The boy is — hark ye, sirrah — what’s your name? —

Oh, Jacob — ay, I recollect — the same.

CRABBE.

The affectionate relatives were united as those who, meeting under great adversity, feel still the happiness of sharing it in common. They embraced again and again, and gave way to those expansions of the heart, which at once express and relieve the pressure of mental agitation. At length the tide of emotion began to subside; and Sir Henry, still holding his recovered son by the hand, resumed the command of his feelings which he usually practised.

“So you have seen the last of our battles, Albert,” he said, “and the King’s colours have fallen for ever before the rebels.”

“It is but even so,” said the young man —“the last cast of the die was thrown, and, alas! lost at Worcester; and Cromwell’s fortune carried it there, as it has wherever he has shown himself.”

“Well — it can but be for a time — it can but be for a time,” answered his father; “the devil is potent, they say, in raising and gratifying favourites, but he can grant but short leases. — And the King — the King, Albert — the King — in my ear — close, close!”

“Our last news were confident that he had escaped from Bristol.”

“Thank God for that — thank God for that!” said the knight. “Where didst thou leave him?”

“Our men were almost all cut to pieces at the bridge,” Albert replied; “but I followed his Majesty with about five hundred other officers and gentlemen, who were resolved to die around him, until as our numbers and appearance drew the whole pursuit after us, it pleased his Majesty to dismiss us, with many thanks and words of comfort to us in general, and some kind expressions to most of us in especial. He sent his royal greeting to you, sir, in particular, and said more than becomes me to repeat.”

“Nay, I will hear it every word, boy,” said Sir Henry; “is not the certainty that thou hast discharged thy duty, and that King Charles owns it, enough to console me for all we have lost and suffered, and wouldst thou stint me of it from a false shamefacedness? — I will have it out of thee, were it drawn from thee with cords!”

“It shall need no such compulsion,” said the young man —“It was his Majesty’s pleasure to bid me tell Sir Henry Lee, in his name, that if his son could not go before his father in the race of loyalty, he was at least following him closely, and would soon move side by side.”

“Said he so?” answered the knight —“Old Victor Lee will look down with pride on thee, Albert! — But I forget — you must be weary and hungry.”

“Even so,” said Albert; “but these are things which of late I have been in the habit of enduring for safety’s sake.”

“Joceline! — what ho, Joceline!”

The under-keeper entered, and received orders to get supper prepared directly.

“My son and Dr. Rochecliffe are half starving,” said the knight. “And there is a lad, too, below,” said Joceline; “a page, he says, of Colonel Albert’s, whose belly rings cupboard too, and that to no common tune; for I think he could eat a horse, as the Yorkshireman says, behind the saddle. He had better eat at the sideboard; for he has devoured a whole loaf of bread and butter, as fast as Phoebe could cut it, and it has not staid his stomach for a minute — and truly I think you had better keep him under your own eyes, for the steward beneath might ask him troublesome questions if he went below — And then he is impatient, as all your gentlemen pages are, and is saucy among the women.”

“Whom is it he talks of? — what page hast thou got, Albert, that bears himself so ill?” said Sir Henry.

“The son of a dear friend, a noble lord of Scotland, who followed the great Montrose’s banner — afterwards joined the King in Scotland, and came with him as far as Worcester. He was wounded the day before the battle, and conjured me to take this youth under my charge, which I did, something unwillingly; but I could not refuse a father, perhaps on his death-bed, pleading for the safety of an only son.”

“Thou hadst deserved an halter, hadst thou hesitated” said Sir Henry; “the smallest tree can always give some shelter — and it pleases me to think the old stock of Lee is not so totally prostrate, but it may yet be a refuge for the distressed. Fetch the youth in; — he is of noble blood, and these are no times of ceremony — he shall sit with us at the same table, page though he be; and if you have not schooled him handsomely in his manners, he may not be the worse of some lessons from me.”

“You will excuse his national drawling accent, sir?” said Albert, “though I know you like it not.”

