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

character, my young friend,” said the Doctor; “an excellent man, and the best of Christians, till there is a clashing of swords, and then he starts up the complete martialist, as deaf to every pacific reasoning as if he were a game-cock.”

“You forget, Doctor Rochecliffe,” said Alice, “that this very morning, if I understand the thing aright, my father prevented them from fighting.”

“Ay,” answered the Doctor, “because he deemed himself bound to keep the peace in the Royal-Park; but it was done with such regret, Alice, that, should he find them at it again, I am clear to foretell he will only so far postpone the combat as to conduct them to some unprivileged ground, and there bid them tilt and welcome, while he regaled his eyes with a scene so pleasing. No, Alice, it is you, and you only, who can help us in this extremity.”

“I see no possibility,” said she, again colouring, “how I can be of the least use.”

“You must send a note,” answered Dr. Rochecliffe, “to the King—a note such as all women know how to write better than any man can teach them—to meet you at the precise hour of the rendezvous. He will not fail you, for I know his unhappy foible.”

“Doctor Rochecliffe,” said Alice gravely,—“you have known me from infancy,—What have you seen in me to induce you to believe that I should ever follow such unbecoming counsel?”

“And if you have known me from infancy,” retorted the Doctor, “what have you seen of me that you should suspect me of giving counsel to my friend’s daughter, which it would be misbecoming in her to follow? You cannot be fool enough, I think, to suppose, that I mean you should carry your complaisance farther than to keep him in discourse for an hour or two, till I have all in readiness for his leaving this place, from which I can frighten him by the terrors of an alleged search?—So, C. S. mounts his horse and rides off, and Mistress Alice Lee has the honour of saving him.”

“Yes, at the expense of my own reputation,” said Alice, “and the risk of an eternal stain on my family. You say you know all. What can the King think of my appointing an assignation with him after what has passed, and how will it be possible to disabuse him respecting the purpose of my doing so?”

“I will disabuse him, Alice; I will explain the whole.”

“Doctor Rochecliffe,” said Alice, “you propose what is impossible. You can do much by your ready wit and great wisdom; but if new-fallen snow were once sullied, not all your art could wash it clean again; and it is altogether the same with a maiden’s reputation.”

“Alice, my dearest child,” said the Doctor, “bethink you that if I recommended this means of saving the life of the King, at least rescuing him from instant peril, it is because I see no other of which to avail myself. If I bid you assume, even for a moment, the semblance of what is wrong, it is but in the last extremity, and under circumstances which cannot return—I will take the surest means to prevent all evil report which can arise from what I recommend.”

“Say not so, Doctor,” said Alice; “better undertake to turn back the Isis than to stop the course of calumny. The King will make boast to his whole licentious court, of the ease with which, but for a sudden alarm, he could have brought off Alice Lee as a paramour—the mouth which confers honour on others, will then be the means to deprive me of mine. Take a fitter course, one more becoming your own character and profession. Do not lead him to fail in an engagement of honour, by holding out the prospect of another engagement equally dishonourable, whether false or true. Go to the King himself, speak to him, as the servants of God have a right to speak, even to earthly sovereigns. Point out to him the folly and the wickedness of the course he is about to pursue—urge upon him, that he fear the sword, since wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword. Tell him, that the friends who died for him in the field at Worcester, on the scaffolds, and on the gibbets, since that bloody day—that the remnant who are in prison, scattered, fled, and ruined on his account, deserve better of him and his father’s race, than that he should throw away his life in an idle brawl—Tell him, that it is dishonest to venture that which is not his own, dishonourable to betray the trust which brave men have reposed in his virtue and in his courage.”

Dr. Rochecliffe looked on her with a melancholy smile, his eyes glistening as he said, “Alas! Alice, even I could not plead that just cause to him so eloquently or so impressively as thou dost. But, alack! Charles would listen to neither. It is not from priests or women, he would say, that men should receive counsel in affairs of honour.”

