Lord enlarge thy date for repentance and
amendment, wherefore should it be shortened by a poor sinful mortal,
who is, speaking truly, but thy fellow-worm.”

Sir Henry Lee remained still confused, and unable to answer, when there
arrived a fourth person, whom the cries of Alice had summoned to the
spot. This was Joceline Joliffe, one of the under-keepers of the walk,
who, seeing how matters stood, brandished his quarterstaff, a weapon
from which he never parted, and having made it describe the figure of
eight in a flourish through the air, would have brought it down with a
vengeance upon the head of the steward, had not Sir Henry interposed.

“We must trail bats now, Joceline—our time of shouldering them is past.
It skills not striving against the stream—the devil rules the roast,
and makes our slaves our tutors.”

At this moment another auxiliary rushed out of the thicket to the
knight’s assistance. It was a large wolf-dog, in strength a mastiff, in
form and almost in fleetness a greyhound. Bevis was the noblest of the
kind which ever pulled down a stag, tawny coloured like a lion, with a
black muzzle and black feet, just edged with a line of white round the
toes. He was as tractable as he was strong and bold. Just as he was
about to rush upon the soldier, the words, “Peace, Bevis!” from Sir
Henry, converted the lion into a lamb, and instead of pulling the
soldier down, he walked round and round, and snuffed, as if using all
his sagacity to discover who the stranger could be, towards whom,
though of so questionable an appearance, he was enjoined forbearance.
Apparently he was satisfied, for he laid aside his doubtful and
threatening demonstrations, lowered his ears, smoothed down his
bristles, and wagged his tail.

Sir Henry, who had great respect for the sagacity of his favourite,
said in a low voice to Alice, “Bevis is of thy opinion and counsels
submission. There is the finger of Heaven in this to punish the pride,
ever the fault of our house.—Friend,” he continued, addressing the
soldier, “thou hast given the finishing touch to a lesson, which ten
years of constant misfortune have been unable fully to teach me. Thou
hast distinctly shown me the folly of thinking that a good cause can
strengthen a weak arm. God forgive me for the thought, but I could
almost turn infidel, and believe that Heaven’s blessing goes ever with
the longest sword; but it will not be always thus. God knows his
time.—Reach me my Toledo, Joceline, yonder it lies; and the scabbard,
see where it hangs on the tree.—Do not pull at my cloak, Alice, and
look so miserably frightened; I shall be in no hurry to betake me to
bright steel again, I promise thee.—For thee, good fellow, I thank
thee, and will make way for thy masters without farther dispute or
ceremony. Joceline Joliffe is nearer thy degree than I am, and will
make surrender to thee of the Lodge and household stuff. Withhold
nothing, Joliffe—let them have all. For me, I will never cross the
threshold again—but where to rest for a night? I would trouble no one
in Woodstock—hum—ay—it shall be so. Alice and I, Joceline, will go down
to thy hut by Rosamond’s well; we will borrow the shelter of thy roof
for one night at least; thou wilt give us welcome, wilt thou not?—How
now—a clouded brow?”

Joceline certainly looked embarrassed, directed a first glance to
Alice, then looked to Heaven, then to earth, and last to the four
quarters of the horizon, and then murmured out, “Certainly—without
question—might he but run down to put the house in order.”

“Order enough—order enough for those that may soon be glad of clean
straw in a barn,” said the knight; “but if thou hast an ill-will to
harbour any obnoxious or malignant persons, as the phrase goes, never
shame to speak it out, man. ’Tis true, I took thee up when thou wert
but a ragged Robin,[1] made a keeper of thee, and so forth. What of
that? Sailors think no longer of the wind than when it forwards them on
the voyage—thy betters turn with the tide, why should not such a poor
knave as thou?”

 [1] The keeper’s followers in the New Forest are called in popular
 language ragged Robins.


“God pardon your honour for your harsh judgment,” said Joliffe. “The
hut is yours, such as it is, and should be were it a King’s palace, as
I wish it were even for your honour’s sake, and Mistress Alice’s—only I
could wish your honour would condescend to let me step down before, in
case any neighbour be there—or—or—just to put matters something into
order for Mistress Alice and your honour—just to make things something
seemly and shapely.”

“Not a whit necessary,” said the knight, while Alice had much trouble
in concealing her agitation. “If thy matters are unseemly, they are
fitter for a defeated knight—if they are unshapely, why, the liker to
the rest of a world, which is all unshaped. Go thou with that man.—What
is thy name, friend?”

“Joseph Tomkins is my name in the flesh,” said the steward. “Men call
me Honest Joe, and Trusty Tomkins.”

“If thou hast deserved such names, considering what trade thou hast
driven, thou art a jewel indeed,” said the knight; “yet if thou hast
not, never blush for the matter, Joseph, for if thou art not in truth
honest, thou hast all the better chance to keep the fame of it—the
title and the thing itself have long walked separate ways. Farewell to
thee,—and farewell to fair Woodstock!”

So saying, the old knight turned round, and pulling his daughter’s arm
through his own, they walked onward into the forest, in the same manner
in which they were introduced to the reader.




CHAPTER THE THIRD.


Now, ye wild blades, that make loose inns your stage,
To vapour forth the acts of this sad age,
Stout Edgehill fight, the Newberries and the West,
And northern clashes, where you still fought best;
Your strange escapes, your dangers void of fear,
When bullets flew between the head and ear,
Whether you fought by Damme or the Spirit,
Of you I speak.


LEGEND OF CAPTAIN JONES.


