“Oh, what have you done?—what have you done, Joceline!” exclaimed Phœbe; “you have killed the man!”
“Better than he should have killed me,” answered Joceline; “for he was none of the blinkers that miss their mark twice running.—And yet I am sorry for him.—Many a merry bout have we had together when he was wild Philip Hazeldine, and then he was bad enough; but since he daubed over his vices with hypocrisy, he seems to have proved worse devil than ever.”
“Oh, Joceline, come away,” said poor Phœbe, “and do not stand gazing on him thus;” for the woodsman, resting on his fatal weapon, stood looking down on the corpse with the appearance of a man half stunned at the event.
“This comes of the ale pitcher,” she continued, in the true style of female consolation, “as I have often told you—For Heaven’s sake, come to the Lodge, and let us consult what is to be done.”
“Stay first, girl, and let me drag him out of the path; we must not have him lie herein all men’s sight—Will you not help me, wench?”
“I cannot, Joceline—I would not touch a lock on him for all Woodstock.”
“I must to this gear myself, then,” said Joceline, who, a soldier as well as a woodsman, still had great reluctance to the necessary task. Something in the face and broken words of the dying man had made a deep and terrific impression on nerves not easily shaken. He accomplished it, however, so far as to drag the late steward out of the open path, and bestow his body amongst the undergrowth of brambles and briers, so as not to be visible unless particularly looked for. He then returned to Phœbe, who had sate speechless all the while beneath the tree over whose roots she had stumbled.
“Come away, wench,” he said, “come away to the Lodge, and let us study how this is to be answered for—the mishap of his being killed will strangely increase our danger. What had he sought of thee, wench, when you ran from him like a madwoman?—But I can guess—Phil was always a devil among the girls, and I think, as Doctor Rochecliffe says, that, since he turned saint, he took to himself seven devils worse than himself.—Here is the very place where I saw him, with his sword in his hand raised against the old knight, and he a child of the parish—it was high treason at least—but, by my faith, he hath paid for it at last.”
“But, oh, Joceline,” said Phœbe, “how could you take so wicked a man into your counsels, and join him in all his plots about scaring the roundhead gentlemen?”
“Why look thee, wench, I thought I knew him at the first meeting especially when Bevis, who was bred here when he was a dog-leader, would not fly at him; and when we made up our old acquaintance at the Lodge, I found he kept up a close correspondence with Doctor Rochecliffe, who was persuaded that he was a good King’s man, and held consequently good intelligence with him.—The doctor boasts to have learned much through his means; I wish to Heaven he may not have been as communicative in turn.”