“Worse?” exclaimed the impatient old man, “_What_ can be worse? Is it not at the worst already? Will not these people expel us from the only shelter we have left—dilapidate what remains of royal property under my charge—make the palace of princes into a den of thieves, and then wipe their mouths and thank God, as if they had done an alms-deed?” “Still,” said his daughter, “there is hope behind, and I trust the King is ere this out of their reach—We have reason to think well of my brother Albert’s safety.” “Ay, Albert! there again,” said the old man, in a tone of reproach; “had it not been for thy entreaties I had gone to Worcester myself; but I must needs lie here like a worthless hound when the hunt is up, when who knows what service I might have shown? An old man’s head is sometimes useful when his arm is but little worth. But you and Albert were so desirous that he should go alone—and now, who can say what has become of him?” “Nay, nay, father,” said Alice, “we have good hope that Albert escaped from that fatal day; young Abney saw him a mile from the field.” “Young Abney lied, I believe,” said the father, in the same humour of contradiction—“Young Abney’s tongue seems quicker than his hands, but far slower than his horse’s heels when he leaves the roundheads behind him. I would rather Albert’s dead body were laid between Charles and Cromwell, than hear he fled as early as young Abney.” “My dearest father,” said the young lady, weeping as she spoke, “what can I say to comfort you?” “Comfort me, say’st thou, girl? I am sick of comfort—an honourable death, with the ruins of Woodstock for my monument, were the only comfort to old Henry Lee. Yes, by the memory of my fathers! I will make good the Lodge against these rebellious robbers.” “Yet be ruled, dearest father,” said the maiden, “and submit to that which we cannot gainsay. My uncle Everard”— Here the old man caught at her unfinished words. “Thy uncle Everard, wench!—Well, get on.—What of thy precious and loving uncle Everard?” “Nothing, sir,” she said, “if the subject displeases you.” “Displeases me?” he replied, “why should it displease me? or if it did, why shouldst thou, or any one, affect to care about it? What is it that hath happened of late years—what is it can be thought to happen that astrologer can guess at, which can give pleasure to us?” “Fate,” she replied, “may have in store the joyful restoration of our banished Prince.” “Too late for my time, Alice,” said the knight; “if there be such a white page in the heavenly book, it will not be turned until long after my day.—But I see thou wouldst escape me.—In a word, what of thy uncle Everard?” “Nay, sir,” said Alice, “God knows I would rather be silent for ever, than speak what might, as you would take it, add to your present distemperature.”