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. 127
they have them of all kinds here, and your honour may have pushed against
one of them, which the Brazilians call iron-wood, a block of which, being
struck with a hammer, saith Purchas in his Pilgrimage, ringeth like an
anvil."
" Truly, it may be so," said Harrison; " for those rulers who are gone,
assembled in this their abode of pleasure many strange trees and plants,
though they gathered not of the fruit of that tree which beareth twelve
manner of fruits, or of those leaves which are for the healing of the nations."
Everard pursued his investigation; for he was struck with the manner in
which Harrison evaded his questions, and the dexterity with which he threw
his transcendental and fanatical notions, like a sort of veil, over the darker
visions excited by remorse and conscious guilt.
"But," said he, "if I may trust my eyes and ears, I cannot but still
think that you had a real antagonist. -Nay, I am sure I saw a fellow, in a
dark-coloured jerkin, retreat through the wood."
" Did you?" said Harrison, with a tone of surprise, while his voice faltered
in spite of him-" Who could he be? - Tomkins, did you see the fellow
Colonel Everard talks of with the napkin in his hand - the bloody napkin
which he always pressed to his side?"
This last expression, in which Harrison gave a mark different from that
which Everard had assigned, but corresponding to Tomkins's original
description of the supposed spectre, had more effect on Everard in confirming the steward's story, than anything he had witnessed or heard. The
voucher answered the draft upon him as promptly as usual, that he had
seen such a fellow glide past them into the thicket-that he dared to say he
was some deer-stealer, for he had heard they were become very audacious.
"Look ye there now, Master Everard," said Harrison, hurrying from the
subject-" Is it not time now that we should lay aside our controversies,
and join hand in hand to repairing the breaches of our Zion? Happy and
contented were I, my excellent friend, to be a treader of mortar, or a bearer
of a hod, upon this occasion, under our great leader, with whom Providence
has gone forth in this great national controversy; and truly, so devoutly do
I hold by our excellent and victorious General Oliver, whom Heaven long
preserve-that were he to command me, I should not scruple to pluck forth
of his high place the man whom they call speaker, even as I lent a poor
hand to pluck down the man whom they called King. -Wherefore, as I
know your judgment holdeth with mine on this matter, let me urge unto
you lovingly, that we may act as brethren, and build up the breaches, and
re-establish the bulwarks of our English Zion, whereby we shall be doubtless chosen as pillars and buttresses, under our excellent Lord-General, for
supporting and sustaining the same, and endowed with proper revenues and
incomes, both spiritual and temporal, to serve as a pedestal, on which we
may stand, seeing that otherwise our foundation will be on the loose sand.
-Nevertheless," continued he, his mind again diverging from his views of
temporal ambition into his visions of the Fifth Monarchy, "these things
are but vanity in respect of the opening of the book which is sealed; for
all things approach speedily towards lightning and thundering, and unloosing of the great dragon from the bottomless pit, wherein he is chained."
With this mingled strain of earthly politics, and fanatical prediction,
H irrison so overpowered Colonel Everard, as to leave him no time to urge
hin farther on the particular circumstances of his nocturnal skirmish, conceraing which it is plain he had no desire to be interrogated. They now
rea.med the Lodge of Woodstock.