“Then, hear me, Doctor Rochecliffe—I will appear at the place of rendezvous, and I will prevent the combat—do not fear that I can do what I say—at a sacrifice, indeed, but not that of my reputation. My heart may be broken”—she endeavoured to stifle her sobs with difficulty—“for the consequence; but not in the imagination of a man, and far less that man her sovereign, shall a thought of Alice Lee be associated with dishonour.” She hid her face in her handkerchief, and burst out into unrestrained tears.

“What means this hysterical passion?” said Dr. Rochecliffe, surprised and somewhat alarmed by the vehemence of her grief—“Maiden, I must have no concealments; I must know.”

“Exert your ingenuity, then, and discover it,” said Alice—for a moment put out of temper at the Doctor’s pertinacious self-importance—“Guess my purpose, as you can guess at every thing else. It is enough to have to go through my task, I will not endure the distress of telling it over, and that to one who—forgive me, dear Doctor—might not think my agitation on this occasion fully warranted.”

“Nay, then, my young mistress, you must be ruled,” said Rochecliffe; “and if I cannot make you explain yourself, I must see whether your father can gain so far on you.” So saying, he arose somewhat displeased, and walked towards the door.

“You forget what you yourself told me, Doctor Rochecliffe,” said Alice, “of the risk of communicating this great secret to my father.”

“It is too true,” he said, stopping short and turning round; “and I think, wench, thou art too smart for me, and I have not met many such. But thou art a good girl, and wilt tell me thy device of free-will—it concerns my character and influence with the King, that I should be fully acquainted with whatever is actum atque tractatum, done and treated of in this matter.”

“Trust your character to me, good Doctor,” said Alice, attempting to smile; “it is of firmer stuff than those of women, and will be safer in my custody than mine could have been in yours. And thus much I condescend—you shall see the whole scene—you shall go with me yourself, and much will I feel emboldened and heartened by your company.”

“That is something,” said the Doctor, though not altogether satisfied with this limited confidence. “Thou wert ever a clever wench, and I will trust thee; indeed, trust thee I find I must, whether voluntarily or no.”

“Meet me, then,” said Alice, “in the wilderness to-morrow. But first tell me, are you well assured of time and place?—a mistake were fatal.”

“Assure yourself my information is entirely accurate,” said the Doctor, resuming his air of consequence, which had been a little diminished during the latter part of their conference.

“May I ask,” said Alice, “through what channel you acquired such important information?”

“You may ask, unquestionably,” he answered, now completely restored to his supremacy; “but whether I will answer or not, is a very different question. I conceive neither your reputation nor my own is interested in your remaining in ignorance on that subject. So I have my secrets as well as you, mistress; and some of them, I fancy, are a good deal more worth knowing.”

“Be it so,” said Alice, quietly; “if you will meet me in the wilderness by the broken dial at half-past five exactly, we will go together to-morrow, and watch them as they come to the rendezvous. I will on the way get the better of my present timidity, and explain to you the means I design to employ to prevent mischief. You can perhaps think of making some effort which may render my interference, unbecoming and painful as it must be, altogether unnecessary.”

“Nay, my child,” said the Doctor, “if you place yourself in my hands, you will be the first that ever had reason to complain of my want of conduct, and you may well judge you are the very last (one excepted) whom I would see suffer for want of counsel. At half-past five, then, at the dial in the wilderness—and God bless our undertaking!”

Here their interview was interrupted by the sonorous voice of Sir Henry Lee, which shouted their names, “Daughter Alice—Doctor Rochecliffe,” through passage and gallery.

“What do you here,” said he, entering, “sitting like two crows in a mist, when we have such rare sport below? Here is this wild crack-brained boy Louis Kerneguy, now making me laugh till my sides are fit to split, and now playing on his guitar sweetly enough to win a lark from the heavens.—Come away with you, come away. It is hard work to laugh alone.”