“I have small cause, Albert,” answered the knight —“small cause. — Who stirred up these disunions? — the Scots. Who strengthened the hands of Parliament, when their cause was well nigh ruined? — the Scots again. Who delivered up the King, their countryman, who had flung himself upon. their protection? — the Scots again. But this lad’s father, you say, has fought on the part of the noble Montrose; and such a man as the great Marquis may make amends for the degeneracy of a whole nation.”

“Nay, father,” said Albert, “and I must add, that though this lad is uncouth and wayward, and, as you will see, something wilful, yet the King has not a more zealous friend in England; and, when occasion offered, he fought stoutly, too, in his defence — I marvel he comes not.”

“He hath taken the bath” said Joceline, “and nothing less would serve than that he should have it immediately — the supper, he said, might be got ready in the meantime; and he commands all about him as if he were in his father’s old castle, where he might have called long enough, I warrant, without any one to hear him.”

“Indeed?” said Sir Henry, “this must be a forward chick of the game, to crow so early. — What is his name?”

“His name? — it escapes me every hour, it is so hard a one,” said Albert —“Kerneguy is his name — Louis Kerneguy; his father was Lord Killstewers, of Kincardineshire.”

“Kerneguy, and Killstewers, and Kin — what d’ye call it? — Truly,” said the knight, “these northern men’s names and titles smack of their origin — they sound like a north-west wind, rumbling and roaring among heather and rocks.”

“It is but the asperities of the Celtic and Saxon dialects,” said Dr. Rochecliffe, “which, according to Verstegan, still linger in those northern parts of the island. — But peace — here comes supper, and Master Louis Kerneguy.”

Supper entered accordingly, borne in by Joceline and Phoebe, and after it, leaning on a huge knotty stick, and having his nose in the air like a questing hound — for his attention was apparently more fixed on the good provisions that went before him, than any thing else — came Master Kerneguy, and seated himself, without much ceremony, at the lower end of the table.

He was a tall, rawboned lad, with a shock head of hair, fiery red, like many of his country, while the harshness of his national features was increased by the contrast of his complexion, turned almost black by the exposure to all sorts of weather, which, in that skulking and rambling mode of life, the fugitive royalists had been obliged to encounter. His address was by no means prepossessing, being a mixture of awkwardness and forwardness, and showing in a remarkable degree, how a want of easy address may be consistent with an admirable stock of assurance. His face intimated having received some recent scratches, and the care of Dr. Rochecliffe had decorated it with a number of patches, which even enhanced its natural plainness. Yet the eyes were brilliant and expressive, and, amid his ugliness — for it amounted to that degree of irregularity — the face was not deficient in some lines which expressed both sagacity and resolution.

The dress of Albert himself was far beneath his quality, as the son of Sir Henry Lee, and commander of a regiment in the royal service; but that of his page was still more dilapidated. A disastrous green jerkin, which had been changed to a hundred hues by sun and rain, so that the original could scarce be discovered, huge clouterly shoes, leathern breeches — such as were worn by hedgers — coarse grey worsted stockings, were the attire of the honourable youth, whose limping gait, while it added to the ungainliness of his manner, showed, at the same time, the extent of his sufferings. His appearance bordered so much upon what is vulgarly called the queer, that even with Alice it would have excited some sense of ridicule, had not compassion been predominant.

The grace was said, and the young squire of Ditchley, as well as Dr. Rochecliffe, made an excellent figure at a meal, the like of which, in quality and abundance, did not seem to have lately fallen to their share. But their feats were child’s-play to those of the Scottish youth. Far from betraying any symptoms of the bread and butter with which he had attempted to close the orifice of his stomach, his appetite appeared to have been sharpened by a nine-days’ fast; and the knight was disposed to think that the very genius of famine himself, come forth from his native regions of the north, was in the act of honouring him with a visit, while, as if afraid of losing a moment’s exertion, Master Kerneguy never looked either to right or left, or spoke a single word to any at table.

