Woodstock; or, the Cavalier by Walter Scott (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

raised voice.—“Once more I warn you, think not to defy me in vain. I am no child to be frightened by goblins’ tales; and no coward, armed as I am, to be alarmed at the threats of banditti. If I give you a moment’s indulgence, it is for the sake of dear and misguided friends, who may be concerned with this dangerous gambol. Know, I can bring a troop of soldiers round the castle, who will search its most inward recesses for the author of this audacious frolic; and if that search should fail, it will cost but a few barrels of gunpowder to make the mansion a heap of ruins, and bury under them the authors of such an ill-judged pastime.”

“You speak proudly, Sir Colonel,” said another voice, similar to that harsher and stronger tone by which he had been addressed in the gallery; “try your courage in this direction.”

“You should not dare me twice,” said Colonel Everard, “had I a glimpse of light to take aim by.”

As he spoke, a sudden gleam of light was thrown with a brilliancy which almost dazzled the speaker, showing distinctly a form somewhat resembling that of Victor Lee, as represented in his picture, holding in one hand a lady completely veiled, and in the other his leading-staff, or truncheon. Both figures were animated, and, as it appeared, standing within six feet of him.

“Were it not for the woman,” said Everard, “I would not be thus mortally dared.”

“Spare not for the female form, but do your worst,” replied the same voice. “I defy you.”

“Repeat your defiance when I have counted thrice,” said Everard, “and take the punishment of your insolence. Once—I have cocked my pistol— Twice—I never missed my aim—By all that is sacred, I fire if you do not withdraw. When I pronounce the next number, I will shoot you dead where you stand. I am yet unwilling to shed blood—I give you another chance of flight—once—twice—THRICE!”

Everard aimed at the bosom, and discharged his pistol. The figure waved its arm in an attitude of scorn; and a loud laugh arose, during which the light, as gradually growing weaker, danced and glimmered upon the apparition of the aged knight, and then disappeared. Everard’s life-blood ran cold to his heart—“Had he been of human mould,” he thought, “the bullet must have pierced him—but I have neither will nor power to fight with supernatural beings.”

The feeling of oppression was now so strong as to be actually sickening. He groped his way, however, to the fireside, and flung on the embers which were yet gleaming, a handful of dry fuel. It presently blazed, and afforded him light to see the room in every direction. He looked cautiously, almost timidly, around, and half expected some horrible phantom to become visible. But he saw nothing save the old furniture, the reading desk, and other articles, which had been left in the same state as when Sir Henry Lee departed. He felt an uncontrollable desire, mingled with much repugnance, to look at the portrait of the ancient knight, which the form he had seen so strongly resembled. He hesitated betwixt the opposing feelings, but at length snatched, with desperate resolution, the taper which he had extinguished, and relighted it, ere the blaze of the fuel had again died away. He held it up to the ancient portrait of Victor Lee, and gazed on it with eager curiosity, not unmingled with fear. Almost the childish terrors of his earlier days returned, and he thought the severe pale eye of the ancient warrior followed his, and menaced him with its displeasure. And although he quickly argued himself out of such an absurd belief, yet the mixed feelings of his mind were expressed in words that seemed half addressed to the ancient portrait.

“Soul of my mother’s ancestor,” he said, “be it for weal or for woe, by designing men, or by supernatural beings, that these ancient halls are disturbed, I am resolved to leave them on the morrow.”

“I rejoice to hear it, with all my soul,” said a voice behind him.

He turned, saw a tall figure in white, with a sort of turban upon its head, and dropping the candle in the exertion, instantly grappled with it.

“Thou at least art palpable,” he said.

“Palpable?” answered he whom he grasped so strongly—“’Sdeath, methinks you might know that—without the risk of choking me; and if you loose me not, I’ll show you that two can play at the game of wrestling.”

“Roger Wildrake!” said Everard, letting the cavalier loose, and stepping back.

“Roger Wildrake? ay, truly. Did you take me for Roger Bacon, come to help you raise the devil?—for the place smells of sulphur consumedly.”

“It is the pistol I fired—Did you not hear it?”

“Why, yes, it was the first thing waked me—for that nightcap which I pulled on, made me sleep like a dormouse—Pshaw, I feel my brains giddy with it yet.”

