“I fear ye lie, wench,” said her father; “but no matter—thou canst not get any more fooling out of me just now. The Evil Spirit hath left Saul for the present. We are now to think what is to be done about leaving Woodstock—or defending it?” “My dearest father,” said Alice, “can you still nourish a moment’s hope of making good the place?” “I know not, wench,” replied Sir Henry; “I would fain have a parting blow with them, ’tis certain—and who knows where a blessing may alight? But then, my poor knaves that must take part with me in so hopeless a quarrel—that thought hampers me I confess.” “Oh, let it do so, sir,” replied Alice; “there are soldiers in the town, and there are three regiments at Oxford!” “Ah, poor Oxford!” exclaimed Sir Henry, whose vacillating state of mind was turned by a word to any new subject that was suggested,—“Seat of learning and loyalty! these rude soldiers are unfit inmates for thy learned halls and poetical bowers; but thy pure and brilliant lamp shall defy the foul breath of a thousand churls, were they to blow at it like Boreas. The burning bush shall not be consumed, even by the heat of this persecution.” “True, sir,” said Alice, “and it may not be useless to recollect, that any stirring of the royalists at this unpropitious moment will make them deal yet more harshly with the University, which they consider as being at the bottom of every thing which moves for the King in these parts.” “It is true, wench,” replied the knight; “and small cause would make the villains sequestrate the poor remains which the civil wars have left to the colleges. That, and the risk of my poor fellows—Well! thou hast disarmed me, girl. I will be as patient and calm as a martyr.” “Pray God you keep your word, sir!” replied his daughter; “but you are ever so much moved at the sight of any of these men, that”— “Would you make a child of me, Alice?” said Sir Henry. “Why, know you not that I can look upon a viper, or a toad, or a bunch of engendering adders, without any worse feeling than a little disgust? and though a roundhead, and especially a red-coat, are in my opinion more poisonous than vipers, more loathsome than toads, more hateful than knotted adders, yet can I overcome my nature so far, that should one of them appear at this moment, thyself should see how civilly I would entreat him.” As he spoke, the military preacher abandoned his leafy screen, and stalking forward, stood unexpectedly before the old cavalier, who stared at him, as if he had thought his expressions had actually raised a devil. “Who art thou?” at length said Sir Henry, in a raised and angry voice, while his daughter clung to his arm in terror, little confident that her father’s pacific resolutions would abide the shock of this unwelcome apparition. “I am, one,” replied the soldier, “who neither fear nor shame to call myself a poor day-labourer in the great work of England—umph!—Ay, a simple and sincere upholder of the good old cause.”