“Roger Wildrake? ay, truly. Did you take me for Roger Bacon, come to help you raise the devil?—for the place smells of sulphur consumedly.” “It is the pistol I fired—Did you not hear it?” “Why, yes, it was the first thing waked me—for that nightcap which I pulled on, made me sleep like a dormouse—Pshaw, I feel my brains giddy with it yet.” “And wherefore came you not on the instant?—I never needed help more.” “I came as fast as I could,” answered Wildrake; “but it was some time ere I got my senses collected, for I was dreaming of that cursed field at Naseby—and then the door of my room was shut, and hard to open, till I played the locksmith with my foot.” “How! it was open when I went to bed,” said Everard. “It was locked when I came out of bed, though,” said Wildrake, “and I marvel you heard me not when I forced it open.” “My mind was occupied otherwise,” said Everard. “Well,” said Wildrake, “but what has happened?—Here am I bolt upright, and ready to fight, if this yawning fit will give me leave—Mother Redcap’s mightiest is weaker than I drank last night, by a bushel to a barleycorn—I have quaffed the very elixir of malt—Ha—yaw.” “And some opiate besides, I should think,” said Everard. “Very like—very like—less than the pistol-shot would not waken me; even me, who with but an ordinary grace-cup, sleep as lightly as a maiden on the first of May, when she watches for the earliest beam to go to gather dew. But what are you about to do next?” “Nothing,” answered Everard. “Nothing?” said Wildrake, in surprise. “I speak it,” said Colonel Everard, “less for your information, than for that of others who may hear me, that I will leave the Lodge this morning, and, if it is possible, remove the Commissioners.” “Hark,” said Wildrake, “do you not hear some noise like the distant sound of the applause of a theatre? The goblins of the place rejoice in your departure.” “I shall leave Woodstock,” said Everard, “to the occupation of my uncle Sir Henry Lee, and his family, if they choose to resume it; not that I am frightened into this as a concession to the series of artifices which have been played off on this occasion, but solely because such was my intention from the beginning. But let me warn,” (he added, raising his voice,)—“let me warn the parties concerned in this combination, that though it may pass off successfully on a fool like Desborough, a visionary like Harrison, a coward like Bletson”— Here a voice distinctly spoke, as standing near them—“or a wise, moderate, and resolute person, like Colonel Everard.” “By Heaven, the voice came from the picture,” said Wildrake, drawing his sword; “I will pink his plated armour for him.”