“Red-coat—ha! what red-coat?” said the hasty old man. “Do any of these knaves still lurk about Woodstock?—Quoit him down stairs instantly, Joceline.—Know we not Galloway nags?”
“So please you, he is in some charge here, and will speedily be gone.—It is he—he who had a rencontre with your honour in the wood.”
“Ay, but I paid him off for it in the hall, as you yourself saw.—I was never in better fence in my life, Joceline. That same steward fellow is not so utterly black-hearted a rogue as the most of them, Joceline. He fences well—excellent well. I will have thee try a bout in the hall with him to-morrow, though I think he will be too hard for thee. I know thy strength to an inch.”
He might say this with some truth; for it was Joceline’s fashion, when called on, as sometimes happened, to fence with his patron, just to put forth as much of his strength and skill as obliged the Knight to contend hard for the victory, which, in the long run, he always contrived to yield up to him, like a discreet serving-man.
“And what said this roundheaded steward of our great Saint Michael’s standing cup?”
“Marry, he scoffed at our good saint, and said he was little better than one of the golden calves of Bethel. But I told him he should not talk so, until one of their own roundheaded saints had given the devil as complete a cross-buttock as Saint Michael had given him, as ’tis carved upon the cup there. I trow that made him silent enough. And then he would know whether your honour and Mistress Alice, not to mention old Joan and myself, since it is your honour’s pleasure I should take my bed here, were not afraid to sleep in a house that had been so much disturbed. But I told him we feared no fiends or goblins, having the prayers of the Church read every evening.”
“Joceline,” said Alice, interrupting him, “wert thou mad? You know at what risk to ourselves and the good doctor the performance of that duty takes place.”
“Oh, Mistress Alice,” said Joceline, a little abashed, “you may be sure I spoke not a word of the doctor—No, no—I did not let him into the secret that we had such a reverend chaplain.—I think I know the length of this man’s foot. We have had a jollification or so together. He is hand and glove with me, for as great a fanatic as he is.”
“Trust him not too far,” said the knight. “Nay, I fear thou hast been imprudent already, and that it will be unsafe for the good man to come here after nightfall, as is proposed. These Independents have noses like bloodhounds, and can smell out a loyalist under any disguise.”
“If your honour thinks so,” said Joceline, “I’ll watch for the doctor with good will, and bring him into the Lodge by the old condemned postern, and so up to this apartment; and sure this man Tomkins would never presume to come hither; and the doctor may have a bed in Woodstock Lodge, and he never the wiser; or, if your honour does not think that safe, I can cut his throat for you, and I would not mind it a pin.”