Joseph Tomkins and Joliffe the keeper remained for some time in
silence, as they stood together looking along the path in which the
figures of the Knight of Ditchley and pretty Mistress Alice had
disappeared behind the trees. They then gazed on each other in doubt,
as men who scarce knew whether they stood on hostile or on friendly
terms together, and were at a loss how to open a conversation. They
heard the knight’s whistle summon Bevis; but though the good hound
turned his head and pricked his ears at the sound, yet he did not obey
the call, but continued to snuff around Joseph Tomkins’s cloak.

“Thou art a rare one, I fear me,” said the keeper, looking to his new
acquaintance. “I have heard of men who have charms to steal both dogs
and deer.”

“Trouble not thyself about my qualities, friend,” said Joseph Tomkins,
“but bethink thee of doing thy master’s bidding.”

Joceline did not immediately answer, but at length, as if in sign of
truce, stuck the end of his quarterstaff upright in the ground, and
leant upon it as he said gruffly,—“So, my tough old knight and you were
at drawn bilbo, by way of afternoon service, sir preacher—Well for you
I came not up till the blades were done jingling, or I had rung
even-song upon your pate.”

The Independent smiled grimly as he replied, “Nay, friend, it is well
for thyself, for never should sexton have been better paid for the
knell he tolled. Nevertheless, why should there be war betwixt us, or
my hand be against thine? Thou art but a poor knave, doing thy master’s
order, nor have I any desire that my own blood or thine should be shed
touching this matter.—Thou art, I understand, to give me peaceful
possession of the Palace of Woodstock, so called—though there is now no
palace in England, no, nor shall be in the days that come after, until
we shall enter the palace of the New Jerusalem, and the reign of the
Saints shall commence on earth.”

“Pretty well begun already, friend Tomkins,” said the keeper; “you are
little short of being kings already upon the matter as it now stands;
and for your Jerusalem I wot not, but Woodstock is a pretty nest-egg to
begin with.—Well, will you shog—will you on—will you take sasine and
livery?—You heard my orders.”

“Umph—I know not,” said Tomkins. “I must beware of ambuscades, and I am
alone here. Moreover, it is the High Thanksgiving appointed by
Parliament, and owned to by the army—also the old man and the young
woman may want to recover some of their clothes and personal property,
and I would not that they were baulked on my account. Wherefore, if
thou wilt deliver me possession to-morrow morning, it shall be done in
personal presence of my own followers, and of the Presbyterian man the
Mayor, so that the transfer may be made before witnesses; whereas, were
there none with us but thou to deliver, and I to take possession, the
men of Belial might say, Go to, Trusty Tomkins hath been an Edomite—
Honest Joe hath been as an Ishmaelite, rising up early and dividing the
spoil with them that served the Man—yea, they that wore beards and
green Jerkins, as in remembrance of the Man and of his government.”

Joceline fixed his keen dark eyes upon the soldier as he spoke, as if
in design to discover whether there was fair play in his mind or not.
He then applied his five fingers to scratch a large shock head of hair,
as if that operation was necessary to enable him to come to a
conclusion. “This is all fair sounding, brother,” said he; “but I tell
you plainly there are some silver mugs, and platters, and flagons, and
so forth, in yonder house, which have survived the general sweep that
sent all our plate to the smelting-pot, to put our knight’s troop on
horseback. Now, if thou takest not these off my hand, I may come to
trouble, since it may be thought I have minished their
numbers.—Whereas, I being as honest a fellow”—

“As ever stole venison,” said Tomkins—“nay, I do owe thee an
interruption.”

“Go to, then,” replied the keeper; “if a stag may have come to
mischance in my walk, it was no way in the course of dishonesty, but
merely to keep my old dame’s pan from rusting; but for silver
porringers, tankards, and such like, I would as soon have drunk the
melted silver, as stolen the vessel made out of it. So that I would not
wish blame or suspicion fell on me in this matter. And, therefore, if
you will have the things rendered even now,—why so—and if not, hold me
blameless.”

“Ay, truly,” said Tomkins; “and who is to hold me blameless, if they
should see cause to think any thing minished? Not the right worshipful
Commissioners, to whom the property of the estate is as their own;
therefore, as thou say’st, we must walk warily in the matter. To lock
up the house and leave it, were but the work of simple ones. What
say’st thou to spend the night there, and then nothing can be touched
without the knowledge of us both?”

“Why, concerning that,” answered the keeper, “I should be at my hut to
make matters somewhat conformable for the old knight and Mistress
Alice, for my old dame Joan is something dunny, and will scarce know
how to manage—and yet,—to speak the truth, by the mass I would rather
not see Sir Henry to-night, since what has happened to-day hath roused
his spleen, and it is a peradventure he may have met something at the
hut which will scarce tend to cool it.”

“It is a pity,” said Tomkins, “that being a gentleman of such grave and
goodly presence, he should be such a malignant cavalier, and that he
should, like the rest of that generation of vipers, have clothed
himself with curses as with a garment.”

“Which is as much as to say, the tough old knight hath a habit of
swearing,” said the keeper, grinning at a pun, which has been repeated
since his time; “but who can help it? it comes of use and wont. Were
you now, in your bodily self, to light suddenly on a Maypole, with all
the blithe morris-dancers prancing around it to the merry pipe and
tabor, with bells jingling, ribands fluttering, lads frisking and
laughing, lasses leaping till you might see where the scarlet garter
fastened the light blue hose, I think some feeling, resembling either
natural sociality, or old use and wont, would get the better, friend,
even of thy gravity, and thou wouldst fling thy cuckoldy steeple-hat
one way, and that blood-thirsty long sword another, and trip, like the
noodles of Hogs-Norton, when the pigs play on the organ.”

