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

called to act that whereunto we are appointed, neither rashly nor over-slothfully, neither lukewarmly nor over-violently, but with such a frame and disposition, in which zeal and charity may, as it were, meet and kiss each other in our streets. Howbeit, because we look back after we have put our hand to the plough, therefore is our force waxed dim.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Nehemiah Holdenough, who, listening with some impatience, began to guess in whose company he stood—“Pardon me, for unto this I have a warrant to speak.”

“Ah! ah!” said Cromwell. “Surely, most worthy sir, we grieve the Spirit when we restrain those pourings forth, which, like water from a rock”—

“Nay, therein I differ from you, sir,” said Holdenough; “for as there is the mouth to transmit the food, and the profit to digest what Heaven hath sent; so is the preacher ordained to teach and the people to hear; the shepherd to gather the flock into the sheepfold, the sheep to profit by the care of the shepherd.”

“Ah! my worthy sir,” said Cromwell, with much unction, “methinks you verge upon the great mistake, which supposes that churches are tall large houses built by masons, and hearers are men—wealthy men, who pay tithes, the larger as well as the less; and that the priests, men in black gowns or grey cloaks, who receive the same, are in guerdon the only distributors of Christian blessings; whereas, in my apprehension, there is more of Christian liberty in leaving it to the discretion of the hungry soul to seek his edification where it can be found, whether from the mouth of a lay teacher, who claimeth his warrant from Heaven alone, or at the dispensation of those who take ordinations and degrees from synods and universities, at best but associations of poor sinful creatures like themselves.”

“You speak you know not what, sir,” replied Holdenough, impatiently. “Can light come out of darkness, sense out of ignorance, or knowledge of the mysteries of religion from such ignorant mediciners as give poisons instead of wholesome medicaments, and cram with filth the stomachs of such as seek to them for food?” This, which the Presbyterian divine uttered rather warmly, the General answered with the utmost mildness.

“Lack-a-day, lack-a-day! a learned man, but intemperate; over-zeal hath eaten him up.—A well-a-day, sir, you may talk of your regular gospel-meals, but a word spoken in season by one whose heart is with your heart, just perhaps when you are riding on to encounter an enemy, or are about to mount a breach, is to the poor spirit like a rasher on the coals, which the hungry shall find preferable to a great banquet, at such times when the full soul loatheth the honey-comb. Nevertheless, although I speak thus in my poor judgment, I would not put force on the conscience of any man, leaving to the learned to follow the learned, and the wise to be instructed by the wise, while poor simple wretched souls are not to be denied a drink from the stream which runneth by the way.—Ay, verily, it will be a comely sight in England when men shall go on as in a better world, bearing with each other’s infirmities, joining in each other’s comforts.—Ay, truly, the rich drink out of silver flagons, and goblets of silver, the poor out of paltry bowls of wood—and even so let it be, since they both drink the same element.”

Here an officer opened the door and looked in, to whom Cromwell, exchanging the canting drawl, in which it seemed he might have gone on interminably, for the short brief tone of action, called out, “Pearson, is he come?”

“No, sir,” replied Pearson; “we have enquired for him at the place you noted, and also at other haunts of his about the town.”

“The knave!” said Cromwell, with bitter emphasis; “can he have proved false?—No, no, his interest is too deeply engaged. We shall find him by and by. Hark thee hither.”

While this conversation was going forward, the reader must imagine the alarm of Everard. He was certain that the personal attendance of Cromwell must be on some most important account, and he could not but strongly suspect that the General had some information respecting Charles’s lurking place. If taken, a renewal of the tragedy of the 30th of January was instantly to be apprehended, and the ruin of the whole family of Lee, with himself probably included, must be the necessary consequence.

He looked eagerly for consolation at Wildrake, whose countenance expressed much alarm, which he endeavoured to bear out with his usual look of confidence. But the weight within was too great; he shuffled with his feet, rolled his eyes, and twisted his hands, like an unassured witness before an acute and not to be deceived judge.

Oliver, meanwhile, left his company not a minute’s leisure to take counsel together. Even while his perplexed eloquence flowed on in a stream so mazy that no one could discover which way its course was tending, his sharp watchful eye rendered all attempts of Everard to hold communication with Wildrake, even by signs, altogether vain. Everard, indeed, looked for an instant at the window, then glanced at Wildrake, as if to hint there might be a possibility to escape that way. But the cavalier had replied with a disconsolate shake of the head, so slight as to be almost imperceptible. Everard, therefore, lost all hope, and the melancholy feeling of approaching and inevitable evil, was only varied by anxiety concerning the shape and manner in which it was about to make its approach.

But Wildrake had a spark of hope left. The very instant Cromwell entered he had got out of the room, and down to the door of the house. “Back— back!” repeated by two armed sentinels, convinced him that, as his fears had anticipated, the General had come neither unattended nor unprepared. He turned on his heel, ran up stairs, and meeting on the landing-place the boy whom he called Spitfire, hurried him into the small apartment which he occupied as his own. Wildrake had been shooting that morning, and game lay on the table. He pulled a feather from a woodcock’s wing, and saying hastily, “For thy life, Spitfire, mind my orders—I will put thee safe out at the window into the court—the yard wall is not high—and there will be no sentry there—Fly to the Lodge, as thou wouldst win Heaven, and give this feather to Mistress Alice Lee, if possible—if not, to Joceline Joliffe—say I have won the wages of the young lady. Dost mark me, boy?”

