The combatants, whom we left engaged at the end of the last chapter, made mutual passes at each other with apparently equal skill and courage. Charles had been too often in action, and too long a party as well as a victim to civil war, to find any thing new or surprising in being obliged to defend himself with his own hands; and Everard had been distinguished, as well for his personal bravery, as for the other properties of a commander. But the arrival of a third party prevented the tragic conclusion of a combat, in which the success of either party must have given him much cause for regretting his victory.
It was the old knight himself, who arrived, mounted upon a forest pony, for the war and sequestration had left him no steed of a more dignified description. He thrust himself between the combatants, and commanded them on their lives to hold. So soon as a glance from one to the other had ascertained to him whom he had to deal with, he demanded, “Whether the devils of Woodstock, whom folk talked about, had got possession of them both, that they were tilting at each other within the verge of the royal liberties? Let me tell both of you,” he said, “that while old Henry Lee is at Woodstock, the immunities of the Park shall be maintained as much as if the King were still on the throne. None shall fight duellos here, excepting the stags in their season. Put up, both of you, or I shall lug out as thirdsman, and prove perhaps the worst devil of the three!—As Will says—
‘I’ll so maul you and your toasting-irons,
That you shall think the devil has come from hell.’”
The combatants desisted from their encounter, but stood looking at each other sullenly, as men do in such a situation, each unwilling to seem to desire peace more than the other, and averse therefore to be the first to sheathe his sword.
“Return your weapons, gentlemen, upon the spot,” said the knight yet more peremptorily, “one and both of you, or you will have something to do with me, I promise you. You may be thankful times are changed. I have known them such, that your insolence might have cost each of you your right hand, if not redeemed with a round sum of money. Nephew, if you do not mean to alienate me for ever, I command you to put up.—Master Kerneguy, you are my guest. I request of you not to do me the insult of remaining with your sword drawn, where it is my duty to see peace observed.”
“I obey you, Sir Henry,” said the King, sheathing his rapier—“I hardly indeed know wherefore I was assaulted by this gentleman. I assure you, none respects the King’s person or privileges more than myself—though the devotion is somewhat out of fashion.”
“We may find a place to meet, sir,” replied Everard, “where neither the royal person nor privileges can be offended.”
“Faith, very hardly, sir,” said Charles, unable to suppress the rising jest—“I mean, the King has so few followers, that the loss of the least of them might be some small damage to him; but, risking all that, I will meet you wherever there is fair field for a poor cavalier to get off in safety, if he has the luck in fight.”
Sir Henry Lee’s first idea had been fixed upon the insult offered to the royal demesne; he now began to turn them towards the safety of his kinsman, and of the young royalist, as he deemed him. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I must insist on this business being put to a final end. Nephew Markham, is this your return for my condescension in coming back to Woodstock on your warrant, that you should take an opportunity to cut the throat of my guest?”
“If you knew his purpose as well as I do,”—said Markham, and then paused, conscious that he might only incense his uncle without convincing him, as any thing he might say of Kerneguy’s addresses to Alice was likely to be imputed to his own jealous suspicions—he looked on the ground, therefore, and was silent.