“I am glad to see that you have brought a good appetite for our country fare, young gentleman,” said Sir Henry.

“Bread of gude, sir!” said the page, “an ye’ll find flesh, I’se find appetite conforming, ony day o’ the year. But the truth is, sir, that the appeteezement has been coming on for three days or four, and the meat in this southland of yours has been scarce, and hard to come by; so, sir, I’m making up for lost time, as the piper of Sligo said, when he eat a hail side o’ mutton.”

“You have been country-bred, young man,” said the knight, who, like others of his time, held the reins of discipline rather tight over the rising generation; “at least, to judge from the youths of Scotland whom I have seen at his late Majesty’s court in former days; they had less appetite, and more — more”— As he sought the qualifying phrase, which might supply the place of “good manners,” his guest closed the sentence in his own way —“And more meat, it may be — the better luck theirs.”

Sir Henry stared and was silent. His son seemed to think it time to interpose —“My dear father,” he said, “think how many years have run since the Thirty-eight, when the Scottish troubles first began, and I am sure that you will not wonder that, while the Barons of Scotland have been, for one cause or other, perpetually in the field, the education of their children at home must have been much neglected, and that young men of my friend’s age know better how to use a broadsword, or to toss a pike, than the decent ceremonials of society.”

“The reason is a sufficient one,” said the knight, “and, since thou sayest thy follower Kernigo can fight, we’ll not let him lack victuals, a God’s name. — See, he looks angrily still at yonder cold loin of mutton — for God’s sake put it all on his plate!”

“I can bide the bit and the buffet,” said the honourable Master Kerneguy —“a hungry tike ne’er minds a blaud with a rough bane.”

“Now, God ha’e mercy, Albert, but if this be the son of a Scots peer,” said Sir Henry to his son, in a low tone of voice, “I would not be the English ploughman who would change manners with him for his ancient blood, and his nobility, and his estate to boot, an he has one. — He has eaten, as I am a Christian, near four pounds of solid butcher’s meat, and with the grace of a wolf tugging at the carcass of a dead horse. — Oh, he is about to drink at last — Soh! — he wipes his mouth, though — and dips his fingers in the ewer — and dries them, I profess, with the napkin! — there is some grace in him, after all.”

“Here is wussing all your vera gude healths!” said the youth of quality, and took a draught in proportion to the solids which he had sent before; he then flung his knife and fork awkwardly on the trencher, which he pushed back towards the centre of the table, extended his feet beneath it till they rested on their heels, folded his arms on his well-replenished stomach, and, lolling back in his chair, looked much as if he was about to whistle himself asleep.

“Soh!” said the knight —“the honourable Master Kernigo hath laid down his arms. — Withdraw these things, and give us our glasses — Fill them around, Joceline; and if the devil or the whole Parliament were within hearing, let them hear Henry Lee of Ditchley drink a health to King Charles, and confusion to his enemies!”

“Amen!” said a voice from behind the door.

All the company looked at each other in astonishment, at a response so little expected. It was followed by a solemn and peculiar tap, such as a kind of freemasonry had introduced among royalists, and by which they were accustomed to make themselves and their principles known to each other, when they met by accident.

“There is no danger,” said Albert, knowing the sign —“it is a friend; — yet I wish he had been at a greater distance just now.”

“And why, my son, should you wish the absence of one true man, who may, perhaps, wish to share our abundance, on one of those rare occasions when we have superfluity at our disposal? — Go, Joceline, see who knocks — and, if a safe man, admit him.”

“And if otherwise,” said Joceline, “methinks I shall be able to prevent his troubling the good company.”

“No violence, Joceline, on your life,” said Albert Lee; and Alice echoed, “For God’s sake, no violence!”

