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

the question you have asked. If I could have been moved to an act of ignominious, insane, and ungrateful folly, it could only arise from my being blinded by that passion, which I believe is pleaded as an excuse for folly and for crime much more often than it has a real existence. I must, in short, have been in love, as it is called—and that might have been—with my equal, but surely never with my sovereign, whether such only in title, or in possession of his kingdom.”

“Yet loyalty was ever the pride, almost the ruling passion, of your family, Alice,” said the King.

“And could I reconcile that loyalty,” said Alice, “with indulging my sovereign, by permitting him to prosecute a suit dishonourable to himself as to me? Ought I, as a faithful subject, to join him in a folly, which might throw yet another stumbling-block in the path to his restoration, and could only serve to diminish his security, even if he were seated upon his throne?”

“At this rate,” said Charles, discontentedly, “I had better have retained my character of the page, than assumed that of a sovereign, which it seems is still more irreconcilable with my wishes.”

“My candour shall go still farther,” said Alice. “I could have felt as little for Louis Kerneguy as for the heir of Britain; for such love as I have to bestow, (and it is not such as I read of in romance, or hear poured forth in song,) has been already conferred on another object. This gives your Majesty pain—I am sorry for it—but the wholesomest medicines are often bitter.”

“Yes,” answered the King, with some asperity, “and physicians are reasonable enough to expect their patients to swallow them, as if they were honeycomb. It is true, then, that whispered tale of the cousin Colonel, and the daughter of the loyal Lee has set her heart upon a rebellious fanatic?”

“My love was given ere I knew what these words fanatic and rebel meant. I recalled it not, for I am satisfied, that amidst the great distractions which divide the kingdom, the person to whom you allude has chosen his part, erroneously, perhaps, but conscientiously—he, therefore, has still the highest place in my affection and esteem. More he cannot have, and will not ask, until some happy turn shall reconcile these public differences, and my father be once more reconciled to him. Devoutly do I pray that such an event may occur by your Majesty’s speedy and unanimous restoration!”

“You have found out a reason,” said the King, pettishly, “to make me detest the thought of such a change—nor have you, Alice, any sincere interest to pray for it. On the contrary, do you not see that your lover, walking side by side with Cromwell, may, or rather must, share his power? nay, if Lambert does not anticipate him, he may trip up Oliver’s heels, and reign in his stead. And think you not he will find means to overcome the pride of the loyal Lees, and achieve an union, for which things are better prepared than that which Cromwell is said to meditate betwixt one of his brats and the no less loyal heir of Fauconberg?”

“Your Majesty,” said Alice, “has found a way at length to avenge yourself—if what I have said deserves vengeance.”

“I could point out a yet shorter road to your union,” said Charles, without minding her distress, or perhaps enjoying the pleasure of retaliation. “Suppose that you sent your Colonel word that there was one Charles Stewart here, who had come to disturb the Saints in their peaceful government, which they had acquired by prayer and preaching, pike and gun,—and suppose he had the art to bring down a half-score of troopers, quite enough, as times go, to decide the fate of this heir of royalty—think you not the possession of such a prize as this might obtain from the Rumpers, or from Cromwell, such a reward as might overcome your father’s objections to a roundhead’s alliance, and place the fair Alice and her cousin Colonel in full possession of their wishes?”

“My liege,” said Alice, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling—for she too had her share of the hereditary temperament of her family,— “this passes my patience. I have heard, without expressing anger, the most ignominious persuasions addressed to myself, and I have vindicated myself for refusing to be the paramour of a fugitive Prince, as if I had been excusing myself from accepting a share of an actual crown. But do you think I can hear all who are dear to me slandered without emotion or reply? I will not, sir; and were you seated with all the terrors of your father’s Star-chamber around you, you should hear me defend the absent and the innocent. Of my father I will say nothing, but that if he is now without wealth—without state, almost without a sheltering home and needful food—it is because he spent all in the service of the King. He needed not to commit any act of treachery or villany to obtain wealth— he had an ample competence in his own possessions. For Markham Everard— he knows no such thing as selfishness—he would not, for broad England, had she the treasures of Peru in her bosom, and a paradise on her surface, do a deed that would disgrace his own name, or injure the feelings of another—Kings, my liege, may take a lesson from him. My liege, for the present I take my leave.”

“Alice, Alice—stay!” exclaimed the King. “She is gone.—This must be virtue—real, disinterested, overawing virtue—or there is no such thing on earth. Yet Wilmot and Villiers will not believe a word of it, but add the tale to the other wonders of Woodstock. ’Tis a rare wench! and I profess, to use the Colonel’s obtestation, that I know not whether to forgive and be friends with her, or study a dire revenge. If it were not for that accursed cousin—that puritan Colonel—I could forgive every thing else to so noble a wench. But a roundheaded rebel preferred to me—the preference avowed to my face, and justified with the assertion, that a king might take a lesson from him—it is gall and wormwood. If the old man had not come up this morning as he did, the King should have taken or given a lesson, and a severe one. It was a mad rencontre to venture upon with my rank and responsibility—and yet this wench has made me so angry with her, and so envious of him, that if an opportunity offered, I should scarce be able to forbear him.—Ha! whom have we here?”

The interjection at the conclusion of this royal soliloquy, was occasioned by the unexpected entrance of another personage of the drama.