The Independent turned fiercely round on the keeper, and replied, “How
now, Mr. Green Jerkin? what language is this to one whose hand is at
the plough? I advise thee to put curb on thy tongue, lest thy ribs pay
the forfeit.”

“Nay, do not take the high tone with me, brother” answered Joceline;
“remember thou hast not the old knight of sixty-five to deal with, but
a fellow as bitter and prompt as thyself—it may be a little more so—
younger, at all events—and prithee, why shouldst thou take such umbrage
at a Maypole? I would thou hadst known one Phil Hazeldine of these
parts—He was the best morris-dancer betwixt Oxford and Burford.”

“The more shame to him,” answered the Independent; “and I trust he has
seen the error of his ways, and made himself (as, if a man of action,
he easily might) fit for better company than wood-hunters,
deer-stealers, Maid Marions, swash-bucklers, deboshed revellers, bloody
brawlers, maskers, and mummers, lewd men and light women, fools and
fiddlers, and carnal self-pleasers of every description.”

“Well,” replied the keeper, “you are out of breath in time; for here we
stand before the famous Maypole of Woodstock.”

They paused in an open space of meadow-land, beautifully skirted by
large oaks and sycamores, one of which, as king of the forest, stood a
little detached from the rest, as if scorning the vicinity of any
rival. It was scathed and gnarled in the branches, but the immense
trunk still showed to what gigantic size the monarch of the forest can
attain in the groves of merry England.

“That is called the King’s Oak,” said Joceline; “the oldest men of
Woodstock know not how old it is; they say Henry used to sit under it
with fair Rosamond, and see the lasses dance, and the lads of the
village run races, and wrestle for belts or bonnets.”

“I nothing doubt it, friend,” said Tomkins; “a tyrant and a harlot were
fitting patron and patroness for such vanities.”

“Thou mayst say thy say, friend,” replied the keeper, “so thou lettest
me say mine. There stands the Maypole, as thou seest, half a
flight-shot from the King’s Oak, in the midst of the meadow. The King
gave ten shillings from the customs of Woodstock to make a new one
yearly, besides a tree fitted for the purpose out of the forest. Now it
is warped, and withered, and twisted, like a wasted brier-rod. The
green, too, used to be close-shaved, and rolled till it was smooth as a
velvet mantle—now it is rough and overgrown.”

“Well, well, friend Joceline,” said the Independent, “but where was the
edification of all this?—what use of doctrine could be derived from a
pipe and tabor? or was there ever aught like wisdom in a bagpipe?”

“You may ask better scholars that,” said Joceline; “but methinks men
cannot be always grave, and with the hat over their brow. A young
maiden will laugh as a tender flower will blow—ay, and a lad will like
her the better for it; just as the same blithe Spring that makes the
young birds whistle, bids the blithe fawns skip. There have come worse
days since the jolly old times have gone by:—I tell thee, that in the
holydays which you, Mr. Longsword, have put down, I have seen this
greensward alive with merry maidens and manly fellows. The good old
rector himself thought it was no sin to come for a while and look on,
and his goodly cassock and scarf kept us all in good order, and taught
us to limit our mirth within the bounds of discretion. We might, it may
be, crack a broad jest, or pledge a friendly cup a turn too often, but
it was in mirth and good neighbour-hood—Ay, and if there was a bout at
single-stick, or a bellyful of boxing, it was all for love and
kindness; and better a few dry blows in drink, than the bloody doings
we have had in sober earnest, since the presbyter’s cap got above the
bishop’s mitre, and we exchanged our goodly rectors and learned
doctors, whose sermons were all bolstered up with as much Greek and
Latin as might have confounded the devil himself, for weavers and
cobblers, and such other pulpit volunteers, as—as we heard this
morning—It will out.”

“Well, friend,” said the Independent, with patience scarcely to have
been expected, “I quarrel not with thee for nauseating my doctrine. If
thine ear is so much tickled with tabor tunes and morris tripping,
truly it is not likely thou shouldst find pleasant savour in more
wholesome and sober food. But let us to the Lodge, that we may go about
our business there before the sun sets.”

“Troth, and that may be advisable for more reasons than one,” said the
keeper; “for there have been tales about the Lodge which have made men
afeard to harbour there after nightfall.”

“Were not yon old knight, and yonder damsel his daughter, wont to dwell
there?” said the Independent. “My information said so.”

“Ay, truly did they,” said Joceline; “and while they kept a jolly
house-hold, all went well enough; for nothing banishes fear like good
ale. But after the best of our men went to the wars, and were slain at
Naseby fight, they who were left found the Lodge more lonesome, and the
old knight has been much deserted of his servants:—marry, it might be,
that he has lacked silver of late to pay groom and lackey.”

“A potential reason for the diminution of a household,” said the
soldier.

“Right, sir, even so,” replied the keeper. “They spoke of steps in the
great gallery, heard by dead of the night, and voices that whispered at
noon, in the matted chambers; and the servants pretended that these
things scared them away; but, in my poor judgment, when Martinmas and
Whitsuntide came round without a penny-fee, the old blue-bottles of
serving-men began to think of creeping elsewhere before the frost
chilled them.—No devil so frightful as that which dances in the pocket
where there is no cross to keep him out.”

“You were reduced, then, to a petty household?” said the Independent.

