These fine boys and two pretty girls prattled around their grandfather, who made them such answers as suited their age, and repeatedly passed his withered hand over the fair locks of the little darlings, while Alice, assisted by Wildrake, (blazing in a splendid dress, and his eyes washed with only a single cup of canary,) took off the children’s attention from time to time, lest they should weary their grandfather. We must not omit one other remarkable figure in the group—a gigantic dog, which bore the signs of being at the extremity of canine life, being perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. But though exhibiting the ruin only of his former appearance, his eyes dim, his joints stiff, his head slouched down, and his gallant carriage and graceful motions exchanged for a stiff, rheumatic, hobbling gait, the noble hound had lost none of his instinctive fondness for his master. To lie by Sir Henry’s feet in the summer or by the fire in winter, to raise his head to look on him, to lick his withered hand or his shrivelled cheek from time to time, seemed now all that Bevis lived for.
Three or four livery servants attended to protect this group from the thronging multitude, but it needed not. The high respectability and unpretending simplicity of their appearance gave them, even in the eyes of the coarsest of the people, an air of patriarchal dignity, which commanded general regard; and they sat upon the bank which they had chosen for their station by the way-side, as undisturbed as if they had been in their own park.
And now the distant clarions announced the Royal Presence. Onward came pursuivant and trumpet—onward came plumes and cloth of gold, and waving standards displayed, and swords gleaming to the sun; and at length, heading a group of the noblest in England, and supported by his royal brothers on either side, onward came King Charles. He had already halted more than once, in kindness perhaps as well as policy, to exchange a word with persons whom he recognized among the spectators, and the shouts of the bystanders applauded a courtesy which seemed so well timed. But when he had gazed an instant on the party we have described, it was impossible, if even Alice had been too much changed to be recognized, not instantly to know Bevis and his venerable master. The Monarch sprung from his horse, and walked instantly up to the old knight, amid thundering acclamations which rose from the multitudes around, when they saw Charles with his own hand oppose the feeble attempts of the old man to rise to do his homage. Gently replacing him on his seat—“Bless,” he said, “father—bless your son, who has returned in safety, as you blessed him when he departed in danger.”
“May God bless—and preserve”—muttered the old man, overcome by his feelings; and the King, to give him a few moments’ repose, turned to Alice—
“And you,” he said, “my fair guide, how have you been employed since our perilous night-walk? But I need not ask,” glancing around—“in the service of King and Kingdom, bringing up subjects, as loyal as their ancestors.—A fair lineage, by my faith, and a beautiful sight, to the eye of an English King!—Colonel Everard, we shall see you, I trust, at Whitehall?” Here he nodded to Wildrake. “And thou, Joceline, thou canst hold thy quarter-staff with one hand, sure?—Thrust forward the other palm.”
Looking down in sheer bashfulness, Joceline, like a bull about to push, extended to the King, over his lady’s shoulder, a hand as broad and hard as a wooden trencher, which the King filled with gold coins. “Buy a handful for my friend Phœbe with some of these,” said Charles, “she too has been doing her duty to Old England.”
The King then turned once more to the knight, who seemed making an effort to speak. He took his aged hand in both his own, and stooped his head towards him to catch his accents, while the old man, detaining him with the other hand, said something faltering, of which Charles could only catch the quotation—
“Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
And welcome home again discarded faith.”
Extricating himself, therefore, as gently as possible, from a scene which began to grow painfully embarrassing, the good-natured King said, speaking with unusual distinctness to insure the old man’s comprehending him, “This is something too public a place for all we have to say. But if you come not soon to see King Charles at Whitehall, he will send down Louis Kerneguy to visit you, that you may see how rational that mischievous lad is become since his travels.”
So saying, he once more pressed affectionately the old man’s hand, bowed to Alice and all around, and withdrew; Sir Henry Lee listening with a smile, which showed he comprehended the gracious tendency of what had been said. The old man leaned back on his seat, and muttered the Nunc dimittas.