“No unnecessary violence at least,” said the good knight; “for if the time demands it, I will have it seen that I am master of my own house.” Joceline Joliffe nodded assent to all parties, and went on tiptoe to exchange one or two other mysterious symbols and knocks, ere he opened the door. It, may be here remarked, that this species of secret association, with its signals of union, existed among the more dissolute and desperate class of cavaliers, men habituated to the dissipated life which they had been accustomed to in an ill-disciplined army, where everything like order and regularity was too apt to be accounted a badge of puritanism. These were the “roaring boys” who met in hedge alehouses, and when they had by any chance obtained a little money or a little credit, determined to create a counter-revolution by declaring their sittings permanent, and proclaimed, in the words of one of their choicest ditties —

“We’ll drink till we bring

In triumph back the king.”

The leaders and gentry, of a higher description and more regular morals, did not indeed partake such excesses, but they still kept their eye upon a class of persons, who, from courage and desperation, were capable of serving on an advantageous occasion the fallen cause of royalty; and recorded the lodges and blind taverns at which they met, as wholesale merchants know the houses of call of the mechanics whom they may have occasion to employ, and can tell where they may find them when need requires it. It is scarce necessary to add, that among the lower class, and sometimes even among the higher, there were men found capable of betraying the projects and conspiracies of their associates, whether well or indifferently combined, to the governors of the state. Cromwell, in particular, had gained some correspondents of this kind of the highest rank, and of the most undoubted character, among the royalists, who, if they made scruple of impeaching or betraying individuals who confided in them, had no hesitation in giving the government such general information as served to enable him to disappoint the purposes of any plot or conspiracy.

To return to our story. In much shorter time than we have spent in reminding the reader of these historical particulars, Joliffe had made his mystic communication; and being duly answered as by one of the initiated, he undid the door, and there entered our old friend Roger Wildrake, round-head in dress, as his safety and dependence on Colonel Everard compelled him to be, but that dress worn in a most cavalier-like manner, and forming a stronger contrast than usual with the demeanour and language of the wearer, to which it was never very congenial.

His puritanic hat, the emblem of that of Ralpho in the prints to Hudibras, or, as he called it, his felt umbrella, was set most knowingly on one side of the head, as if it had been a Spanish hat and feather; his straight square-caped sad-coloured cloak was flung gaily upon one shoulder, as if it had been of three-plied taffeta, lined with crimson silk; and he paraded his huge calf-skin boots, as if they had been silken hose and Spanish leather shoes, with roses on the instep. In short, the airs which he gave himself, of a most thorough-paced wild gallant and cavalier, joined to a glistening of self-satisfaction in his eye, and an inimitable swagger in his gait, which completely announced his thoughtless, conceited, and reckless character, formed a most ridiculous contrast to his gravity of attire.

It could not, on the other hand, be denied, that in spite of the touch of ridicule which attached to his character, and the loose morality which he had learned in the dissipation of town pleasures, and afterwards in the disorderly life of a soldier, Wildrake had points about him both to make him feared and respected. He was handsome, even in spite of his air of debauched effrontery; a man of the most decided courage, though his vaunting rendered it sometimes doubtful; and entertained a sincere sense of his political principles, such as they were, though he was often so imprudent in asserting and boasting of them, as, joined with his dependence on Colonel Everard, induced prudent men to doubt his sincerity.

Such as he was, however, he entered the parlour of Victor Lee, where his presence was any thing but desirable to the parties present, with a jaunty step, and a consciousness of deserving the best possible reception. This assurance was greatly aided by circumstances which rendered it obvious, that if the jocund cavalier had limited himself to one draught of liquor that evening, in terms of his vow of temperance, it must have been a very deep and long one.

“Save ye, gentlemen, save ye. — Save you, good Sir Henry Lee, though I have scarce the honour to be known to you. — Save you, worthy doctor, and a speedy resurrection to the fallen Church of England.”

“You are welcome, sir,” said Sir Henry Lee, whose feelings of hospitality, and of the fraternal reception due to a royalist sufferer, induced him to tolerate this intrusion more than he might have done otherwise. “If ............