“Ay, marry, were we,” said Joceline; “but we kept some half-score
together, what with blue-bottles in the Lodge, what with green
caterpillars of the chase, like him who is yours to command; we stuck
together till we found a call to take a morning’s ride somewhere or
other.”

“To the town of Worcester,” said the soldier, “where you were crushed
like vermin and palmer worms, as you are.”

“You may say your pleasure,” replied the keeper; “I’ll never contradict
a man who has got my head under his belt. Our backs are at the wall, or
you would not be here.”

“Nay, friend,” said the Independent, “thou riskest nothing by thy
freedom and trust in me. I can be _bon camarado_ to a good soldier,
although I have striven with him even to the going down of the sun.—But
here we are in front of the Lodge.”

They stood accordingly in front of the old Gothic building, irregularly
constructed, and at different times, as the humour of the English
monarchs led them to taste the pleasures of Woodstock Chase, and to
make such improvements for their own accommodation as the increasing
luxury of each age required. The oldest part of the structure had been
named by tradition Fair Rosamond’s Tower; it was a small turret of
great height, with narrow windows, and walls of massive thickness. The
Tower had no opening to the ground, or means of descending, a great
part of the lower portion being solid mason-work. It was traditionally
said to have been accessible only by a sort of small drawbridge, which
might be dropped at pleasure from a little portal near the summit of
the turret, to the battlements of another tower of the same
construction, but twenty feet lower, and containing only a winding
staircase, called in Woodstock Love’s Ladder; because it is said, that
by ascending this staircase to the top of the tower, and then making
use of the drawbridge, Henry obtained access to the chamber of his
paramour.

This tradition had been keenly impugned by Dr. Rochecliffe, the former
rector of Woodstock, who insisted, that what was called Rosamond’s
Tower, was merely an interior keep, or citadel, to which the lord or
warden of the castle might retreat, when other points of safety failed
him; and either protract his defence, or, at the worst, stipulate for
reasonable terms of surrender. The people of Woodstock, jealous of
their ancient traditions, did not relish this new mode of explaining
them away; and it is even said, that the Mayor, whom we have already
introduced, became Presbyterian, in revenge of the doubts cast by the
rector upon this important subject, rather choosing to give up the
Liturgy than his fixed belief in Rosamond’s Tower, and Love’s Ladder.

The rest of the Lodge was of considerable extent, and of different
ages; comprehending a nest of little courts, surrounded by buildings
which corresponded with each other, sometimes within-doors, sometimes
by crossing the courts, and frequently in both ways. The different
heights of the buildings announced that they could only be connected by
the usual variety of staircases, which exercised the limbs of our
ancestors in the sixteenth and earlier centuries, and seem sometimes to
have been contrived for no other purpose.

The varied and multiplied fronts of this irregular building were, as
Dr. Rochecliffe was wont to say, an absolute banquet to the
architectural antiquary, as they certainly contained specimens of every
style which existed, from the pure Norman of Henry of Anjou, down to
the composite, half Gothic half classical architecture of Elizabeth and
her successor. Accordingly, the rector was himself as much enamoured of
Woodstock as ever was Henry of Fair Rosamond; and as his intimacy with
Sir Henry Lee permitted him entrance at all times to the Royal Lodge,
he used to spend whole days in wandering about the antique apartments,
examining, measuring, studying, and finding out excellent reasons for
architectural peculiarities, which probably only owed their existence
to the freakish fancy of a Gothic artist. But the old antiquary had
been expelled from his living by the intolerance and troubles of the
times, and his successor, Nehemiah Holdenough, would have considered an
elaborate investigation of the profane sculpture and architecture of
blinded and blood-thirsty Papists, together with the history of the
dissolute amours of old Norman monarchs, as little better than a bowing
down before the calves of Bethel, and a drinking of the cup of
abominations.—We return to the course of our story.

“There is,” said the Independent Tomkins, after he had carefully
perused the front of the building, “many a rare monument of olden
wickedness about this miscalled Royal Lodge; verily, I shall rejoice
much to see the same destroyed, yea, burned to ashes, and the ashes
thrown into the brook Kedron, or any other brook, that the land may be
cleansed from the memory thereof, neither remember the iniquity with
which their fathers have sinned.”

The keeper heard him with secret indignation, and began to consider
with himself, whether, as they stood but one to one, and without chance
of speedy interference, he was not called upon, by his official duty,
to castigate the rebel who used language so defamatory. But he
fortunately recollected, that the strife must be a doubtful one—that
the advantage of arms was against him—and that, in especial, even if he
should succeed in the combat, it would be at the risk of severe
retaliation. It must be owned, too, that there was something about the
Independent so dark and mysterious, so grim and grave, that the more
open spirit of the keeper felt oppressed, and, if not overawed, at
least kept in doubt concerning him; and he thought it wisest, as well
as safest, for his master and himself, to avoid all subjects of
dispute, and know better with whom he was dealing, before he made
either friend or enemy of him.

The great gate of the Lodge was strongly bolted, but the wicket opened
on Joceline’s raising the latch. There was a short passage of ten feet,
which had been formerly closed by a portcullis at the inner end, while
three loopholes opened on either side, through which any daring
intruder might be annoyed, who, having surprised the first gate, must
be thus exposed to a severe fire before he could force the second. But
the machinery of the portcullis was damaged, and it now remained a
fixture, brandishing its jaw, well furnished with iron fangs, but
incapable of dropping it across the path of invasion.

