“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 Lordship 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 damnable proposal sticks in my throat—by betraying our noble and rightful King, (here he pulled off his hat,) whom God 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.”