Part 39 (1/2)

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

”a.s.sure 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

This is the place, the centre of the grove; Here stands the oak, the monarch of the wood.

JOHN HOME.

The sun had risen on the broad boughs of the forest, but without the power of penetrating into its recesses, which hung rich with heavy dewdrops, and were beginning on some of the trees to exhibit the varied tints of autumn; it being the season when Nature, like a prodigal whose race is well-nigh run, seems desirous to make up in profuse gaiety and variety of colours, for the short s.p.a.ce which her splendour has then to endure. The birds were silent-and even Robin-redbreast, whose chirruping song was heard among the bushes near the Lodge, emboldened by the largesses with which the good old knight always encouraged his familiarity, did not venture into the recesses of the wood, where he encountered the sparrow-hawk, and other enemies of a similar description, preferring the vicinity of the dwellings of man, from whom he, almost solely among the feathered tribes, seems to experience disinterested protection.

The scene was therefore at once lovely and silent, when the good Dr. Rochecliffe, wrapped in a scarlet roquelaure, which had seen service in its day, m.u.f.fling his face more from habit than necessity, and supporting Alice on his arm, (she also defended by a cloak against the cold and damp of the autumn morning,) glided through the tangled and long gra.s.s of the darkest alleys, almost ankle-deep in dew, towards the place appointed for the intended duel. Both so eagerly maintained the consultation in which they were engaged, that they were alike insensible of the roughness and discomforts of the road, though often obliged to force their way through brushwood and coppice, which poured down on them all the liquid pearls with which they were loaded, till the mantles they were wrapped in hung lank by their sides, and clung to their shoulders heavily charged with moisture. They stopped when they had attained a station under the coppice, and shrouded by it, from which they could see all that pa.s.sed on the little esplanade before the King's Oak, whose broad and scathed form, contorted and shattered limbs, and frowning brows, made it appear like some ancient war-worn champion, well selected to be the umpire of a field of single combat.

The first person who appeared at the rendezvous was the gay cavalier Roger Wildrake. He also was wrapped in his cloak, but had discarded his puritanic beaver, and wore in its stead a Spanish hat, with a feather and gilt hatband, all of which had encountered bad weather and hard service; but to make amends for the appearance of poverty by the show of pretension, the castor was accurately adjusted after what was rather profanely called the d-me cut, used among the more desperate cavaliers. He advanced hastily, and exclaimed aloud-”First in the field after all, by Jove, though I bilked Everard in order to have my morning draught.- It has done me much good,” he added, smacking his lips.-”Well, I suppose I should search the ground ere my princ.i.p.al comes up, whose Presbyterian watch trudges as slow as his Presbyterian step.”

He took his rapier from under his cloak, and seemed about to search the thickets around.

”I will prevent him,” whispered the Doctor to Alice. ”I will keep faith with you-you shall not come on the scene-nisi dignus vindice nodus- I'll explain that another time. Vindex is feminine as well as masculine, so the quotation is defensible.-Keep you close.”

So saying, he stepped forward on the esplanade, and bowed to Wildrake.

”Master Louis Kerneguy,” said Wildrake, pulling off his hat; but instantly discovering his error, he added, ”But no-I beg your pardon, sir-Fatter, shorter, older.-Mr. Kerneguy's friend, I suppose, with whom I hope to have a turn by and by.-And why not now, sir, before our princ.i.p.als come up? Just a snack to stay the orifice of the stomach, till the dinner is served, sir? What say you?”

”To open the orifice of the stomach more likely, or to give it a new one,” said the Doctor.

”True, sir,” said Roger, who seemed now in his element; ”you say well-that is as thereafter may be.-But come, sir, you wear your face m.u.f.fled. I grant you, it is honest men's fas.h.i.+on at this unhappy time; the more is the pity. But we do all above board-we have no traitors here. I'll get into my gears first, to encourage you, and show you that you have to deal with a gentleman, who honours the King, and is a match fit to fight with any who follow him, as doubtless you do, sir, since you are the friend of Master Louis Kerneguy.”

All this while, Wildrake was busied undoing the clasps of his square-caped cloak.

”Off-off, ye lendings,” he said, ”borrowings I should more properly call you-”

So saying, he threw the cloak from him, and appeared in cuerpo, in a most cavalier-like doublet, of greasy crimson satin, pinked and slashed with what had been once white tiffany; breeches of the same; and nether-stocks, or, as we now call them, stockings, darned in many places, and which, like those of Poins, had been once peach-coloured. A pair of pumps, ill calculated for a walk through the dew, and a broad shoulderbelt of tarnished embroidery, completed his equipment.

”Come, sir!” he exclaimed; ”make haste, off with your slough-Here I stand tight and true-as loyal a lad as ever stuck rapier through a roundhead.-Come, sir, to your tools!” he continued; ”we may have half-a-dozen thrusts before they come yet, and shame them for their tardiness.-Pshaw!” he exclaimed, in a most disappointed tone, when the Doctor, unfolding his cloak, showed his clerical dress; ”Tus.h.!.+ it's but the parson after all!”

Wildrake's respect for the Church, however, and his desire to remove one who might possibly interrupt a scene to which he looked forward with peculiar satisfaction, induced him presently to a.s.sume another tone.

”I beg pardon,” he said, ”my dear Doctor-I kiss the hem of your ca.s.sock-I do, by the thundering Jove-I beg your pardon again.-But I am happy I have met with you-They are raving for your presence at the Lodge-to marry, or christen, or bury, or confess, or something very urgent.-For Heaven's sake, make haste!”