The way, therefore, lay open to the great hall or outer vestibule of
the Lodge. One end of this long and dusky apartment was entirely
occupied by a gallery, which had in ancient times served to accommodate
the musicians and minstrels. There was a clumsy staircase at either
side of it, composed of entire logs of a foot square; and in each angle
of the ascent was placed, by way of sentinel, the figure of a Norman
foot-soldier, having an open casque on his head, which displayed
features as stern as the painter’s genius could devise. Their arms were
buff-jackets, or shirts of mail, round bucklers, with spikes in the
centre, and buskins which adorned and defended the feet and ankles, but
left the knees bare. These wooden warders held great swords, or maces,
in their hands, like military guards on duty. Many an empty hook and
brace, along the walls of the gloomy apartment, marked the spots from
which arms, long preserved as trophies, had been, in the pressure of
the wars, once more taken down, to do service in the field, like
veterans whom extremity of danger recalls to battle. On other rusty
fastenings were still displayed the hunting trophies of the monarchs to
whom the Lodge belonged, and of the silvan knights to whose care it had
been from time to time confided.

At the nether end of the hall, a huge, heavy, stone-wrought
chimney-piece projected itself ten feet from the wall, adorned with
many a cipher, and many a scutcheon of the Royal House of England. In
its present state, it yawned like the arched mouth of a funeral vault,
or perhaps might be compared to the crater of an extinguished volcano.
But the sable complexion of the massive stone-work, and all around it,
showed that the time had been when it sent its huge fires blazing up
the huge chimney, besides puffing many a volume of smoke over the heads
of the jovial guests, whose royalty or nobility did not render them
sensitive enough to quarrel with such slight inconvenience. On these
occasions, it was the tradition of the house, that two cart-loads of
wood was the regular allowance for the fire between noon and curfew,
and the andirons, or dogs, as they were termed, constructed for
retaining the blazing firewood on the hearth, were wrought in the shape
of lions of such gigantic size as might well warrant the legend. There
were long seats of stone within the chimney, where, in despite of the
tremendous heat, monarchs were sometimes said to have taken their
station, and amused themselves with broiling the _umbles_, or
_dowsels_, of the deer, upon the glowing embers, with their own royal
hands, when happy the courtier who was invited to taste the royal
cookery. Tradition was here also ready with her record, to show what
merry gibes, such as might be exchanged between prince and peer, had
flown about at the jolly banquet which followed the Michaelmas hunt.
She could tell, too, exactly, where King Stephen sat when he darned his
own princely hose, and knew most of the odd tricks he had put upon
little Winkin, the tailor of Woodstock.

Most of this rude revelry belonged to the Plantagenet times. When the
house of Tudor ascended to the throne, they were more chary of their
royal presence, and feasted in halls and chambers far within,
abandoning the outmost hall to the yeomen of the guard, who mounted
their watch there, and passed away the night with wassail and mirth,
exchanged sometimes for frightful tales of apparitions and sorceries,
which made some of those grow pale, in whose ears the trumpet of a
French foeman would have sounded as jollily as a summons to the
woodland chase.

Joceline pointed out the peculiarities of the place to his gloomy
companion more briefly than we have detailed them to the reader. The
Independent seemed to listen with some interest at first, but, flinging
it suddenly aside, he said in a solemn tone, “Perish, Babylon, as thy
master Nebuchadnezzar hath perished! He is a wanderer, and thou shalt
be a waste place—yea, and a wilderness—yea, a desert of salt, in which
there shall be thirst and famine.”

“There is like to be enough of both to-night,” said Joceline, “unless
the good knight’s larder be somewhat fuller than it is wont.”

“We must care for the creature-comforts,” said the Independent, “but in
due season, when our duties are done. Whither lead these entrances?”

“That to the right,” replied the keeper, “leads to what are called, the
state-apartments, not used since the year sixteen hundred and
thirty-nine, when his blessed Majesty”—

“How, sir!” interrupted the Independent, in a voice of thunder, “dost
thou speak of Charles Stewart as blessing, or blessed?—beware the
proclamation to that effect.”

“I meant no harm,” answered the keeper, suppressing his disposition to
make a harsher reply. “My business is with bolts and bucks, not with
titles and state affairs. But yet, whatever may have happed since, that
poor King was followed with blessings enough from Woodstock, for he
left a glove full of broad pieces for the poor of the place”—

“Peace, friend,” said the Independent; “I will think thee else one of
those besotted and blinded Papists, who hold, that bestowing of alms is
an atonement and washing away of the wrongs and oppressions which have
been wrought by the almsgiver. Thou sayest, then, these were the
apartments of Charles Stewart?”

“And of his father, James, before him, and Elizabeth, before _him_, and
bluff King Henry, who builded that wing, before them all.”

“And there, I suppose, the knight and his daughter dwelt?”

“No,” replied Joceline; “Sir Henry Lee had too much reverence for—for
things which are now thought worth no reverence at all—Besides, the
state-rooms are unaired, and in indifferent order, since of late years.
The Knight Ranger’s apartment lies by that passage to the left.”

“And whither goes yonder stair, which seems both to lead upwards and
downwards?”

“Upwards,” replied the keeper, “it leads to many apartments, used for
various purposes, of sleeping, and other accommodation. Downwards, to
the kitchen, offices, and vaults of the castle, which, at this time of
the evening, you cannot see without lights.”

“We will to the apartments of your knight, then,” said the Independent.
“Is there fitting accommodation there?”

“Such as has served a person of condition, whose lodging is now worse
appointed,” answered the honest keeper, his bile rising so fast that he
added, in a muttering and inaudible tone, “so it may well serve a
crop-eared knave like thee.”

