Part 18 (1/2)

”I knew it-I was sure it was impossible. Oh, be yet more honest; disengage yourself from yonder gloomy and ambitious soldier! Shun him and his schemes, which are formed in injustice, and can only be realized in yet more blood!”

”Believe me,” replied Everard, ”that I choose the line of policy best befitting the times.”

”Choose that,” she said, ”which best befits duty, Markham-which best befits truth and honour. Do your duty, and let Providence decide the rest.-Farewell! we tempt my father's patience too far-you know his temper-farewell, Markham.”

She extended her hand, which he pressed to his lips, and left the apartment. A silent bow to his uncle, and a sign to Wildrake, whom he found in the kitchen of the cabin, were the only tokens of recognition exhibited, and leaving the hut, he was soon mounted, and, with his companion, advanced on his return to the Lodge.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

Deeds are done on earth Which have their punishment ere the earth closes Upon the perpetrators. Be it the working Of the remorse-stirr'd fancy, or the vision, Distinct and real, of unearthly being, All ages witness, that beside the couch Of the fell homicide oft stalks the ghost Of him he slew, and shows the shadowy wound.

OLD PLAY.

Everard had come to Joceline's hut as fast as horse could bear him, and with the same impetuosity of purpose as of speed. He saw no choice in the course to be pursued, and felt in his own imagination the strongest right to direct, and even reprove, his cousin, beloved as she was, on account of the dangerous machinations with which she appeared to have connected herself. He returned slowly, and in a very different mood.

Not only had Alice, prudent as beautiful, appeared completely free from the weakness of conduct which seemed to give him some authority over her, but her views of policy, if less practicable, were so much more direct and n.o.ble than his own, as led him to question whether he had not compromised himself too rashly with Cromwell, even although the state of the country was so greatly divided and torn by faction, that the promotion of the General to the possession of the executive government seemed the only chance of escaping a renewal of the Civil War. The more exalted and purer sentiments of Alice lowered him in his own eyes; and though unshaken in his opinion, that it were better the vessel should be steered by a pilot having no good t.i.tle to the office, than that she should run upon the breakers, he felt that he was not espousing the most direct, manly, and disinterested side of the question.

As he rode on, immersed in these unpleasant contemplations, and considerably lessened in his own esteem by what had happened, Wildrake, who rode by his side, and was no friend to long silence, began to enter into conversation. ”I have been thinking, Mark,” said he, ”that if you and I had been called to the bar-as, by the by, has been in danger of happening to me in more senses than one-I say, had we become barristers, I would have had the better oiled tongue of the two-the fairer art of persuasion.”

”Perhaps so,” replied Everard, ”though I never heard thee use any, save to induce an usurer to lend thee money, or a taverner to abate a reckoning.”

”And yet this day, or rather night, I could have, as I think, made a conquest which baffled you.”

”Indeed?” said the Colonel, becoming attentive.

”Why, look you,” said Wildrake, ”it was a main object with you to induce Mistress Alice Lee-By Heaven, she is an exquisite creature-I approve of your taste, Mark-I say, you desire to persuade her, and the stout old Trojan her father, to consent to return to the Lodge, and live there quietly, and under connivance, like gentlefolk, instead of lodging in a hut hardly fit to harbour a Tom of Bedlam.”

”Thou art right; such, indeed, was a great part of my object in this visit,” answered Everard.

”But perhaps you also expected to visit there yourself, and so keep watch over pretty Mistress Lee-eh?”

”I never entertained so selfish a thought,” said Everard; ”and if this nocturnal disturbance at the mansion were explained and ended, I would instantly take my departure.”

”Your friend Noll would expect something more from you,” said Wildrake; ”he would expect, in case the knight's reputation for loyalty should draw any of our poor exiles and wanderers about the Lodge, that you should be on the watch and ready to snap them. In a word, as far as I can understand his long-winded speeches, he would have Woodstock a trap, your uncle and his pretty daughter the bait of toasted-cheese-craving your Chloe's pardon for the comparison-you the spring-fall which should bar their escape, his Lords.h.i.+p himself being the great grimalkin to whom they are to be given over to be devoured.”

”Dared Cromwell mention this to thee in express terms?” said Everard, pulling up his horse, and stopping in the midst of the road.

”Nay, not in express terms, which I do not believe he ever used in his life; you might as well expect a drunken man to go straight forward; but he insinuated as much to me, and indicated that you might deserve well of him-Gadzo, the d.a.m.nable proposal sticks in my throat-by betraying our n.o.ble and rightful King, (here he pulled off his hat,) whom G.o.d grant in health and wealth long to reign, as the worthy clergyman says, though I fear just now his Majesty is both sick and sorry, and never a penny in his pouch to boot.”

”This tallies with what Alice hinted,” said Everard; ”but how could she know it? didst thou give her any hint of such a thing?”

”I!” replied the cavalier, ”I, who never saw Mistress Alice in my life till to-night, and then only for an instant-zooks, man, how is that possible?”

”True,” replied Everard, and seemed lost in thought. At length he spoke-”I should call Cromwell to account for his bad opinion of me; for, even though not seriously expressed, but, as I am convinced it was, with the sole view of proving you, and perhaps myself, it was, nevertheless, a misconstruction to be resented.”

”I'll carry a cartel for you, with all my heart and soul,” said Wildrake; ”and turn out with his G.o.dliness's second, with as good will as I ever drank a gla.s.s of sack.”

”Pshaw,” replied Everard, ”those in his high place fight no single combats. But tell me, Roger Wildrake, didst thou thyself think me capable of the falsehood and treachery implied in such a message?”

”I!” exclaimed Wildrake. ”Markham Everard, you have been my early friend, my constant benefactor. When Colchester was reduced, you saved me from the gallows, and since that thou hast twenty times saved me from starving. But, by Heaven, if I thought you capable of such villany as your General recommended,-by yonder blue sky, and all the works of creation which it bends over, I would stab you with my own hand!”