me give him three inches of my dudgeon-dagger, and I will do it much more willingly than present him with thy packet.”
“Go to,” replied Everard, “this is beyond our bargain. If you will help me it is well; if not, let me lose no time in debating with thee, since I think every moment an age till the packet is in the General’s possession. It is the only way left me to obtain some protection, and a place of refuge for my uncle and his daughter.”
“That being the case,” said the cavalier, “I will not spare the spur. My nag up yonder at the town will be ready for the road in a trice, and thou mayst reckon on my being with Old Noll—thy General, I mean—in as short time as man and horse may consume betwixt Woodstock and Windsor, where I think I shall for the present find thy friend keeping possession where he has slain.”
“Hush, not a word of that. Since we parted last night, I have shaped thee a path which will suit thee better than to assume the decency of language and of outward manner, of which thou hast so little. I have acquainted the General that thou hast been by bad example and bad education”—
“Which is to be interpreted by contraries, I hope,” said Wildrake; “for sure I have been as well born and bred up as any lad of Leicestershire might desire.”
“Now, I prithee, hush—thou hast, I say, by bad example become at one time a malignant, and mixed in the party of the late King. But seeing what things were wrought in the nation by the General, thou hast come to a clearness touching his calling to be a great implement in the settlement of these distracted kingdoms. This account of thee will not only lead him to pass over some of thy eccentricities, should they break out in spite of thee, but will also give thee an interest with him as being more especially attached to his own person.”
“Doubtless,” said Wildrake, “as every fisher loves best the trouts that are of his own tickling.”
“It is likely, I think, he will send thee hither with letters to me,” said the Colonel, “enabling me to put a stop to the proceedings of these sequestrators, and to give poor old Sir Henry Lee permission to linger out his days among the oaks he loves to look upon. I have made this my request to General Cromwell, and I think my father’s friendship and my own may stretch so far on his regard without risk of cracking, especially standing matters as they now do—thou dost understand?”
“Entirely well,” said the cavalier; “stretch, quotha!—I would rather stretch a rope than hold commerce with the old King-killing ruffian. But I have said I will be guided by thee, Markham, and rat me but I will.”
“Be cautious, then,” said Everard, “mark well what he does and says—more especially what he does; for Oliver is one of those whose mind is better known by his actions than by his words; and stay—I warrant thee thou wert setting off without a cross in thy purse?”
“Too true, Mark,” said Wildrake; “the last noble melted last night among yonder blackguard troopers of yours.”
“Well, Roger,” replied the Colonel, “that is easily mended.” So saying, he slipped his purse into his friend’s hand. “But art thou not an inconsiderate weather-brained fellow, to set forth as thou wert about to do, without any thing to bear thy charges; what couldst thou have done?”
“Faith, I never thought of that; I must have cried Stand, I suppose, to the first pursy townsman or greasy grazier that I met o’ the heath—it is many a good fellow’s shift in these bad times.”
“Go to,” said Everard; “be cautious—use none of your loose acquaintance—rule your tongue—beware of the winepot—for there is little danger if thou couldst only but keep thyself sober—Be moderate in speech, and forbear oaths or vaunting.”
“In short, metamorphose myself into such a prig as thou art, Mark,— Well,” said Wildrake, “so far as outside will go, I think I can make a Hope-on-High-Bomby [Footnote: A puritanic character in one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays.] as well as thou canst. Ah! those were merry days when we saw Mills present Bomby at the Fortune playhouse, Mark, ere I had lost my laced cloak and the jewel in my ear, or thou hadst gotten the wrinkle on thy brow, and the puritanic twist of thy mustache!”
“They were like most worldly pleasures, Wildrake,” replied Everard, “sweet in the mouth and bitter in digestion.—But away with thee; and when thou bring’st back my answer, thou wilt find me either here or at Saint George’s Inn, at the little borough.—Good luck to thee—Be but cautious how thou bearest thyself.”
The Colonel remained in deep meditation.—”I think,” he said, “I have not pledged myself too far to the General. A breach between him and the Parliament seems inevitable, and would throw England back into civil war, of which all men are wearied. He may dislike my messenger—yet that I do not greatly fear. He knows I would choose such as I can myself depend on, and hath dealt enough with the stricter sort to be aware that there are among them, as well as elsewhere, men who can hide two faces under one hood.”
Chapter VIII
For there in lofty air was seen to stand
The stern Protector of the conquer’d land;
Draw in that look with which he wept and swore,
Turn’d out the members and made fast the door,
Ridding the house of every knave and drone,
Forced—though it grieved his soul—to rule alone.
THE FRANK COURTSHIP.—CRABBE.
Leaving Colonel Everard to his meditations, we follow the jolly cavalier, his companion, who, before mounting at the George, did not fail to treat himself to his morning-draught of eggs and muscadine, to enable him to face the harvest wind.
Although he had suffered himself to be sunk in the extravagant license which was practised by the cavaliers, as if to oppose their conduct in every point to the preciseness of their enemies, yet Wildrake, well-born and well-educated, and endowed with good natural parts, and a heart which even debauchery, and the wild life of a roaring cavalier, had not been able entirely to corrupt, moved on his present embassy with a strange mixture of feelings, such as perhaps he had never in his life before experienced.
His feelings as a loyalist led him to detest Cromwell, whom in other circumstances he would scarce have wished to see, except in a field of battle, where he could have had the pleasure to exchange pistolshots with him. But with this hatred there was mixed a certain degree of fear. Always victorious wherever he fought, the remarkable person whom Wildrake was now approaching had acquired that influence over the minds of his enemies, which constant success is so apt to inspire—they dreaded while they hated him—and joined to these feelings, was a restless meddling curiosity, which made a particular feature in Wildrake’s character, who, having long had little business of his own, and caring nothing about that which he had, was easily attracted by the desire of seeing whatever was curious or interesting around him.
“I should like to see the old rascal after all,” he said, “were it but to say that I had seen him.”
He reached Windsor in the afternoon, and felt on his arrival the strongest inclination to take up his residence at some of his old haunts, when he had occasionally frequented that fair town in gayer days. But resisting all temptations of this kind, he went courageously to the principal