He acted as the usher, however, and led on towards the ranger’s
apartments.

This suite opened by a short passage from the hall, secured at time of
need by two oaken doors, which could be fastened by large bars of the
same, that were drawn out of the wall, and entered into square holes,
contrived for their reception on the other side of the portal. At the
end of this passage, a small ante-room received them, into which opened
the sitting apartment of the good knight—which, in the style of the
time, might have been termed a fair summer parlour—lighted by two oriel
windows, so placed as to command each of them a separate avenue,
leading distant and deep into the forest. The principal ornament of the
apartment, besides two or three family portraits of less interest, was
a tall full-length picture, that hung above the chimney-piece, which,
like that in the hall, was of heavy stone-work, ornamented with carved
scutcheons, emblazoned with various devices. The portrait was that of a
man about fifty years of age, in complete plate armour, and painted in
the harsh and dry manner of Holbein—probably, indeed, the work of that
artist, as the dates corresponded. The formal and marked angles, points
and projections of the armour, were a good subject for the harsh pencil
of that early school. The face of the knight was, from the fading of
the colours, pale and dim, like that of some being from the other
world, yet the lines expressed forcibly pride and exultation.

He pointed with his leading-staff, or truncheon, to the background,
where, in such perspective as the artist possessed, were depicted the
remains of a burning church, or monastery, and four or five soldiers,
in red cassocks, bearing away in triumph what seemed a brazen font or
laver. Above their heads might be traced in scroll, “_Lee Victor sic
voluit_.” Right opposite to the picture, hung, in a niche in the wall,
a complete set of tilting armour, the black and gold colours, and
ornaments of which exactly corresponded with those exhibited in the
portrait.

The picture was one of those which, from something marked in the
features and expression, attract the observation even of those who are
ignorant of art. The Independent looked at it until a smile passed
transiently over his clouded brow. Whether he smiled to see the grim
old cavalier employed in desecrating a religious house—(an occupation
much conforming to the practice of his own sect)—whether he smiled in
contempt of the old painter’s harsh and dry mode of working—or whether
the sight of this remarkable portrait revived some other ideas, the
under-keeper could not decide.

The smile passed away in an instant, as the soldier looked to the oriel
windows. The recesses within them were raised a step or two from the
wall. In one was placed a walnut-tree reading-desk, and a huge stuffed
arm-chair, covered with Spanish leather. A little cabinet stood beside,
with some of its shuttles and drawers open, displaying hawks-bells,
dog-whistles, instruments for trimming falcons’ feathers, bridle-bits
of various constructions, and other trifles connected with silvan
sport.

The other little recess was differently furnished. There lay some
articles of needle-work on a small table, besides a lute, with a book
having some airs written down in it, and a frame for working
embroidery. Some tapestry was displayed around the recess, with more
attention to ornament than was visible in the rest of the apartment;
the arrangement of a few bow-pots, with such flowers as the fading
season afforded, showed also the superintendence of female taste.

Tomkins cast an eye of careless regard upon these subjects of female
occupation, then stepped into the farther window, and began to turn the
leaves of a folio, which lay open on the reading-desk, apparently with
some interest. Joceline, who had determined to watch his motions
without interfering with them, was standing at some distance in
dejected silence, when a door behind the tapestry suddenly opened, and
a pretty village maid tripped out with a napkin in her hand, as if she
had been about some household duty.

“How now, Sir Impudence?” she said to Joceline in a smart tone; “what
do you here prowling about the apartments when the master is not at
home?”

But instead of the answer which perhaps she expected, Joceline Joliffe
cast a mournful glance towards the soldier in the oriel window, as if
to make what he said fully intelligible, and replied with a dejected
appearance and voice, “Alack, my pretty Phœbe, there come those here
that have more right or might than any of us, and will use little
ceremony in coming when they will, and staying while they please.”

He darted another glance at Tomkins, who still seemed busy with the
book before him, then sidled close to the astonished girl, who had
continued looking alternately at the keeper and at the stranger, as if
she had been unable to understand the words of the first, or to
comprehend the meaning of the second being present.

“Go,” whispered Joliffe, approaching his mouth so near her cheek, that
his breath waved the curls of her hair; “go, my dearest Phœbe, trip it
as fast as a fawn down to my lodge—I will soon be there, and”—

“Your lodge, indeed” said Phœbe; “you are very bold, for a poor
kill-buck that never frightened any thing before save a dun deer—_Your_
lodge, indeed!—I am like to go there, I think.” “Hush, hush! Phœbe—
here is no time for jesting. Down to my hut, I say, like a deer, for
the knight and Mrs. Alice are both there, and I fear will not return
hither again.—All’s naught, girl—and our evil days are come at last
with a vengeance—we are fairly at bay and fairly hunted down.”

“Can this be, Joceline?” said the poor girl, turning to the keeper with
an expression of fright in her countenance, which she had hitherto
averted in rural coquetry.

“As sure, my dearest Phœbe, as”—

The rest of the asseveration was lost in Phœbe’s ear, so closely did
the keeper’s lips approach it; and if they approached so very near as
to touch her cheek, grief, like impatience, hath its privileges, and
poor Phœbe had enough of serious alarm to prevent her from demurring
upon such a trifle.

