Part 25 (2/2)
Perhaps she remembered, that when she was but a girl, her cousin Markham used, among others, to make her perform that duty, as presenting the character of some captive Trojan princess, condemned by her situation to draw the waters from some Grecian spring, for the use of the proud victor. At any rate, she certainly joyed to see her father reinstated in his ancient habitation; and the joy was not the less sincere, that she knew their return to Woodstock had been procured by means of her cousin, and that even in her father's prejudiced eyes, Everard had been in some degree exculpated of the accusations the old knight had brought against him; and that, if a reconciliation had not yet taken place, the preliminaries had been established on which such a desirable conclusion might easily be founded. It was like the commencement of a bridge; when the foundation is securely laid, and the piers raised above the influence of the torrent, the throwing of the arches may be accomplished in a subsequent season.
The doubtful fate of her only brother might have clouded even this momentary gleam of suns.h.i.+ne; but Alice had been bred up during the close and frequent contest of civil war, and had acquired the habit of hoping in behalf of those dear to her, until hope was lost. In the present case, all reports seemed to a.s.sure her of her brother's safety.
Besides these causes for gaiety, Alice Lee had the pleasing feeling that she was restored to the habitation and the haunts of her childhood, from which she had not departed without much pain, the more felt, perhaps, because suppressed, in order to avoid irritating her father's sense of his misfortune. Finally, she enjoyed for the instant the gleam of self-satisfaction by which we see the young and well-disposed so often animated, when they can be, in common phrase, helpful to those whom they love, and perform at the moment of need some of those little domestic tasks, which age receives with so much pleasure from the dutiful hands of youth. So that, altogether, as she hasted through the remains and vestiges of a wilderness already mentioned, and from thence about a bow-shot into the Park, to bring a pitcher of water from Rosamond's spring, Alice Lee, her features enlivened and her complexion a little raised by the exercise, had, for the moment, regained the gay and brilliant vivacity of expression which had been the characteristic of her beauty in her earlier and happier days.
This fountain of old memory had been once adorned with architectural ornaments in the style of the sixteenth century, chiefly relating to ancient mythology. All these were now wasted and overthrown, and existed only as moss-covered ruins, while the living spring continued to furnish its daily treasures, unrivalled in purity, though the quant.i.ty was small, gus.h.i.+ng out amid disjointed stones, and bubbling through fragments of ancient sculpture.
With a light step and laughing brow the young Lady of Lee was approaching, the fountain usually so solitary, when she paused on beholding some one seated beside it. She proceeded, however, with confidence, though with a step something less gay, when she observed that the person was a female; some menial perhaps from the town, whom a fanciful mistress occasionally dispatched for the water of a spring, supposed to be peculiarly pure, or some aged woman, who made a little trade by carrying it to the better sort of families, and selling it for a trifle. There was no cause, therefore, for apprehension.
Yet the terrors of the times were so great, that Alice did not see a stranger even of her own s.e.x without some apprehension. Denaturalized women had as usual followed the camps of both armies during the Civil War; who, on the one side with open profligacy and profanity, on the other with the fraudful tone of fanaticism or hypocrisy, exercised nearly in like degree their talents, for murder or plunder. But it was broad daylight, the distance from the Lodge was but trifling, and though a little alarmed at seeing a stranger where she expected deep solitude, the daughter of the haughty old Knight had too much of the lion about her, to fear without some determined and decided cause.
Alice walked, therefore, gravely on toward the fount, and composed her looks as she took a hasty glance of the female who was seated there, and addressed herself to her task of filling her pitcher.