The sharp-witted youth clapped his hand in his master’s, and only replied, “Done, and done.”

Wildrake opened the window, and, though the height was considerable, he contrived to let the boy down safely by holding his cloak. A heap of straw on which Spitfire lighted rendered the descent perfectly safe, and Wildrake saw him scramble over the wall of the court-yard, at the angle which bore on a back lane; and so rapidly was this accomplished, that the cavalier had just re-entered the room, when, the bustle attending Cromwell’s arrival subsiding, his own absence began to be noticed.

He remained during Cromwell’s lecture on the vanity of creeds, anxious in mind whether he might not have done better to send an explicit verbal message, since there was no time to write. But the chance of the boy being stopped, or becoming confused with feeling himself the messenger of a hurried and important communication, made him, on the whole, glad that he had preferred a more enigmatical way of conveying the intelligence. He had, therefore, the advantage of his patron, for he was conscious still of a spark of hope.

Pearson had scarce shut the door, when Holdenough, as ready in arms against the future Dictator as he had been prompt to encounter the supposed phantoms and fiends of Woodstock, resumed his attack upon the schismatics, whom he undertook to prove to be at once soul-slayers, false brethren, and false messengers; and was proceeding to allege texts in behalf of his proposition, when Cromwell, apparently tired of the discussion, and desirous to introduce a discourse more accordant with his real feelings, interrupted him, though very civilly, and took the discourse into his own hands.

“Lack-a-day,” he said, “the good man speaks truth, according to his knowledge and to his lights,—ay, bitter truths, and hard to be digested, while we see as men see, and not with the eyes of angels.— False messengers, said the reverend man?—ay, truly, the world is full of such. You shall see them who will carry your secret message to the house of your mortal foe, and will say to him, ‘Lo! my master is going forth with a small train, by such and such desolate places; be you speedy, therefore, that you may arise and slay him.’ And another, who knoweth where the foe of your house, and enemy of your person, lies hidden, shall, instead of telling his master thereof, carry tidings to the enemy even where he lurketh, saying, ‘Lo! my master knoweth of your secret abode—up now, and fly, lest he come on thee like a lion on his prey.’—But shall this go without punishment?” looking at Wildrake with a withering glance. “Now, as my soul liveth, and as He liveth who hath made me a ruler in Israel, such false messengers shall be knitted to gibbets on the wayside, and their right hands shall be nailed above their heads, in an extended position, as if pointing out to others the road from which they themselves have strayed!”

“Surely,” said Master Holdenough, “it is right to cut off such offenders.”

“Thank ye, Mass-John,” muttered Wildrake; “when did the Presbyterian fail to lend the devil a shove?”

“But, I say,” continued Holdenough, “that the matter is estranged from our present purpose, for the false brethren of whom I spoke are”—

“Right, excellent sir, they be those of our own house,” answered Cromwell; “the good man is right once more. Ay, of whom can we now say that he is a true brother, although he has lain in the same womb with us? Although we have struggled in the same cause, eat at the same table, fought in the same battle, worshipped at the same throne, there shall be no truth in him.—Ah, Markham Everard, Markham Everard!”

He paused at this ejaculation; and Everard, desirous at once of knowing how far he stood committed, replied, “Your Excellency seems to have something in your mind in which I am concerned. May I request you will speak it out, that I may know what I am accused of?”

“Ah, Mark, Mark,” replied the General, “there needeth no accuser speak when the still small voice speaks within us. Is there not moisture on thy brow, Mark Everard? Is there not trouble in thine eye? Is there not a failure in thy frame? And who ever saw such things in noble and stout Markham Everard, whose brow was only moist after having worn the helmet for a summer’s day; whose hand only shook when it had wielded for hours the weighty falchion?—But go to, man! thou doubtest over much. Hast thou not been to me as a brother, and shall I not forgive thee even the seventy-seventh time? The knave hath tarried somewhere, who should have done by this time an office of much import. Take advantage of his absence, Mark; it is a grace that God gives thee beyond expectance. I do not say, fall at my feet; but speak to me as a friend to his friend.”

“I have never said any thing to your Excellency that was in the least undeserving the title you have assigned to me,” said Colonel Everard, proudly.

“Nay, nay, Markham,” answered Cromwell; “I say not you have. But—but you ought to have remembered the message I sent you by that person” (pointing to Wildrake;) “and you must reconcile it with your conscience, how, having such a message, guarded with such reasons, you could think yourself at liberty to expel my friends from Woodstock, being determined to disappoint my object, whilst you availed yourself of the boon, on condition of which my warrant was issued.”

Everard was about to reply, when, to his astonishment, Wildrake stepped forward; and with a voice and look very different from his ordinary manner, and approaching a good deal to real dignity of mind, said, boldly and calmly, “You are mistaken, Master Cromwell; and address yourself to the wrong party here.”

The speech was so sudden and intrepid that Cromwell stepped a pace back, and motioned with his right hand towards his weapon, as if he had expected that an address of a nature so unusually bold was to be followed by some act of violence. He instantly resumed his indifferent posture; and, irritated at a smile which he observed on Wildrake’s countenance, he said, with the dignity of one long accustomed to see all tremble before him, “This to me, fellow! Know you