“And wherefore came you not on the instant?—I never needed help more.”

“I came as fast as I could,” answered Wildrake; “but it was some time ere I got my senses collected, for I was dreaming of that cursed field at Naseby—and then the door of my room was shut, and hard to open, till I played the locksmith with my foot.”

“How! it was open when I went to bed,” said Everard.

“It was locked when I came out of bed, though,” said Wildrake, “and I marvel you heard me not when I forced it open.”

“My mind was occupied otherwise,” said Everard.

“Well,” said Wildrake, “but what has happened?—Here am I bolt upright, and ready to fight, if this yawning fit will give me leave—Mother Redcap’s mightiest is weaker than I drank last night, by a bushel to a barleycorn—I have quaffed the very elixir of malt—Ha—yaw.”

“And some opiate besides, I should think,” said Everard.

“Very like—very like—less than the pistol-shot would not waken me; even me, who with but an ordinary grace-cup, sleep as lightly as a maiden on the first of May, when she watches for the earliest beam to go to gather dew. But what are you about to do next?”

“Nothing,” answered Everard.

“Nothing?” said Wildrake, in surprise.

“I speak it,” said Colonel Everard, “less for your information, than for that of others who may hear me, that I will leave the Lodge this morning, and, if it is possible, remove the Commissioners.”

“Hark,” said Wildrake, “do you not hear some noise like the distant sound of the applause of a theatre? The goblins of the place rejoice in your departure.”

“I shall leave Woodstock,” said Everard, “to the occupation of my uncle Sir Henry Lee, and his family, if they choose to resume it; not that I am frightened into this as a concession to the series of artifices which have been played off on this occasion, but solely because such was my intention from the beginning. But let me warn,” (he added, raising his voice,)—“let me warn the parties concerned in this combination, that though it may pass off successfully on a fool like Desborough, a visionary like Harrison, a coward like Bletson”—

Here a voice distinctly spoke, as standing near them—“or a wise, moderate, and resolute person, like Colonel Everard.”

“By Heaven, the voice came from the picture,” said Wildrake, drawing his sword; “I will pink his plated armour for him.”

“Offer no violence,” said Everard, startled at the interruption, but resuming with firmness what he was saying—“Let those engaged be aware, that however this string of artifices may be immediately successful, it must, when closely looked into, be attended with the punishment of all concerned—the total demolition of Woodstock, and the irremediable downfall of the family of Lee. Let all concerned think of this, and desist in time.”

He paused, and almost expected a reply, but none such came.

“It is a very odd thing,” said Wildrake; “but—yaw-ha—my brain cannot compass it just now; it whirls round like a toast in a bowl of muscadine; I must sit down—haw-yaw—and discuss it at leisure— Gramercy, good elbow-chair.”

So saying, he threw himself, or rather sank gradually down on a large easy-chair which had been often pressed by the weight of stout Sir Henry Lee, and in an instant was sound asleep. Everard was far from feeling the same inclination for slumber, yet his mind was relieved of the apprehension of any farther visitation that night; for he considered his treaty to evacuate Woodstock as made known to, and accepted in all probability by, those whom the intrusion of the Commissioners had induced to take such singular measures for expelling them. His opinion, which had for a time bent towards a belief in something supernatural in the disturbances, had now returned to the more rational mode of accounting for them by dexterous combination, for which such a mansion as Woodstock afforded so many facilities.

He heaped the hearth with fuel, lighted the candle, and examining poor Wildrake’s situation, adjusted him as easily in the chair as he could, the cavalier stirring his limbs no more than an infant. His situation went far, in his patron’s opinion, to infer trick and confederacy, for ghosts have no occasion to drug men’s possets. He threw himself on the bed, and while he thought these strange circumstances over, a sweet and low strain of music stole through the chamber, the words “Good night—good night—good night,” thrice repeated, each time in a softer and more distant tone, seeming to assure him that the goblins and he were at truce, if not at peace, and that he had no more disturbance to expect that night. He had scarcely the courage to call out a “good night;” for, after all his conviction of the existence of a trick, it was so well performed as to bring with it a feeling of fear, just like what an audience experience during the performance of a tragic scene, which they know to be unreal, and which yet affects their passions by its near approach to nature. Sleep overtook him at last, and left him not till broad daylight on the ensuing morning.