The woman, whose presence had surprised and somewhat startled Alice Lee, was a person of the lower rank, whose red cloak, russet kirtle, handkerchief trimmed with Coventry blue, and a coa.r.s.e steeple hat, could not indicate at best any thing higher than the wife of a small farmer, or, perhaps, the helpmate of a bailiff or hind. It was well if she proved nothing worse. Her clothes, indeed, were of good materials; but, what the female eye discerns with half a glance, they were indifferently adjusted and put on. This looked as if they did not belong to the person by whom they were worn, but were articles of which she had become the mistress by some accident, if not by some successful robbery. Her size, too, as did not escape Alice, even in the short perusal she afforded the stranger, was unusual; her features swarthy and singularly harsh, and her manner altogether unpropitious. The young lady almost wished, as she stooped to fill her pitcher, that she had rather turned back, and sent Joceline on the errand; but repentance was too late now, and she had only to disguise as well as she could her unpleasant feelings.
”The blessings of this bright day to one as bright as it is,” said the stranger, with no unfriendly, though a harsh voice.
”I thank you,” said Alice in reply; and continued to fill her pitcher busily, by a.s.sistance of an iron bowl which remained still chained to one of the stones beside the fountain.
”Perhaps, my pretty maiden, if you would accept my help, your work would be sooner done,” said the stranger.
”I thank you,” said Alice; ”but had I needed a.s.sistance, I could have brought those with me who had rendered it.”
”I do not doubt of that, my pretty maiden,” answered the female; ”there are too many lads in Woodstock with eyes in their heads-No doubt you could have brought with you any one of them who looked on you, if you had listed.”
Alice replied not a syllable, for she did not like the freedom used by the speaker, and was desirous to break off the conversation.
”Are you offended, my pretty mistress?” said the stranger; ”that was far from my purpose.-I will put my question otherwise.-Are the good dames of Woodstock so careless of their pretty daughters as to let the flower of them all wander about the wild chase without a mother, or a somebody to prevent the fox from running away with the lamb?-that carelessness, methinks, shows small kindness.”
”Content yourself, good woman, I am not far from protection and a.s.sistance,” said Alice, who liked less and less the effrontery of her new acquaintance.
”Alas! my pretty maiden,” said the stranger, patting with her large and hard hand the head which Alice had kept bended down towards the water which she was laving, ”it would be difficult to hear such a pipe as yours at the town of Woodstock, scream as loud as you would.”
Alice shook the woman's hand angrily off, took up her pitcher, though not above half full, and as she saw the stranger rise at the same time, said, not without fear doubtless, but with a natural feeling of resentment and dignity, ”I have no reason to make my cries heard as far as Woodstock; were there occasion for my crying for help at all, it is nearer at hand.”
She spoke not without a warrant; for, at the moment, broke through the bushes, and stood by her side, the n.o.ble hound Bevis; fixing on the stranger his eyes that glanced fire, raising every hair on his gallant mane as upright as the bristles of a wild boar when hard pressed, grinning till a case of teeth, which would have matched those of any wolf in Russia, were displayed in full array, and, without either barking or springing, seeming, by his low determined growl, to await but the signal for das.h.i.+ng at the female, whom he plainly considered as a suspicious person.
But the stranger was undaunted. ”My pretty maiden,” she said, ”you have indeed a formidable guardian there, where c.o.c.kneys or b.u.mpkins are concerned; but we who have been at the wars know spells for taming such furious dragons; and therefore let not your four-footed protector go loose on me, for he is a n.o.ble animal, and nothing but self-defence would induce me to do him injury.” So saying, she drew a pistol from her bosom, and c.o.c.ked it-pointing it towards the dog, as if apprehensive that he would spring upon her.
”Hold, woman, hold!” said Alice Lee; ”the dog will not do you harm.-Down, Bevis, couch down.-And ere you attempt to hurt him, know he is the favourite hound of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, the keeper of Woodstock Park, who would severely revenge any injury offered to him.”
”And you, pretty one, are the old knight's house-keeper, doubtless? I have often heard the Lees have good taste.”
”I am his daughter, good woman.”
”His daughter!-I was blind-but yet it is true, nothing less perfect could answer the description which all the world has given of Mistress Alice Lee. I trust that my folly has given my young mistress no offence, and that she will allow me, in token of reconciliation, to fill her pitcher, and carry it as far as she will permit.”
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