“But you should not lay on your commands with so much ostentatious superiority, Master Markham Everard. Remember, I am your senior of three years’ standing. Confound me, if I know how to take it!”
“Was ever such a fantastic wrong-head!—For my sake, if not for thine own, bend thy freakish folly to listen to reason. Think that I have incurred both risk and shame on thy account.”
“Nay, thou art a right good fellow, Mark,” replied the cavalier; “and for thy sake I will do much—but remember to cough, and cry hem! when thou seest me like to break bounds. And now, tell me whither we are bound for the night.”
“To Woodstock Lodge, to look after my uncle’s property,” answered Markham Everard: “I am informed that soldiers have taken possession—Yet how could that be if thou foundest the party drinking in Woodstock?”
“There was a kind of commissary or steward, or some such rogue, had gone down to the Lodge,” replied Wildrake; “I had a peep at him.”
“Indeed!” replied Everard.
“Ay, verily,” said Wildrake, “to speak your own language. Why, as I passed through the park in quest of you, scarce half an hour since, I saw a light in the Lodge—Step this way, you will see it yourself.”
“In the north-west angle?” returned Everard. “It is from a window in what they call Victor Lee’s apartment.”
“Well,” resumed Wildrake, “I had been long one of Lundsford’s lads, and well used to patrolling duty—So, rat me, says I, if I leave a light in my rear, without knowing what it means. Besides, Mark, thou hadst said so much to me of thy pretty cousin, I thought I might as well have a peep, if I could.”
“Thoughtless, incorrigible man! to what dangers do you expose yourself and your friends, in mere wantonness!—But go on.”