But no trifle was the approach of Joceline’s lips to Phœbe’s pretty
though sunburnt cheek, in the estimation of the Independent, who, a
little before the object of Joceline’s vigilance, had been more lately
in his turn the observer of the keeper’s demeanour, so soon as the
interview betwixt Phœbe and him had become so interesting. And when he
remarked the closeness of Joceline’s argument, he raised his voice to a
pitch of harshness that would have rivalled that of an ungreased and
rusty saw, and which at once made Joceline and Phœbe spring six feet
apart, each in contrary directions, and if Cupid was of the party, must
have sent him out at the window like it wild duck flying from a
culverin. Instantly throwing himself into the attitude of a preacher
and a reprover of vice, “How now!” he exclaimed, “shameless and
impudent as you are!—What—chambering and wantoning in our very
presence!—How— would you play your pranks before the steward of the
Commissioners of the High Court of Parliament, as ye would in a booth
at the fulsome fair, or amidst the trappings and tracings of a profane
dancing-school, where the scoundrel minstrels make their ungodly
weapons to squeak, ‘Kiss and be kind, the fiddler’s blind?’—But here,”
he said, dealing a perilous thump upon the volume—“Here is the King and
high priest of those vices and follies!—Here is he, whom men of folly
profanely call nature’s miracle!—Here is he, whom princes chose for
their cabinet-keeper, and whom maids of honour take for their
bed-fellow!— Here is the prime teacher of fine words, foppery and
folly—Here!”— (dealing another thump upon the volume—and oh! revered of
the Roxburghe, it was the first folio—beloved of the Bannatyne, it was
Hemmings and Condel—it was the _editio princeps_)—“On thee,” he
continued—“on thee, William Shakspeare, I charge whate’er of such
lawless idleness and immodest folly hath defiled the land since thy
day!”

“By the mass, a heavy accusation,” said Joceline, the bold recklessness
of whose temper could not be long overawed; “Odds pitlikins, is our
master’s old favourite, Will of Stratford, to answer for every buss
that has been snatched since James’s time?—a perilous reckoning
truly—but I wonder who is sponsible for what lads and lasses did before
his day?” “Scoff not,” said the soldier, “lest I, being called thereto
by the voice within me, do deal with thee as a scorner. Verily, I say,
that since the devil fell from Heaven, he never lacked agents on earth;
yet nowhere hath he met with a wizard having such infinite power over
men’s souls as this pestilent fellow Shakspeare. Seeks a wife a foul
example for adultery, here she shall find it—Would a man know how to
train his fellow to be a murderer, here shall he find tutoring—Would a
lady marry a heathen negro, she shall have chronicled example for
it—Would any one scorn at his Maker, he shall be furnished with a jest
in this book— Would he defy his brother in the flesh, he shall be
accommodated with a challenge—Would you be drunk, Shakspeare will cheer
you with a cup— Would you plunge in sensual pleasures, he will soothe
you to indulgence, as with the lascivious sounds of a lute. This, I
say, this book is the well-head and source of all those evils which
have overrun the land like a torrent, making men scoffers, doubters,
deniers, murderers, makebates, and lovers of the wine-pot, haunting
unclean places, and sitting long at the evening-wine. Away with him,
away with him, men of England! to Tophet with his wicked book, and to
the Vale of Hinnom with his accursed bones! Verily but that our march
was hasty when we passed Stratford, in the year 1643, with Sir William
Waller; but that our march was hasty”—

“Because Prince Rupert was after you with his cavaliers,” muttered the
incorrigible Joceline.

“I say,” continued the zealous trooper, raising his voice and extending
his arm—“but that our march was by command hasty, and that we turned
not aside in our riding, closing our ranks each one upon the other as
becomes men of war, I had torn on that day the bones of that preceptor
of vice and debauchery from the grave, and given them to the next
dunghill. I would have made his memory a scoff and a hissing!”

“That is the bitterest thing he has said yet,” observed the keeper.
“Poor Will would have liked the hissing worse than all the rest.” “Will
the gentleman say any more?” enquired Phœbe in a whisper. “Lack-a-day,
he talks brave words, if one knew but what they meant. But it is a
mercy our good knight did not see him ruffle the book at that
rate—Mercy on us, there would certainly have been bloodshed.—But oh,
the father—see how he is twisting his face about!—Is he ill of the
colic, think’st thou, Joceline? Or, may I offer him a glass of strong
waters?”

“Hark thee hither, wench!” said the keeper, “he is but loading his
blunderbuss for another volley; and while he turns up his eyes, and
twists about his face, and clenches his fist, and shuffles and tramples
with his feet in that fashion, he is bound to take no notice of any
thing. I would be sworn to cut his purse, if he had one, from his side,
without his feeling it.”

“La! Joceline,” said Phœbe, “and if he abides here in this turn of
times, I dare say the gentleman will be easily served.”

“Care not thou about that,” said Joliffe; “but tell me softly and
hastily, what is in the pantry?”

“Small housekeeping enough,” said Phœbe; “a cold capon and some
comfits, and the great standing venison pasty, with plenty of spice—a
manchet or two besides, and that is all.”

“Well, it will serve for a pinch—wrap thy cloak round thy comely
body—get a basket and a brace of trenchers and towels, they are
heinously impoverished down yonder—carry down the capon and the
manchets—the pasty must abide with this same soldier and me, and the
pie-crust will serve us for bread.”

“Rarely,” said Phœbe; “I made the paste myself—it is as thick as the
walls of Fair Rosamond’s Tower.”

“Which two pairs of jaws would be long in gnawing through, work hard as
they might,” said the keeper. “But what liquor is there?”

“Only a bottle of Alicant, and one of sack, with the stone jug of
strong waters,” answered Phœbe.

