The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

WOODSTOCK. 301
other two are safe, of course; for you would not dream of considering such
paltry fellows as fit victims for my revenge."
"One fellow, the under-keeper, called Joliffe, deserves death, however,"
said Pearson, "since he has frankly admitted that he slew honest Joseph
Tomkins."
" He deserves a reward for saving us a labour," said Cromwell; "that
Tomkins was a most double-hearted villain. I have found evidence among
these papers here, that if we had lost the fight at Worcester, we should
have had reason to regret that we had ever trusted Master Tomkins -it
was only our success which anticipated his treachery —write us down
debtor, not creditor, to Joceline, an you call him so, and to his quarterstaf."
" There remains the sacrilegious and graceless cavalier who attempted
your Excellency's life last night," said Pearson.
" Nay," said the General, " that were stooping too low for revenge. His
sword had no more power than had he thrusted with a tobacco-pipe. Eagles
stoop not at mallards, or wild-drakes either."
"Yet, sir," said Pearson, "the fellow should be punished as a libeller.
The quantity of foul and pestilential abuse which we found in his pockets
makes me loth he should go altogether free-Please to look at them, sir."
"A most vile hand," said Oliver, as he looked at a sheet or two of our
friend Wildrake's poetical miscellanies -" The very handwriting seems to
be drunk, and the very poetry not sober-What have we here?
When 1 was a young lad,
My fortune was bad -
If e'er I do well,'tis a wonder'Why, what trash is this? -and then again -'Now a plague on the poll
Of old politic Noll!
We will drink till we bring
In triumph back the King.
In truth, if it could be done that way, this poet would be a stout champion.
Give the poor knave five pieces, Pearson, and bid him go sell his ballads.
If he come within twenty miles of our person, though, we will have him
flogged till the blood runs down to his heels."
"There remains only one sentenced person," said Pearson, "a noble
wolf-hound, finer than any your Excellency saw in Ireland. He belongs
to the old knight Sir Henry Lee. Should your Excellency not desire to
keep the fine creature yourself, might I presume to beg that I might have
leave?"
"No, Pearson," said Cromwell; " the old man, so faithful himself, shall
not be deprived of his faithful dog —I would I had any creature, were it
but a dog, that followed me because it loved me, not for what it could make
of me."
"Your Excellency is unjust to your faithful soldiers," said Zerubbabel,
bluntly, "who follow you like dogs, fight for you like dogs, and have the
grave of a dog on the spot where they happen to fall."
"How now, old grumbler," said the General, "what means this change
of note?"
" Corporal Humgudgeon's remains are left to moulder under the ruins
of yonder tower, and Tomkins is thrust' into a hole in a thicket like a
beast."
"True, true," said Cromwell, "they shall be removed to the churchyard,
and every soldier shall attend with cockades of sea-green and blue ribbonEvery one of the non-commissioned officers and adjutators shall have a
mourning-scarf; we ourselves will lead the procession, and there shall be a
proper dole of wine, burnt brandy, and rosemary. See that it is done,
Pearson. After the funeral, Woodstock shall be dismantled and destroyed,
that its recesses may not again afford shelter to rebels and malignants."
2A