“True, sir,” said Roger, who seemed now in his element; “you say well—that is as thereafter may be.—But come, sir, you wear your face muffled. I grant you, it is honest men’s fashion at this unhappy time; the more is the pity. But we do all above board—we have no traitors here. I’ll get into my gears first, to encourage you, and show you that you have to deal with a gentleman, who honours the King, and is a match fit to fight with any who follow him, as doubtless you do, sir, since you are the friend of Master Louis Kerneguy.”
All this while, Wildrake was busied undoing the clasps of his square-caped cloak.
“Off—off, ye lendings,” he said, “borrowings I should more properly call you—
Via the curtain which shadow’d Borgia!”
So saying, he threw the cloak from him, and appeared in cuerpo, in a most cavalier-like doublet, of greasy crimson satin, pinked and slashed with what had been once white tiffany; breeches of the same; and nether-stocks, or, as we now call them, stockings, darned in many places, and which, like those of Poins, had been once peach-coloured. A pair of pumps, ill calculated for a walk through the dew, and a broad shoulderbelt of tarnished embroidery, completed his equipment.
“Come, sir!” he exclaimed; “make haste, off with your slough—Here I stand tight and true—as loyal a lad as ever stuck rapier through a roundhead.—Come, sir, to your tools!” he continued; “we may have half-a-dozen thrusts before they come yet, and shame them for their tardiness.—Pshaw!” he exclaimed, in a most disappointed tone, when the Doctor, unfolding his cloak, showed his clerical dress; “Tush! it’s but the parson after all!”
Wildrake’s respect for the Church, however, and his desire to remove one who might possibly interrupt a scene to which he looked forward with peculiar satisfaction, induced him presently to assume another tone.
“I beg pardon,” he said, “my dear Doctor—I kiss the hem of your cassock—I do, by the thundering Jove—I beg your pardon again.—But I am happy I have met with you—They are raving for your presence at the Lodge—to marry, or christen, or bury, or confess, or something very urgent.—For Heaven’s sake, make haste!”
“At the Lodge?” said the Doctor; “why, I left the Lodge this instant—I was there later, I am sure, than you could be, who came the Woodstock road.”
“Well,” replied Wildrake, “it is at Woodstock they want you.—Rat it, did I say the Lodge?—No, no—Woodstock—Mine host cannot be hanged—his daughter married—his bastard christened, or his wife buried—without the assistance of a real clergyman—Your Holdenoughs won’t do for them.—He’s a true man mine host; so, as you value your function, make haste.”