“Put the wine-flasks into thy basket,” said Joceline, “the knight must
not lack his evening draught—and down with thee to the hut like a
lapwing. There is enough for supper, and to-morrow is a new day.—Ha! by
heaven I thought yonder man’s eye watched us—No—he only rolled it round
him in a brown study—Deep enough doubtless, as they all are.—But d—n
him, he must be bottomless if I cannot sound him before the night’s
out.—Hie thee away, Phœbe.”

But Phœbe was a rural coquette, and, aware that Joceline’s situation
gave him no advantage of avenging the challenge in a fitting way, she
whispered in his ear, “Do you think our knight’s friend, Shakspeare,
really found out all these naughty devices the gentleman spoke of?”

Off she darted while she spoke, while Joliffe menaced future vengeance
with his finger, as he muttered, “Go thy way, Phœbe Mayflower, the
lightest-footed and lightest-hearted wench that ever tripped the sod in
Woodstock-park!—After her, Bevis, and bring her safe to our master at
the hut.”

The large greyhound arose like a human servitor who had received an
order, and followed Phœbe through the hall, first licking her hand to
make her sensible of his presence, and then putting himself to a slow
trot, so as best to accommodate himself to the light pace of her whom
he convoyed, whom Joceline had not extolled for her activity without
due reason. While Phœbe and her guardian thread the forest glades, we
return to the Lodge.

The Independent now seemed to start as if from a reverie. “Is the young
woman gone?” said he.

“Ay, marry is she,” said the keeper; “and if your worship hath farther
commands, you must rest contented with male attendance.”

“Commands—umph—I think the damsel might have tarried for another
exhortation,” said the soldier—“truly, I profess my mind was much
inclined toward her for her edification.”

“Oh, sir,” replied Joliffe, “she will be at church next Sunday, and if
your military reverence is pleased again to hold forth amongst us, she
will have use of the doctrine with the rest. But young maidens of these
parts hear no private homilies.—And what is now your pleasure? Will you
look at the other rooms, and at the few plate articles which have been
left?”

“Umph—no,” said the Independent—“it wears late, and gets dark—thou hast
the means of giving us beds, friend?”

“Better you never slept in,” replied the keeper.

“And wood for a fire, and a light, and some small pittance of
creature-comforts for refreshment of the outward man?” continued the
soldier.

“Without doubt,” replied the keeper, displaying a prudent anxiety to
gratify this important personage.

In a few minutes a great standing candlestick was placed on an oaken
table. The mighty venison pasty, adorned with parsley, was placed on
the board on a clean napkin; the stone-bottle of strong waters, with a
blackjack full of ale, formed comfortable appendages; and to this meal
sate down in social manner the soldier, occupying a great elbow-chair,
and the keeper, at his invitation, using the more lowly accommodation
of a stool, at the opposite side of the table. Thus agreeably employed,
our history leaves them for the present.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH.


Yon path of greensward
Winds round by sparry grot and gay pavilion;
There is no flint to gall thy tender foot,
There’s ready shelter from each breeze, or shower.—
But duty guides not that way—see her stand,
With wand entwined with amaranth, near yon cliffs.
Oft where she leads thy blood must mark thy footsteps,
Oft where she leads thy head must bear the storm.
And thy shrunk form endure heat, cold, and hunger;
But she will guide thee up to noble heights,
Which he who gains seems native of the sky,
While earthly things lie stretch’d beneath his feet,
Diminish’d, shrunk, and valueless—


ANONYMOUS.


The reader cannot have forgotten that after his scuffle with the
commonwealth soldier, Sir Henry Lee, with his daughter Alice, had
departed to take refuge in the hut of the stout keeper Joceline
Joliffe. They walked slow, as before, for the old knight was at once
oppressed by perceiving these last vestiges of royalty fall into the
hands of republicans, and by the recollection of his recent defeat. At
times he paused, and, with his arms folded on his bosom, recalled all
the circumstances attending his expulsion from a house so long his
home. It seemed to him that, like the champions of romance of whom he
had sometimes read, he himself was retiring from the post which it was
his duty to guard, defeated by a Paynim knight, for whom the adventure
had been reserved by fate. Alice had her own painful subjects of
recollection, nor had the tenor of her last conversation with her
father been so pleasant as to make her anxious to renew it until his
temper should be more composed; for with an excellent disposition, and
much love to his daughter, age and misfortunes, which of late came
thicker and thicker, had given to the good knight’s passions a wayward
irritability unknown to his better days. His daughter, and one or two
attached servants, who still followed his decayed fortunes, soothed his
frailty as much as possible, and pitied him even while they suffered
under its effects.

It was a long time ere he spoke, and then he referred to an incident
already noticed. “It is strange,” he said, “that Bevis should have
followed Joceline and that fellow rather than me.”

“Assure yourself, sir,” replied Alice, “that his sagacity saw in this
man a stranger, whom he thought himself obliged to watch circumspectly,
and therefore he remained with Joceline.”

“Not so, Alice,” answered Sir Henry; “he leaves me because my fortunes
have fled from me. There is a feeling in nature, affecting even the
instinct, as it is called, 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 Phœbe
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
Phœbe 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, white-washed, 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 to-night, nor, by Our Lady,
to-morrow 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 by the remark. “Thou hast spoken truth
in that, Mark, wert thou the blackest Puritan whom hell ever vomited,
to distract an unhappy country.”

“Be that as you will to think it,” replied Everard; “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 red-coats 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

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