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.

32 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
again, I ask, drink ye still of the well of fornications of the fair Rosamond f
- ye will say, Nay; - but wherefore?"
Here the orator, ere he could answer the question in his own way, was
surprised by the following reply, very pithily pronounced by one of the
congregation:- " Because you, and the like of you, have left us no brandy
to mix with it."
All eyes turned to the audacious speaker, who stood beside one of the
thick sturdy Saxon pillars, which he himself somewhat resembled, being
short of stature, but very strongly made, a squat broad Little John sort of
figure, leaning on a quarterstaff, and wearing a jerkin, which, though now
sorely stained and discoloured, had once been of the Lincoln green, and
showed remnants of having been laced. There was an air of careless,
good humoured audacity about the fellow; and, though under military
restraint, there were some of the citizens who could not help crying out,"Well said, Joceline Joliffe!"
"Jolly Joceline, call ye him?" proceeded the preacher, without showing
either confusion or displeasure at the interruption, - "I will make him
Joceline of the jail, if he interrupts me again. One of your park-keepers,
I warrant, that can never forget they have borne C. R. upon their badges
and bugle-horns, even as a dog bears his owner's name on his collar- a
pretty emblem for Christian men! But. the brute beast hath the better of
him,-the brute weareth his own coat, and the caitiff thrall wears his master's. I have seen such a wag make a rope's end wag ere now. -Where
was I? —Oh, rebuking you for your backslidings, men of Woodstock.Yes, then ye will say ye have renounced Popery, and ye have renounced
Prelacy, and then ye wipe your mouth like Pharisees, as ye are; and who
but you for purity of religion! But I tell you, ye are but like Jehu the son
of Nimshi, who broke down the house of Baal, yet departed not from the
sins of Jeroboam. Even so ye eat not fish on Friday with the blinded
Papists, nor minced-pies on the 25th day of December, like the slothful
Prelatists; but ye will gorge on sack-posset each night in the year with
your blind Presbyterian guide, and ye will speak evil of dignities, and
revile the Commonwealth; and ye will glorify yourselves in your park of
Woodstock, and say,' Was it not walled in first of any other in England, and
that by Henry, son of William called the Conqueror?' And ye have a
princely Lodge therein, and call the same a Royal Lodge; and ye have an
oak which ye call the King's. Oak; and ye steal and eat the venison of the
park, and ye say,'This is the king's venison, we will wash it down with a
cup to the king's health —better we eat it than those round-headed commonwealth knaves.' But listen unto me and take warning. For these
things come we to controversy with you. And our name shall be a cannonshot, before which your Lodge, in-the pleasantness whereof ye take pastime,
shall be blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the
King's Oak into billets to heat a brown baker's oven; and we will dispark
your park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, neither shall you have
any portion thereof, whether in neck or haunch. Ye shall not haft a tenpenny knife with the horns thereof, neither shall ye cut a pair of breeches
out of the hide, for all ye be cutlers and glovers; and ye shall have no
comfort or support neither from the sequestered traitor Henry Lee, who
called himself Ranger of Woodstock, nor from any on his behalf; for they
are coming hither who shall be called Mahershalal-hash-baz, because he
maketh haste to the spoil."
Here ended the wild effusion, the latter part of which fell heavy on the
souls of the poor citizens of Woodstock, as tending to confirm a report of
an unpleasing nature which had been lately circulated. The communication with London was indeed slow, and the news which it transmitted were
uncertain; no less uncertain weresthe times themselves, and the rumours
which were circulated, exaggerated by the hopes and fears of so many